"They are candles, not girls!" cried Rekuts, with enthusiasm. "What do you say,--candles? Pine-trees! And each one has a face as if painted with crocus." "It is hard to sit on a horse at such a sight." Talking in this style, they rode out of the village and moved on again at a trot. After half an hour's ride they came to a public house called Dola, which was half-way between Volmontovichi and Mitruny. The Butryms, men and women, generally stopped there going to and returning from church, in order to rest and warm themselves in frosty weather. So the cavaliers saw before the door a number of sleighs with pea-straw spread in them, and about the same number of saddle-horses. "Let us drink some gorailka, for it is cold," said Kokosinski. "It wouldn't hurt," answered the others, in a chorus. They dismounted, left their horses at the posts, and entered the drinking-hall, which was enormous and dark. They found there a crowd of people,--nobles sitting on benches or standing in groups before the water-pail, drinking warmed beer, and some of them a punch made of mead, butter, vudka, and spice. Those were the Butryms themselves, stalwart and gloomy; so sparing of speech that in the room scarcely any conversation was heard. All were dressed in gray overcoats of home-made or coarse cloth from Rossyeni, lined with sheepskin; they had leather belts, with sabres in black iron scabbards. By reason of that uniformity of dress they had the appearance of soldiers. But they were old men of sixty or youths under twenty. These had remained at home for the winter threshing; the others, men in the prime of life, had gone to Rossyeni. When they saw the cavaliers of Orsha, they drew back from the water-bucket and began to examine them. Their handsome soldierly appearance pleased that warlike nobility; after a while, too, some one dropped the word,-- "Are they from Lyubich?" "Yes, that is Pan Kmita's company!" "Are these they?" "Of course." The cavaliers drank gorailka, but the punch had a stronger odor. Kokosinski caught it first, and ordered some. They sat around a table then; and when the steaming kettle was brought they began to drink, looking around the room at the men and blinking, for the place was rather dark. The snow had blocked the windows; and the broad, low opening of the chimney in which the fire was burning was hidden completely by certain figures with their backs to the crowd. When the punch had begun to circulate in the veins of the cavaliers, bearing through their bodies an agreeable warmth, their cheerfulness, depressed by the reception at Vodokty, sprang up again; and all at once Zend fell to cawing like a crow, so perfectly that all faces were turned toward him. The cavaliers laughed, and the nobles, enlivened, began to approach, especially the young men,--powerful fellows with broad shoulders and plump cheeks. The figures sitting at the chimney turned their faces to the room, and Rekuts was the first to see that they were women.