husband had brought. 'And now let's spread the sacking like this, and
the drugget over it. There, like that it will be comfortable sitting,'
he went on, suiting the action to the words and tucking the drugget all
round over the straw to make a seat.

'Thank you, dear man. Things always go quicker with two working at it!'
he added. And gathering up the leather reins fastened together by a
brass ring, Nikita took the driver's seat and started the impatient
horse over the frozen manure which lay in the yard, towards the gate.

'Uncle Nikita! I say, Uncle, Uncle!' a high-pitched voice shouted, and a
seven-year-old boy in a black sheepskin coat, new white felt boots, and
a warm cap, ran hurriedly out of the house into the yard. 'Take me with
you!' he cried, fastening up his coat as he ran.

'All right, come along, darling!' said Nikita, and stopping the sledge
he picked up the master's pale thin little son, radiant with joy, and
drove out into the road.

It was past two o'clock and the day was windy, dull, and cold, with more
than twenty degrees Fahrenheit of frost. Half the sky was hidden by a
lowering dark cloud. In the yard it was quiet, but in the street the
wind was felt more keenly. The snow swept down from a neighbouring shed
and whirled about in the corner near the bath-house.

Hardly had Nikita driven out of the yard and turned the horse's head to
the house, before Vasili Andreevich emerged from the high porch in front
of the house with a cigarette in his mouth and wearing a cloth-covered
sheep-skin coat tightly girdled low at his waist, and stepped onto the
hard-trodden snow which squeaked under the leather soles of his felt