The Counting-House · 2

‘Are you drunk or what, to set to being abusive?’ began the forester, puzzled. ‘Are you out of your senses, hey?’

‘Drunk! not at your expense, cursed destroyer of souls--brute, brute, brute!’

‘Ah, you----I’ll show you!’

‘What’s that to me? It’s all one; I’m done for; what can I do without a home? Kill me--it’s the same in the end; whether it’s through hunger or like this--it’s all one. Ruin us all--wife, children ... kill us all at once. But, wait a bit, we’ll get at you!’

Biryuk got up.

‘Kill me, kill me,’ the peasant went on in savage tones; ‘kill me; come, come, kill me....’ (The little girl jumped up hastily from the ground and stared at him.) ‘Kill me, kill me!’

‘Silence!’ thundered the forester, and he took two steps forward.

‘Stop, Foma, stop,’ I shouted; ‘let him go.... Peace be with him.’

‘I won’t be silent,’ the luckless wretch went on. ‘It’s all the same--ruin anyway--you destroyer of souls, you brute; you’ve not come to ruin yet.... But wait a bit; you won’t have long to boast of; they’ll wring your neck; wait a bit!’

Biryuk clutched him by the shoulder. I rushed to help the peasant....

‘Don’t touch him, master!’ the forester shouted to me.

I should not have feared his threats, and already had my fist in the air; but to my intense amazement, with one pull he tugged the kerchief off the peasant’s elbows, took him by the scruff of the neck, thrust his cap over his eyes, opened the door, and shoved him out.

‘Go to the devil with your horse!’ he shouted after him; ‘but mind, next time....’

He came back into the hut and began rummaging in the corner.

‘Well, Biryuk,’ I said at last, ‘you’ve astonished me; I see you’re a splendid fellow.’

‘Oh, stop that, master,’ he cut me short with an air of vexation; ‘please don’t speak of it. But I’d better see you on your way now,’ he added; ‘I suppose you won’t wait for this little rain....’

In the yard there was the rattle of the wheels of the peasant’s cart.

‘He’s off, then!’ he muttered; ‘but next time!’

Half-an-hour later he parted from me at the edge of the wood.

XIII