A SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHES
shaggy head of one of the dogs. For a long while the flattered brute did not turn his head, gazing sidewise with grateful pride at Pavlusha.
Vanya lay down under his rug again.
'What dreadful things you were telling us, Ilyusha!' began Fedya, whose part it was, as the son of a well-to-do peasant, to lead the conversation. (He spoke little himself, apparently afraid of lowering his dignity.) 'And then some evil spirit set the dogs barking. . . . Certainly I have heard that place was haunted.'
'Varnavitsi? . . . I should think it was haunted! More than once, they say, they have seen the old master there—the late master. He wears, they say, a long skirted coat, and keeps groaning like this, and looking for something on the ground. Once grandfather Trofimitch met him. "What," says he, "your honour, Ivan Ivanitch, are you pleased to look for on the ground?"'
'He asked him?' put in Fedya in amazement.
'Yes, he asked him.'
'Well, I call Trofimitch a brave fellow after that. . . . Well, what did he say?'
'"I am looking for the herb that cleaves all things," says he. But he speaks so thickly, so thickly. "And what, your honour, Ivan Ivanitch, do you want with the herb that cleaves all things?" "The tomb weighs on me; it weighs on me, Trofimitch: I want to get away—away."'
'My word!' observed Fedya, 'he didn't enjoy his life enough, I suppose.'
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