The metallic clank of a whetstone against a scythe, that came to them from the cart, ceased.

One of the peasants got up and came towards the carriage.

"Well, you are slow!" the counting house clerk shouted angrily to the peasant who was stepping slowly with his bare feet over the ruts of the rough dry road.

" Come along, do!" A curly-headed old man with a bit of bast tied round his hair, and his bent back dark with perspiration, came towards the carriage, quickening his steps, and took hold of the mud-guard with his sunburnt hand.

"Vozdvizhenskoe, the manor house? the count's?" he repeated; "go on to the end of this track.