'I've something to tell you,' observed Yermolaï, coming into the hut to see me. I had just had dinner, and was lying down on a travelling bed to rest a little after a fairly successful but day of grouse-shooting--it was somewhere about the 10th of July, and the heat was terrific.... 'I've something to tell you: all our shot's gone.'  
I jumped off the bed.
 
'All gone? How's that? Why, we took pretty nearly thirty pounds with us from the village--a whole bag!'
 
'That's so; and a big bag it was: enough for a fortnight. But there's no knowing! There must have been a hole come in it, or something; anyway, there's no shot... that's to say, there's enough for ten charges left.'
 
'What are we to do now? The very best places are before us--we're promised six coveys for to-morrow....'
 
'Well, send me to Tula. It's not so far from here; only forty miles. I'll fly like the wind, and bring forty pounds of shot if you say the word.'
 
'But when would you go?'
 
'Why, directly. Why put it off? Only, I say, we shall have to hire horses.'
 
'Why hire horses? Why not our own?'
 
'We can't drive there with our own. The horse has gone ... terribly!'
 
'Since when's that?'
 
'Well, the other day, the coachman took him to be shod. So he was shod, and the blacksmith, I suppose, was clumsy. Now, he can't even step on the . It's a front leg. He lifts it up... like a dog.'
 
'Well? they've taken the shoe off, I suppose, at least?'
 
'No, they've not; but, of course, they ought to take it off. A nail's been driven right into the flesh, I should say.'
 
I ordered the coachman to be summoned. It turned out that Yermolaï had spoken the truth: the shaft-horse really could not put its hoof to the ground. I gave orders for it to have the shoe taken off, and to be stood on damp clay.
 
'Then do you wish me to hire horses to go to Tula?' Yermolaï persisted.
 
'Do you suppose we can get horses in this ?' I exclaimed with involuntary . The village in which we found ourselves was a , God-forsaken place; all its inhabitants seemed to be poverty-stricken; we had difficulty in discovering one hut, moderately roomy, and even that one had no chimney.
 
'Yes,' replied Yermolaï with his ; 'what you said about this village is true enough; but there used to be living in this very place one peasant--a very clever fellow! rich too! He had nine horses. He's dead, and his son manages it all now. The man's a perfect fool, but still he's not had time to waste his father's wealth yet. We can get horses from him. If you say the word, I will fetch him. His brothers, I've heard say, are smart chaps...but still, he's their head.'
 
'Why so?'
 
'Because--he's the eldest! Of course, the younger ones must obey!' Here Yermolaï, in reference to younger brothers as a class, expressed himself with a quite unsuitable for print.
 
'I'll fetch him. He's a simple fellow. With him you can't fail to come to terms.'
 
While Yermolaï went after his 'simple fellow' the idea occurred to me that it might be better for me to drive into Tula myself. In the first place, taught by experience, I had no very great confidence in Yermolaï: I had once sent him to the town for purchases; he had promised to get through all my commissions in one day, and was gone a whole week, drank up all the money, and came back on foot, though he had set off in my droshky. And, , I had an acquaintance in Tula, a horsedealer; I might buy a horse off him to take the place of the disabled shaft-horse.
 
'The thing's !' I thought; 'I'll drive over myself; I can sleep just as well on the road--luckily, the coach is comfortable.'
 
'I've brought him!' cried Yermolaï, rushing into the hut a quarter of an hour later. He was followed by a tall peasant in a white shirt, blue breeches, and bast shoes, with white and short-sighted eyes, a wedge-shaped red beard, a long nose, and a mouth. He certainly did look 'simple.'
 
'Here, your honour,' observed Yermolaï, 'he has horses--and he's willing.'
 
'So be, surely, I'... the peasant began hesitatingly in a rather voice, shaking his thin wisps of hair, and drumming with his fingers on the band of the cap he held in his hands.... 'Surely, I....'
 
'What's your name?' I inquired.
 
The peasant looked down and seemed to think deeply. 'My name?'
 
'Yes; what are you called?'
 
'Why my name 'ull be--Filofey.'
 
