Part 15

The boy came back with fifteen shaggy customers, however; fifteen red-faced waggoners, half-frozen in their sheepskins, and all clamoured for food and drink.

The boy, all excitement, danced up to me and said, "Have you a light hand? You must have a light hand!" I didn't know what he meant, but he was off before I had time to ask.

He began serving tea and cutting bread and asking questions. Did any one want soup? Nobody wanted soup at first, but at the boy's solicitations nine of them agreed to have portions at twopence a plateful. The mother persuaded others to have pickled herrings, cheese, wine.

The inn was of two rooms: one a bedroom and retiring-room without a door. The Ikon of this room served the economical hostess for both rooms.

The waggoners were all surly till they had fed. "Show me where we can bow to God," said one of them very gruffly, not seeing the Ikon. The little boy led him and all his mates into the little bedroom, and they all bowed their hairy faces and crossed themselves before the Ikon of St. Nicholas.

Then they returned and consumed the soup and the herrings and bread and cheese and wine and tea. I looked on. My hostess was turning a pretty penny. I was looking on at a very pleasant and surprising interlude.

Every now and then one of the mouzhiks would stump out to see how the horses were, for they had a long train of waggons carrying building materials to the Tsar's estate of Livadia. At length all had supped, and they came up to the counter one by one and thanked the hostess heartily, paying her the while.

Only one of the men was dissatisfied--the last one to come up.

"Your soup is dear," said he.

"Dear! What do you mean?" said the woman. "How much would you pay for such soup in Yalta, and with beef at fivepence a pound, too?"

"In Yalta they give one soup."

"And here!"

"Here ... as God wills ... something...." The mouzhik slammed the door.

"There's a man," said my hostess, but she wasn't enraged. Had she not just sold the family's soup for eighteenpence, and made tenpence profit on it, and wouldn't her husband be pleasantly surprised when he saw there were three shillings more on the counter than usual? It was not often that such custom had come to her.

The boy explained the reason to her in a whisper: "He has a light hand."

"Very like," said she, looking at me with new interest.

"What do you mean?" I asked the boy.

"Why, don't you know?" said he wonderingly. "Wherever you go you bring good fortune. After I met you on the road I immediately began to find wood much more plentifully. When I came in I learned how to buy pictures. Then mother said she would let me go with you to see the castle. Then, not only are you a good customer staying the night, but after you came all this crowd of customers. Generally we have nobody at all...."

"And I met this wonderful boy," thought I. "I should like to carry him away. He is like something in myself. He also had the light hand, but what a testimony he gave the tramp! Wherever he goes he brings happiness."

As once I wrote before, "tramps often bring blessings to men: they have given up the causes of quarrels. Sometimes they are a little divine. God's grace comes down upon them."

ST. SPIRIDON OF TREMIFOND

The charge for driving on Caucasian roads is a penny per horse per mile, so if you ride ten miles and have two horses you pay the driver one shilling and eightpence. But if, as generally happens, the driver's sense of cash has deprived him of a sense of humour, a conversation of this kind commonly arises.

"One and eightpence. What's this?"

"Ten miles, and two horses at a penny per horse per mile; isn't that correct?"

"To the devil with your one and eightpence. Give it to the horses; a penny a mile for a horse, and how about the man, the cart, the harness? I gave you hay to sit on. See what fine weather it has been! What beautiful scenery! Yonder is the church ... the wineshop, the...."

"Hold hard, my good man. The Universe, our salvation by Christ, why don't you charge for these as well! Here's sixpence to buy yourself a drink."

The driver takes the sixpence and looks at it, makes a calculation, and then blurts out:

"What! Sixpence for a man and tenpence for a horse; ai, ai, what a barin I have found. Sixpence for a man and tenpence for a horse. Bad news, bad news! Cursed be the day...."