pickled cherries intended for the Prince's botvinia, was placed
in a cask, and pickled cherries packed around him up to the chin.
There he was kept until almost flayed by the acid. It was ordered
that these two delinquents should never afterwards be called by any
other names than "Crop-Ear" and "Cherry."

But the Prince's severest joke, which, strange to say, in no wise
lessened his popularity among the serfs, occurred a month or two
later. One of his leading passions was the chase,--especially the
chase in his own forests, with from one to two hundred men, and no
one to dispute his Lordship. On such occasions, a huge barrel of
wine, mounted upon a sled, always accompanied the crowd, and the
quantity which the hunters received depended upon the satisfaction
of Prince Alexis with the game they collected.

Winter had set in early and suddenly, and one day, as the
Prince and his retainers emerged from the forest with their
forenoon's spoil, and found themselves on the bank of the Volga,
the water was already covered with a thin sheet of ice. Fires were
kindled, a score or two of hares and a brace of deer were skinned,
and the flesh placed on sticks to broil; skins of mead foamed and
hissed into the wooden bowls, and the cask of unbroached wine
towered in the midst. Prince Alexis had a good appetite; the meal
was after his heart; and by the time he had eaten a hare and half
a flank of venison, followed by several bowls of fiery wine, he was
in the humor for sport. He ordered a hole cut in the upper side of
the barrel, as it lay; then, getting astride of it, like a grisly
Bacchus, he dipped out the liquor with a ladle, and plied his
thirsty serfs until they became as recklessly savage as he.