“What do you mean, my friend? Why, the priest is your spiritual father. Do you want him to live by his own labour, instead of yours? I suppose you’ll say next that I ought to support myself too, instead of your working for me!”
“You’re no fool, even if you are a barine,” said the peasant. “You have just guessed it; I won’t pay you either.”
The barine started up as if he had been stung, rushed at the peasant and demanded the kopeck of him; but it was no use, the peasant would not give him the kopeck.
The peasant went home, but officer, priest, and barinya sat thinking what they should do with him. They thought and thought, and at last agreed to send a message to the Stanovòy, that the peasant had mutinied, and would not give up his kopeck, and that the Stanovòy must come and manage him. The Stanovòy turned quite white when he read the letter.
“Heavens!” he thought; “my end is come, the peasant will murder me!”
However, he was an official, and must go. He put four pistols into his belt, mounted his fleetest horse and rode off. He rode slowly till he came to a hundred paces from the peasant’s cottage, then started his horse at a furious gallop, and rushed past the cottage like a whirlwind, crying out—
“Give up the kopeck! Give up the kopeck, you villain! I will tear you in pieces if you don’t; I will sweep you off the face of the earth!” And he lashed his horse furiously.
There was a fearful hubbub in the cottage. The peasant was not at home; but when the Stanovòy made such a noise outside, the cow began to moo, the pig began to grunt, the sheep began to bleat, and the dogs jumped over the fence and rushed, barking, after the Stanovòy.
“I am lost!” he thought. He dropped the reins, caught at the horse’s mane and closed his eyes, so as not to see death, and the horse rushed on and knocked against a huge stone. The Stanovòy was flung head over heels on to the ground, where he lay and thought: “I am killed! God receive my soul!”
The dogs ran up, smelt him all over, and ran home again, wagging their tails. He lay still, waiting for death. He waited and waited, but it did not come; at last he opened one eye, then the other. Then he cautiously lifted his head and looked round. His horse lay beside him with its legs broken.