Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

100THE HISTORY OF THELENEF.

The Russian peasants are frequently permitted to leave home, in order to exercise their industry in the neighbouring towns, and sometimes even as far off" as St. Petersburg. On such occasions they pay to their masters a rent or fine, and only what they gain beyond this is their own. When one of these travelling serfs returns home to his wife, a pine, like a mast, is raised above the cabin, and a flag flutters on the top as a signal to the inhabitants of the surrounding villages, in order that when they see the joyful sign, they may sympathise with the happiness of the wife.

It was in accordance with this ancient custom that they had raised the streamer upon the pinnacle of the Pacome's cottage. The aged Elizabeth, the mother of Fedor, had been the nurse of Xenie.

í¢ He has returned then, this good-for-nothing foster-brother of thine," replied Thelenef. " Oh ! I am so glad he has," said Xenie. ·: One knave more in the district," muttered Thelenef, " we have already enough of them;" and the face of the steward, always gloomy, assumed a yet more forbidding expression.

·£ It would be easy to make him good," replied Xenie ; " but you will not exert your power."

" It is you who prevent me : you interfere with the duties of a master, by your soft ways and counsels of false prudence. Ah ! it was not in this manner that my father and grandfather ruled the serfs of our lord's father."

" But yoTi forget," replied Xenie, with a trembling voice, " that Fedor was from his childhood more gently brought up than other peasants ; how can he