"Do you live there?" she asked, by way of beginning the conversation.
"Yes; my father is the hetman of the Stantitza, and these are my holidays. I go to school at Tcherkask most part of the year."
"Tcherkask! Oh, what a funny name!"
"And you would think it a funny town if you were there. It is built on a great bog by the side of the river Volga; all the houses stand on piles of timber, and in the spring the streets are full of water, and one has to sail about in boats."
"Oh! that must be delicious."
"I don't like it as much as coming home and riding. See!" and as he whistled, one of the horses came whinnying up, and put his nose over the boy's shoulder.
"Good fellow! But your horses are thin; they look little."
"Little!" cried the young Cossack. "Why, do you know what our little horses can do? There are not many armies in Europe that they have not ridden down, at one time or another. Why, the church at Tcherkask is hung all round with Colours we have taken from our enemies. There's the Swede—didn't Charles XII. get the worst of it when he came in his big boots after the Cossack?—ay, and the Turk, and the Austrian, and the German, and the French? Ah! doesn't my grandfather tell how he rode his good little horse all the way from the Volga to the Seine, and the good Czar Alexander himself gave him the medal with 'Not unto us, but unto Thy Name be the praise'? Our father the Czar does not think so little of us and our horses as you do, young lady."
"I beg your pardon," said Lucy; "I did not know what your horses could do."
"Oh, you did not! That is some excuse for you. I'll show you."