A SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHES
occasions, Baush asked for some vodka, drank it up, got on his horse, and began to halloo as lustily as ever again.'
'You seem to be fond of hunting too, Luka Petrovitch?'
'I should have been—certainly, not now; now my time is over—but in my young days. . . . But you know it was not an easy matter in my position. It's not suitable for people like us to go trailing after noblemen. Certainly you may find in our class some drinking, good-for-nothing fellow who associates with the gentry—but it's a queer sort of enjoyment. . . . He only brings shame on himself. They mount him on a wretched stumbling nag, keep knocking his hat off on to the ground and cut at him with a whip, pretending to whip the horse, and he must laugh at everything, and be a laughing-stock for the others. No, I tell you, the lower your station, the more reserved must be your behaviour, or else you disgrace yourself directly.'
'Yes,' continued Ovsyanikov with a sigh, 'there's many a gallon of water has flowed down to the sea since I have been living in the world; times are different now. Especially I see a great change in the nobility. The smaller landowners have all either become officials, or at any rate do not stop here; as for the larger owners, there's no making them out. I have had experience of them—the larger landowners—in cases of settling boundaries. And I must tell you; it does my heart good to see
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