'Well, then, friend Filofey; I hear you have horses. Bring a team of three here--we'll put them in my coach--it's a light one--and you drive me in to Tula. There's a moon now at night; it's light, and it's cool for driving. What sort of a road have you here?'
 
'The road? There's amiss with the road. To the main road it will be sixteen miles--not more.... There's one little place... a bit awkward; but naught amiss else.'
 
'What sort of little place is it that's awkward?'
 
'Well, we'll have to cross the river by the .'
 
'But are you thinking of going to Tula yourself?' inquired Yermolaï.
 
'Yes.'
 
'Oh!' commented my faithful servant with a shake of his head. 'Oh-oh!' he repeated; then he on the floor and walked out of the room.
 
The expedition to Tula obviously no longer presented any features of interest to him; it had become for him a dull and unattractive business.
 
'Do you know the road well?' I said, addressing Filofey.
 
'Surely, we know the road! Only, so to say, please your honour, can't... so on the sudden, so to say...'
 
It appeared that Yermolaï, on engaging Filofey, had stated that he could be sure that, fool as he was, he'd be paid... and nothing more! Filofey, fool as he was--in Yermolaï's words--was not satisfied with this statement alone. He demanded, of me fifty roubles--an price; I offered him ten--a low price. We fell to ; Filofey at first was stubborn; then he began to come down, but slowly. Yermolaï entering for an instant began assuring me, 'that fool--('He's fond of the word, seemingly!' Filofey remarked in a low voice)--'that fool can't reckon money at all,' and reminded me how twenty years ago a posting established by my mother at the crossing of two high-roads came to complete grief from the fact that the old house-serf who was put there to manage it did not understand reckoning money, but valued sums simply by the number of coins--in fact, gave silver coins in change for , though he would swear furiously all the time.
 
'Ugh, you Filofey! you're a regular Filofey!' Yermolaï at last--and he went out, slamming the door angrily.
 
Filofey made him no reply, as though admitting that to be called Filofey was--as a fact--not very clever of him, and that a man might fairly be reproached for such a name, though really it was the village priest was to blame in the matter for not having done better by him at his christening.
 
At last we agreed, however, on the sum of twenty roubles. He went off for the horses, and an hour later brought five for me to choose from. The horses turned out to be fairly good, though their manes and tails were , and their round and as drums. With Filofey came two of his brothers, not in the least like him. Little, black-eyed, sharp-nosed fellows, they certainly produced the impression of 'smart chaps'; they talked a great deal, very fast--'clacked away,' as Yermolaï expressed it--but obeyed the elder brother.
 
They dragged the coach out of the shed and were busy about it and the horses for an hour and a half; first they let out the traces, which were of cord, then pulled them too tight again! Both brothers were very much set on harnessing the 'roan' in the , because 'him can do best going down-hill'; but Filofey decided for 'the shaggy one.' So the shaggy one was put in the shafts accordingly.
 
They heaped the coach up with hay, put the collar off the lame shaft-horse under the seat, in case we might want to fit it on to the horse to be bought at Tula.... Filofey, who had managed to run home and come back in a long, white, loose, ancestral overcoat, a high sugar-loaf cap, and tarred boots, clambered up on to the box. I took my seat, looking at my watch: it was a quarter past ten. Yermolaï did not even say good-bye to me--he was engaged in beating his Valetka--Filofey at the , and shouted in a thin, thin voice: 'Hey! you little ones!'
 
His brothers skipped away on both sides, the trace-horses under the , and the coach started, turned out of the gates into the street, the shaggy one tried to turn off towards his own home, but Filofey brought him to reason with a few strokes of the whip, and ! we were already out of the village, and rolling along a fairly even road, between close-growing bushes of thick hazels.
 
It was a still, glorious night, the very nicest for driving. A breeze now and then in the bushes, set the swinging and died away again; in the sky could be seen motionless, silvery clouds; the moon stood high and threw a bright light on all around. I stretched myself on the hay, and was just beginning to ... but I remembered the 'awkward place,' and started up.
 
'I say, Filofey, is it far to the ford?'
 
'To the ford? It'll be near upon seven miles.'
 
'Seven miles!' I . 'We shan't get there for another hour. I can have a nap meanwhile. Filofey, do you know the road well?' I asked again.
 
