"Good day, brothers; don't leave me!"
The reader must not suppose that the new-comer in thus addressing the Souls of Kushlefka was seized with a sudden misgiving that those gentlemen might all arise and depart just as he had arrived; the Russian expression "Don't leave me!" merely indicates a desire to be heard, and if possible assisted, and is a common mode for an inferior to commence a conversation with a superior.
"What do you want?" asked the starost, or president.
"Why—work," said the man; "some job—bread to eat—any kind of work will do for me." This seemed most providential, and the starost looked meaningly around at his lieutenants.
"What do you know—what can you do?" he asked.
"Better ask me what I can't do!" replied the new man; "I can do a bit of anything and everything!"
"You can drink vodka, I warrant!" said one of the Souls, "or you'd have pockets in your clothes and something inside them!" This was in rude allusion to the attire of the new-comer.
"Well, if you come to that, brother," said that ragged individual, "the moujik who doesn't take kindly to vodka is like a fish who can't swim; I can drink vodka as well as most—try me, if you don't believe it."
"Do you understand the duties of a pastuch?" the starost inquired. The man laughed scornfully.
"You give me a pastuch's pipe, starost, and I'll show you what I can do! I can blow the pipe so that not only the cows of my own village follow me home, but the cattle from the next village as well! Why, all the liéshuie (wood-spirits) come flying up from miles around when I play, and settle on the trees like riabchiks (tree partridges) to listen! Wolves come and fawn at my feet! You won't find a pastuch like me in all Russia!"