of what they would have done before.'

He merely shrugged his shoulders.

'You should have asked my aunt that; the timber merchants came, offered
money down, pressed the matter, in fact.'

'_Mein Gott! mein Gott!_' Von der Kock cried at every step. 'Vat a
bity, vat a bity!'

'What's a bity!' observed my neighbour with a smile.

'That is; how bitiful, I meant to say.'

What particularly aroused his regrets were the oaks lying on the
ground--and, indeed, many a miller would have given a good sum for them.
But the constable Arhip preserved an unruffled composure, and did not
indulge in any lamentations; on the contrary, he seemed even to jump
over them and crack his whip on them with a certain satisfaction.

We were getting near the place where they were cutting down the trees,
when suddenly a shout and hurried talk was heard, following on the crash
of a falling tree, and a few instants after a young peasant, pale and
dishevelled, dashed out of the thicket towards us.

'What is it? where are you running?' Ardalion Mihalitch asked him.

He stopped at once.

'Ah, Ardalion Mihalitch, sir, an accident!'