effect the old man said. I loved the
word of God, I had suffered much for its sake, but he opened my mind to
many things; he showed more clearly to me its exceeding brilliancy.
Thus Christian men always gain advantage by holding converse with each
other about the volume on which their creed is founded. Oh! miserable,
miserable men who have not that foundation! I spent a whole day under
Sidor's roof. Young Khor rested there too. He then set off with a
light step to return home; he had no fears. In the solitude of the
forest, on the vast steppe at midnight or noonday, he was sustained by a
belief that One who could humble Himself to become man, and who so loved
mankind that He could suffer death for their sakes, was ever watching
over him. This knowledge had taught him to discredit all the foolish
superstitions of our country. The _Domvoi_ (the familiar spirit of the
house, similar to the Brownie of Scotland) had no terrors for him;
neither had the _Roussalka_ (the wood fairy), nor the _Leechie_ (the
demon of the forest). He knew that there was no such being as the
_Trichka_, who, it is supposed, will one day visit the country and
commit incalculable mischief, nor any such thing as a _Vodainoi_, or
water spirit; in truth, he felt sure that God would allow only one evil
being to infest the earth, and that merely to try mankind, and the
better to fit them for the time when he and his angels shall be chained
for ever and ever. I was truly sorry to part from Khor, though my new
friend Sidor was a man I was heartily glad to meet. He had seen much of
the world: he had been in France and in England, and he told me that he
much liked the English. At the time he was there he said he did not
know the reason of this liking, but since then he had discovered that it
arose from the national religion, so free from bigotry, superstition,
and priestcraft, faults which have completely destroyed all purity in
the national religion of Russia.

"But I must not stop to describe the conversations I held with old
Sidor. He pressed me to spend some days with him to recruit my strength
thoroughly before I should recommence my journey. I was glad of a
little delay; at the same time I warned him that, should it be
discovered that a stranger was at his cottage without a pass, he might
be subject to severe penalties.

"`We never calculate the risk when a brother requires our help,' he
replied, taking my arm. `He who went about doing go