THE OLD COUNT went home. Natasha and Petya promised to follow immediately. The hunting party went on further as it was still early. In the middle of the day they set the hounds into a ravine covered with thickly growing young copse. Nikolay, standing on the stubble land above, could see all his party.
Facing Nikolay on the opposite side was a field of green corn, and there stood his huntsman, alone in a hollow behind a nut bush. As soon as they loosed the hounds, Nikolay heard a hound he knew—Voltorn—give tongue at intervals; other hounds joined him, pausing now and then, and taking up the cry again. A moment later he heard from the ravine the cry that they were on the scent of a fox, and all the pack joining together made for the opening towards the green corn away from Nikolay.
He saw the whippers-in in their red caps galloping along the edge of the overgrown ravine; he could see the dogs even, and was every instant expecting the fox to come into sight on the further side among the green corn.
The huntsman standing in the hollow started off and let his dogs go, and Nikolay saw the red, uncouth-looking fox hurrying along close to the ground, with its bushy tail, through the green corn. The dogs bore down on it. And now they were getting close, and now the fox was beginning to wind in circles between them, ****** the circles more and more rapidly, and sweeping its bushy brush around it, when all of a sudden a strange white dog flew down upon it, and was followed by a black one, and everything was confusion, and the dogs formed a star-shaped figure round it, scarcely moving, with their heads together, and their tails out. Two huntsmen galloped down to the dogs; one in a red cap, the other, a stranger, in a green coat.
“What’s the meaning of it？” wondered Nikolay. “Where did that huntsman spring from？ That’s not uncle’s man.”
The huntsmen got the fox, and remained a long while standing on foot there, without hanging the fox on the saddle.
He could see the horses with their snaffles jutting up standing close by the huntsmen, and the dogs lying down. The huntsmen were waving their arms and doing something with the fox. A horn was sounded—the signal agreed upon in case of a dispute.
“That’s Ilagin’s huntsman getting up a row of some sort with our Ivan,” said Nikolay’s groom.
Nikolay sent the groom to call his sister and Petya to come to him, and rode at a walking pace towards the spot where the whippers-in were getting the hounds together. Several of the party galloped to the scene of the squabble.
Nikolay dismounted, and, with Natasha and Petya, who had ridden up, he stood by the hounds waiting to hear how the difficulty was settled. The huntsman who had been quarrelling came riding out of the bushes with the fox on the crupper, and rode towards his young master. He took off his cap a long way off and tried as he came up to speak respectfully. But he was pale and gasping for breath, and his face was wrathful. One of his eyes was blackened, but he was probably not aware of it.
“What was the matter over there？” asked Nikolay.
“Why, he was going to kill the fox right under our hounds’ noses！ And my ***** it was—the mouse-coloured one—that had got hold of it. You can go and have me up for it！ Snatching hold of the fox！ I gave him one with the fox. Here it is on my saddle. Is it a taste of this you want？” said the huntsman, pointing to his hunting-knife and apparently imagining that he was still talking to his enemy.
Nikolay did not waste words on the man, but asking his sister and Petya to wait for him, rode over to where the hounds and the men of the enemy, Ilagin, were gathered together.
The victorious huntsman rode off to join his fellows, and there, the centre of a sympathetic and inquisitive crowd, he recounted his exploit.
The point was that Ilagin, with whom the Rostovs had some quarrel and were engaged in a lawsuit, was hunting over places that by old custom belonged to the Rostovs, and now, as though of design, had sent his men to the ravine where the Rostovs were, and had allowed his man to snatch a fox under a stranger’s dogs.
Nikolay had never seen Ilagin, but he had heard of the quarrelsomeness and obstinacy of their neighbour; and rushing, as he always did, to an extreme in his judgments and feelings, he cordially detested him, and looked upon him as his bitterest foe. Excited and angry, he rode up to him now, grasping his whip in his hand, fully prepared to take the most energetic and desperate measures in dealing with the enemy.
He had scarcely ridden beyond the ridge of the copse when he saw a stout gentleman in a beaver cap riding towards him on a handsome raven horse, accompanied by two grooms.
Instead of an enemy Nikolay found in Ilagin a courteous gentleman of imposing appearance, who was particularly anxious to make the young count’s acquaintance. Ilagin took off his beaver cap as he approached Rostov, and said that he greatly regretted what had occurred, that he would have the man punished, that he begged the count to let them be better acquainted, and offered him the use of his preserves for hunting.
Natasha had ridden up not far behind her brother, in some excitement, fearing he might do something awful. Seeing that the opponents were exchanging affable greetings, she rode up to them. Ilagin lifted his beaver cap higher than ever to Natasha, and, smiling agreeably, said that the countess was indeed a Diana both in her passion for the chase and her beauty, of which he had heard so much.
Ilagin, to efface the impression of his huntsman’s crime, insisted on Rostov coming to his upland a verst away, which he preserved for his own shooting, and described as teeming with hares. Nikolay agreed, and the whole party, its numbers now doubled, moved on. They had to ride through the fields to get there. The huntsmen moved in a line, and the gentry rode together. The uncle, Rostov, and Ilagin glanced stealthily at each other’s dogs, trying not to be observed by the others, and looking uneasily for rivals likely to excel their own dogs.