showing her withered, old bosom. She carried the dog-collars in
her lean, knotted hands.

"Have you gone and fed them again?" asks my father,
severely, looking at the dogs' bulging stomachs.

"Fed them? Not a bit; only just a crust of bread apiece."

"Then what are they licking their chops for?"

"There was a bit of yesterday's oatmeal left over."

"I thought as much! All the hares will get away again. It
really is too bad! Do you do it to spite me?"

"You can't have the dogs running all day on empty stomachs,
Lyoff Nikolaievich," she grunted, going angrily to put on the
dogs' collars.

At last the dogs were got together, some of them on leashes,
others running free; and we would ride out at a brisk trot past
Bitter Wells and the grove into the open country.

My father would give the word of command, "Line out!" and
point out the direction in which we were to go, and we spread out
over the stubble fields and meadows, whistling and winding about
along the lee side of the steep balks, [8] beating all the
bushes with our hunting-crops, and gazing keenly at every spot or
mark on the earth.