first because she is
a cornet's wife and rich, while Lukashka is the son of a simple Cossack
and fatherless, secondly because she does not want to part with her
daughter yet, but chiefly because propriety demands it.

'Well, when Maryanka grows up she'll be marriageable too,' she answers
soberly and modestly.

'I'll send the matchmakers to you--I'll send them! Only let me get the
vineyard done and then we'll come and make our bows to you,' says
Lukashka's mother. 'And we'll make our bows to Elias Vasilich too.'

'Elias, indeed!' says the cornet's wife proudly. 'It's to me you must
speak! All in its own good time.'

Lukashka's mother sees by the stern face of the cornet's wife that it
is not the time to say anything more just now, so she lights her rag
with the match and says, rising: 'Don't refuse us, think of my words.
I'll go, it is time to light the fire.'

As she crosses the road swinging the burning rag, she meets Maryanka,
who bows.

'Ah, she's a regular queen, a splendid worker, that girl!' she thinks,
looking at the beautiful maiden. 'What need for her to grow any more?
It's time she was married and to a good home; married to Lukashka!'

But Granny Ulitka had her own cares and she remained sitting on the
threshold thinking hard about something, till the girl called her.

Chapter VI

The male population of the village spend their time on military
expeditions and in the cordon--or 'at their posts', as the Cossacks
say. Towards evening, that same Lukashka the Snatcher, about whom the
old women had been talking, was standing on a watch-tower of the
Nizhni-Prototsk post situated on the very banks of the Terek. Leaning
on the railing of the tower and screwing up his eyes, he looked now far
into the distance beyond the Terek, now down at his fellow Cossacks,
and occasionally he addressed the latter. The sun was already
approaching the snowy range that gleamed white above the fleecy clouds.
The clouds undulating at the base of the mountains grew darker and
darker. The clearness of evening was noticeable in the air. A sense of
freshness came from the woods, though round the post it was still hot.
The voices of the talking Cossacks vibrated more sonorously than
before. The moving mass of the Terek's rapid brown waters contrasted
more vividly with its motionless banks. The waters were beginning to
subside and here and there the wet sands gleamed drab on the banks and
in the shallows. The other side of t