CHAPTER XII.
In the district of Lukovo, on the edge of Podlyasye, stood the village of Bujets, owned by the Skshetuskis. In a garden between the mansion and a pond an old man was sitting on a bench; and at his feet were two little boys,—one five, the other four years old,—dark and sunburned as gypsies, but rosy and healthy. The old man, still fresh, seemed as sturdy as an aurochs. Age had not bent his broad shoulders; from his eyes—or rather from his eye, for he had one covered with a cataract—beamed health and good-humor; he had a white beard, but a look of strength and a ruddy face, ornamented on the forehead with a broad scar, through which his skull-bone was visible.
The little boys, holding the straps of his boot-leg, were pulling in opposite directions; but he was gazing at the pond, which gleamed with the rays of the sun,—at the pond, in which fish were springing up frequently, breaking the smooth surface of the water.
“The fish are dancing,” muttered he to himself. “Never fear, ye will dance still better when the floodgate is open, or when the cook is scratching you with a knife.” Then he turned to the little boys: “Get away from my boot-leg, for when I catch one of your ears, I’ll pull it off. Just like mad horse-flies! Go and roll balls there on the grass and let me alone! I do not wonder at Longinek, for he is young; but Yaremka ought to have sense by this time. Ah, torments! I’ll take one of you and throw him into the pond.”
But it was clear that the old man was in terrible subjection to the boys, for neither had the least fear of his threats; on the contrary, Yaremka, the elder, began to pull the boot-leg still harder, bracing his feet and repeating,—
“Oh, Grandfather, be Bogun and steal away Longinek.”
“Be off, thou beetle, I say, thou rogue, thou cheese-roll!”
“Oh, Grandfather, be Bogun!”
“I’ll give thee Bogun; wait till I call thy mother!”
Yaremka looked toward the door leading from the house to the garden, but finding it closed, and seeing no sign of his mother, he repeated the third time, pouting, “Grandfather, be Bogun!”