“Draw up a statement,” repeated Volodka.

“I don’t want to let this pass!” shouted the younger Lytchkov.  He shouted louder and louder, and his beardless face seemed to be more and more swollen.  “They’ve set up a nice fashion!  Leave them free, and they will ruin all the meadows!  You’ve no sort of right to ill-treat people!  We are not serfs now!”

“We are not serfs now!” repeated Volodka.

“We got on all right without a bridge,” said the elder Lytchkov gloomily; “we did not ask for it.  What do we want a bridge for?  We don’t want it!”

“Brothers, good Christians, we cannot leave it like this!”

“All right, let ’em!” said Kozov, winking.  “Let them get out of it if they can!  Landowners, indeed!”

They went back to the village, and as they walked the younger Lytchkov beat himself on the breast with his fist and shouted all the way, and Volodka shouted, too, repeating his words.  And meanwhile quite a crowd had gathered in the village round the thoroughbred bull-calf and the horses.  The bullcalf was embarrassed and looked up from under his brows, but suddenly lowered his muzzle to the ground and took to his heels, kicking up his hind legs; Kozov was frightened and waved his stick at him, and they all burst out laughing.  Then they locked up the beasts and waited.

In the evening the engineer sent five roubles for the damage, and the two horses, the pony and the bull-calf, without being fed or given water, returned home, their heads hanging with a guilty air as though they were convicted criminals.

On getting the five roubles the Lytchkovs, father and son, the village elder and Volodka, punted over the river in a boat and went to a hamlet on the other side where there was a tavern, and there had a long carousal.  Their singing and the shouting of the younger Lytchkov could be heard from the village.  Their women were uneasy and did not sleep all night.  Rodion did not sleep either.

“It’s a bad business,” he said, sighing and turning from side to side.  “The gentleman will be angry, and then there will be trouble....  They have insulted the gentleman....  Oh, they’ve insulted him.  It’s a bad business...”

It happened that the peasants, Rodion amongst them, went into their forest to divide the clearings for mowing, and as they were returning home they were met by the engineer.  He was wearing a red cotton shirt and high boots; a setter dog with its long tongue hanging out, followed behind him.

“Good-day, brothers,” he said.

The peasants stopped and took off their hats.