Page:More Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/81

Rh "Hillo! Ignat !Ignat, I say!" cried the voice of my driver, "take a passenger! It's all one to you, and it's no use my trying to keep up. Take one, I say!"

The voice of Ignat answered close beside me:

"Why should I be responsible for a passenger? You've got half a stoop yet, haven't you?"

"Half a stoop, indeed! There's a quarter of a stoop, already!"

"A quarter of a stoop! What an idea!" screeched the other voice. "Fancy plaguing a horse for the sake of a quarter of a stoop!"

I opened my eyes. Always the same unendurable, quivering snow blizzard in one's eyes, and the selfsame drivers and horses, but close beside me I saw a sledge. My driver had caught up Ignat, and we had been going on side by side for some time. Notwithstanding that the voice from the other sledges had advised my driver not to take in less weight than a half stoop, Ignat had suddenly stopped the troika.

"Let us change about then! A good job for you! Put in a quarter stoop, as we shall arrive to-morrow. How much do you make it, eh?"

My driver, with unusual vivacity, leaped out into the snow, bowed down before me, and begged me to transfer myself to Ignat. I was quite willing to do so, but it was clear that the God-fearing little muzhik was so satisfied with the new arrangement that he must needs pour forth his joy and gratitude on some one or other; he bowed down before me and thanked me and Alec and Ignashka.