Pagina 693 van 788

"But, sir, do not make anxious your lady wife by saying that the

giving up of the lands will make you both so extremely poor; God

forbid that I should see the hands of a dignitary's daughter

hardened with housewifely labour. There is a way of preventing

this: in the castle I know of a certain chest in which lies the

table service of the Horeszkos and with it various rings,

necklaces, bracelets, rich plumes, caparisons, and marvellous

swords-the Pantler's treasures, hidden from plunderers, in the

ground; to Pani Sophia, as his heiress, they belong; I have

guarded them in the castle like the eyes in my head, keeping them

from the Muscovites, and from you, my Soplica friends. I have

likewise a good-sized pouch of my own thalers, saved from my

earnings, and likewise from the gifts of my masters; I had

intended, when the castle should be returned to us, to devote

some pennies to the repairing of the walls-to-day it turns out

that they will be needed for the new style of farming.