"You are too kind and gentle with your fellows," said Maximof, who was, even in those dark days of tyrannous and brutal manor-lords, a noted bully towards his serfs, and was hated by them in consequence even more bitterly than he himself was aware. "You should send that clumsy devil to me for a week, I'd train him for you."
The clumsy devil referred to had spilt wine over his master's arm and had received a clout over his head for his carelessness. He now stood lamenting audibly by the sideboard.
"You may have the fool," laughed Demidof, "for five roubles, and train him or bury him as you please."
"Oh no, no, Barin, God forbid," cried the wretched man sinking upon his knees, "it is unlawful to sell me away from the land."
"Good--I take him--send him over to-morrow!" Maximof hiccoughed, totally unconcerned by the fellow's blubbering and entreaties, to which his own master paid no more attention than the Count did.
When dinner was over the afternoon was well spent and it was time to set out upon the twenty-mile drive which separated the houses of the two boyars. The children were made to kiss one another at parting, a demonstration to which the lady strongly objected though without assigning a reason until after her future lord's departure, when she explained to her mother's superstitious horror, but to her father's boisterous amusement, that she hated him.
"He kicked me and hit me," she said, showing certain marks upon her limbs, "because I was tired of playing at soldiers with him and wanted to hug my doll. Don't invite him here again, mother!"
"But he belongs to you, my dove, you must love him, he is yours and you are his," cried the horrified parent.
"Then I'll spill wine over him and he shall sell me for five roubles, as father sold Gregory just now!" said the child. Whereat the mother crossed herself and muttered a prayer and the boyar laughed boisterously.
Meanwhile the Maximof family sped homewards through the gloom of the early winter evening. The cold had a sobering influence both upon the boyar himself and upon the priest, who was with difficulty aroused from torpor, however, when his village was reached and the time came to drop him at his own house.
The driver, Kiril, had found friends at Demidof's house anxious to entertain him in return for his dismal accounts of the cruelties and abominations practised by his boyar upon the serfs of his estate.