In 1850 the children were taken to the baths of Slaviansk. On a warm summer day the heavy "berlin" coach, drawn by six horses with a postilion, rolled along the high road, across the steppes, followed at a distance by a "tarantass."[3] [3] Ungainly open carriage on high wheels and without springs. In the spacious, antique coach, with its dusty hood, sat Emilia Lvovna, with her three children; the valet, Petrushka, dozed on the box, next to the coachman. The tarantass was occupied by Dmitri Ivanovitch and a cousin. The heat was oppressive. At the start every one was excited; Emilia Lvovna was trying to remember if anything had been forgotten and was discussing with Katia the details of their installation at Slaviansk. The boys hung out of the windows, gazing at the horses, at the tarantass, and making all sorts of comments. Ilia was so restless and talkative that he was constantly being told, "Do be quiet! Keep still!" By degrees, however, children and "grown-ups" began to feel drowsy, owing to the monotony of the road, the heat, and the swinging of the carriage. The tarantass had disappeared, for Dmitri Ivanovitch wished to visit an aunt whose house was not far from the road. The outline of a forest was now seen on the horizon; it came nearer and nearer, and soon the coach stopped before the forest inn. Everybody woke up, the children were delighted to be able to run about and stretch their limbs. They begged their mother to let them go into the forest whilst the horses were resting, and obtained permission to go, but not too far, and with Petrushka. They ate an appetising lunch at the inn and the children ran off at a gallop. Everything delighted them, the underwood, grass patches, ravines, and mysterious paths. But they had hardly entered the forest when they heard a sinister, confused rumour in the distance; they stopped to listen, and recognised the voices of a tumultuous crowd. The children's joyous excitement fell; frightened and docile, they hastened to return to the inn, from which Emilia Lvovna, looking anxiously out of a window, was making urgent signs to them to return. The coach was still standing without horses, and, a little farther off, the latter were surrounded by a crowd of peasants, of whom many were completely drunk. They shouted vociferously, and closely pressed the coachman and the postilion, threatening to confiscate the horses and detain the travellers if they were not given a ransom of a thousand roubles.