"'Tis the cottage of a man I know. Here, Excellency, we can pass the night," said Podatchkine, leaping from his horse and dutifully taking Balgonie's bridle, as if to anticipate any proposition of proceeding further. "There is a shed behind where I shall stable our horses: Nicholas, I know, will make us welcome to his lodge."
In a few minutes more, Balgonie found himself seated in the cottage, the aspect of which struck him as being peculiarly comfortless, dingy, and squalid, as he viewed it by the light of a loutchin, or species of pine torch, which stood in a rusty iron holder on the rough deal table, whereon lay a pack of frayed and dog-eared cards.
On the walls were some rude images, stuck over with crumbs of black bread, which attracted the flies in summer and the dirt at all times. In a place of honour was a holy effigy, with some train oil flaring before it in a tin sconce, as a species of votive lamp; for the proprietor affected religion quite as much as Mr. Gamaliel Balgonie did in a more civilised part of the world.
The furniture consisted of a few plain stools, and some very dirty bearskins spread on the floor in the corners, as beds; and on the table was a pitcher of foaming and seething quass, with wooden bowls to drink it by.
Balgonie took in all these details at a glance.
How great would have been his surprise, if he had known that after riding so many miles, he was only a short distance from her, from Natalie, who was now weeping bitterly and sleeplessly on the bosom of her cousin for him, and for the fate she dreaded, and yet had not the power to avert, or from which to save him.
In addition to Podatchkine and the host, Nicholas Paulovitch, who stood respectfully at a little distance from Balgonie, and was appraising the exact value of his costume, arms, and ornaments, even to Natalie's diamond ring, there was present another ill-visaged fellow, with a powerful figure, square shoulders, and giant beard, like every Russian of the lower order; eyes that were small and piercing, like those of a mouse; a long, fierce nose and jagged teeth, hair shorn off close above the eyebrows and brushed all down straight from the crown of his head, which in form resembled a cone or a pine-apple.
This barbarian, who was dressed chiefly in a shoubah of sheepskin, and had a small, but sharp, hatchet and dagger in his girdle, was a Stepniak, from a district where nothing like a town was ever seen or known, but whose aid and strength Paulovitch thought might be useful and necessary in the work he and Podatchkine had cut out for themselves in the night.