against a large infuriated animal, I had no
means of knowing; but I imagined that though
it might hinder or entangle, it could not stop,
or offer any effectual bar to a bear, or even a
strong maddened wolf.

My companion enlightened me on sundry
points: How, I asked, did they get the game
into the net?

That was easily managed. Six hundred men
had been sent early that morning into the
opposite wood, at a point four or five miles from our
present position; these men had spread
themselves in a line across the wood, the two
flanks gradually advancing faster than the centre,
so as to form a curve by the time they reached
the road where the net was placed, the flanks
touching the ends of the net; then the centre
advancing, drove all the game which was in
front of them, right into the toils to be shot
down. These men carried poles and other
instruments for making all kinds of hideous
noises, and the number of them being large,
the whole wood became a perfect Babel of
dreadful sounds, which frightened and daunted
the doomed animals.

"This is an inglorious system of hunting,
only worthy of barbarians."

"Oo' I; but ye ken the Russians can only
operate in the mass way—that is, when they
have plenty to keep them company. Besides,
there is sometimes a bit hand to hand struggle,
to vary the thing."

"Where is Count Pomerin?"

The count was down the hill, on the left
flank, and commanded that side, while he
(Saunderson) held the like position on the
right up the hill. Pomerin's post was
reckoned the more dangerous, as the chief haunts
of the vermin were well known to be down the
hill. Pomerin, he continued, was a dead shot,
and always on those occasions took the post of
danger. He was a gentleman every inch of
him; "a wee thing ower fast, ye ken; but he's
young; and then his grandfather died last year,
and left the laddie three millions of roubles,
besides this immense estate, with the ten
thousand bodies on it, two sugar manufactories, our
vodki works, and the cotton-mill. When Mr.
Saunderson cam' here, some years ago, the auld
man was hale and weel, and this young man—
whose faither got a trip to Siberia and never cam'
back—was the grandfather's pet. The young
lad's mother was a serf, a bonny winsome
thing, it is said; she's no ugly yet; she and
her family were freed, and she was highly
educated at Moscow, before and after her marriage;
still this marriage was a cause of trouble. The
proud aristocrats shut their doors on the pair
of them. He fell into a revengeful spirit, and
began writing papers on political economy,
meaning to publish them abroad. Spies were
in his house. Every line he wrote, and every
word he said, they reported to the police, and
so the end was that he vanished one night, and
noo' they just say he is dead. No expense has
been spared on the son's education; he can
gabble in French, German, Italian, and all other
modern languages; he has travelled in France,
England, and Italy. He has a stud of horses,
and keeps a table like a prince: but oh! man,
I've been told that he was spinnin the auld
man's bawbees last winter in Petersburg in fine
style! If ye're a friend of his, gie him a canny
advice to haud a better grup o' the siller. At
this present time he is negotiatin' wi' a widow-
woman, a 'generalshee,' to buy her bit estate.
Her steward is a big rascal, an' Pomerin will
pay grandly if he does not mind his hand. I
ken what I ken, aboot that place, and he might
do waur than tak' my coonsel aboot it."

"Who is your friend Pins?" I asked.

"Pins," he said; " a poor cotton-spinning,
ignorant, upsetting couff, but as sly and sleekit
as a fox. He has managed to get Pomerin to
quit four years of arrears of rent and his workers
obrak; and he is tryin' to persuade his landlord
to build a great cotton-mill, and send him to
England to buy the machinery. The commission
he'll get on that, is worth ten years of his
present wee place."

"But," I said, "that might be a good investment
for the count."

"Na, na, it's ower far to bring the cotton,
and to send the yarn to market; there's no
railways here, to every town, like England; and
there's no outlet for it in other countries, the
demand is limited, and pretty well supplied now.
If the count is wisely advised, or would tak' a
practical man's advice, like mysel', he will invest
his money in a safer channel. Let him cultivate
his ground; our auld mother earth is a generous
and fruitful lass, if she is well nourished. If he
will manufacture, let him use the material his
land produces. There's flax and hemp, at the
door; there's beetroot for sugar, and rye for
bread, and vodki. He'll want machinery, nae
doot, for these corn-mills, saw-mills, and
agricultural implements; but he can sell the ropes
and yarn, the vodki and the sugar, without
trouble or expense. These large cotton-mills
about Moscow, and Petersburg, are doing well
at present—not so long after the war. But
just suppose cotton was to grow scarce, or there
was war with America, or amangst the Yankees
themselves—not unlikely—or suppose the
government was to take the duty off the imported
manufactured goods, there is not one of these
manufactories would be worth auld iron. It's
not a good doctrine of political economy, and it
will bring its recompense some day, to rob the
poor moushick bodies, who are the chief
consumers of the cotton cloth, to enrich a few
foreign machine-makers, capitalists, and agents.
The extra wages given to the workpeople is no
equivalent for the enormous prices taken from
them; besides, they don't get the benefit of
the extra wages. It only goes into the pockets
of the greedy barons whose slaves they are, while
the estates are lying uncultivated, and the serfs
are as poor and miserable as ever."

"But still," I said, " these manufactories are
good civilisers. They require intelligence and
skill in the workpeople, and this is much wanted
in Russia."