Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/68

Tales from Tolstoi wind, patches of straw or wormwood; sometimes they drove into deep white plains of snow, everywhere uniform, above which notching was visible. Snow fell from above and rose up from below. Sometimes it seemed to them as if they were going uphill, and sometimes as if they were going down dale; sometimes it seemed to them as if they were standing stock-still in one place and the snowy plain was running past them. Both had grown silent. The horse was evidently weary to death — mottled and dripping with sweat, and going at a foot-pace. Suddenly it collapsed and sat down in some chasm or ditch. Vasily Andreidh would have stopped, but Nikita began shrieking at him.

"Why do you stop? Go on! We must get out of this. Come, come, my son!" he said in a cheery voice to the horse, leaping out of the sledge and into the chasm. The horse made a brave effort, and struggled out upon a frozen gravel-heap. It had evidently fallen into a ditch.

"Where are we, I wonder?" said Vasily Andreich.

"We must find out," answered Nikita. "Push on, anyhow, we shall come out somewhere."

"Surely that is the Goryachkinsky wood?" said Vasily Andreich, pointing to something black peeping out of the snow in front of them.

"Come and let us see what sort of a wood it is," said Nikita. Nikita had perceived that from the direction of this black something, dry, longish vine-leaves were being carried along by the wind, and therefore he knew it was not a wood, but human habitations to which they were coming, but he did 18