Mournfully rode the young Cossacks, restraining their tears lest their father should be angry; but he, too, was agitated, although he endeavoured not to show it. The day was gray; the verdure was of a bright green; the birds seemed to sing discordantly. After having ridden for some time, they turned to look back: the farm seemed to have sunk into the earth; they could only see the two chimneys of their modest mansion and the tops of the surrounding trees--those trees, whose branches they used to climb like squirrels; but before them lay expanded the wide plain--that same plain, which might bring back to their minds the whole history of their lives, from the years when they rolled in its dew-covered grass, down to the years when they were reclining in it, awaiting some dark-browed girl, who timidly ran across it with her pretty little feet. Already--nothing is to be seen, but the pulley over the well, with the wheel tied to its top. Already the plain, across which they rode but just now, has covered all behind and looks like a hill. Farewell, childhood! Farewell, youthful sports! all of you, farewell! II. The three riders all proceeded in silence. Old Boolba thought of former times; he saw pass before him his youth, his bygone years, those years which are always regretted by a Cossack, who would wish that his whole life were youth only; he thought of the comrades he should meet with at the Ssiecha; he remembered who those were who had died, and those who yet remained alive. A tear might have been seen trembling in his eye, and mournfully did he droop his gray head.