A Trial Like No Other

Once there lived two brothers. One of them was poor and the other rich.

No one day the poor brother's wood came to an end, and he had nothing with which to head hs stove. It was very cold in his hut.

He went to the forest and chopped some wood, but he had no horse to bring the wood home.
"I'll go to my brother and ask him for a horse,"he thought to him self.

He went to his brother, but it was a cold welcome his brother gave him.
"You can take the horse this once, but see that you don't make the load too heavy," he said.

"And don't think you can come to me for anything of the sort again. It's always one thing today and another tomorrow, and you'll have me out begging in the streets before I know where I am."

The poor brother led the horse home, and only then remembered that he had fogotten to ask for a horse-collar.

"And it's no use going back for it now, my brother will not give it to me," said he to himself.

So he tied the sledge got wedget in a tree-stump, but the poor man did not notice it and gave the horse a touch of the whip.

The horse was a flery one; it plunged ahead, and lo! its tail came off.

When the rich brother saw that his horse had no tail, he began cursing amd scolding the poor brother.

"You have ruined my horse!" he cried. "Don't think I will leave it that!"

And he brought an action against him.

A short time passed by and a long time, and the brothers were summoned to court.

They set off for town, they walked and they walked, and the poor brother said to himself:
"A poor man fighting a rich man's lawsuit is like weak man wrestling with a strong man: neither can win. They are sure to find me guilty."

Just then they were crossing a bridge, and as the bridge had no handrail, the poor brother slipped and fell off. It so chanced that at that very moment a merchant was driving over the icebound river below, taking his old father to a doctor, and the poor brother dropped straight on to old man in the merchant's sledge, killing him outright without sustaining the slightest injury himself.

The mercahnt seized the poor brother and held him.
"Come with me to the judge!" he cried.

And so now the three of them proceeded to the town together, the two brother and the merchant.

The poor brother felt more sad and crestfallen than ever.
"They will be sure to find me guilty now," he said to himself.

Suddenly he saw a heavy stone on the road. He picked it up, wrapped it in a rag and thrust it inside his coat.

"As well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb," said himself. If the judge judges unfairly and I am found guilty, I"ll kill him as well."

They came before the judge, and now there there were two cases insteadof one against the poor brother. And the judge set about the business of judging and began asking questions.

And the poor brothers would glance at the judge now and again, take out the stone wrapped in the rag and whisper:
"Judge away, Judge, Judge away, but see what I've brought to court today!"

He said it once, and he said it again, and he said it a third time, and the judge watched him and thought to himself:
"Could the muzhik be showing me a nugget of gold?"
And he looked once again and was sum of money."

And he passed sentences and ruled that the tailless horse be given to the poor brother to keep till such time as its tail would grow again.

And two the merchant he said;
"As punishment for having killed your father this man must stand on the ice under the very same bridge, and you must leap on him from the bridge and kill him just the same way as he killed your father."

And with that the trial ended.
Said the rich brother to the poor brother:
"Oh, well, so be it, I'll take the tailles horse from you."
"Oh, no, brother," the poor man replied. "Let it be as the judge decreed. "I'll keep your horse until its tail grows again."

Then the rich brother began pleading with poor one.
"I'll give you thirty rubles, only give me back my horse," he said.
"Very well, let it be as you wish," the poor brother agreed.

The rich brother counted out the money, and the matter was settled between them.

Now the merchant, too, spoke in pleading tones.
"Lets forget the whole affair, my good man," he said. "I forgive you. It will not bring back my father if I don't, any way.

"No, no, come along and do as the judge said. Drop down on me from the bridge."

"I don't want to kill you. Let us be friends and I will give you a hundred rubles," the merchant begged.

The poor man took the hundreed rubles and was about to leave, when the judge called him to his side.

"Now give me what you promised," he said.

And the the poor man drew the bundle from his coat, turned back the rag and showed the judge the stone.

"That is what I showed you when I said: "Judge away, Judge, judge away, but see what I've brought to court today!" Had youi judged differently, I would have killed you with this stone."

"Its a good thing I judge the way I did," said the judge to himself, "or I would not have been alive now."

As for the poor man, he went home in high spirits, singing a song at the top of his voice.