Shortly after the attempted migration to the warm rivers, in which he had taken part with the rest, Dron was made village elder and overseer of Bogutcharovo, and had filled those positions irreproachably for twenty-three years. The peasants were more afraid of him than of their master. The old prince and the young one and the steward respected him, and called him in joke the minister. Dron had never once been drunk or ill since he had been appointed elder; he had never after sleepless nights or severe labour shown the slightest signs of fatigue; and though he could not read or write, he never forgot an account of the pounds of flour in the huge waggon-loads he sold, and of the money paid for them, nor missed a sheaf of wheat on an acre of the Bogutcharovo fields.
This peasant Dron it was for whom Alpatitch sent on coming from the plundered estate at Bleak Hills. He ordered him to get ready twelve horses for the princess’s carriages, and eighteen conveyances for the move which was to be made from Bogutcharovo. Though the peasants paid rent instead of working as serfs, Alpatitch expected to meet no difficulty on their part in carrying out this order, since there were two hundred and thirty efficient families in Bogutcharovo, and the peasants were well-to-do. But Dron, on receiving the order, dropped his eyes and made no reply. Alpatitch mentioned the names of peasants from whom he told him to take the carts.
Dron replied that the horses belonging to those peasants were away on hire. Alpatitch mentioned the names of other peasants. They too, according to Dron, had no horses available： some were employed in government transport, others had gone lame, and others had died through the shortness of forage. In Dron’s opinion, there was no hope of getting horses enough for the princess’s carriages, not to speak of the transport of baggage.
Alpatitch looked intently at Dron and scowled. Dron was a model village elder, but Alpatitch had not been twenty years managing the prince’s estates for nothing, and he too was a model steward. He possessed in the highest degree the faculty of divining the needs and instincts of the peasants, with whom he had to deal, and was consequently an excellent steward. Glancing at Dron, he saw at once that his answers were not the expression of his own ideas, but the expression of the general drift of opinion in the Bogutcharovo village, by which the elder had already been carried away. At the same time, he knew that Dron, who had saved money and was detested by the village, must be hesitating between two camps—the master’s and the peasants’. He detected the hesitation in his eyes, and so frowning he came closer to Dron.
“Now, Dronushka,” he said, “you listen to me！ Don’t you talk nonsense to me. His excellency, Prince Andrey Nikolaevitch, himself gave me orders to move the folk away, and not leave them with the enemy, and the Tsar has issued a decree that it is to be so. Any one that stays is a traitor to the Tsar. Do you hear？”
“I hear,” answered Dron, not raising his eyes.
Alpatitch was not satisfied with his reply.
“Ay, Dron, there’ll be trouble！” said Alpatitch, shaking his head.
“It’s for you to command！” said Dron dejectedly.
“Ay, Dron, drop it！” repeated Alpatitch, taking his hand out of the bosom of his coat, and pointing with a solemn gesture to the ground under Dron’s feet. “I can see right through you; and more than that, I can see three yards into the earth under you,” he said, looking at the ground under Dron’s feet.
Dron was disconcerted; he looked furtively at Alpatitch, and dropped his eyes again.
“You drop this nonsense, and tell the folks to pack up to leave their homes and go to Moscow, and to get ready carts to-morrow morning for the princess’s luggage; and don’t you go to the meeting. Do you hear？”
All at once Dron threw himself at his feet.
“Yakov Alpatitch, discharge me！ Take the keys from me; discharge me, for Christ’s sake！”
“Stop that！” said Alpatitch sternly. “I can see through you three yards into the earth,” he repeated, knowing that his skill in beekeeping, his knowledge of the right day to sow the oats, and his success in pleasing the old prince for twenty years had long ago gained him the reputation of a wizard, and that the power of seeing for three yards under a man is ascribed to wizards.
Dron got up, and would have said something, but Alpatitch interrupted him.
“What’s this you’ve all got in your head？ Eh？ … What are you thinking about？ Eh？”
“What am I to do with the people？” said Dron. “They’re all in a ferment. I do tell them …”
“Oh, I dare say you do,” said Alpatitch. “Are they drinking？” he asked briefly.
“They’re all in a ferment, Yakov Alpatitch; they have got hold of another barrel.”
“Then you listen to me. I’ll go to the police-captain and you tell them so, and tell them to drop all this and get the carts ready.”
“Certainly,” answered Dron.
Yakov Alpatitch did not insist further. He had much experience in managing the peasants, and knew that the chief means for securing obedience was not to show the slightest suspicion that they could do anything but obey. Having wrung from Dron a submissive “certainly,” Yakov Alpatitch rested content with it, though he had more than doubts—he had a conviction—that the carts would not be provided without the intervention of the military authorities.
And as a fact when evening came, the carts had not been provided. There had been again a village meeting at the tavern, and at the meeting it had been resolved to drive the horses out into the forest and not to provide the conveyances. Without saying a word of all this to the princess, Alpatitch ordered his own baggage to be unloaded from the waggons that had come from Bleak Hills and the horses to be taken from them for the princess’s carriage, while he rode off himself to the police authorities.