Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/198



ARLY next morning Lyubov Onisimovna took the calves out into the sun and began feeding them out of a trough with crusts and milk, when suddenly sounds reached her from outside, that people "in freedom" were hurrying somewhere; they were running and talking quickly to each other.

"I could not distinguish a word of what they were saying," she continued, "but their words seemed to pierce my heart like a knife. When our labourer, Filip, who was carting dung, came into the yard, I said to him:

"Filipushka batushka (little father), have you heard where all the people are going and what they are about, talking so curiously to each other?"

"They are going," he said, "to see the officer whose throat was cut while he slept by the innkeeper of the Pushkarsky Inn. They say that his throat was cut quite through," he said, "and five hundred roubles were stolen from him. The innkeeper was caught all bloody," they say, "and the money was on him."