Page:The Russian Garland of Fairy Tales.djvu/208

 On the way, as night came on, they stopped at the house of a merchant. The rich brother was taken in to supper and well treated, but the poor man was not given anything to eat, and had to take his night's rest on the kitchen stove. All night he was tossing and rolling about hungry, and at last he fell off the stove on to a cradle lying beside it, and killed the merchant's baby in the fall. So the merchant was very angry, and next morning went with him to get the poor man punished by the judge Shemyaka.

It so happened that on the way to town the party had to go over a bridge, and the poor man was so frightened at the thought of what the judge Shemyaka might do to him that he threw himself over the bridge, to put an end to his life; but just at that instant a young man was driving his sick father to the bath-house, and the poor man fell upon the sledge and crushed the old man. So the son went with the rich brother and the merchant to the judge to make his complaint that the poor man had killed his father.

The rich brother came first before the judge Shemyaka and complained that his brother had pulled off the tail of his horse. The poor man took a stone and tied it in a towel; and, standing up behind his brother, he held it up to the judge,