Chapter 62: Families of Old IV

Oksana looked at him with sidelong glance, glad that he was eating and drinking. When he had appeased his first hunger, she began again to inquire, “Then you are not direct from Orsha?”

“Scarcely do I know whence I come, —here today, tomorrow, in another place. I prowled near the enemy as a wolf around sheep, and what was possible to seize I seized.”

“And how had you daring to meet such a power, before which the grand hetman himself had to yield?”

“How had I daring? I am ready for all things; such is the nature within me.”

“That is what my grandfather said. Great luck that you were not killed!”

“Aye, they covered me with cap and with hand as a bird is covered on the nest; but I, whom they covered, sprang out and bit them in another place. I made it so bitter for them that there is a price on my head— A splendid half-goose!”

“In the name of the Father and the Son!” cried Oksana, with unfeigned wonder, gazing with homage on that young ma