urried on. The cottage stood in a small garden, railed off from a
field. I ran across the field, leaped over the railing, and looked in
at a window at the back of the dwelling. All was silent; no one was
there. Perhaps they may be sitting in the porch in front of the house,
I thought. My sudden appearance will alarm them, though; but it cannot
be helped. I got over the paling again, and with beating, anxious heart
went round to the front. The porch was empty; the door was off its
hinges. My heart sank within me. A villager was passing--an old man--I
remembered his face well. He used to be kind to me as a boy, but he
liked not our new tenets.

"`What has become of Loutich Saveleff and his wife and their adopted
daughter, my father?' I asked, with a trembling voice.

"`Do you belong to this place, as your voice informs me, and ask what
has become of them?' exclaimed old Soukhoroukof. `I always told my
friend Saveleff that the same thing would happen to him which has
happened to his son, if he would persist in adopting the newfangled
doctrines which have been so rife of late years. What has become of his
son I know not. It is supposed generally that he is dead. He was a
good youth, but fanciful and unsteady. Not content with the
old-established, well-approved religion of this country, but he must
needs run after these new inventions, and get himself into trouble.
Well, I was telling you about friend Saveleff. He had long been
suspected of harbouring those doctrines, when lately it was discovered
that he had given shelter to three or four convicted heretics escaping
from justice. None of our old villagers would have informed against
him, but some of the newcomers brought the matter before the _Starosta_,
who was obliged to look into it. He carried the matter, as in duty
bound, to the steward, who, unfortunately for old Saveleff, owed him a
spite, and was but too glad to indulge his ill-feeling. The steward,
Morgatch (I will not say what I think of him), brought the affair up to
our Barin, the Count. Now the Count is a staunch religionist, and
wonderful orthodox; though between you and me, if his heart was looked
into, he cares as little for priests and the good of the Church as he
does for the Grand Sultan of the Turks. However, whatever that--hum!--
Morgatch advises him to do he does. Morgatch brought forward plenty of
witnesses to prove that the heretics had been seen in Saveleff's house,
and that