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But Dobrzynski wrote back: "Let Pociej remain in debt to Maciej,

and not Maciej to Pociej." So he refused the farm and would not

take the money; returning home alone, he lived by the work of his

own hands, making hives for bees and medicine for cattle, sending

to market partridges which he caught in snares, and hunting wild

beasts.

In Dobrzyn there were numbers of sagacious old men-men versed in

Latin, who from their youth up had practised at the bar; there

were numbers of richer men: but of all the family the poor and

simple Maciek was the most highly honoured, not only as a

swordsman made famous by his switch, but as a man of wise and

sure judgment, who knew the history of the country and the

traditions of the family, and was equally well versed in law and

farming. He knew likewise the secrets of hunting and of medicine;

they even ascribed to him (though this the priest denied) a

knowledge of higher, superhuman things. This much is sure, that

he knew with precision the changes of the weather, and could

guess them oftener than the farmer's almanac. It is no marvel

then that, whether it was a question of beginning the sowing, or

of sending out the river barges, or of reaping the grain; whether

it was a matter of going to law, or of concluding a compromise,

nothing was done in Dobrzyn without the advice of Maciek.