It used to happen that such evil-doers were put out of the way, and the peasants began to talk that way about him. They would meet somewhere secretly, and such as were bolder would say:
"How long are we going to endure this evil-doer? We are perishing anyway,—and it is no sin to kill a man like him."
One day the peasants met in the forest, before Easter week: the clerk had sent them to clean up the manorial woods. They came together at dinner-time, and began to talk:
"How can we live now?" they said. "He will root us up. He has worn us out with work: neither in the daytime nor at night does he give any rest to us or to the women. And the moment a thing does not go the way he wants it to, he nags at us and has us flogged. Semén died from that flogging; Anísim he wore out in the stocks. What are we waiting for? He will come here in the evening and will again start to torment us. We ought just to pull him down from his horse, whack him with an axe, and that will be the end of it. We will bury him somewhere like a dog, and mum is the word. Let us agree to stand by each other and not give ourselves away."
Thus spoke Vasíli Mináev. He was more furious at the clerk than anybody else. The clerk had him flogged every week, and had taken his wife from him and made her a cook at his house.
Thus the peasants talked, and in the evening the clerk came. He came on horseback, and immediately began to nag them because they were not cutting right. He found a linden-tree in the heap.
"I have commanded you not to cut any lindens down," he said. "Who cut it down? Tell me, or I will have every one of you flogged!"
He tried to find out in whose row the linden was. They pointed to Sídor. The clerk beat Sídor's face until the blood came, and struck Vasíli with a whip because his pile was small. He rode home.
In the evening the peasants met again, and Vasíli began to speak.
"Oh, people, you are not men, but sparrows! 'We will stand up, we will stand up!' but when the time for action came, they all flew under the roof. Even thus the sparrows made a stand against the hawk: 'We will not give away, we will not give away! We will make a stand, we will make a stand!' But when he swooped down on them, they made for the nettles. And the hawk seized one of the sparrows, the one he wanted, and flew away with him. Out leaped the sparrows: 'Chivik, chivik!' one of them was lacking. 'Who is gone? Vánka. Well, served him right!' Just so you did. 'We will not give each other away, we will not give each other away!' When he took hold of Sídor, you ought to have come together and made an end of him. But there you say, We will not give away, we will not give away! We will make a stand, we will make a stand!' and when he swooped down on you, you made for the bushes."