must go, my son; good-evening."

"Good-evening, old father, good-evening."

III.

WHAT THERE WAS AT THE FOOT OF THE OAKS

Thus they parted,--these men whom chance had brought together, whom an hour's conversation had made friends, and who were perhaps never to meet again during their lives. It is strange, but where manners and social conditions are primitive, friendship and sympathy between men are easy, and they are unhesitatingly fraternal; and on the other hand, when men become civilized and polished, they carefully and politely avoid personal relations and fear and shun each other.

But among the lower classes it is quite the reverse; and I cannot say that things are any the worse for it. An hour is sufficient to bring two strangers together, and make them feel almost like brothers; a hearty speech or a sympathetic look excites ready confidence and prompt exchange of feeling; friendship is quickly formed, and grows as vigorously and ardently as hatred. Here at least, men are men.

Good Iermola, as the old man was called, then returned to his own house, his head still full of his old memories, while the young boatman, whistling a tune and thinking of the poor and friendless old man, spread down the bundle of straw upon which he was to stretch himself in front of the cabin door, content to go to rest; for as soon as the sun is set, the peasant, no matter what the hour may be, is always ready to sleep if only he is allowed to do so.

Meantime, Iermola walked slowly toward his lodging, which was but a short distance away. Between the village and the river, on a sandy bit of ground strewn with the trunks of old pines and oaks broken down from old age, mutilated also in many places by the hand of lazy villagers who were not willing to take the trouble to go to the forest for their fire-wood, stood an old building curiously constructed, which served as a shelter for our old servant. It was neither a thatched cottage nor a dwor, but simply a ruin,--an old deserted inn which once had covered a far larger space, and which had been knocked down and demolished by some unknown accident. Its roof had disappeared; its bare beams and rafters crossed one another here and there; and fragments of the straw thatching were still hanging suspended above the corners of the old walls. One of these corners, although strangely bent and filled with long cracks, still remained standing and entire; here might be seen a window half chinked up with mud, with a few panes of glass still left at the top, a door which had been freshly patched and nailed together, and walls which once had been painted white, but which now wore a coat of doubtful gray.

The rest of the building was all one mass of ugly ruins,--beams and rotten planks, blackened woodwork, pieces of rubbish all buried together, covered with mud and overrun with briers and high grass.

By what miracle was the fragment of roof still held in place over the room which it sheltered? How had this remnant of the building been preserved? These were questions difficult to answer.

Quite near the old building, a paling of half-rotten laths surrounded a small garden, shaded at one end by a clump of pines and large oaks.

Above the roof rose the old chimney, black, bare, and cracked, which, however, still served to warm the sole inhabitant of this poor lodging. The mouldiness of the beams, which were rotting on the ground, extended to the walls, which remained standing; the work of destruction might here be seen in all stages from beginning to completion, and one might quite certainly foretell the time when these miserable ruins would be only a vast mass of wood, mud, and useless rubbish. Gazing upon this wretched dwelling, it seemed cruel to think that a man should be obliged to find shelter there. Yet Iermola, accustomed to his pile of trash, approached this den without repugnance; he opened the door and entered his chamber. Then, as it was very dark inside, he hastened to kindle the fire and make a blaze of pine wood which he kept ready for this purpose in the little hearth of his stove.

Gradually every corner of the room was lighted up, and might be seen distinctly by the blaze of the dry wood. It was a small chamber situated in an angle of the building, where the roof and walls were still left, and which must formerly have been used as a bedchamber and office for the innkeeper.

The doorway opening into the large dining-hall of the inn, now entirely destroyed and uninhabitable, had a few planks nailed across it which were chinked with a mixture of chopped straw and mud. The large old stove, having been patched and mended every year, had lost its rectangular form and become externally utterly irregular, bulged out, rounded, dented, and altogether shapeless; and the metal plates which formerly closed it were now replaced by some tiles. Inside the fireplace, now stopped up, a few planks served as cupboard shelves, and the end of the mantel-piece as table and sideboard.

It may be easily imagined that the furniture was not elegant. It was partly of village manufacture, and had been roughly made with axe and saw; the rest was composed of a few respectable old pieces brought from the dwor. When the new owners sent Iermola away empty-handed, after thirty years of service, he was granted, as sole recompense for a long life of labour and devotion, permission to take with him a few old, broken, and useless pieces of furniture which otherwise would have been thrown on the rubbish pile. The poor but worthy and industrious old man had succeeded in transforming these into almost comfortable furnishings. The ingenious Iermola knew how to make the most of the least thing; and so his one apartment was soon quite decked out with souvenirs of his youth and happy days. He slept on an old sofa with broken and twisted feet, which was of fine wood, and had once been painted white and gilded. At his head stood a little round table supporting a chess-board which had been made and inlaid by the hand of some old master; two or three old chairs, upon whose seats some boards, nailed on, took the place of the velvet cushions, were evidently of Dantzick manufacture, but it was only by the aid of numberless nails and strings that the different pieces succeeded in holding together. Near them was a large wooden chest painted green, whose rough appearance clearly indicated that it had been made in the village. A bench, rough-hewn with an axe, was near the door; another table of unplaned plank served to hold all his collection of jugs and plates of common pottery. In contrast, on the mantel-piece stood a small pitcher of fine Sèvres china, without a handle; egg-cups and mustard-pots with delicate bright flowers shone there, a tea-pot of Saxon china with dainty feet, one of which had been broken off fifty years before, a cup of Wedgwood, and a butter-dish of Russian manufacture in the shape of a paschal lamb. The general appearance of the good man's chamber was poor and neat, but sad, because it was filled with mementos of former comfort striving to conceal present poverty. The drapery which covered the wall near his bed was a fragment of Turkey carpet, torn and patched, but still in strong contrast with the coarse bed-coverings. Broken glasses, porcelain, and bits of china glittered beside pots of clay, mahogany, and pine. On the wall, not far from a rude picture of Our Lady of Poczai, was hung a fine engraving by Raphael Morghen, horribly mouldy and old, with part of one corner torn off; it was "The Last Supper," after the painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Farther on was an old picture of the twelve apostles, by Hoffmann, of Prague, and a