By some chain of reasoning, which assuredly had a flaw in it, the prince seemed to have arrived at the conclusion that he was put into the world to help his peasants, and those who were now no longer his serfs.  And, though he spoke to them as if they were of a different creation and not his equals—­as the French Revolution set about to prove, but only succeeded in proving the contrary—­he cared for their bodies as he would have cared for a troop of sheep.  He only saw that they were hungry, and he fed them.  Wanda only saw that there were among them sick who could not pay for a doctor, and could not have gone to the expense of obeying his orders had they called one in.  She only saw that there were mothers who had to work in the fields, while their children died of infantine and comparatively simple complaints at home, because their rightful nurse could not spare the time to nurse them.  It was no wonder that the roof of the farm-house leaked, and that the cows were invited to feed upon the front lawn.

Clad in a sheepskin coat, with great jack-boots flapping above his knees, the prince spent all his days on horseback, riding from house to house, giving a little money and a good deal of sound and practical advice, listening to the old, old stories of undrained land and poor crops, of bad seed and broken tools; and cheering the tellers with his great laugh and some small witticism.  For they are a gay people, these Poles, through it all.  “Ils sont legers, actifs, insouciants,” said Napoleon, that keenest searcher of the human heart, who knew them a hundred years ago when their troubles were comparatively fresh.  And it is an odd thing that adversity rarely breaks a man’s spirit, but often strengthens it.

Wanda sometimes rode, but usually went on foot, and had more than enough work to fill the days now growing longer and lighter.  She, like her father, was brisk and cheerful in her well-being—­like him, she was intolerant of anything that savored of laziness or lack of spirit.  They liked the simple life and the freedom from the restraint that hung round their daily existence in Warsaw.  But the old man watched the weather, and longed to be about larger business, which alone could satisfy the restless spirit of activity handed down to him by the forefathers who had stirred all Europe, and spoken fearlessly to kings.

Wanda was not sorry when the thaw gave way to renewed frost.  The snow lay thickly on the ground, and weighed down the branches of the pines.  In the stillness which brooded over the land during day and night alike the only sound they ever heard was the sharp crack of a branch breaking beneath its burden.  They had lived in this still world of snow and forest for some weeks, and had seen and heard nothing of men.

“This frost cannot last,” said the prince.  “The spring must come soon, and then we shall have to go back to the world and its business.”

But the world and its business thereof did not wait until the brief frost was over.  It came to them that same night.  For Kosmaroff was essentially of the active world, and carried with him wherever he went the spirit of unrest.