“Could you cut Mashkin Upland too?—­what do you think?” he said to the old man.

“As God wills, the sun’s not high.  A little vodka for the lads?”

At the afternoon rest, when they were sitting down again, and those who smoked had lighted their pipes, the old man told the men that “Mashkin Upland’s to be cut—­there’ll be some vodka.”

“Why not cut it?  Come on, Tit!  We’ll look sharp!  We can eat at night.  Come on!” cried voices, and eating up their bread, the mowers went back to work.

“Come, lads, keep it up!” said Tit, and ran on ahead almost at a trot.

“Get along, get along!” said the old man, hurrying after him and easily overtaking him, “I’ll mow you down, look out!”

And young and old mowed away, as though they were racing with one another.  But however fast they worked, they did not spoil the grass, and the rows were laid just as neatly and exactly.  The little piece left uncut in the corner was mown in five minutes.  The last of the mowers were just ending their rows while the foremost snatched up their coats onto their shoulders, and crossed the road towards Mashkin Upland.

The sun was already sinking into the trees when they went with their jingling dippers into the wooded ravine of Mashkin Upland.  The grass was up to their waists in the middle of the hollow, soft, tender, and feathery, spotted here and there among the trees with wild heart’s-ease.

After a brief consultation—­whether to take the rows lengthwise or diagonally—­Prohor Yermilin, also a renowned mower, a huge, black-haired peasant, went on ahead.  He went up to the top, turned back again and started mowing, and they all proceeded to form in line behind him, going downhill through the hollow and uphill right up to the edge of the forest.  The sun sank behind the forest.  The dew was falling by now; the mowers were in the sun only on the hillside, but below, where a mist was rising, and on the opposite side, they mowed into the fresh, dewy shade.  The work went rapidly.  The grass cut with a juicy sound, and was at once laid in high, fragrant rows.  The mowers from all sides, brought closer together in the short row, kept urging one another on to the sound of jingling dippers and clanging scythes, and the hiss of the whetstones sharpening them, and good-humored shouts.

Levin still kept between the young peasant and the old man.  The old man, who had put on his short sheepskin jacket, was just as good-humored, jocose, and free in his movements.  Among the trees they were continually cutting with their scythes the so-called “birch mushrooms,” swollen fat in the succulent grass.  But the old man bent down every time he came across a mushroom, picked it up and put it in his bosom.  “Another present for my old woman,” he said as he did so.