At that very time Elijah and Nicholas came walking by again. Joyfully did the Prophet gaze on all the land, and say: "Only look, Nicholas! what a blessing! Why, I have rewarded the Priest in such wise, that he will never forget it all his life." "The Priest? No, brother! the blessing indeed is great, but this land, you see, belongs to the Moujik. The Priest hasn't got anything whatsoever to do with it." "What are you talking about?" "It's perfectly true. When the hail beat all the cornfield flat, the Moujik went to the Priest and bought it back again at half price." "Stop a bit!" says Elijah. "I'll take the profit out of the corn. However many sheaves the Moujik may lay on the threshing-floor, he shall never thresh out of them more than a peck[446] at a time." "A bad piece of work!" thinks St. Nicholas. Off he went at once to the Moujik. "Mind," says he, "when you begin threshing your corn, never put more than one sheaf at a time on the threshing-floor." The Moujik began to thresh: from every sheaf he got a peck of grain. All his bins, all his storehouses, he crammed with rye; but still much remained over. So he built himself new barns, and filled them as full as they could hold. Well, one day Elijah and Nicholas came walking past his homestead, and the Prophet began looking here and there, and said: "Do you see what barns he's built? has he got anything to put into them?" "They're quite full already," answers Nicholas. "Why, wherever did the Moujik get such a lot of grain?" "Bless me! Why, every one of his sheaves gave him a peck of grain. When he began to thresh he never put more than one sheaf at a time on the threshing-floor." "Ah, brother Nicholas!" said Elijah, guessing the truth, "it's you who go and tell the Moujik everything!" "What an idea! that I should go and tell--" "As you please; that's your doing! But that Moujik sha'n't forget me in a hurry!" "Why, what are you going to do to him?" "What I shall do, that I won't tell you," replies Elijah. "There's a great danger coming," thinks St. Nicholas, and he goes to the Moujik again, and says: "Buy two tapers, a big one and a little one, and do thus and thus with them." Well, next day the Prophet Elijah and St. Nicholas were walking along together in the guise of wayfarers, and they met the Moujik, who was carrying two wax tapers--one, a big rouble one, and the other, a tiny copeck one. "Where are you going, Moujik?" asked St. Nicholas. "Well, I'm going to offer a rouble taper to Prophet Elijah; he's been ever so good to me! When my crops were ruined by the hail, he bestirred himself like anything, and gave me a plentiful harvest, twice as good as the other would have been." "And the copeck taper, what's that for?" "Why, that's for Nicholas!" said the peasant and passed on.