'Surely; how could I fail to know it? It's not the first time I've driven.'
 
He said something more, but I had ceased to listen.... I was asleep.
 
I was not, as often happens, by my own intention of waking in exactly an hour, but by a sort of strange, though faint, lapping, gurgling sound at my very ear. I raised my head....
 
Wonderful to relate! I was lying in the coach as before, but all round the coach, half a foot, not more, from its edge, a sheet of water lay shining in the moonlight, broken up into tiny, distinct, quivering . I looked in front. On the box, with back bowed and head , Filofey was sitting like a statue, and a little further on, above the water, I saw the curved arch of the , and the horses' heads and backs. And everything as motionless, as noiseless, as though in some realm, in a dream--a dream of fairyland.... 'What does it mean?' I looked back from under the of the coach.... 'Why, we are in the middle of the river!'... the bank was thirty paces from us.
 
'Filofey!' I cried.
 
'What?' he answered.
 
'What, indeed! Upon my word! Where are we?'
 
'In the river.'
 
'I see we're in the river. But, like this, we shall be drowned directly. Is this how you cross the ford? Eh? Why, you're asleep, Filofey! Answer, do!'
 
'I've made a little mistake,' observed my guide;
 
'I've gone to one side, a bit wrong, but now we've got to wait a bit.'
 
'Got to wait a bit? What ever are we going to wait for?'
 
'Well, we must let the shaggy one look about him; which way he turns his head, that way we've got to go.'
 
I raised myself on the hay. The shaft-horse's head stood quite motionless. Above the head one could only see in the bright moonlight one ear slightly and forwards.
 
'Why, he's asleep too, your shaggy one!'
 
'No,' responded Filofey,' 'he's the water now.'
 
And everything was still again; there was only the faint gurgle of the water as before. I sank into a state of .
 
Moonlight, and night, and the river, and we in it....
 
'What is that noise?' I asked Filofey.
 
'That? Ducks in the reeds... or else snakes.'
 
All of a sudden the head of the shaft-horse shook, his ears up; he gave a snort, began to move. 'Ho-ho, ho-ho-o!' Filofey began suddenly at the top of his voice; he sat up and the whip. The coach was at once tugged away from where it had stuck, it forward, the waters of the river, and moved along, swaying and lurching from side to side.... At first it seemed to me we were sinking, getting deeper; however, after two or three and , the expanse of water seemed suddenly lower.... It got lower and lower, the coach seemed to grow up out of it, and now the wheels and the horses' tails could be seen, and now stirring with a splashing of big drops, showers of diamonds--no, not diamonds--sapphires in the dull of the moon, the horses with a spirited pull all together drew us on to the sandy bank and along the road to the hill-side, their shining white legs flashing in .
 
'What will Filofey say now?' was the thought that glanced through my mind; 'you see I was right!' or something of that sort. But he said nothing. So I too did not think it necessary to reproach him for carelessness, and lying down in the hay, I tried again to go to sleep.
 
But I could not go to sleep, not because I was not tired from hunting, and not because the exciting experience I had just been through had my sleepiness: it was that we were driving through such very beautiful country. There were liberal, wide-stretching, riverside meadows, with a multitude of small pools, little lakes, , overgrown at the ends with branches and osiers--a regular Russian scene, such as Russians love, like the scenes amid which the heroes of our old legends rode out to shoot white swans and grey ducks. The road we were driven along wound in a yellowish ribbon, the horses ran lightly--and I could not close my eyes. I was admiring! And it all floated by, into harmony under the light of the moon. Filofey--he too was touched by it.
 
'Those meadows are called St. Yegor's,' he said, turning to me. 'And beyond them come the Grand Duke's; there are no other meadows like them in all Russia.... Ah, it's lovely!' The shaft-horse snorted and shook itself.... 'God bless you,' commented Filofey gravely in an undertone. 'How lovely!' he repeated with a sigh; then he gave a long sort of . 'There, time's just upon us, and think what hay they'll rake up there!--regular mountains!--And there are lots of fish in the creeks. Such bream!' he added in a sing-song voice. 'In one word, life's sweet--one doesn't............