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‘I’ll look after them, Nikita dear. I’ll tell Simon,’ replied the mistress.

‘Well, Vasili Andreevich, am I to come with you?’ said Nikita, awaiting a decision.

‘It seems I must humour my old woman. But if you’re coming you’d better put on a warmer cloak,’ said Vasili Andreevich, smiling again as he winked at Nikita’s short sheepskin coat, which was torn under the arms and at the back, was greasy and out of shape, frayed to a fringe round the skirt, and had endured many things in its lifetime.

‘Hey, dear man, come and hold the horse!’ shouted Nikita to the cook’s husband, who was still in the yard.

‘No, I will myself, I will myself!’ shrieked the little boy, pulling his hands, red with cold, out of his pockets, and seizing the cold leather reins.

‘Only don’t be too long dressing yourself up. Look alive!’ shouted Vasili Andreevich, grinning at Nikita.

‘Only a moment, Father, Vasili Andreevich!’ replied Nikita, and running quickly with his inturned toes in his felt boots with their soles patched with felt, he hurried across the yard and into the workmen’s hut.

‘Arinushka! Get my coat down from the stove. I’m going with the master,’ he said, as he ran into the hut and took down his girdle from the nail on which it hung.

The workmen’s cook, who had had a sleep after dinner and was now getting the samovar ready for her husband, turned cheerfully to Nikita, and infected by his hurry began to move as quickly as he did, got down his miserable worn-out cloth coat from the stove where it was drying, and began hurriedly shaking it out and smoothing it down.

‘There now, you’ll have a chance of a holiday with your good man,’ said Nikita, who from kindhearted politeness always said something to anyone he was alone with.

Then, drawing his worn narrow girdle round him, he drew in his breath, pulling in his lean stomach still more, and girdled himself as tightly as he could over his sheepskin.

‘There now,’ he said addressing himself no longer to the cook but the girdle, as he tucked the ends in at the waist, ‘now you won’t come undone!’ And working his shoulders up and down to free his arms, he put the coat over his sheepskin, arched his back more strongly to ease his arms, poked himself under the armpits, and took down his leather-covered mittens from the shelf. ‘Now we’re all right!’

‘You ought to wrap your feet up, Nikita. Your boots are very bad.’

Nikita stopped as if he had suddenly realized this.

‘Yes, I ought to. . . . But they’ll do like this. It isn’t far!’ and he ran out into the yard.

‘Won’t you be cold, Nikita?’ said the mistress as he came up to the sledge.

‘Cold? No, I’m quite warm,’ answered Nikita as he pushed some straw up to the forepart of the sledge so that it should cover his feet, and stowed away the whip, which the good horse would not need, at the bottom of the sledge.

Vasili Andreevich, who was wearing two fur-lined coats one over the other, was already in the sledge, his broad back filling nearly its whole rounded width, and taking the reins he immediately touched the horse. Nikita jumped in just as the sledge started, and seated himself in front on the left side, with one leg hanging over the edge.

II

The good stallion took the sledge along at a brisk pace over the smooth-frozen road through the village, the runners squeaking slightly as they went.

‘Look at him hanging on there! Hand me the whip, Nikita!’ shouted Vasili Andreevich, evidently enjoying the sight of his ‘heir,’ who standing on the runners was hanging on at the back of the sledge. ‘I’ll give it you! Be off to mamma, you dog!’

The boy jumped down. The horse increased his amble and, suddenly changing foot, broke into a fast trot.

The Crosses, the village where Vasili Andreevich lived, consisted of six houses. As soon as they had passed the blacksmith’s hut, the last in the village, they realized that the wind was much stronger than they had thought. The road could hardly be seen. The tracks left by the sledge-runners were immediately covered by snow and the road was only distinguished by the fact that it was higher than the rest of the ground. There was a swirl of snow over the fields and the line where sky and earth met could not be seen. The Telyatin forest, usually clearly visible, now only loomed up occasionally and dimly through the driving snowy dust. The wind came from the left, insistently blowing over to one side the mane on Mukhorty’s sleek neck and carrying aside even his fluffy tail, which was tied in a simple knot. Nikita’s wide coat-collar, as he sat on the windy side, pressed close to his cheek and nose.