A RESCUED PARTY 251

in the evening. Charlie learnt that the country was still
in a greatly disturbed state. Parties of disbanded soldiers
and others, rendered desperate by cold and hardship, were
everywhere plundering the peasantry, and many encoun-
ters had taken place between them and the nobles, who
with their retainers had marched against them. Travel
would be dangerous for a long time to come.

“Therefore, until the spring you must not think of mov-
ing,” the count said; “indeed, I think that your best plan
when you start will be to work due north and join the
Swedish forces near Narva. It will be shorter as well as
less dangerous. Still we can talk of that later on.”

‘The next morning they started early, and arrived in the
afternoon at the chateau of the count. It was not a forti-
fied building, for the Poles differed from the western
nations, abstaining from fortifying their towns and resi-
dences, upon the ground that they were a free people capa-
ble of defending their country from foreign invasion, and
therefore requiring no fortified towns, and that such places
added to the risks of civil war, and enabled factions to
set the will of the nation at defiance. The building was a
large one, but it struck Charlie as being singularly plain
and barn-like in comparison with the residences of country
gentlemen in England. A number of retainers ran out as
they drove up into the courtyard, and exclamations of sur-
prise and dismay rose as the wounds on the horses’ flanks
and legs were visible; and when, in a few words, the
count told them that they had been attacked by wolves,
and had been saved principally by the English gentleman
and his follower, the men crowded round Charlie, kissed
bis hands, and in other ways tried to show their gratitude
for his rescue of their master and mistress.

“Come along,” the count said, taking his arm and lead-
ing him into the house. “The poor fellows mean well,
and you must not be vexed with them.”