A SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHES
Just as we were driving into the yard, Kassyan suddenly turned to me.
'Master, master,' he began, 'do you know I have done you a wrong; it was I cast a spell to keep all the game off.'
'How so?'
'Oh, I can do that. Here you have a well-trained dog and a good one, but he could do nothing. When you think of it, what are men? what are they? Here's a beast; what have they made of him?'
It would have been useless for me to try to convince Kassyan of the impossibility of 'casting a spell' on game, and so I made him no reply. Meantime we had turned into the yard.
Annushka was not in the hut: she had had time to get there before us, and to leave her basket of mushrooms. Erofay fitted in the new axle, first exposing it to a severe and most unjust criticism; and an hour later I set off, leaving a small sum of money with Kassyan, which at first he was unwilling to accept, but afterwards, after a moment's thought, holding it in his hand, he put it in his bosom. In the course of this hour he had scarcely uttered a single word; he stood as before, leaning against the gate. He made no reply to the reproaches of my coachman, and took leave very coldly of me.
Directly I turned round, I could see that my worthy Erofay was in a gloomy frame of mind. . . . To be sure, he had found nothing to eat in the
192
