"Now, you just listen to me, old man: don't let Ilyushka do any harm to himself; when I send to-night or to-morrow, have him come immediately. You bring him, and you shall be answerable for him; and if any thing happens to him, God be my witness, I will take your oldest son. Do you hear?"
"But couldn't they have taken some one else, Yégor Mikháiluitch?" he said in an aggrieved tone after a short silence; "because my brother died in the army, must they take his son also? Why should such luck come to me?" he added, almost weeping, and ready to get on his knees.
"Now, hold on, hold on!" said the overseer. "There's no need of any trouble; it's my orders. You look out for your nephew; you're responsible for him."
Dutlof went home, carefully helping himself with his cane over the irregularities of the road.
VII.
On the next day, early in the morning, there was drawn up before the door of the wing a travelling carriage (the one which the overseer generally used), with a wide-tailed brown gelding called, for some inscrutable reason, Barabán, or the drum. At a safe distance from his head stood Aniutka, Polikéï's oldest daughter, barefoot, in spite of the rain and sleet, and the cold wind, holding the bridle in one hand with evident terror, and protecting her own head with a yellow-green jacket, which fulfilled in the family the manifold functions of dress, sheepskin, head-dress, carpet, overcoat for Polikéï, and many other uses besides.
In the corner a tumult was let loose. It was still dark. The morning light, ushering in a rainy day, fell through the window, the broken panes of which were in places mended with pieces of paper.
Akulína, who was up betimes to get ready for breakfast, and her children, the younger of whom were not yet up, were shivering with cold, as their covering had been taken from them for Aniutka's use, and they had only their mother's kerchief for protection. Akulína was busily engaged in getting her husband started on his journey. His shirt was clean. His boots, which, as they say, were asking for gruel, caused her the greatest labor. In the first place, she took off her own long woollen stockings, and gave them to her spouse; next, out of the saddle-cloth which had been lying round in the stable, and Ilyitch had brought into the hut a few days before, she managed to make some insoles and lining, so as to stop up the holes, and protect Ilyitch's feet from the dampness. Ilyitch himself, sitting with his feet on the bed, was busy in turning his belt so that it might not have the appearance of a dirty rope. The cross little girl who hissed her s's, wearing a sheepskin, which not only covered her head, but protected her legs, had been sent to Nikíta to borrow a cap.
The hubbub was increased by the household servants, who came to ask Ilyitch to do errands for them in the city: to buy a needle for one woman, tea for another, olive-oil for another; tobacco for this muzhík, and sugar for the joiner's wife, who had already made haste to set up her samovar, and in order to bribe Ilyitch had asked him to share in the concoction which she called tea.