“Come, what next! What should I be afraid of you for? I see.⁠ ⁠… I understand.⁠ ⁠… You came in, and not just anyhow, but you made the sign of the cross, you bowed, all decent and proper.⁠ ⁠… I understand.⁠ ⁠… One can give you bread.⁠ ⁠… I am a widower, I don’t heat the stove, I sold the samovar.⁠ ⁠… I am too poor to keep meat or anything else, but bread you are welcome to.”

At that moment something began growling under the bench: the growl was followed by a hiss. Artyom started, drew up his legs, and looked enquiringly at the hunter.

“It’s my dog worrying your cat,” said the hunter. “You devils!” he shouted under the bench. “Lie down. You’ll be beaten. I say, your cat’s thin, mate! She is nothing but skin and bone.”

“She is old, it is time she was dead.⁠ ⁠… So you say you are from Vyazovka?”

“I see you don’t feed her. Though she’s a cat she’s a creature⁠ ⁠… every breathing thing. You should have pity on her!”

“You are a queer lot in Vyazovka,” Artyom went on, as though not listening. “The church has been robbed twice in one year⁠ ⁠… To think that there are such wicked men! So they fear neither man nor God! To steal what is the Lord’s! Hanging’s too good for them! In old days the governors used to have such rogues flogged.”

“However you punish, whether it is with flogging or anything else, it will be no good, you will not knock the wickedness out of a wicked man.”

“Save and preserve us, Queen of Heaven!” The forester sighed abruptly. “Save us from all enemies and evildoers. Last week at Volovy Zaimishtchy, a mower struck another on the chest with his scythe⁠ ⁠… he killed him outright! And what was it all about, God bless me! One mower came out of the tavern⁠ ⁠… drunk. The other met him, drunk too.”

The young man, who had been listening attentively, suddenly started, and his face grew tense as he listened.

“Stay,” he said, interrupting the forester. “I fancy someone is shouting.”