e, and the
stranger cleared his throat as though he had just tossed off a good
glass of vodka.

Yegorushka opened his eyes. Close to the waggon stood Panteley,
Emelyan, looking like a triangle, and the giants. The latter were
by now much shorter, and when Yegorushka looked more closely at
them they turned out to be ordinary peasants, carrying on their
shoulders not pikes but pitchforks. In the space between Panteley
and the triangular figure, gleamed the window of a low-pitched hut.
So the waggons were halting in the village. Yegorushka flung off
the mat, took his bundle and made haste to get off the waggon. Now
when close to him there were people talking and a lighted window
he no longer felt afraid, though the thunder was crashing as before
and the whole sky was streaked with lightning.

"It was a good storm, all right, . . ." Panteley was muttering.
"Thank God, . . . my feet are a little softened by the rain. It was
all right. . . . Have you got down, Yegory? Well, go into the hut;
it is all right. . . ."

"Holy, holy, holy!" wheezed Emelyan, "it must have struck something
. . . . Are you of these parts?" he asked the giants.

"No, from Glinovo. We belong to Glinovo. We are working at the
Platers'."

"Threshing?"

"All sorts. Just now we are getting in the wheat. The lightning,
the lightning! It is long since we have had such a storm. . . ."

Yegorushka went into the hut. He was met by a lean hunchbacked old
woman with a sharp chin. She stood holding a tallow candle in her
hands, screwing up her eyes and heaving prolonged sighs.

"What a storm God has sent us!" she said. "And our lads are out for
the night on the steppe; they'll have a bad time, poor dears! Take
off your things, little sir, take off your things."

Shivering with cold and shrugging squeamishly, Yegorushka pulled
off his drenched overcoat, then stretched out his arms and straddled
his legs, and stood a long time without moving. The slightest
movement caused an unpleasant sensation of cold and wetness. His
sleeves and the back of his shirt were sopped, his trousers stuck
to his legs, his head was dripping.

"What's the use of standing there, with your legs apart, little
lad?" said the old woman. "Come, sit down."

Holding his legs wide apart, Yegorushka went up to the table and
sat down on a bench near somebody's head. The head moved, puffed a
stream of air through its nose, made a chewing sound and subsided.
A mound covered with a sheep