The rebellion of the Princess #847602

FROM my post at the window I could look down upon the court-yard of the palace of the Boyar Kurakin. Although it was early in May, it was a cold day in Moscow, and the sun shone obliquely into the yard, cut off as it was by the walls of two houses. The black mud of winter had not dried off the centre of the court, and there was ice in the corner by the water-butts, and ice hung, too, on the north side of the roof, under the eaves, like the ragged beard of the old man of the north, Moroz Treskun, or the Crackling Frost, as the moujik names him, while above, around the great chimney, a group of ravens were huddled together in the sun, preening their plumage and croaking now and then in a solemn fashion.
The boyar’s house was large, and shaped like a Greek cross, the kitchen and the servants’ quarters opening on the court, which was crowded now with the serfs, for the steward of the household was giving one of the varlets a taste of the whip. The doors and windows of the kitchen gaped wide, filled with curious spectators; some, I fancied, half in sympathy with the poor rogue who squealed under the lash, and others applauding the major-domo, whether from fear or love I knew not. He was a burly fellow with a red head and a short, red-bearded, fierce-eyed countenance, and had the serf by the waistband with one giant hand and with the other he laid the whip on his bare back, leaving a long welt across the brown flesh with every cut. The slave howled and writhed, the whip cracked, the spectators applauded or jeered, as fancy seized them, and then, quite suddenly, there was a diversion.