He started ahead with his mind made up.
VII
Andrey Ivanovich did not carry out his savage intentions and in a half hour we were again walking silently along the road.... It was not yet sunrise, but the white, milky streaks kept breaking through the clouds, and beneath our feet we could see the whitish fog which covered the whole plain. Suddenly the fog opened and showed us a horse’s head and a cart loaded with sacks and a peasant sleeping on them and another empty cart behind it.
“Uncle, hey, uncle,” said Andrey Ivanovich to the second peasant, “won’t you take us along?”
The peasant rubbed his sleepy eyes and looked with amazement at the crowd which had surrounded him.
“Where did God bring you from?”
“A pilgrimage.”
“So, so! Sit down, but I can’t take you far; we’re from around here.”
“You’re not from the mill?”
“They were at the mill, but I’m empty. Sit down; that’s right.”