74
The Way of the Cross
His wife died two weeks before the final ruin and he has three children, two very young, and a baby.
He had owned some land and was a farmer.
—He had paid 12,000 roubles for it.
The payment had been spread over seven years and all had been paid.
—He had only just begun to make a living.
And now "this had happened."
He had managed to bring away all his cattle. And four horses.
He had gone a long way.
But in Minsk province, where a continuous marsh extends for tens and tens of versts, an order had come to clear the high-road, and the cattle had been driven on to the marsh.
—My little son—said he, who had gone on in front with the cattle, ran back to meet me at a turn of the road, crying,