"Did you see?" mutters Konev. "Oh yes, I tell you that the folk here are far less amiable than our own folk in Russia... But hark! What is that?"
To our ears there have come from behind the corner of the churchyard wall a woman's scream and the sound of dull blows. Rushing thither, we behold the fair-headed peasant seated on the prostrate form of the young fellow from Penza, and methodically, gruntingly delivering blow after blow upon the young fellow's ears with his ponderous fists, while counting the blows as he does so. Vainly, at the same time, the woman from Riazan is prodding the assailant in the back, whilst her female companion is shrieking, and the crowd at large has leapt to its feet, and, collected into a knot, is shouting gleefully, "THAT'S the way! THAT'S the way!"
"Five!" the fair-headed peasant counts.
"Why are you doing this?" the prostrate man protests.
"Six!"
"Oh dear!" ejaculates Konev, dancing with nervousness. "Oh dear, oh dear!"
The smacking, smashing blows fall in regular cadence as, prone on his face, the young fellow kicks, struggles and puffs up the dust. Meanwhile a tall, dour man in a straw hat is rolling up a shirt-sleeve, and alternately bending and stretching a long arm, whilst a lithe, white-headed young stripling is hopping, sparrow-like, from one onlooker to another, and exclaiming in suppressed, cautious tones:
"Stop it, pray stop it, or we shall be arrested for creating a disturbance!"
Presently the tall man strides towards the fair-headed peasant, deals him a single blow which knocks him from the back of the young fellow, and, turning to the crowd, says with an informing air:
"THAT'S how we do it in Tambov!"