broken harness was standing near a wretched little cart. The sunshine falling in streaks through the narrow cracks in the dilapidated roof, striped his shaggy, reddish-brown coat in small bands of light. Above, in the high bird-house, starlings were chattering and looking down inquisitively from their airy home. I went up to the sleeping figure and began to awaken him.
He lifted his head, saw me, and at once jumped up on to his feet….
'What? what do you want? what is it?' he muttered, half asleep.
I did not answer him at once; I was so much impressed by his appearance.
Picture to yourself a little creature of fifty years old, with a little round wrinkled face, a sharp nose, little, scarcely visible, brown eyes, and thick curly black hair, which stood out on his tiny head like the cap on the top of a mushroom. His whole person was excessively thin and weakly, and it is absolutely impossible to translate into words the extraordinary strangeness of his expression.
'What do you want?' he asked me again. I explained to him what was the matter; he listened, slowly blinking, without taking his eyes off me.
'So cannot we get a new axle?' I said finally; 'I will gladly pay for it.'
'But who are you? Hunters, eh?' he asked, scanning me from head to foot.
'Hunters.'
'You shoot the fowls of heaven, I suppose?… the wild things of the woods?… And is it not a sin to kill God's birds, to shed the innocent blood?'
The strange old man spoke in a very drawling tone. The sound of his voice also astonished me. There was none of the weakness of age to be heard in it; it was marvellously sweet, young and almost feminine in its softness.
'I have no axle,' he added after a brief silence. 'That thing will not suit you.' He pointed to his cart. 'You have, I expect, a large trap.'
'But can I get one in the village?'
'Not much of a village here!… No one has an axle here…. And there is no one at home either; they are all at work. You must go on,' he announced suddenly; and he lay down again on the ground.
I had not at all expected this conclusion.
'Listen, old man,' I said, touching him on the shoulder; 'do me a kindness, help me.'
'Go on, in God's name! I am tired; I have driven into the town,' he said, and drew his cloak over his head.
'But pray do me a kindness,' I said. 'I … I will pay for it.' 'I don't want your money.'
'But please, old man.'
He half raised himself and sat up, crossing his little legs.
'I could take you perhaps to the clearing. Some merchants have bought the forest here—God be their judge! They are cutting down the forest, and they have built a counting-house there—God be their judge! You might order an axle of them there, or buy one ready made.'
'Splendid!' I cried delighted; 'splendid! let us go.'
'An oak axle, a good one,' he continued, not getting up from his place.
'And is it far to this clearing?'
'Three miles.'
'Come, then! we can drive there in your trap.'
'Oh, no….'
'Come, let us go,' I said; 'let us go, old man! The coachman is waiting for us in the road.'
The old man rose unwillingly and followed me into the street. We found my coachman in an irritable frame of mind; he had tried to water his horses, but the water in the well, it appeared, was scanty in quantity and bad in taste, and water is the first consideration with coachmen…. However, he grinned at the sight of the old man, nodded his head and cried: 'Hallo! Kassyanushka! good health to you!'
'Good health to you, Erofay, upright man!' replied Kassyan in a dejected voice.
I at once made known his suggestion to the coachman; Erofay expressed his approval of it and drove into the yard. While he was busy deliberately unharnessing the horses, the old man stood leaning with his shoulders against the gate, and looking disconsolately first at him and then at me. He seemed in some uncertainty of mind; he was not very pleased, as it seemed to me, at our sudden visit.
'So they have transported you too?' Erofay asked him suddenly, lifting the wooden arch of the harness.
'Yes.'
'Ugh!' said my coachman between his teeth. 'You know Martin the carpenter…. Of course, you know Martin of Ryaby?'
'Yes.'
'Well, he is dead. We have just met his coffin.'
Kassyan shuddered.
'Dead?' he said, and his head sank dejectedly.
'Yes, he is dead. Why didn't you cure him, eh? You know they say you cure folks; you're a doctor.'
My coachman was apparently laughing and jeering at the old man.
'And is this your trap, pray?' he added, with a shrug of his shoulders in its direction.
'Yes.'
'Well, a trap … a fine trap!' he repeated, and taking it by the shafts almost turned it completely upside down. 'A trap!… But what will you drive in it to the clearing?… You can't harness our horses in these shafts; our horses are all too big.'
'I don't know,' replied Kassyan, 'what you are going to drive; that beast perhaps,' he added with a sigh.
'That?' broke in Erofay, and going up to Kassyan's nag, he tapped it disparagingly on the back with the third finger of his right hand. 'See,' he added contemptuously, 'it's asleep, the scare-crow!'
I asked Erofay to harness it as quickly as he could. I wanted to drive myself with Kassyan to the clearing; grouse are fond of such places. When the little cart was quite ready, and I, together with my dog, had been installed in the warped wicker body of it, and Kassyan huddled up into a little ball, with still the same dejected expression on his face, had taken his seat in front, Erofay came up to me and whispered with an air of mystery:
'You did well, your honour, to drive with him. He is such a queer fellow; he's cracked, you know, and his nickname is the Flea. I don't know how you managed to make him out….'
I tried to say to Erofay that so far Kassyan had seemed to me a very sensible man; but my coachman continued at once in the same voice:
'But you keep a look-out where he is driving you to. And, your honour, be pleased to choose the axle yourself; be pleased to choose a sound one…. Well, Flea,' he added aloud, 'could I get a bit of bread in your house?'
'Look about; you may find some,' answered Kassyan. He pulled the reins and we rolled away.
His little horse, to my genuine astonishment, did not go badly. Kassyan preserved an obstinate silence the whole way, and made abrupt and unwilling answers to my questions. We quickly reached the clearing, and then made our way to the counting-house, a lofty cottage, standing by itself over a small gully, which had been dammed up and converted into a pool. In this counting-house I found two young merchants' clerks, with snow-white teeth, sweet and soft eyes, sweet and subtle words, and sweet and wily smiles. I bought an axle of them and returned to the clearing. I thought that Kassyan would stay with the horse and await my return; but he suddenly came up to me.
'Are you going to shoot birds, eh?' he said.
'Yes, if I come across any.'
'I will come with you…. Can I?'
'Certainly, certainly.'
So we went together. The land cleared was about a mile in length. I must confess I watched Kassyan more than my dogs. He had been aptly called 'Flea.' His little black uncovered head (though his hair, indeed, was as good a covering as any cap) seemed to flash hither and thither among the bushes. He walked extraordinarily swiftly, and seemed always hopping up and down as he moved; he was for ever stooping down to pick herbs of some kind,
