marsh birds bustled about among the bushes glittering with dew and casting long shadows along by the brook. A hawk awoke and perched on a hayrick, turning his head from side to side, looking with displeasure at the marsh. The jackdaws flew fieldward, and a barefooted urchin was already starting to drive the horses up to an old man who had been spending the night there, and was now crawling out from under his kaftan. The gun-powder smoke lay white as milk along the green grass. One of the peasant children ran down to Levin.
"There were some ducks here last evening, uncle,"[1] he cried, and followed him at a distance.
And Levin experienced a feeling of the keenest satisfaction in killing three woodcock, one after the other, while the boy was watching him and expressing his approbation.
CHAPTER XIII
The superstition of hunters, that if the first shot brings down bird or beast, the field will be good, was justified.
Tired and hungry, but delighted, Levin returned about ten o'clock, after a run of thirty versts, having brought down nineteen snipe and woodcock and one duck, which, for want of room in his game-bag, he hung at his belt. His companions had been long up; and after waiting till they were famished, they had eaten breakfast.
"Hold on, hold on! I know there are nineteen," cried Levin, counting for the second time his woodcock and snipe, with their bloodstained plumage, and their drooping heads all laid one over the other, so different from what they were on the marsh.
The count was verified, and Stepan Arkadyevitch's envy was delightful to Levin.
It was also delightful to him, on returning to his
- ↑ Dyadenka, little uncle.
