A SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHES
eh? You know they say you cure folks; you're a doctor.'
My coachman was apparently laughing and jeering at the old man.
'And is this your trap, pray?' he added, with a shrug of his shoulders in its direction.
'Yes.'
'Well, a trap . . . a fine trap!' he repeated, and taking it by the shafts almost turned it completely upside down. 'A trap! . . . But what will you drive in it to the clearing? . . . You can't harness our horses in these shafts; our horses are all too big.'
'I don't know,' replied Kassyan, 'what you are going to drive; that beast perhaps,' he added with a sigh.
'That?' broke in Erofay, and going up to Kassyan's nag, he tapped it disparagingly on the back with the third finger of his right hand. 'See,' he added contemptuously, 'it's asleep, the scare-crow!'
I asked Erofay to harness it as quickly as he could. I wanted to drive myself with Kassyan to the clearing; grouse are fond of such places. When the little cart was quite ready, and I, together with my dog, had been installed in the warped wicker body of it, and Kassyan huddled up into a little ball, with still the same dejected expression on his face, had taken his seat in front, Erofay came up to me and whispered with an air of mystery:
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