"the property was not to be
divided after the death of the father."

With which the bearded muzhik eagerly recounted the history of the
murder done by the brother, the nephew, and a son, while the spruce,
spare, well-dressed peasant interlarded the general buzz of
conversation with words and comments cheerfully and stridently
delivered, much as though he were driving in stakes for the erection of
a fence.

"Every man is drawn most in the direction whither he finds it easiest
to go."

"Then it will be the Devil that will be drawing him, since the
direction of Hell is always the easiest."

"Well, YOU will not be going that way, I suppose? You don't altogether
fancy it?"

"Why should I?"

"Because you have declared it to be the easiest way."

"Well, I am not a saint."

"No, ha-ha! you are not."

"And you mean that--?"

"I mean nothing. If a dog's chain be short, he is not to be blamed."

Whereupon, setting nose to nose, the pair plunged into a quarrel still
more heated as they expounded in simple, but often curiously apposite,
language opinions intelligible to themselves alone. The one peasant, a
lean fellow with lengthy limbs, cold, sarcastic eyes, and a dark, bony
countenance, spoke loudly and sonorously, with frequent shrugs of the
shoulders, while the other peasant, a man stout and broad of build who
until now had seemed calm, self-assured of demeanour, and a man of
settled views, breathed heavily, while his oxlike eyes glowed with an
ardour causing his face to flush patchily, and his beard to stick out
from his chin.

"Look here, for instance," he growled as he gesticulated and rolled his
dull eyes about. "How can that be? Does not even God know wherein a man
ought to restrain himself?"

"If the Devil be one's master, God doesn't come into the matter."

"Liar! For who was the first who raised his hand against his fellow?"

"Cain."

"And the first man who repented of a sin?"

"Adam."

"Ah! You see!"

Here there broke into the dispute a shout of: "They are just getting
him aboard!" and the crowd, rushing away from the stern, carried with
it the two disputants--the sparer peasant; lowering his shoulders, and
buttoning up his jacket as he went; while the bearded peasant,
following at his heels, thrust his head forward in a surly manner as he
shifted his cap from the one ear to the other.

With a ponderous beating of paddles against the current the steamer
heaved to, and the captain shouted th