I could not help admiring Pavel. He was very fine at that moment. His ugly face, animated by his swift ride, glowed with hardihood and determination. Without even a switch in his hand, he had, without the slightest hesitation, rushed out into the night alone to face a wolf.... 'What a splendid fellow!' I thought, looking at him. 'Have you seen any wolves, then?' asked the trembling Kostya. 'There are always a good many of them here,' answered Pavel; 'but they are only troublesome in the winter.' He crouched down again before the fire. As he sat down on the ground, he laid his hand on the shaggy head of one of the dogs. For a long while the flattered brute did not turn his head, gazing sidewise with grateful pride at Pavlusha. Vanya lay down under his rug again. 'What dreadful things you were telling us, Ilyusha!' began Fedya, whose part it was, as the son of a well-to-do peasant, to lead the conversation. (He spoke little himself, apparently afraid of lowering his dignity.) 'And then some evil spirit set the dogs barking.... Certainly I have heard that place was haunted.' 'Varnavitsi?... I should think it was haunted! More than once, they say, they have seen the old master there--the late master. He wears, they say, a long skirted coat, and keeps groaning like this, and looking for something on the ground. Once grandfather Trofimitch met him. "What," says he, "your honour, Ivan Ivanitch, are you pleased to look for on the ground?"' 'He asked him?' put in Fedya in amazement. 'Yes, he asked him.' 'Well, I call Trofimitch a brave fellow after that.... Well, what did he say?' '"I am looking for the herb that cleaves all things," says he. But he speaks so thickly, so thickly. "And what, your honour, Ivan Ivanitch, do you want with the herb that cleaves all things?" "The tomb weighs on me; it weighs on me, Trofimitch: I want to get away--away."' 'My word!' observed Fedya, 'he didn't enjoy his life enough, I suppose.' 'What a marvel!' said Kosyta. 'I thought one could only see the departed on All Hallows' day.' 'One can see the departed any time,' Ilyusha interposed with conviction. From what I could observe, I judged he knew the village superstitions better than the others.... 'But on All Hallows' day you can see the living too; those, that is, whose turn it is to die that year. You need only sit in the church porch, and keep looking at the road. They will come by you along the road; those, that is, who will die that year. Last year old Ulyana went to the porch.' 'Well, did she see anyone?' asked Kostya inquisitively. 'To be sure she did. At first she sat a long, long while, and saw no one and heard nothing ... only it seemed as if some dog kept whining and whining like this somewhere.... Suddenly she looks up: a boy comes along the road with only a shirt on. She looked at him. It was Ivashka Fedosyev.' 'He who died in the spring?' put in Fedya.