In Ivan Turgenev’s short story, “The Loner,” the main character, a peasant overseer of a forest owned by an absentee landlord, zealously practices his craft to such an extent that “there wasn’t a better master of his job in the world:  ‘[The Loner] won’t let you take so much as a bit of brushwood! It doesn’t matter when it is, even at dead o’ night, he’ll be down on you like a ton o’ snow, an’ you best not think of puttin’ up a fight . . . An’ you can’t bribe him, not with drink, not with money, not with any trickery” (Turgenev 1976 p. 175).

In the short story, the peasant hears an axe felling falling and immediately confronts the would- be thief. “Let me go” cries the peasant. . . It’s been hungry . . . my little horse  . . . let ‘er go, she’s all I got.” More