Towards luncheon-time—not for the sake of
the creature-comforts, but for the certainty of
finding dear aunt—I put on my bonnet to go
to Montagu Square. Just as I was ready, the
maid at the lodgings in which I then lived
looked in at the door, and said, "Lady
Verinder's servant, to see Miss Clack."

AMONG RUSSIAN PEASANTRY.

THE chief personage in a Russian household
is the Dvornik, or porter, who is usually a sort
of superintendent-general of the establishment.
He has no particular duty himself; but nothing
can be done with or about the house without
his sanction and approval. He is, in many
respects, independent of his employer, and treats
him habitually with rather a distant kind of
courtesy, as if he belonged to a class whose
characters were peculiarly open to suspicion. It
is not surprising that he should take this
somewhat distorted and unusual view of life, for he
is a member of the only profession recognised
in Russia which is not, in some degree, a sham
and a delusion. A Dvornik is entrusted with
real responsibilities, which he would find it
extremely inconvenient and painful to neglect.
He is under the direct control and
superintendence of the police. He is bound to see
that the street in front of his house is not
blocked up or encumbered so as to impede the
local traffic. The observance of various sanitary
regulations are committed to him. He is
bound to give immediate notice in case of fire,
or anything wrong with the sewers, the gas,
or the water of the house in his keeping. He
must scatter sand or ashes over the pavement
when it is rendered slippery by the frost; and
he must sweep away the snow as it falls, to
prevent accumulations. If he disobeys any of
these injunctions he is requested to have an
interview with the nearest policeman in authority,
and he is mulcted without mercy, and
often severely beaten. In consequence of the
peculiar position which they occupy the Dvorniks
have become a very noticeable body of men.
It is said that they are all in the pay of the secret
police, and that they supply evidence which
now and then sends a person suspected of
advanced political opinions to Siberia; but then
any Russian will do that, gentle or simple, with
pay or without pay; so that the Dvorniks must
not be judged harshly merely for sharing the
degradation of the rest of their countrymen
after so many generations of despotism and
abuse of power. Apart, therefore, from the
trifling national incident in their biographies
that they are all spies, the Dvorniks may be
considered as a highly respectable community.
They are generally men of amazing strength,
and many of them are extremely handsome.
The Russian who is born in some of the central
provinces of the empire is a very different man
to the Calmuck or the Tartar; and the
expression of his countenance is much more frank
and pleasant. He is apt to have a long golden-
coloured beard, a straight nose, and clear blue
eyes, well opened. His complexion is fresh
and healthy, and his constitution extraordinarily
hardy. Cold and heat seem to have no effect
on him whatever. His sole remedy for sickness
is to go and bake himself in a hot-air bath
for an hour or two, and then take a roll in the
snow, or plunge into cold water. The diet
upon which he supports his massive and powerful
frame is wonderfully frugal. He eats a
prodigious quantity of black bread, but rarely
takes anything else besides a water-melon and
a few onions, or some hot cabbage-water. As
long as he can manage to keep from drink he
is a faithful, prudent, well-behaved fellow; but
drunkenness being the only enjoyment of which
he has any knowledge or appreciation, he can
seldom resist an opportunity of indulgence.
The best thing his employer can then do is to
take no notice, and the Dvornik will probably
retire to some hole among the firewood or the
coals, only known to himself, and there sleep
off his debauch.

The power of work in these men, when
sober, is perfectly marvellous, and fully
compensates for the holidays they take when
overcome by tipsiness. Thus, a man who has been
overlooking the discharge of wood-waggons
from sunrise to sunset, will begin immediately
afterwards to see that lumps of tallow of the
requisite size are placed in the right number of
lamps for any of the numerous illuminations
ordered by the police on public occasions. He
will attend to the orderly arrival and departure
of carriages, if his employer chances to give a
ball; and he will be ready in the smallest hours
of the morning to open the great gates for the
guests, and then to stand watchful and alert
over other wood-waggons next day, besides
performing his ordinary work. The pay he gets
for all this is ridiculously small. Dvorniks will
often be found ready to give their services only
for shelter for themselves and their families. It
is not altogether even a bad speculation for them
to do so. Russian houses are very large, and
lodgings in them are usually let in flats or
sections of flats; so that, owing to this arrangement,
the same house has frequently a considerable
number of tenants. Now, as these tenants
daily require some little service from the
Dvornik, it is natural that they should be ready
to oblige him in turn; and, as he has the rare
quality of trustworthiness, he contrives to turn
it to good account by obtaining supplementary
employment for his family among the lodgers.
Thus, his wife is frequently a washerwoman, his
daughters ladies'-maids, and his sons, if not
pressed for the army, contrive to make a very
good living out of occasional jobs about the
house; or one is coachman, another butler, and
a third valet. Perhaps the highest wages
received by a Dvornik, exclusive of such perquisites
are about thirty shillings a month. Small
as this sum seems to us in England, it is
sufficient for all the usual wants of a Russian
emancipated serf. The Dvornik seldom or never
quits the premises he governs; he wears the