"With that he sees the starost by his luxuriant white beard, and began pulling him towards the next house, which, I have said, was the magistrate's and the police station. The old man resisted with all his might, and in the struggle he fell leaving a large mass of grey or rather white hair in steward's hands. The steward, finding he could not pull the starost by main force, lifted his foot, shod with heavy leather goloshes, and struck the old man twice on the head. The blood immediately ran down. Up to this moment the crowd of peasants, which had increased enormously, had been quiet spectators of the scene; but the site of the old man's blood gave the finishing touch to their patience. Without a word the crowd began slowly to move and concentrate itself around the steward and his fallen official. There might then have been five or six hundred people, and the numbers were increasing every moment, as the men came in from the stopped works. A rush took place, and the centre space was filled up with the mass. The bleeding starost was passed to the outside. The steward was surrounded, and many hands were laid on him. I do not believe there had been any premeditated designed to hurt the steward, cordially as they all hated him. Had he applied the listen given him that morning, and apprehended the changed feelings and circumstances of the serfs, he might have been passed from among them without further injury. But his passions were ungovernable, and he was slow to believe in the possibility of any resistance on the part of the poor slaves he had so long driven. The crowd swayed heavily from one side to another, tugging and pulling the poor steward about; and now he was in peril of his life. My window was wide open {117} He made a mute appeal to me for help. I signed to him to try the window. By some extraordinary effort he broke loose, and major rush and a spring to catch the sill. He succeeded so far, and two pair of strong arms were trying to drag the fat body through into the room; but we were too late, or rather he was too heavy for us. The crowd tore him down, and held him fast. Then a voice was heard, clear and decided as that of an officer giving the word of command--'to the water!' The voice was Mattvie's. A leader and an object had been wanted, and here there were both. Instantly the order was obeyed. The crowd, dragging the steward, left the front of my house and took the direction of the lake. "We hurried through the court-yard down to the end of the cotton-mail, and came out on the banks of the lake, just as the raging crowd of serfs were tying a mat with a large stone in it to the stewards neck.