stars come timidly out. All the birds are asleep. Only the redstarts
and the nuthatches are still chirping drowsily.... And now they too are
still. The last echoing call of the pee-wit rings over our heads; the
oriole's melancholy cry sounds somewhere in the distance; then the
nightingale's first note. Your heart is weary with suspense, when
suddenly--but only sportsmen can understand me--suddenly in the deep
hush there is a peculiar croaking and whirring sound, the measured
sweep of swift wings is heard, and the snipe, gracefully bending its
long beak, sails smoothly down behind a dark bush to meet your shot.

That is the meaning of 'stand-shooting.' And so I had gone out stand-
shooting with Yermolai; but excuse me, reader: I must first introduce
you to Yermolai.

Picture to yourself a tall gaunt man of forty-five, with a long thin
nose, a narrow forehead, little grey eyes, a bristling head of hair,
and thick sarcastic lips. This man wore, winter and summer alike, a
yellow nankin coat of German cut, but with a sash round the waist; he
wore blue pantaloons and a cap of astrakhan, presented to him in a
merry hour by a spendthrift landowner. Two bags were fastened on to his
sash, one in front, skilfully tied into two halves, for powder and for
shot; the other behind for game: wadding Yermolai used to produce out
of his peculiar, seemingly inexhaustible cap. With the money he gained
by the game he sold, he might easily have bought himself a cartridge-
box and powder-flask; but he never once even contemplated such a
purchase, and continued to load his gun after his old fashion, exciting
the admiration of all beholders by the skill with which he avoided the
risks of spilling or mixing his powder and shot. His gun was a single-
barrelled flint-lock, endowed, moreover, with a villainous habit of
'kicking.' It was due to this that Yermolai's right cheek was