Here, amid a simple people, the Bukatys spent a portion of the year. They usually came in the winter, because it was in the winter they were needed. The feudal spirit, which was strong in the old prince and weaker in his children, has two sides to it; but its enemies have only remembered one. The prince took it as a matter of course that it was his duty to care for his peasants, and relieve as far as lay in his power the distress which came upon them annually with the regularity of the recurring seasons. With a long winter and a wet spring, with a heavy taxation, and a standing bill at the village shop kept by a Jew, and the village inn kept by another, these peasants never had any money. And so far as human foresight can perceive, there seems to be no reason why they ever should. 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.