eather, and reaped and even spun with gloves on.

The Dobrzynskis were distinguished among their Lithuanian brethren by
their language and likewise by their stature and their appearance. They
were of pure Polish blood, and all had black hair, high foreheads, black
eyes, and aquiline noses. From the land of Dobrzyn114 they derived their
ancient family, and, though they had been settled in Lithuania for four
hundred years, they preserved their Masovian speech and customs. Whenever
any one of them gave his son a name at baptism, he always used to choose
as a patron a saint of the Kingdom, either Bartholomew or Matthias
[Matyasz]. Thus the son of Maciej was always called Bardomiej,115 and
again the son of Bartlomiej was called Maciej; the women were all
christened Kachna or Maryna. In order to distinguish themselves amid such
confusion, they took various nicknames, from some merit or defect, both
men and women. Sometimes they would give a man several surnames, as a mark
of the contempt or of the regard of his compatriots; sometimes the same
gentleman was known by one name in Dobrzyn, and by a different title in
the neighbouring hamlets. Imitating the Dobrzynskis, the rest of the
gentry of the vicinity likewise assumed nicknames, or by-names.116 Now
almost every family employs them, but only a few know that they originated
in Dobrzyn, and were necessary there, while in the rest of the country
they became a custom through mere stupid imitation.

So Matyasz Dobrzynski, who was at the head of the whole family, had been
called Cock-on-the-Steeple. Later, after the year seventeen hundred and
ninety-four, he changed his nickname and was christened Hand-on-Hip; the
Dobrzynskis themselves also called him Bunny our King,117 but the
Lithuanians styled him the Maciek of Macieks.

As he over the Dobrzynskis, so his house ruled over the village, standing
between the tavern and the church. To all appearances it was rarely
visited and mere trash lived in it, for at the entrance stood posts
without gates, and the garden was neither fenced nor planted; in the
vegetable beds birches had grown up. Yet this old farmhouse seemed the
capitol of the village, for it was handsomer and more spacious than the
other cottages, and on the right side, where the living-room was placed,
it was of brick. Near by were a storehouse, granary, barn, cow shed, and
stable, all close together, as is usually the case among the gentry. The
whole was uncommonly old a