wheat, and when our happy band of shepherds were frolicking in the furrows or in the great clearings. Cattle are not much trouble: they are quiet and intelligent; when once they are accustomed to their pastures, they will not go out of them even though beaten with a stick. If they are driven away once or twice from the oat or wheat fields, they never will go back there again; the boy has only to look at them and call to them from time to time, and then amuse himself as he pleases."

"But what pleasure can he have when he has no companions?"

"I told you that we went out in companies. And when we lighted a fire on a little rising ground among the rushes, or in the forest against the trunk of an old fallen tree; when we roasted potatoes, fried some mushrooms and morels, or a little bacon which we had brought with us,--what a feast we had, and what a good time! Then we would sing till the woods resounded; and our hearts beat fast for joy, the far-away echo of our song seemed so beautiful to us. So when it happened that the proprietor of the village, our old lord (God rest his soul!), chanced to meet me one day as he was hunting, took a fancy to me and ordered that I should be taken to the dwor where I should serve as a cossack, God only knows how sad this made me, and how I longed to be able to refuse to go."

"Ah! So you have been in service at the dwor?"

"All my life, my child, all my life."

"And you have not been able to lay by anything for your old age?"

"Wait a moment, my child. Surely I do not complain, though labour has not been so profitable to me as to many others. But if I had more than I have, what good would it do me? I should not eat with a better appetite; I should not sleep more peacefully. Listen now, and you will learn what I gained by such service. They carried me by force to the dwor. I was washed, combed, dressed, whether I would or not. I was obliged to stay where I was put, although my heart was ready to break. But after three or four days I began to acquire a fondness for work.

"In fact, my work was not too hard; occupation was given me in the office until I should become sufficiently polished up to wait in the dining-room. The lord at that time was not an old man; he was tall and very handsome, had a fine mind and the best heart in the world. After hearing him speak only a few words, one could not help feeling that he was a man to be loved and respected; his appearance, his gestures, and his voice all bespoke the lord and master. If he were dressed in a cassock and a sukmane, one would recognize at once, though one should meet him in the dark, that God had created him to command others. But his commands were neither rough nor offensive to any one; he never spoke an angry word to his servants. When he was angry, he always kept silence, and his servants had the terrible punishment of seeing him refuse to speak to them and turn his face away from them. The home was like the master; not only the old cossack whose business it was to instruct me, but the other servants at the dwor were quiet, affable, and kind, and I soon grew accustomed to them.

"It is true they put upon me a good deal of their drudgery; but only my legs suffered from the errands they sent me on, and I cannot recall ever being injured or maltreated. The old cossack often said in a low voice, 'He is a poor little boy, an orphan, and it would be too bad to hurt him.' Thus little by little I forgot the open-air life; and a few weeks after, meeting on the dam old Hindra, the shepherd, and my old companions, I contented myself with smiling at them from a distance and showing them my wide pantaloons with red bands, and I did not feel the least desire to rejoin them in the woods. My task was not at all severe. The lord wished to have me take care of his apartment, and it was for this duty that I was first trained. As for his own wants, he gave but little trouble to any one; usually he waited on himself, and showed the kindness of a father to those whose business it was to serve him. His old cossack was like a brother to him, and often scolded him for one thing or another."

"Upon my word, he must have been a good lord."

"Yes, he was, God bless him!" answered the old man, wiping his eyes, which were full of tears; "there are no more like him in this world. He was brother and father and everything to me. He lived over there, do you see, in the place where that great gray chimney still stands; but in his time things were not as they are now. In his household there was neatness and order in every little corner as well as in the great courtyard; not a useless straw could be found lying about, and now there is nothing but brush-wood, briers, and rubbish."

Here the old man heaved a deep sigh and then resumed.

"He rarely quitted the estate, and seldom received visitors. However, now and then a guest did arrive; and although the house was ordinarily as quiet as a cloister, it was not dull,--for all of us, and especially the master, took part in cultivating the fields and garden, we went hunting, and we never had a moment of idleness or weariness. The lord loved the horses, the dogs, the trees, and the chase. Sometimes he delighted in fishing; and thus the days passed so pleasantly that we scarcely knew how the years rolled by. The master never married, and he seemed to have no relatives. It was said that he came from a distance, and had bought this estate; but though he was a new-comer, the country people were as much attached to him as if they had served his ancestors for generations, and he was beloved as a father throughout the neighbourhood.

"It was indeed an easy matter to become attached to him, he was so good, so frank, so cordial and honest; he had such pity for human sorrow that the most wretched being who came to his house was sure to receive help and go away comforted. I loved him at first sight; and before a year had passed, I took the place of the old cossack, who was beginning to grow infirm. He wished to give up work, for thanks to his master's goodness he owned a thatched cottage with a field, and had an annuity; so after having taught me all about his business, he asked permission to retire and rest. But how strong is the effect of habit! He thought he should be happy doing nothing in his own house, but at the end of three weeks he began to be so tired of it that he came every day to the dwor; there, leaning against the garden hedge, he smoked his pipe with us, or sat on the porch from morning till night. If it happened that for a single day he did not see his master, it had the same effect upon him as going without his food, his heart hungered so.

"As for me, no one could have forced me to leave my master, even though I should have been beaten, for he was indeed such a lord as is not often found in this world. I will give you an instance of his goodness, though it is only a little thing: whenever anything better than usual was served for him, whether good fruit from the gardens or a dish well prepared, he never failed to leave a bit of it for his servants. Gradually, as I came to know him well, I loved him more and more; and like all the others who surrounded him, I would have given my life for him. I saw more of him than any of the other servants did; together we went to the chase, of which he was passionately fond, we fished, we rowed on the river, we worked in the garden. We often rose in high spirits at daybreak; and old Bekas, my lord's spaniel, as if divining what we were going to do, would jump and bark and wag his tail. Then we would throw our game-bags over our shoulders, and away we would go to the marshes through the mud and the brush-wood, frequently spending the whole day without any other refreshment than a little brandy and bread and cheese.

"I was at first astonished that so