The swelling earth gurgled happily beneath the soft kiss of the warm humid wind, and from somewhere afar came reverberating sounds of spring; perchance from the people in the village across the water, or perchance from the warbling birds over the streams.
Ivanov the forester came out on to the door-step which had already dried, and lighted a cigarette; it burned but slowly in the moist atmosphere of the deepening twilight.
"It will be hot, Mitrich, thank God!" remarked the watchman, Ignat, as he passed by with some buckets…. "Snipe will be about to-morrow, and we will have to hunt right into Easter."
He went into the cow-house, then returned, sat down on a step, and rolled a cigarette.
The pungent odour of his bad tobacco mingled with the sweet aroma of dying foliage and melting snow. Beyond the river a church bell was ringing for the Lenten festival, and there was a melancholy thrill in its notes as they crossed the water.
"That must be the seventh Gospel," said Ignat. "They will be coming out with the candles soon." Then he added abruptly: "The river won't reach to a man's waist in the summer and now it is like a torrent; they have been hardly able to cross it in the long boat … Spring, ah!… Well, I shall certainly have to clean out my double-barrelled gun to-day." With a business-like air he spat into a puddle and vigorously inhaled his cigarette smoke.
"The cranes will come down by the garden for the night, at dusk, judging by all portents, and to-morrow we will go after the grouse," replied Ivanov, and listened intently to the myriad sounds of evening.
Ignat also listened, bending his shaggy head sideways to the earth and the sky. He caught some desired note and agreed:
"Yes, it must be so. I can hear the beat of their wings. I am truly thankful. At dawn to-morrow we must get out the drosky. We will go to the Ratchinsky wood and have a look. We can get through all right by the upper road."
From the right of the steps, his daughter Aganka skipped gaily on to the terrace and began beating the dust out of a sheep-skin coat with thin brown sticks. It was cold and she commenced to dance for warmth, singing in a shrill voice: