regular, continuous talk. He was telling a tale. Only once, when Ignashka stopped for the sixth or seventh time, apparently vexed at the interruption in his enjoyment of the drive, he shouted to him—
“Why, what are you stopping again for? … Trying to find the road, indeed! Don’t you see, there’s a snowstorm! The land-surveyor himself couldn’t find the road now; you should drive on as long as the horses will go. We shan’t freeze to death, I don’t suppose. … Do go on!”
“I dare say! A postillion was frozen to death last year, sure enough!” my driver retorted.
The man in the third sledge did not wake up all the time. Only once, while we were halting, the counsellor shouted—
“Filip, aye … Filip!” And receiving no reply, he remarked, “I say, he’s not frozen, is he? … You’d better look, Ignashka.”
Ignashka, who did everything, went up to the sledge and began to poke the sleeper.
“I say, one drink has done for him. If you’re frozen, just say so!” he said, shaking him.
The sleeping man muttered some words of abuse.
“Alive, lads!” said Ignashka, and he ran ahead again, and again we drove on, and so fast indeed that the little sorrel trace-horse of my sledge, who was constantly being lashed about its tail, more than once broke into a clumsy gallop.