“Courage, men! We will die for our father the Tzar, and for the Orthodox faith!” Then he caught up a banner and cried— “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!” “If they go on like this,” thought the peasant, “they’ll end by eating me.” “Wait a minute, mates,” he said; “I’ll go to the beehives and get you honey.” “All right,” said the soldiers. He took his cap and ran out of the cottage. “Now sit and gnaw logs for honey, accursed brood!” he thought; “and if you don’t like that, try bricks instead, but I’ll not feed you any more!” And he went away into the deep, dense forest. He walked on for three days and three nights, till, in the evening of the third day, he came to wild thickets, where no human foot had ever trod. Then he sat down on a hillock, looked around him, lifted his left foot and took from under his ankle-straps his kopeck—that same kopeck for which he had suffered so much. He looked at it and said— “I have suffered many griefs for thee, my kopeck, since first I carried thee in my bosom, to bring down on me the birds of prey. I know that without thee I shall be still more unhappy; but they shall rather tear out my eyes than thou, my kopeck that I have toiled for, shalt go to serve my enemies!” And he dug a pit and buried his kopeck. Then he lay down on the grave of his kopeck and thought in bitterness of spirit— “_If thou hast no kopeck, lie down in thy coffin; if thou hast a kopeck, drown thee in the river!_” And the peasant sighed heavily, heavily, and he fell down upon the earth and prayed, saying— “Oh, Mother Earth! teach me, for I know not, what I shall do, that I may have not only sorrow and misery—that even in _my_ life there may be bright days!” And the peasant fell asleep. * * * * *