Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/136

Tales from Tolstoi robbers." Thus Pakhom quarrelled with his judges as well as with his neighbours.

Pakhom had henceforth plenty of elbow-room at home, for everyone avoided him; but they made it too hot for him in the Mir or communal council.

Just about this time a rumour spread that people were seeking new lands. Pakhom said to himself, "There's no need for me to quit my land; but if any of us do go, there will be all the more room for the rest. I should then be able to get hold of their land, and so round off my own, for I am straitened here"

One day Pakhom was sitting at home, when a strange muzhik, who was passing by, looked in. They let him stay the night, gave him to eat, and talked together.

"Pray say, friend, whither God is leading you?"

The muzhik replied that he came from the south, from the lower Volga, and that plenty of work was to be had there. One word led to another, and so the muzhik told them how the people were settling down in those regions. His own people were there also, and had inscribed their names in the land registers, and had been allotted ten acres a head.

"The land there is so good," said he, "that when barley grows up the stalks are so high that you cannot see the horses, and so thick together that five handfuls of grain make a small rick. One muzhik went there quite poor, with nothing but his two hands in fact, and got an allotment of fifty acres. Last year he made 1,000 roubles (£100) from a single wheat-crop."

Pakhom's heart burned within him. Why should 86