“Poor men, but nobles.”
“With the forehead, then, with the forehead. Whither is God guiding you?”
“From fair to fair, to sell horses.”
“If you stay here all night, I’ll see, perhaps I’ll pick out something. Meanwhile will you permit me to join you at the table?”
The unknown lord asked, it is true, if they would let him sit with them, but in such a tone as if he were perfectly sure that they would; and he was not mistaken. The young horse-dealer said,—
“We beg your grace very kindly, though we have nothing to offer but sausage and peas.”
“There are better dainties in my bags,” answered the lordling, not without a certain pride; “but I have a soldier’s palate, and sausage with peas, if well cooked, I prefer to everything.” When he had said this,—and he spoke very slowly, though he looked quickly and sharply,—he took his seat on the bench on which Kmita pushed aside to give convenient room.
“Oh, I beg, I beg, do not incommode yourself. On the road rank is not regarded; and though you were to punch me with your elbow, the crown would not fall from my head.”
Kmita, who was pushing a plate of peas to the unknown, and who, as has been said, was not used to such treatment, would certainly have broken the plate on the head of the puffed up young man if there had not been something in that pride of his which amused Pan Andrei; therefore not only did he restrain his internal impulse at once, but laughed and said,—
“Such times are the present, your grace, that crowns fall from the loftiest heads; for example, our king Yan Kazimir, who by right should wear two crowns, has none, unless it be one of thorns.”