A Russian Gentleman

lt cramped and confined. Not that there was really want of room; for he had arable land and pasture, timber and other necessaries in abund

number of serfs and a certain amount of land. Though their shares were not large, yet, as the land had never been properly surveyed, at this time four intruders asserted their right to share in the managemen

not had enough of their monotonous singing and playing on the pipe, and their singular dances in which they stood up or crouched down on the same spot of ground, then the greatest of the chiefs, clicking his tongue and wagging his head, would answer with much dignity and without looking his questioner in the face: "The time has not come; bring us another sheep!" The sheep was forthcoming, as a matter of course, with fresh supplies of beer and spirits; and the tipsy Bashkirs began again to sing and dance, dropping off to sleep wherever they felt inclined. But everything in the world has an end; and a day came at last when the chief would look his host straight in the face and say: "We are obliged to you, batyushka,2 ever so much obliged! And now, what is it that you want?" The rest of the transaction followed a regular fashion. The customer began with the shrewdness native to your true Russian: he assured the Bashkir that he did not want anything at all; but, having heard that the Bashkirs were exceedingly kind people, he had come to Ufa on purpose to form a friendship with them, and so on. Then the conversation would somehow come round to the vast extent of the Bashkir territory and the unsa

a great stretch of land at a low price. In that case he could migrate with his family and transfer half of his serfs to the new estate; and thus he would secure the main object of this design. For the fact was, that for some time past he had been so much worried by unending disputes over the management of the land-disputes

oung daughters and the infant son who was the single scion and sole hope of an ancient and noble family. The daughters he thought of no importance: "What's the good of them? They look out of the house, not in; if their

in by telling you what sort

se of the reckoning-board-acquirements of which he liked to speak even when he was an old man. It is probable that his period of service was not long; for he was only quarter-master of the regiment when he retired. But in those days even nobles served for long in the ranks or as non-commissioned officers, unless indeed they passed through this stage in their cradles, first enrolled as sergeants in the Guards and then making a sudden appearance as captains in line regiments. Of the career of Stepan Mihailovitch in the Army I know little; but I have been told that he was often employed in the capture of the highwaymen who infested the Volga, and always showed good sense in the formation of his plans and reckless courage in their execution; that the outlaws knew him well by sight and feared him like fire. On retiring from the Army, he lived for some years on his hereditary estate of Bagrovo6 and became very skilful in the management of land. It was not his way to be present from morning to night where his labourers were at work, nor did he stand like a sentry over the grain, when it was coming in and going out; but, when he was on the spot, he looked to some purpose, and, if he noticed anything amiss, especially any

t his pedigree was my grandfather's foible: he was moderately well-to-do, owning only 180 serfs, but his descent, which he traced back, by means of Heaven knows what documents, for six hundred years all the way to a Varyag7 p

Mihailovitch, let us go back

little left in this district: some of the occupiers were tenants of the Crown, whom the Government had settled on lands confiscated for rebellion, though later they granted a general pardon and restored their territory to the Bashkir owners; part of the land had been let to tenants by the Bashkirs themselves; and part had been bought up by migrating landowners. Using Boogoorooslan as a centre, my grandfather made expeditions to the surrounding districts and spent some time in the beautiful country watered by the Ik and the Dyoma.9 It is an enchanting region; and even in his old age Stepan Mihailovitch often spoke with enthusiasm of the first impression produced on him by the astonishing richness of

trees, guelder-roses, and bird-cherries, where the hop-bines trailed their green festoons and hung their straw-coloured clusters from tree to tree; in other places, the grass grew tall and strong, with an infinite profusion of flowers, including tall Meadow Sweet, Lords' Pride (the scarlet Lychnis), Kings' Curls (the Martagon lily), and Cat-grass or Valerian. The river flows along a valley varying in breadth and bordered on both sides by sloping hills with a steep cliff here and there; the slopes were thickly covered with hard-wood trees of all sorts. As you got out of the valley, the level steppe spread out before you, a black virgin soil over two feet in depth. Along the river and in the

considerable-about 400 versts. That same autumn twenty families of serfs started for the district of Boogoorooslan, taking with them ploughs and harrows with rye for sowing. They chose their ground and set to work on the virgin soil. Two thousand acres were lightly ploughed, then harrowed, and sown with winter rye; two thousand more were ploughed in preparation for the spring sowing; and some cottages were built. When this was done, the men travelled back to spend the winter at h

distant that a man might die without confession and infants remain long unchristened, a land of which rumour reported evil as well as good-this seemed a terrible ordeal. When the peasants had gone, my grandfather started after them. He had taken a vow that, when circumstances allowed, he would build a church dedicated to the Presentation of Our Lady-it was actually built by his son-and he named the new settlement after the festival. But the peasants, whose example was followed by their neighbours, called it New Bagrovo, after their master and in memory of Old Bagrovo, from which they had come; and to this day the formal name is only used in legal documents. No one knows the village, with its fine stone church and high manor-house, by any other name than Bagrovo. With

; and they came, bringing horses and carts, spades, forks, and axes. On the first day, great piles of brushwood, straw, manure, and fresh-cut sods were heaped up on both banks of the Boogoorooslan, while the river continued to pour down its waters at its own sweet will. Hardly any one slept that night, and next morning at sunrise about a hundred men set to work to dam the stream; they all looked solemn and serious, as if they had important business before them. They began on both sides at the same moment. With loud cries they hurled with sturdy arms faggots of brushwood into the water; part was carried down by the stream, but part stuck against the piles and sank across the channel. Next came bundles of straw weighted with stones, then soil and manure, then more brushwood, followed by more straw and manure, and, on the top of all, a thick layer of sods. All this accumulation was swallowed up till it rose at last above the surface of the water. At once, a dozen strong and active men sprang on to the barrier and began to tread it and stamp it down. The operation was perform