d to be less wind and snow, and the frost
was less keen.

'Why, this is Grishkino,' said Vasili Andreevich.

'So it is,' responded Nikita.

It really was Grishkino, which meant that they had gone too far to the
left and had travelled some six miles, not quite in the direction they
aimed at, but towards their destination for all that.

From Grishkino to Goryachkin was about another four miles.

In the middle of the village they almost ran into a tall man walking
down the middle of the street.

'Who are you?' shouted the man, stopping the horse, and recognizing
Vasili Anereevich he immediately took hold of the shaft, went along it
hand over hand till he reached the sledge, and placed himself on the
driver's seat.

He was Isay, a peasant of Vasili Andreevich's acquaintance, and well
known as the principal horse-thief in the district.

'Ah, Vasili Andreevich! Where are you off to?' said Isay, enveloping
Nikita in the odour of the vodka he had drunk.

'We were going to Goryachkin.'

'And look where you've got to! You should have gone through
Molchanovka.'

'Should have, but didn't manage it,' said Vasili Andreevich, holding in
the horse.

'That's a good horse,' said Isay, with a shrewd glance at Mukhorty, and
with a practised hand he tightened the loosened knot high in the horse's
bushy tail.

'Are you going to stay the night?'

'No, friend. I must get on.'

'Your business must be pressing. And who is this? Ah, Nikita Stepanych!'

'Who else?' replied Nikita. 'But I say, good friend, how are we to avoid
going astray again?'

'Where can you go astray here? Turn back straight down the street and
then when you come out keep straight on. Don't take to the left. You
will come out onto the high road, and then turn to the right.'

'And where do we turn off the high road? As in summer, or the winter
way?' asked Nikita.

'The winter way. As soon as you turn off you'll see some bushes, and
opposite them there is a way-mark--a large oak, one with branches--and
that's the way.'

Vasili Andreevich turned the horse back and drove through the outskirts
of the village.

'Why not stay the night?' Isay shouted after them.

But Vasili Andreevich did not answer and touched up the horse. Four
miles of good road, two of which lay through the forest, seemed easy to
manage, especially as the wind was apparently quieter and the snow had
stopped.

Having driven along the trodden village street, darkened here and there