Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/132

Tales from Tolstoi you yet. I'll give you land enough, and both you and your land shall be mine."

Hard by the muzhiks dwelt a small landed proprietor—a lady. She owned 120 acres of land. Formerly she had lived on good terms with her muzhiks, and been very easy with them; but now she took an overseer, a retired soldier, who began to make life a burden to the muzhiks. However circumspect Pakhom might be, his horses would run astray among the oats, or his cow would break down a garden fence, or his calf would go browsing among the meadows—and for each of these trespasses there was a fine. Pakhom wept for rage, and scolded and beat his domestics again and again. Many grievous things did he suffer from that overseer during the year. Right glad was he, when the proper time came, to shut up his cattle in his yard. To feed them in winter was a hard matter, but at least there was no fear of fresh fines.

In the course of the winter the rumour spread that the lady was about to sell her land, and that this knight of the highway was about to purchase it. The muzhiks listened and trembled.

"Well," thought they, "if the land falls to this steward, he will punish us with fines worse than ever. Without the land we cannot live; we are in a hole indeed." 82