The Cossacks - graf Tolstoy Leo (suggested reading TXT) 📗

Chapter XIX

The mist had partly lifted, showing the wet reed thatches, and was

now turning into dew that moistened the road and the grass beside

the fence. Smoke rose everywhere in clouds from the chimneys. The

people were going out of the village, some to their work, some to

the river, and some to the cordon. The hunters walked together

along the damp, grass-grown path. The dogs, wagging their tails

and looking at their masters, ran on both sides of them. Myriads

of gnats hovered in the air and pursued the hunters, covering

their backs, eyes, and hands. The air was fragrant with the grass

and with the dampness of the forest. Olenin continually looked

round at the ox-cart in which Maryanka sat urging on the oxen with

a long switch.

 

It was calm. The sounds from the village, audible at first, now no

longer reached the sportsmen. Only the brambles cracked as the

dogs ran under them, and now and then birds called to one another.

Olenin knew that danger lurked in the forest, that abreks always

hid in such places. But he knew too that in the forest, for a man

on foot, a gun is a great protection. Not that he was afraid, but

he felt that another in his place might be; and looking into the

damp misty forest and listening to the rare and faint sounds with

strained attention, he changed his hold on his gun and experienced

a pleasant feeling that was new to him. Daddy Eroshka went in

front, stopping and carefully scanning every puddle where an

animal had left a double track, and pointing it out to Olenin. He

hardly spoke at all and only occasionally made remarks in a

whisper. The track they were following had once been made by

wagons, but the grass had long overgrown it. The elm and plane-tree forest on both sides of them was so dense and overgrown with

creepers that it was impossible to see anything through it. Nearly

every tree was enveloped from top to bottom with wild grape vines,

and dark bramble bushes covered the ground thickly. Every little

glade was overgrown with blackberry bushes and grey feathery

reeds. In places, large hoof-prints and small funnel-shaped

pheasant-trails led from the path into the thicket. The vigour of

the growth of this forest, untrampled by cattle, struck Olenin at

every turn, for he had never seen anything like it. This forest,

the danger, the old man and his mysterious whispering, Maryanka

with her virile upright bearing, and the mountains—all this

seemed to him like a dream.

 

‘A pheasant has settled,’ whispered the old man, looking round and

pulling his cap over his face—‘Cover your mug! A pheasant!’ he

waved his arm angrily at Olenin and pushed forward almost on all

fours. ‘He don’t like a man’s mug.’

 

Olenin was still behind him when the old man stopped and began

examining a tree. A cock-pheasant on the tree clucked at the dog

that was barking at it, and Olenin saw the pheasant; but at that

moment a report, as of a cannon, came from Eroshka’s enormous gun,

the bird fluttered up and, losing some feathers, fell to the

ground. Coming up to the old man Olenin disturbed another, and

raising his gun he aimed and fired. The pheasant flew swiftly up

and then, catching at the branches as he fell, dropped like a

stone to the ground.

 

‘Good man!’ the old man (who could not hit a flying bird) shouted,

laughing.

 

Having picked up the pheasants they went on. Olenin, excited by

the exercise and the praise, kept addressing remarks to the old

man.

 

‘Stop! Come this way,’ the old man interrupted. ‘I noticed the

track of deer here yesterday.’

 

After they had turned into the thicket and gone some three hundred

paces they scrambled through into a glade overgrown with reeds and

partly under water. Olenin failed to keep up with the old huntsman

and presently Daddy Eroshka, some twenty paces in front, stooped

down, nodding and beckoning with his arm. On coming up with him

Olenin saw a man’s footprint to which the old man was pointing.

 

‘D’you see?’

 

‘Yes, well?’ said Olenin, trying to speak as calmly as he could.

‘A man’s footstep!’

 

Involuntarily a thought of Cooper’s Pathfinder and of abreks

flashed through Olenin’s mind, but noticing the mysterious manner

with which the old man moved on, he hesitated to question him and

remained in doubt whether this mysteriousness was caused by fear

of danger or by the sport.

 

‘No, it’s my own footprint,’ the old man said quietly, and pointed

to some grass under which the track of an animal was just

perceptible.

 

The old man went on; and Olenin kept up with him.

 

Descending to lower ground some twenty paces farther on they came

upon a spreading pear-tree, under which, on the black earth, lay

the fresh dung of some animal.

 

The spot, all covered over with wild vines, was like a cosy

arbour, dark and cool.

 

‘He’s been here this morning,’ said the old man with a sigh; ‘the

lair is still damp, quite fresh.’

 

Suddenly they heard a terrible crash in the forest some ten paces

from where they stood. They both started and seized their guns,

but they could see nothing and only heard the branches breaking.

The rhythmical rapid thud of galloping was heard for a moment and

then changed into a hollow rumble which resounded farther and

farther off, re-echoing in wider and wider circles through the

forest. Olenin felt as though something had snapped in his heart.

He peered carefully but vainly into the green thicket and then

turned to the old man. Daddy Eroshka with his gun pressed to his

breast stood motionless; his cap was thrust backwards, his eyes

gleamed with an unwonted glow, and his open mouth, with its worn

yellow teeth, seemed to have stiffened in that position.

 

‘A homed stag!’ he muttered, and throwing down his gun in despair

he began pulling at his grey beard, ‘Here it stood. We should have

come round by the path…. Fool! fool!’ and he gave his beard an

angry tug. Fool! Pig!’ he repeated, pulling painfully at his own

beard. Through the forest something seemed to fly away in the

mist, and ever farther and farther off was heard the sound of the

flight of the stag.

 

It was already dusk when, hungry, tired, but full of vigour,

Olenin returned with the old man. Dinner was ready. He ate and

drank with the old man till he felt warm and merry. Olenin then

went out into the porch. Again, to the west, the mountains rose

before his eyes. Again the old man told his endless stories of

hunting, of abreks, of sweethearts, and of all that free and

reckless life. Again the fair Maryanka went in and out and across

the yard, her beautiful powerful form outlined by her smock.