d rising in 1863,
an event which affected the future of all my generation and has coloured
my earliest impressions. His brother, in whose house he had sheltered
for some seventeen years his misanthropical timidity before the
commonest problems of life, having died in the early fifties, Mr.
Nicholas B. had to screw his courage up to the sticking-point and come
to some decision as to the future. After a long and agonising hesitation
he was persuaded at last to become the tenant of some fifteen hundred
acres out of the estate of a friend in the neighbourhood. The terms
of the lease were very advantageous, but the retired situation of the
village and a plain comfortable house in good repair were, I fancy, the
greatest inducements. He lived there quietly for about ten years, seeing
very few people and taking no part in the public life of the province,
such as it could be under an arbitrary bureaucratic tyranny. His
character and his patriotism were above suspicion; but the organisers
of the rising in their frequent journeys up and down the province
scrupulously avoided coming near his house. It was generally felt that
the repose of the old man's last years ought not to be disturbed. Even
such intimates as my paternal grandfather, a comrade-in-arms during
Napoleon's Moscow campaign and later on a fellow-officer in the Polish
Army, refrained from visiting his crony as the date of the outbreak
approached. My paternal grandfather's two sons and his only daughter
were all deeply involved in the revolutionary work; he himself was of
that type of Polish squire whose only ideal of patriotic action was to
"get into the saddle and drive them out." But even he agreed that "dear
Nicholas must not be worried." All this considerate caution on the part
of friends, both conspirators and others, did not prevent Mr. Nicholas
B. being made to feel the misfortunes of that ill-omened year.

Less than forty-eight hours after the beginning of the rebellion in that
part of the country, a squadron of scouting Cossacks passed through the
village and invaded the homestead. Most of them remained formed between
the house and the stables, while several, dismounting, ransacked the
various outbuildings. The officer in command, accompanied by two men,
walked up to the front door. All the blinds on that side were down.
The officer told the servant who received him that he wanted to see his
master. He was answered that the master was away from home, which was