“It is grandfather, our guardian,” said Kousma. The old man sat down on the ground, deposited his weapon, and looked hard at Yourii and Riasantzeff.
“Been out shooting; yes, yes!” he mumbled, showing his shrivelled, discoloured gums. “He! He! Kousma, it’s time to boil the potatoes! He! He!”
Riasantzeff picked up the old fellow’s flint-lock, and laughingly showed it to Yourii. It was a rusty old barrel-loader, very heavy, with wire wound round it.
“I say,” said he, “what sort of a gun do you call this? Aren’t you afraid to shoot with it?”
“He! He! I nearly shot myself with it once! Stepan Schapka, he told me that one could shoot without … caps? He! He! … without caps! He said that if there were any sulphur left in the gun one could fire without a cap. So I put the loaded rifle on my knee like this, and fired it off at full cock with my finger, like this, see? Then bang! it went off! Nearly killed myself! He! He! Loaded the rifle, and bang!! Nearly killed myself!”
They all laughed, and there were tears of mirth in Yourii’s eyes, so absurd did the little man seem with his tufted grey beard and his sunken jaws.
The old fellow laughed, too, till his little eyes watered. “Very nearly killed myself! He! He!”
In the darkness, and beyond the circle of light, one could hear laughter, and the voices of girls whom shyness had kept at a distance. A few feet away from the fire, and in quite a different place from where Yourii imagined him to be seated, Sanine struck a match. In the reddish flare of it Yourii saw his calm, friendly eyes, and beside him a young face whose soft eyes beneath their dark brows looked up at Sanine with simple joy.
Riasantzeff, as he winked to Kousma, said:
“Grandfather, hadn’t you better keep an eye on your granddaughter, eh?”