Part 10

“What is that?” he thought, seeing the door of the stable wide open. “Hallo, who is there?”

No answer. Peter Nikolaevich stepped into the stable. It was dark; the ground was soft under his feet, and the air smelt of dung; on the right side of the door were two loose boxes for a pair of grey horses. Peter Nikolaevich stretched out his hand in their direction--one box was empty. He put out his foot--the horse might have been lying down. But his foot did not touch anything solid. “Where could they have taken the horse?” he thought. They certainly had not harnessed it; all the sledges stood still outside. Peter Nikolaevich went out of the stable.

“Stepan, come here!” he called.

Stepan was the head of the workmen’s gang. He was just stepping out of the cottage.

“Here I am!” he said, in a cheerful voice. “Oh, is that you, Peter Nikolaevich? Our men are coming.”

“Why is the stable door open?

“Is it? I don’t know anything about it. I say, Proshka, bring the lantern!”

Proshka came with the lantern. They all went to the stable, and Stepan knew at once what had happened.

“Thieves have been here, Peter Nikolaevich,” he said. “The lock is broken.”

“No; you don’t say so!”

“Yes, the brigands! I don’t see ‘Mashka.’ ‘Hawk’ is here. But ‘Beauty’ is not. Nor yet ‘Dapple-grey.’”

Three horses had been stolen!

Peter Nikolaevich did not utter a word at first. He only frowned and took deep breaths.

“Oh,” he said after a while. “If only I could lay hands on them! Who was on guard?”

“Peter. He evidently fell asleep.”

Peter Nikolaevich called in the police, and making an appeal to all the authorities, sent his men to track the thieves. But the horses were not to be found.

“Wicked people,” said Peter Nikolaevich. “How could they! I was always so kind to them. Now, wait! Brigands! Brigands the whole lot of them. I will no longer be kind.”

IN the meanwhile the horses, the grey ones, had all been disposed of; Mashka was sold to the gipsies for eighteen roubles; Dapple-grey was exchanged for another horse, and passed over to another peasant who lived forty miles away from the estate; and Beauty died on the way. The man who conducted the whole affair was--Ivan Mironov. He had been employed on the estate, and knew all the whereabouts of Peter Nikolaevich. He wanted to get back the money he had lost, and stole the horses for that reason.

After his misfortune with the forged coupon, Ivan Mironov took to drink; and all he possessed would have gone on drink if it had not been for his wife, who locked up his clothes, the horses’ collars, and all the rest of what he would otherwise have squandered in public-houses. In his drunken state Ivan Mironov was continually thinking, not only of the man who had wronged him, but of all the rich people who live on robbing the poor. One day he had a drink with some peasants from the suburbs of Podolsk, and was walking home together with them. On the way the peasants, who were completely drunk, told him they had stolen a horse from a peasant’s cottage. Ivan Mironov got angry, and began to abuse the horse-thieves.

“What a shame!” he said. “A horse is like a brother to the peasant. And you robbed him of it? It is a great sin, I tell you. If you go in for stealing horses, steal them from the landowners. They are worse than dogs, and deserve anything.”

The talk went on, and the peasants from Podolsk told him that it required a great deal of cunning to steal a horse on an estate.

“You must know all the ins and outs of the place, and must have somebody on the spot to help you.”

Then it occurred to Ivan Mironov that he knew a landowner--Sventizky; he had worked on his estate, and Sventizky, when paying him off, had deducted one rouble and a half for a broken tool. He remembered well the grey horses which he used to drive at Sventizky’s.

Ivan Mironov called on Peter Nikolaevich pretending to ask for employment, but really in order to get the information he wanted. He took precautions to make sure that the watchman was absent, and that the horses were standing in their boxes in the stable. He brought the thieves to the place, and helped them to carry off the three horses.

They divided their gains, and Ivan Mironov returned to his wife with five roubles in his pocket. He had nothing to do at home, having no horse to work in the field, and therefore continued to steal horses in company with professional horse-thieves and gipsies.

PETER NIKOLAEVICH SVENTIZKY did his best to discover who had stolen his horses. He knew somebody on the estate must have helped the thieves, and began to suspect all his staff. He inquired who had slept out that night, and the gang of the working men told him Proshka had not been in the whole night. Proshka, or Prokofy Nikolaevich, was a young fellow who had just finished his military service, handsome, and skilful in all he did; Peter Nikolaevich employed him at times as coachman. The district constable was a friend of Peter Nikolaevich, as were the provincial head of the police, the marshal of the nobility, and also the rural councillor and the examining magistrate. They all came to his house on his saint’s day, drinking the cherry brandy he offered them with pleasure, and eating the nice preserved mushrooms of all kinds to accompany the liqueurs. They all sympathised with him in his trouble and tried to help him.

“You always used to take the side of the peasants,” said the district constable, “and there you are! I was right in saying they are worse than wild beasts. Flogging is the only way to keep them in order. Well, you say it is all Proshka’s doings. Is it not he who was your coachman sometimes?”

“Yes, that is he.”