“Someone is coming by the ford,” said Savka.

Three minutes later Kutka growled again and made a sound like a cough.

“Shsh!” his master shouted at him.

In the darkness there was a muffled thud of timid footsteps, and the silhouette of a woman appeared out of the copse.  I recognized her, although it was dark—­it was Agafya.  She came up to us diffidently and stopped, breathing hard.  She was breathless, probably not so much from walking as from fear and the unpleasant sensation everyone experiences in wading across a river at night.  Seeing near the shanty not one but two persons, she uttered a faint cry and fell back a step.

“Ah... that is you!” said Savka, stuffing a scone into his mouth.

“Ye-es...  I,” she mutte red, dropping on the ground a bundle of some sort and looking sideways at me.  “Yakov sent his greetings to you and told me to give you... something here....”

“Come, why tell stories?  Yakov!” laughed Savka.  “There is no need for lying; the gentleman knows why you have come!  Sit down; you shall have supper with us.”

Agafya looked sideways at me and sat down irresolutely.

“I thought you weren’t coming this evening,” Savka said, after a prolonged silence.  “Why sit like that?  Eat!  Or shall I give you a drop of vodka?”

“What an idea!” laughed Agafya; “do you think you have got hold of a drunkard?...”

“Oh, drink it up....  Your heart will feel warmer....  There!”

Savka gave Agafya the crooked glass.  She slowly drank the vodka, ate nothing with it, but drew a deep breath when she had finished.

“You’ve brought something,” said Savka, untying the bundle and throwing a condescending, jesting shade into his voice.  “Women can never come without bringing something.  Ah, pie and potatoes....  They live well,” he sighed, turning to me.  “They are the only ones in the whole village who have got potatoes left from the winter!”

In the darkness I did not see Agafya’s face, but from the movement of her shoulders and head it seemed to me that she could not take her eyes off Savka’s face.  To avoid being the third person at this tryst, I decided to go for a walk and got up.  But at that moment a nightingale in the wood suddenly uttered two low contralto notes.  Half a minute later it gave a tiny high trill and then, having thus tried its voice, began singing.  Savka jumped up and listened.

“It’s the same one as yesterday,” he said.  “Wait a minute.”

And, getting up, he went noiselessly to the wood.

“Why, what do you want with it?” I shouted out after him, “Stop!”

Savka shook his hand as much as to say, “Don’t shout,” and vanished into the darkness.  Savka was an excellent sportsman and fisherman when he liked, but his talents in this direction were as completely thrown away as his strength.  He was too slothful to do things in the routine way, and vented his passion for sport in useless tricks.  For instance, he would catch nightingales only with his hands, would shoot pike with a fowling piece, he would spend whole hours by the river trying to catch little fish with a big hook.