The first news with which my valet, Prokofy, greeted me (he regarded himself as the seignorial huntsman) was that there was an immense number of wild snipe on the wing, and that in the birch-copse near Eskovo (Harlov’s property), especially, they were simply swarming. I had three hours before me till dinner-time. I promptly seized my gun and my game-bag, and with Prokofy and a setter-dog, hastened to the Eskovo copse. We certainly did find a great many wild snipe there, and, firing about thirty charges, killed five. As I hurried homewards with my booty, I saw a peasant ploughing near the roadside. His horse had stopped, and with tearful and angry abuse he was mercilessly tugging with the cord reins at the animal’s head, which was bent on one side. I looked attentively at the luckless beast, whose ribs were all but through its skin, and, bathed in sweat, heaved up and down with convulsive, irregular movements like a blacksmith’s bellows. I recognised it at once as the decrepit old mare, with the scar on her shoulder, who had served Martin Petrovitch so many years. ‘Is Mr. Harlov living?’ I asked Prokofy. The chase had so completely absorbed us, that up to that instant we had not talked of anything. ‘Yes, he’s alive. Why?’ ‘But that’s his mare, isn’t it? Do you mean to say he’s sold her?’ ‘His mare it is, to be sure; but as to selling, he never sold her. But they took her away from him, and handed her over to that peasant.’ ‘How, took it? And he consented?’ ‘They never asked his consent. Things have changed here in your absence,’ Prokofy observed. With a faint smile in response to my look of amazement; ‘worse luck! My goodness, yes! Now Sletkin’s master, and orders every one about.’ ‘But Martin Petrovitch?’ ‘Why, Martin Petrovitch has become the very last person here, you may say. He’s on bread and water,--what more can one say? They’ve crushed him altogether. Mark my words; they’ll drive him out of the house.’ The idea that it was possible to _drive_ such a giant had never entered my head. ‘And what does Zhitkov say to it?’ I asked at last. ‘I suppose he’s married to the second daughter?’ ‘Married?’ repeated Prokofy, and this time he grinned all over his face. ‘They won’t let him into the house. “We don’t want you,” they say; “get along home with you.” It’s as I said; Sletkin directs every one.’ ‘But what does the young lady say?’ ‘Evlampia Martinovna? Ah, master, I could tell you … but you’re young--one must think of that. Things are going on here that are … oh!… oh!… oh! Hey! why Dianka’s setting, I do believe!’ My dog actually had stopped short, before a thick oak bush which bordered a narrow ravine by the roadside. Prokofy and I ran up to the dog; a snipe flew up out of the bush, we both fired at it and missed; the snipe settled in another place; we followed it.