“Our little lad’s taken ill,” he said.  “He must have got a chill to the stomach.  The little lad must. . . away from home; it’s a bad lookout!”

VIII

The waggons stopped at a big inn for merchants, not far from the quay.  As Yegorushka climbed down from the waggon he heard a very familiar voice.  Someone was helping him to get down, and saying: 

“We arrived yesterday evening. . . .  We have been expecting you all day.  We meant to overtake you yesterday, but it was out of our way; we came by the other road.  I say, how you have crumpled your coat!  You’ll catch it from your uncle!”

Yegorushka looked into the speaker’s mottled face and remembered that this was Deniska.

“Your uncle and Father Christopher are in the inn now, drinking tea; come along!”

And he led Yegorushka to a big two-storied building, dark and gloomy like the almshouse at N. After going across the entry, up a dark staircase and through a narrow corridor, Yegorushka and Deniska reached a little room in which Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher were sitting at the tea-table.  Seeing the boy, both the old men showed surprise and pleasure.

“Aha!  Yegor Ni-ko-la-aitch!” chanted Father Christopher.  “Mr. Lomonosov!”

“Ah, our gentleman that is to be,” said Kuzmitchov, “pleased to see you!”

Yegorushka took off his great-coat, kissed his uncle’s hand and Father Christopher’s, and sat down to the table.

“Well, how did you like the journey, puer bone?” Father Christopher pelted him with questions as he poured him out some tea, with his radiant smile.  “Sick of it, I’ve no doubt?  God save us all from having to travel by waggon or with oxen.  You go on and on, God forgive us; you look ahead and the steppe is always lying stretched out the same as it was—­you can’t see the end of it!  It’s not travelling but regular torture.  Why don’t you drink your tea?  Drink it up; and in your absence, while you have been trailing along with the waggons, we have settled all our business capitally.  Thank God we have sold our wool to Tcherepahin, and no one could wish to have done better. . . .  We have made a good bargain.”

At the first sight of his own people Yegorushka felt an overwhelming desire to complain.  He did not listen to Father Christopher, but thought how to begin and what exactly to complain of.  But Father Christopher’s voice, which seemed to him harsh and unpleasant, prevented him from concentrating his attention and confused his thoughts.  He had not sat at the table five minutes before he got up, went to the sofa and lay down.

“Well, well,” said Father Christopher in surprise.  “What about your tea?”

Still thinking what to complain of, Yegorushka leaned his head against the wall and broke into sobs.

“Well, well!” repeated Father Christopher, getting up and going to the sofa.  “Yegory, what is the matter with you?  Why are you crying?”