e shrill, frozen tenor persistently disturb the stillness
of the summer day.

"Pull him out by the gills, pull him out! Stay, I'll push him out!
Where are you shoving your great ugly fist? Poke him with your
finger--you pig's face! Get round by the side! get to the left,
to the left, there's a big hole on the right! You'll be a supper
for the water-devil! Pull it by the lip!"

There is the sound of the flick of a whip. . . . A herd of cattle,
driven by Yefim, the shepherd, saunter lazily down the sloping bank
to drink. The shepherd, a decrepit old man, with one eye and a
crooked mouth, walks with his head bowed, looking at his feet. The
first to reach the water are the sheep, then come the horses, and
last of all the cows.

"Push him from below!" he hears Lubim's voice. "Stick your finger
in! Are you deaf, fellow, or what? Tfoo!"

"What are you after, lads?" shouts Yefim.

"An eel-pout! We can't get him out! He's hidden under the roots.
Get round to the side! To the side!"

For a minute Yefim screws up his eye at the fishermen, then he takes
off his bark shoes, throws his sack off his shoulders, and takes
off his shirt. He has not the patience to take off his breeches,
but, making the sign of the cross, he steps into the water, holding
out his thin dark arms to balance himself. . . . For fifty paces
he walks along the slimy bottom, then he takes to swimming.

"Wait a minute, lads!" he shouts. "Wait! Don't be in a hurry to
pull him out, you'll lose him. You must do it properly!"

Yefim joins the carpenters and all three, shoving each other with
their knees and their elbows, puffing and swearing at one another,
bustle about the same spot. Lubim, the hunchback, gets a mouthful
of water, and the air rings with his hard spasmodic coughing.

"Where's the shepherd?" comes a shout from the bank. "Yefim! Shepherd!
Where are you? The cattle are in the garden! Drive them out, drive
them out of the garden! Where is he, the old brigand?"

First men's voices are heard, then a woman's. The master himself,
Andrey Andreitch, wearing a dressing-gown made of a Persian shawl
and carrying a newspaper in his hand, appears from behind the garden
fence. He looks inquiringly towards the shouts which come from the
river, and then trips rapidly towards the bathing shed.

"What's this? Who's shouting?" he asks sternly, seeing through the
branches of the willow the three wet heads of the fishermen. "What
are you so busy about there?"