“Follow me! hurrah!”
“Hurrah! hurrah! hurra-a-ah!” yelled the soldiers, and charged upon the peasant.
He tried to defend himself, but it was useless; in a moment they seized him, tied his hands and led him to the Governor. But he had time to break several guns, and bite through two bayonets.
“Give up the kopeck!” shouted the Governor.
“I won’t!” said the peasant.
So they put him in prison and tried him. They sentenced him, for the crime of mutiny and obstinacy, to receive twenty-five thousand lashes, and then to be sent back to his former habitation. Further (in order that he might not continue to hide his kopeck), to feed a squadron of soldiers, who should be billeted upon him until he gave up the kopeck. And for the bayonets that he had bitten through, and the Stanovòy’s uniform that was spoiled, to pay costs.
The punishment was inflicted, and the peasant sent home. Then the soldiers arrived, and sat down to dinner.
The peasant killed them a sheep. They ate it and cried—“More!”
He killed a pig—“More! More!”
He killed a cow—“Why,” they cried, “we are hungrier than before dinner!”