to whom he had belonged had
been, though in some respects severe, a just and intelligent master.

Ivan's bright, sympathetic face had early attracted the master's
attention, and it was decided that he should learn a trade. For this
purpose he was sent to Moscow, and apprenticed there to a carpenter.
After four years of apprenticeship he was able not only to earn his own
bread, but to help the household in the payment of their taxes, and to
pay annually to his master a fixed yearly sum--first ten, then twenty,
then thirty, and ultimately, for some years immediately before the
Emancipation, seventy roubles. In return for this annual sum he was free
to work and wander about as he pleased, and for some years he had made
ample use of his conditional liberty. I never succeeded in extracting
from him a chronological account of his travels, but I could gather
from his occasional remarks that he had wandered over a great part of
European Russia. Evidently he had been in his youth what is colloquially
termed "a roving blade," and had by no means confined himself to the
trade which he had learned during his four years of apprenticeship. Once
he had helped to navigate a raft from Vetluga to Astrakhan, a distance
of about two thousand miles. At another time he had been at Archangel
and Onega, on the shores of the White Sea. St. Petersburg and Moscow
were both well known to him, and he had visited Odessa.

The precise nature of Ivan's occupations during these wanderings I could
not ascertain; for, with all his openness of manner, he was extremely
reticent regarding his commercial affairs. To all my inquiries on this
topic he was wont to reply vaguely, "Lesnoe dyelo"--that is to say,
"Timber business"; and from this I concluded that his chief occupation
had been that of a timber merchant. Indeed, when I knew him, though he
was no longer a regular trader, he was always ready to buy any bit of
forest that could be bought in the vicinity for a reasonable price.

During all this nomadic period of his life Ivan had never entirely
severed his connection with his native village or with agricultural
life. When about the age of twenty he had spent several months at home,
taking part in the field labour, and had married a wife--a strong,
healthy young woman, who had been selected for him by his mother, and
strongly recommended to him on account of her good character and her
physical strength. In the opinion of Ivan's mother, beauty was a kind