Two brothers once lived upon a little plot of ground--one rich, the
other poor. The poor brother went to the rich one to beg of him a
horse that he might fetch wood from the forest. His brother gave him
the horse; but the poor one begged of him likewise a horse-collar,
whereat the other was angry and would not give it him. So the poor
fellow in his trouble fastened the sledge to the horse's tail and thus
drove to the forest, and got such a load of wood that the horse had
scarcely strength to draw it. When he came home, he opened the gate,
but forgot to remove the foot-board, fastened to the side posts to
keep the snow from coming in under the door; and the horse stumbled
against the board and lost his tail. The poor fellow took the horse
back, but when his brother saw the beast without a tail, he would not
have him, and set out to go before the judge, Shemyaka, to make a
complaint. The poor man saw that he would fall into trouble, and the
judge would send for him: he considered for a long while that he had
nothing to give, and he followed his brother on foot.
On the way, as night came on, they stopped at the house of a
merchant. The rich brother was taken in to supper and well treated,
but the poor man was not given anything to eat, and had to take his
night's rest on the kitchen stove. All night he was tossing and
rolling about hungry, and at last he fell off the stove on to a cradle
lying beside it, and killed the merchant's baby in the fall. So the
merchant was very angry, and next morning went with him to get the
poor man punished by the judge Shemyaka.
It so happened that on the way to town the party had to go over a
bridge, and the poor man was so frightened at the thought of what the
judge Shemyaka might do to him that he threw himself over the bridge,
to put an end to his life; but just at that instant a young man was
driving his sick father to the bath-house, and the poor man fell upon
the sledge and crushed the old man. So the son went with the rich
brother and the merchant to the judge to make his complaint that the
poor man had killed his father.
[Illustration: THE JUDGE THOUGHT THAT THE BUNDLE WAS FULL OF
ROUBLES.]
The rich brother came first before the judge Shemyaka and complained
that his brother had pulled off the tail of his horse. The poor man
took a stone and tied it in a towel; and, standing up behind his
brother, he held it up to the judge, intending to kill him unless
he decided in his favour. The judge thought that the towel was filled
with roubles, and so he ordered the rich man to give back the horse to
the poor one until his tail had grown again.
Then the merchant came up to complain of the death of his baby, and
the poor man again brandished his heavy towel before the judge, and
because he hoped for another bribe the judge said: "You must send your
wife to the poor man's house till she has another baby, and then you
will be as well off as before."
Then the son came and accused the poor man of having crushed his
father to death, and asked the judge for justice. The poor man took up
the stone again, and showed it as before to the judge, who fancied
that the man would perhaps give him for this charge another hundred
roubles. So he ordered the son to stand on the bridge while the poor
man passed under it; and that the son should in like manner leap down
upon the poor man and crush him.
So the poor brother came to the rich one to fetch the horse without a
tail, according to the judge's sentence, and to keep it until the tail
grew again. The rich man was very loth to give up the horse, and
instead, made him a present of five roubles, three bushels of corn,
and a milch goat, and thus they settled their quarrel.
So then the poor man went to the merchant to take his wife away from
him, and the merchant offered him fifty roubles, a cow with her calf,
a mare with her foal, and five measures of grain, which he willingly
accepted.
Then the poor man went to the son and said: "Come, the judge has said
that you must place yourself on the bridge while I stand under it, and
you must throw yourself down on me and kill me." Then the son thought
to himself: "Who knows but that, if I throw myself from the bridge, I
may, perhaps, instead of falling on this man, dash myself to pieces."
So he tried to make peace with the poor man, and gave him two hundred
roubles, a horse, and five measures of corn.
But the judge Shemyaka sent his servant to the poor man to ask for the
three hundred roubles. The poor man showed him the stone and said: "If
the judge had not decided in my favour I should have killed him." So
the servant went back to the judge and told him what the poor man had
said; whereat the judge, overjoyed, exclaimed: "Heaven be thanked that
I decided in this man's favour!"