"Assist me,' said she.

"I went up; the child held out its arms to me. Hardly had I attempted to seize it, than I remembered. Keep the child further off,' said I, 'I am all covered with blood; I had better not touch him.'

My horses 'Just put

"They got in as best they could. I took the reins. snorted and would not move. What was to be done? the child on the box,' said I again. She put the child on the box and held him with her hands. I shook the reins, they flew like the wind. Behold, as they did just now-you saw it yourself. They flee from blood.

"In the morning I landed the lady at the Justice's in the village. I confessed my guilt. 'Arrest me--I have murdered a man.' The lady related how everything happened. 'He saved me,' said she. They bound me. And she cried, the poor soul. 'What are you binding him for?' said she. 'He performed a good deed; he protected my children from a villain.' What a plucky one! She saw that no one paid any heed to her words; she threw herself upon me as if to free me herself. But here I stopped her. 'Give it up,' said I, 'it is not your doing.'

"There is the human view of this business and there is the Almighty's. Whether I was right or whether I was wrong, God will judge, and also righteous people.' 'Well, but what can your fault be?' said she. 'Pride,' I replied. 'I fell voluntarily into the hands of that villain, through pride. I separated myself from the world; I would not listen to others; I acted according to my own opinions. And behold, my opinions have brought me to murder.'

'You

"Well, she left off; she obeyed me. As she was going away she came up to me to say good-bye. She embraced me. poor fellow!' She wanted the children to kiss me. 'What are you doing?' said I. 'Do not defile the children. See, I am a murderer.' I was afraid, I must confess, that the children themselves would be frightened of my sin. But no-she lifted up the youngest herself, the eldest came of his own accord. As the little thing clasped its little arms round my neck, I could hold out no longer-I wept aloud. Tears poured down me. Well, perhaps, for the sake of her goodness, the Lord will not reckon my sin.'

"If,' said she, 'there is any justice in the world, we will obtain it for you. My life long I will not forget you!' And really she did not forget me. You yourself know what our law courts are-an endless affair. They would have kept me in prison until now, but she and her husband got me out by writing."

"And they kept you in prison all the same?"

"At first they did, and for a considerable time too. The chief reason was-on account of money. The lady sent me half a thousand roubles, and both she and her husband wrote to me. As soon as I received this money, my case seemed to move forward. The official arrived; I was summoned to the office. 'Now,' said he, 'your case is in my hands. Will you give me a large sum, and I will right you entirely?'

"Ah,' thought I, 'is that it, your honour! Why demand money? Judge me as strictly as you like, only let me see justice, and I will prostrate myself at your feet.' But not he !—he wanted money.

""I shall not give you anything,' I replied. 'Judge me by the law, under which I now stand.'

"He laughed. 'I perceive you are a fool,' said he. By law your affair may be classed under two heads. The law lies on the shelf-and meanwhile the power is mine. I shall put you where I like.'

"But how will that turn out?'

"Thus,' he replied. 'You are a blockhead! Now listen, this time you protected the lady and her children.'

"Well, and what then?'

"Why, you protected them. Can this be recorded among your good deeds? Certainly, is the reply, because it was a good action. This is one reading of the case.'

"And the other, what may that be?'

""The other? It is this: consider yourself what a huge fellow you are. As compared with you, just think, the old man was just an infant. He incited you, and you ought to have tied his arms gently and brought him to justice. But you, without a word— whack! and felled him. This one must call taking the law into one's own hands, for it is not permitted to act thus. Do you understand?'

"I understand,' said I. 'There is no justice in you! You shall have nothing from me. This is fine justice !-well con

sidered!'

"He got angry. 'Well and good then, until the case is on, you shall rot in prison.'

"All right,' I replied, 'do not threaten.'

"And he was as good as his word, but you see the lady did not desist; she applied to the authorities. Such a document arrived from somewhere that my official felt giddy. I was summoned to

the office; he raved and raved, and at last took me, ay, and that same day let me out. See, I went out without trial. I don't myself know how. People say that our trials are to become fair trials— behold, I just wait. May God grant me to appear and to hear judgment !"

"And how about Ivan Zaharov?"

