Our hero was still considerably terrified at the thought of his narrow escape. Although the britchka was literally flying at a fearful speed, and Nosdrieff\'s village nearly lost in the distance, hidden by fields, slopes and hills, yet he still continued to turn round, and cast glances of terror behind him, as if expecting to see suddenly his pursuers.

His breathing was short and interrupted, and when he laid his hand upon his broad breast to feel the beating of his heart, he felt it throbbing like that of a quail in a cage.

"Oh! what a regular shower-bath! How could I ever expect that of the fellow!" Such exclamations were followed by a variety of difficult and strong wishes for the future of Nosdrieff, and were concluded by epithets certainly not of the choicest language.

"Say what I may," Tchichikoff remarked confidentially to himself, "without the sudden appearance of the commissioner of the military police, I might at this present moment be one less among the living in this world! I should have disappeared like a bubble on the ocean, without leaving a trace behind me, no heirs or children to inherit my honourable name, my modest fortune!" Our hero seemed very anxious and concerned about his successors.

"What a nasty gentleman!" thought Selifan. "I have never seen such an ill-disposed man before. He deserves to be despised. I could rather see a man without food, but a horse must be fed because a horse likes oats. That is the proper food for his maintenance. What meat is to us, so is oats to the horse, and that is the proper food for horses."

The horses also seemed to have a bad opinion of Nosdrieff; not only the leader and the brown horse, but even the tiger-spotted idler seemed to be in bad humour. Although the idler was used to receive less good oats generally, and was also accustomed never to have them given to him by Selifan, without being previously called a rogue, yet in this instance he seemed quite disgusted; for notwithstanding the scolding he received his fair portion of oats, and not as now, common hay; he used to eat his bad oats with pleasure, and after, even put his enormous head into the crib of his comrades to see what good things they were enjoying. This he did especially when Selifan was not in the stable; but now they had had nothing else but hay, that was bad; all three were dissatisfied.

But soon after, the whole batch of malcontents were suddenly and unexpectedly interrupted in the effusion of their wrath against Nosdrieff in an unexpected manner. All, not excluding even the coachman, recovered and came to their senses again, when they felt themselves in contact with a travelling-carriage, drawn by six powerful horses, and heard the shrieks of ladies sitting inside, and the scolding and swearing of the strange coachman.

"Oh, you scoundrel! did I not shout to you as loudly as possible! Turn to the right, you crow! Are you drunk, or what else is the matter with you?"

Selifan felt at once that he was on the wrong side, but as a Russian does not like to acknowledge his error before another, he therefore shouted forth his reply with an air of importance:

"And what do you mean by driving like a madman? Have you, perhaps, left your eyes in pawn at a dram-shop?"

After having spoken thus, he endeavoured to back his britchka, trying to liberate his horses, which had become entangled with those of the other carriage; however, he only succeeded in making things worse.

The ladies sitting in the carriage looked at the scene of confusion before them with the utmost terror expressed upon their faces. The one was an elderly lady; the other, a young person about sixteen years of age, with golden ringlets, very tastefully arranged around a pretty face and head. The charming oval of her face was as evenly formed as a new-laid egg, and, like it, it possessed that peculiar transparent whiteness which is only to be seen in a new-laid egg, when held up towards the light by the gentle hand of a clever housekeeper, who is examining its freshness by allowing the rays of the sun to shine through it; her finely-shaped ears seemed also equally transparent, and were intersected by warmly-flowing veins. From the sudden fright, her rosy lips had opened to display a range of ivory teeth, and tears were sparkling in her eyes. All this was so charming in her, that our hero glanced at her for some moments quite motionless, and paying no attention whatever to the dispute which had arisen between the two coachmen and their horses.

"Will you back your horses, you Novgorodian crow?" shouted the strange coachman.

Selifan tugged at his reins; the strange driver did as much, and the horses, in obedience to the impulse, retreated a little, and then came into contact again, were anew entangled, and the confusion was greater than before.

While the confusion was thus growing worse confounded, some peasants began to gather round the carriages and horses; they came running as fast as they could from an adjoining village; and as such a sight is for a Russian peasant like a Christmas-box, or like a newspaper and a glass of stout would be to an Englishman, so but little time elapsed before the carriages were both surrounded by a few hundred gaping mouzhiks, and the village was left to the care of only old women and young children. The entangled traces were soon cut; a few heavy blows applied to the head of the tiger-spotted idler made him retreat; in a word, the horses were soon separated and led aside.

The interest and the curiosity of the gaping peasants rose to an............