His little boy Mike, running out into the porch, begged to have a ride; the lisping Mary also begged that she might “have a lide,” and was “not cold even without the theepthkin;” so Polikéy stopped Drum and smiled his weak smile, while Akoulína put the children into the cart and, bending towards him, asked him in a whisper to remember his oath, and not to drink on the way.

Polikéy took the children through the village as far as the smithy, put them down, wrapped himself up and put his cap straight again, and drove off at a slow, sedate trot, his cheeks shaking at every jolt and his feet knocking against the sides of the cart. Mary and Mike, with their bare feet, rushed down the slippery hill to the house at such a rate, and yelling so, that a stray dog from the village looked up at them and scurried home with its tail between its legs, which made Polikéy’s heirs yell ten times louder.