"Tell the Barin to interfere with Ivan's marriage if he dares!" one of the peasants had said. "We would deprive him of no rights; we both are and remain his serfs and live upon his land; he loses nothing if one of us goes from one village to another!"
The agent's way of "doing his best" in this matter was discreet. Knowing that the day fixed for Ivan's wedding was the following Saturday at Drevno, this being Thursday, he contrived to be absent for two days in a distant part of the estate; so that when a deputation of peasants from Drevno came over to fetch the bride early on Saturday morning, he was not in the village to prevent them.
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the Barin would have been unaware in such a case of the disobedience of his people; but it so happened that the girl Olga was required that day at the manor-house in order to act as substitute for one of the servants, who fell ill. Thus Olga's absence was remarked and commented upon and Maximof himself happened to be at hand and heard the fact mentioned.
The woman who had been into the village to fetch Olga replied that the peasants had told her it was Olga's wedding-day and she had gone to Drevno to be married.
"What?" roared the outraged Barin; "married?--to whom?"
"To a peasant in that village," replied the trembling messenger, "one Ivan Patkin."
"Where is Kakin--why has he allowed the wench to go?" asked the Count, almost speechless with rage. Then he remembered that the agent was away collecting fines and duties in other villages.
"Let Kiril put the horses to," he roared; "I will go myself."
Some one tremblingly reminded the lord that Kiril was dead.
Maximof took his knout, an ugly leathern whip of many tails, and paid a visit--while waiting for his sledge--to the parents of Olga, who protested with tears that the agent had never told them of the Barin's desire that Olga should not be married out of her own village.
"As if we should dare to disobey the Barin's will," they cried. "It is not even as though we had wished the wench married there; naturally we would rather keep her in Toxova, near ourselves--but go she would!"
Maximof laid about him freely with his knout; he spared neither age nor sex, and the cries which arose from the household included those of Olga's grandparents as well as her parents, and of the children small and large. All wept and scolded in a body when the Barin had departed, blaming one another and the agent and the Barin himself, but principally Olga, for bringing this trouble upon them.