"Ivan Zaharov vanished without trace. It seems their compact with One Hand was this: Zaharov was to ride after me, at no great distance. If, it was arranged, I would not agree to the murder, then Zaharov was to shoot me with his gun. But, you see, God ordained otherwise. Zaharov galloped up to us when I had done the deed. And he was frightened. They said afterwards, that he then galloped up to the farmstead, and forthwith set to digging up his money. He dug it up, and saying nothing to anyone, made for the taïga. And at day-break the farm caught fire. People say he somehow set fire to it himself, and others say Kouzma set fire to it-it is all a mystery. By the evening only cinders remained. The whole nest of blackguards was in ashes. The womenfolk went their way, and the son to hard labour. He could nohow buy himself off.

"Gee-up, my beauties ! Well, thank God, we have arrived! And see, the Almighty's beautiful sun is just rising."

WINTER IN A DEER-FOREST.

ANY are familiar with life in a Highland deer-forest during

M "the season"-the few weeks when the tenant of the

forest and his friends occupy the lodge, and gillies and ponies abound. But the sunny, showery weeks of August and September, lived among hills purple with heather in bloom, soon pass, and by the beginning of October most of the shooters have gone southwards. Even the few who do return to the Highlands for hind-shooting usually leave before the wild wintry weather has fairly set in. The present writer gives his impressions as one who has spent an entire winter in a deer-forest.

A Highland deer-forest is not, of course, a vast, densely-wooded park. As a Highlander said to an Englishman who wondered that trees were wanting there, "Who ever heard of a forest with trees?" There may happen to be trees in the forest; natural birch woods may cling to the sides of a glen, or the lower slopes of the hills around the lodge may be clothed with modern plantations of fir and larch. But these are merely ornamental fringes of the forest. The forest itself is a great waste of mountainous moorland, treeless, brown with heather, or grey with coarse grass—a wilderness sacred to the red deer, from which human dwellings are banished. The many hundreds of square miles of bleak, high-lying moors now devoted to deer-forests never could have maintained a large population. There have been farms and crofts in the green patches in the glens, and in the old times the cattle were driven in the summer to the sheilings high up among the hills. Now the only people who live in the forest throughout the year are the forester and his family at the lodge, with perhaps an under-keeper there, and one or two other keepers at the opposite side of the forest, some dozen miles away.

The forest best known to this writer is one in the central High lands. It consists of two mountain masses, separated by some miles of lower ground, and bounded on one side by a great loch. The winter sets in early and lasts long in this forest, for it is far inland, and even its low ground is mostly 1,400 feet above the sea. Snow

falls in October and lies for a few days even down at the loch side, but that is only the advance guard of the cold weather. Winter really begins with the first spell of hard frost. One effect of the first severe frost of the season is rather curious. The long loch seems turned into a gigantic caldron of hot water, from which columns of dense steam rise into the calm, frosty air. This appearance continues day after day, until the loch, in many places some hundreds of feet deep, has cooled down to its winter temperature. Soon the snow comes down heavily, and never goes far away again all the winter through. It does sometimes disappear from the comparatively low-lying ground for a few days; but the hills are always white.

There is a line of perpetual winter snow in the Scottish Highlands at a height of 1,500 feet above the sea. Above this the snow remains throughout the winter. Only late in the spring does it slowly fade away. In cool summers great patches lie on the northern slopes even in August. It is said that a fall of only two degrees in the average annual temperature of Scotland would again send glaciers creeping down the glens among the high mountains.

Life in the snow-covered forest has a charm of its own. A smart walk among the hills on a bright, frosty day is most enjoyable. The wide moors sweep away in unbroken whiteness up to the rugged mountains, where dark cliffs, too steep for snow to rest on, pierce the white mantle here and there. The keen, exhilarating air makes walking a delight, though the footing is not of the best. Pony-paths traverse the forest, but even these do not form an ideal promenade in the winter time. Where the snow has not drifted you can recognise the path by the surface of the snow above it being unbroken, while on either side of it the dry flower-heads of tall grasses rise through the snow. Where drifts have hidden all signs of a path you must try to descry some trace of it twenty or thirty yards ahead, and make a straight furrow through the drift to that. When the path has been carved out of a steep hill-side it is often entirely blotted out by the snow filling up the trench and restoring the original roof-like slope of the hill. In such places one is tempted to make a track for himself instead of trying to detect the buried path, but the improvised track is apt to plunge the rash explorer up to the neck in the powdery snow which masks a gully. A wiser plan is to keep a sharp look-out for fox footprints, since Master Reynard is fond of using pony-paths to bring him to and from his hunting-grounds, and his instinct in avoiding deep drifts may be relied on.

Let us picture a walk through the forest. Soon after setting