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Rh had at last brought his sabre; he hurriedly joined the gentry and took his place at their head. He ran forward, raising his weapon, and the gentry moved after him. The yagers, letting them come near, poured upon them a hail of bullets; Isajewicz, Wilbik, and Razor fell wounded; then the gentry were checked by Robak on one side and Maciej on the other. The gentry cooled in their ardour, glanced about, and retired; the Muscovites saw this, and Captain Rykov planned to give the final blow, to drive the gentry from the yard and seize the mansion.

"Form for the attack!" he cried. "Charge bayonets! Forward!"

Immediately the line, levelling their gun barrels like poles, bent down their heads, moved on and quickened their step; in vain the gentry endeavoured to check them from in front and shot from the side; the line passed over half the yard without resistance. The Captain, pointing with his sword to the door of the mansion, shouted:—

"Surrender, Judge, or I will order your house to be burned!"

"Burn it," cried the Judge, "and I will roast you in that fire!"

O mansion of Soplicowo! if thy white walls are still whole and glitter beneath the lindens; if a throng of the neighbouring gentry still sit at the Judge's hospitable board, they surely often drink the health of Bucket, for without him Soplicowo would to-day be no more!

Bucket had so far given few proofs of valour. Though he was the first of the gentry to be freed from the stocks, and though he had straightway found in the waggon his darling bucket, his favourite blunderbuss, and with it a pouch of bullets, he did not care to fight. He said that