whistled the note of a
hen-nightingale. And at once, as though in answer to his call, a
landrail called on the opposite bank.

"There's a nightingale for you..." laughed Savka. "Drag-drag! drag-drag!
just like pulling at a hook, and yet I bet he thinks he is singing,
too."

"I like that bird," I said. "Do you know, when the birds are migrating
the landrail does not fly, but runs along the ground? It only flies over
the rivers and the sea, but all the rest it does on foot."

"Upon my word, the dog..." muttered Savka, looking with respect in the
direction of the calling landrail.

Knowing how fond Savka was of listening, I told him all I had learned
about the landrail from sportsman's books. From the landrail I passed
imperceptibly to the migration of the birds. Savka listened attentively,
looking at me without blinking, and smiling all the while with pleasure.

"And which country is most the bird's home? Ours or those foreign
parts?" he asked.

"Ours, of course. The bird itself is hatched here, and it hatches out
its little ones here in its native country, and they only fly off there
to escape being frozen."

"It's interesting," said Savka. "Whatever one talks about it is always
interesting. Take a bird now, or a man... or take this little stone;
there's something to learn about all of them.... Ah, sir, if I had
known you were coming I wouldn't have told a woman to come here this
evening.... She asked to come to-day."

"Oh, please don't let me be in your way," I said. "I can lie down in the
wood...."

"What next! She wouldn't have died if she hadn't come till to-morrow....
If only she would sit quiet and listen, but she always wants to be
slobbering.... You can't have a good talk when she's here."

"Are you expecting Darya?" I asked, after a pause.

"No... a new one has asked to come this evening... Agafya, the
signalman's wife."

Savka said this in his usual passionless, somewhat hollow voice, as
though he were talking of tobacco or porridge, while I started with
surprise. I knew Agafya.... She was quite a young peasant woman of
nineteen or twenty, who had been married not more than a year before to
a railway signalman, a fine young fellow. She lived in the village, and
her husband came home there from the line every night.

"Your goings on with the women will lead to trouble, my boy," said I.

"Well, may be...."

And after a moment's thought Savka added:

"I've said so to the women; they won't heed