and fell with the fluttering murmurs
In the hearts of the hushing bells, as from island to island
Swooned the sound on the wide lagoons into palpitant silence.

* * * * *

THE DEVELOPMENT AND OVERTHROW OF THE RUSSIAN SERF-SYSTEM.

Close upon the end of the fifteenth century, the Muscovite ideas
of Right were subjected to the strong mind of Ivan the Great, and
compressed into a code.

Therein were embodied the best processes known to his land and time: for
discovering crime, torture and trial by battle; for punishing crime, the
knout and death.

But hidden in this tough mass was one law of greater import than all
others. Thereby were all peasants forbidden to leave the lands they
were then tilling, except during the eight days before and after Saint
George's day. This provision sprang from Ivan's highest views of justice
and broadest views of political economy; the nobles received it with
plaudits, which have found echoes even in these days;[A] the peasants
received it with no murmurs which History has found any trouble in
drowning.

[Footnote A: See Gerebtzoff, _Histoire de la Civilisation en Russie_.]

Just one hundred years later, there sat upon the Muscovite throne, as
_nominal_ Tzar, the weakling Feodor I.; but behind the throne stood, as
_real_ Tzar, hard, strong Boris Godounoff.

Looking forward to Feodor's death, Boris makes ready to mount the
throne; and he sees--what all other "Mayors of the Palace," climbing
into the places of _faineant_ kings, have seen--that he must link to
his fortunes the fortunes of some strong body in the nation; he breaks,
however, from the general rule among usurpers,--bribing the Church,--and
determines to bribe the nobility.

The greatest grief of the Muscovite nobles seemed to be that the
peasants could escape from their oppression by the emigration allowed at
Saint George's day.

Boris saw his opportunity: he cut off the privilege of Saint George's
day; the peasant was fixed to the soil forever. No Russian law ever
_directly_ enslaved the peasantry,[B] but, through this decree of Boris,
the lord who owned the soil came to own the peasants upon it, just as he
owned its immovable boulders and ledges.

[Footnote B: Haxthausen.]

To this the peasants submitted, but over this wrong History has not
been able to drown their sighs; their proverbs and ballads make Saint
George's day representative of all ill-luck and disappointment.