When the whole mass of recovered property
was spread on my large table it was a wonder to
behold. I do not relate this as an extraordinary
fact. The habit of stealing and pilfering is so
constant and universal, that an honest house-
servant in Russia is as one grain of wheat in a
ton of chaff. They will nearly all steal while you
are looking at them, and swear by the gods they
are innocent as lambs. The peasant-women go
from the interior to the capitals, speculating not
so much on extra wages, but on opportunities of
plunder when they get into service. At first
they are content with small nibbling, but some
of them can make a clean sweep too.

An Englishman in a government situation, a
friend of mine, and as good fellow as can be,
went to bed lately, and when he and his wife got
up at seven o'clock his four rooms were peeled
clean to the walls, his servants were all gone,
and everything was gone: carpets and curtains,
clothes and furs, plate, knives and forks, two
watches, and money. He was left in an empty
house, robbed to the value of three or four
hundred pounds; and all this was done by a
female servant or two. No man was connected
with the robbery. The thing is so universal
that no one either gives or asks for a
recommendation with servants. You must take your
chance, and to change servants where all are so
much alike is utterly useless. My wife at first
changed often; I have known her have a fresh
set every week—sometimes twice a week. At
last, however, she found it was better "to bear
the ills we have than fly to others that we know
not of," and she adopted the plan of frequently
examining all the boxes at unexpected seasons,
recovering her property, and putting it back
into its right place without saying a word. She
had become used to this in the capital, but had
expected better things from unsophisticated
peasants, and was much hurt at finding her mistake.

A Russian master or mistress would have
sent every soul to be whipped, and we were
next door to the yard, where each, without
ceremony, trial, or delay, would have received
fifty to one hundred lashes on the bare back,
women and men alike. But an Englishman
does not believe in "the stick."

It is possible to find instances of servants
remaining for years in one place, being peculiarly
adapted for its work, and managed necessarily
with an enormous amount of forbearance. Even
after they have been treated for years with the
greatest kindness, and admitted to intimate
familiarity as one of a family; a hasty word is
spoken, they get an offer of a change of place,
and off they go in a moment. Your child may
be dying, your wife helpless—so much the
better for them. All your years of kindness,
forbearance, and generosity are gone with a
breath, and you are left to feel, what many
travellers have had to remark, the deficient
power of gratitude in the raw Russian. The
sentiment is, indeed, almost unknown. And is
it not easy to account for this? Think of the
treatment the masses are used to receive from
those above them; the tyranny of every rank to
its inferior step by step; the iniquitous system
of forced labour or serfdom;—is this not enough
to fix on the poor Russian's mind the idea that
every act of kindness is done purely for the
advantage of its doer, that there is some
interested motive in it? Therefore, though they
accept kindness greedily as much as you can
bestow, they give few genuine thanks; they are
not yet grateful even for the Emancipation Act.
Thanks may be on the servile lips, the receiver
of good may kiss your hand, go down on his
knees and lick the dust off your feet, but not one
spark of a true generous gratitude is in his
heart.

A COOK OF "THE OLD FAITH"

There is one class, however, which can be
fairly trusted for honesty in all things but
bargaining. They are the adherents of the "old
faith," the "starrie verra." I could wish to give
a sketch of the history of this old sect and its
creed, but having, as to its history, no certain
sound by which to go, I will speak only from my
own experience and observation. I know that
though the sect is proscribed, the members of it
are devotedly attached to their old system, and
deem the present orthodox Russian Church an
awful departure from the primitive faith and
practices. They deny the emperor's claim to be
Head of the Church; they believe to any extent
in witches; fast and do penance; lacerate and
scourge themselves in a most determined
manner. They meet in secret—at night
generally—and their numbers are greater than is
supposed. Some high personages, they say,
secretly belong to them, and submit to dreadful
midnight penance for their sin of outward
subserviency to the modern heresy. People
of the Old Faith are distinguished by grim
gravity and opposition to all dancing or light
amusement. Above all, they do not directly
steal, although I have heard it said that, as
merchants, some of them are the greatest of all
rogues. These fanatics remind me in some
respects of the old rigid Cameronians, who
thought that the killing of Archbishop Sharpe
was not a murder. I should be sorry to place
them on a level with these old enthusiasts in
many things, but the emperor would stand a
fair chance of a heavenly crown if the starrie
verra had its will, and it hates the present
religion of the empire as much as ever the
Cameronians hated prelacy.

I had not been long in this place when I
became acquainted with the fact that a community
of this "old faith" existed in the neighbourhood.
An old wooden building like a Druid
temple, set in the side of a hill among trees and
rocks, was pointed out to me as their midnight
conventicle. This was said to be presided over
by a woman, a priestess who never left the
temple night nor day. Such an arrangement
was clearly prohibited by law, which does not
tolerate women priests; yet here she was, and
from the perfect immunity which she and her
associates seemed to enjoy I suspected that
many of the gentry and people of the valley
either shared or sympathised with their opinions.