RUDIN
peasant, with a still more violent shaking of the reins. ‘There’s a mile and a half farther to go, not more. . . . Come! there! look about you. . . . I’ll teach you,’ he added in a shrill voice, setting to work to whip the right-hand horse.
‘You seem to drive very badly,’ observed Rudin; ‘we have been crawling along since early morning, and we have not succeeded in getting there yet. You should have sung something.’
‘Well, what would you have, little father? The horses, you see yourself, are overdone . . . and then the heat; and I can’t sing. I’m not a coachman. . . . Hullo, you little sheep!’ cried the peasant, suddenly turning to a man coming along in a brown smock and bark shoes downtrodden at heel. ‘Get out of the way!’
‘You’re a nice driver!’ muttered the man after him, and stood still. ‘You wretched Muscovite,’ he added in a voice full of contempt, shook his head and limped away.
‘What are you up to?’ sang out the peasant at intervals, pulling at the shaft-horse. ‘Ah, you devil! Get on!’
The jaded horses dragged themselves at last
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