to 'clean his master's spurs,' that is, to follow at his heels, his
eyes painfully blinking, and his tongue hanging out to an exaggerated
length; and in response to his master's reproaches he humbly wags his
tail and shows his confusion in his face; but he does not run forward.
I happened to be out hunting on exactly such a day. I had long been
fighting against the temptation to lie down somewhere in the shade, at
least for a moment; for a long time my indefatigable dog went on
running about in the bushes, though he clearly did not himself expect
much good from his feverish activity. The stifling heat compelled me at
last to begin to think of husbanding our energies and strength. I
managed to reach the little river Ista, which is already known to my
indulgent readers, descended the steep bank, and walked along the damp,
yellow sand in the direction of the spring, known to the whole
neighbourhood as Raspberry Spring. This spring gushes out of a cleft in
the bank, which widens out by degrees into a small but deep creek, and,
twenty paces beyond it, falls with a merry babbling sound into the
river; the short velvety grass is green about the source: the sun's
rays scarcely ever reach its cold, silvery water. I came as far as the
spring; a cup of birch-wood lay on the grass, left by a passing peasant
for the public benefit. I quenched my thirst, lay down in the shade,
and looked round. In the cave, which had been formed by the flowing of
the stream into the river, and hence marked for ever with the trace of
ripples, two old men were sitting with their backs to me. One, a rather
stout and tall man in a neat dark-green coat and lined cap, was
fishing; the other was thin and little; he wore a patched fustian coat
and no cap; he held a little pot full of worms on his knees, and
sometimes lifted his hand up to his grizzled little head, as though he
wanted to protect it from the sun. I looked at him more attentively,
and recognised in him Styopushka of Shumihino. I must ask the reader's
leave to present this man to him.