"Oh, I don't know, barin. It's no good grumbling when you can't alter things. Besides, she's useful at times--like this, to sit on. And she carries my pack, and sometimes one of the children, and now and again my neighbour's little dog. Now my other wife would never have done that, you know. She didn't like dogs or children either." "What's that about my little dog, Gregory Stepanovitch?" asked a tall, lean man, who had strolled up and stood leaning against the house, watching the players and listening to the old fellow's chatter. "I'm telling the barin he likes to ride in my barrow at times, Mr. Zubof." "That he does, and to sleep in it too. I only wish it was big enough to hold us all. I slept on the floor last night because we were so crowded, and it was all wet mud and it got into my bones." "Ah!" said old Gregory with a chuckle, "I sat on my wife all night, alongside your little dog, Mr. Zubof, and my bones are all right. But all the same you don't rest your legs properly when you can't stretch them out." "And where are you bound for?" asked Pavlof of the newcomer. "Only to the provinces, barin." "And why do you take the dog with you? Is he exiled too?" "He belonged to my little girl," said the lean man gloomily, as he fondled the dog. "She and her mother would come with me, and they took the fever and died. It was just as well, perhaps, for the road is very terrible for women and children. And I couldn't leave him behind, you see. Besides----" and he nodded his long melancholy face knowingly. "Besides what?" Zubof glanced round to see if the green-coated watch-dog was within hearing, and then said cautiously, "I shall walk away from wherever they send me, one fine day, and Fifi will be company for me in the woods. He's as sharp as a needle, and it's good to have some one sensible to talk to when you're lonely." "You hope to escape, then?" said Pavlof with interest, since he too was bound for the provinces. "Of course. Any one can escape from the provinces. It's just as easy as walking. But that doesn't say it's easy to get back home, you understand. That's quite another thing altogether. But I've no one left at home to go back to. When I get away into the woods I shall just stop there." "And supposing they catch you?" said Pavlof. "Why, then, of course, we go to Kara with chains on our legs." "All the same," said old Gregory, who had been listening open-mouthed to all that passed, "you'll starve in the woods when the snow comes on." "Oh no, I won't. I've thought of all that." "Ah well, one doesn't get out of Kara as easily as that, especially with a squeaky little wife tied to your legs," and he patted the barrow consolingly, as though to intimate that no slight was intended and no umbrage must be taken at what was so evidently a fact. "Out of Kara? I believe you! That's no easy job, though I've done it more than once," said another, who had stopped alongside to see what was going on.