"In a cold cellar," explained the Starosta.
"Oh, that's nothing," the Sotsky hastened to say, "a man when he is tired is not sorry to rest even in a dungeon. And then, too, a cold cellar—it is cooling after a hot day—you'll be quite comfortable in it."
The prisoner looked sourly at his escort—the latter smiled merrily and frankly.
"Well, come along, honoured father! Good-bye, Vasil Gavriluich! Let's be off!"
"God be with you, Efimushka. Be on your guard!"
"Be wide-awake!" suggested some young rustic out of the crowd to the Sotsky.
"Do you think I'm a child, or what?" replied the Sotsky.
And off they went, sticking close to the huts in order to keep in the strip of shadow. The man in the cassock went on in front, with the slouching but rapid gait of an animal accustomed to roaming. The Sotsky, with his good stout stick in his hand, walked behind him.
Efimushka was a little, undersized, muzhik, but strongly built, with a broad, good-natured face framed in a rough, red straggling beard beginning a little below his bright grey eyes. He always seemed to be smiling at something, showing, as he did so, his healthy yellow teeth, and wrinkling his nose as if he wanted to sneeze. He was clothed in a long cloak, trussed up in the waist so as not to hamper his feet, and-on his head was stuck a dark-green, brimless cap, drawn down over his brows in front, and very much like the forage cap of his prisoner.
His fellow-traveller walked along without paying him the slightest attention, just as if he were unconscious of his presence behind him. They went along by the narrow country path, zigzagged through a billowy sea of rye, and the shadows of the travellers glided along the golden ears of corn.