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A post-sledge was gliding rapidly over the frozen road towards Viletna; and as it neared the village, a thin worn man, with white hair, who was sitting in it alone, leant forward and touched the driver. "I want to go to the great house. You remember?" "Oh, you're going to see Mikhail? He hasn't come to the great house yet, though. It's all being done up." "No, I'm going to Madame Olsheffsky's!"
Boris, with the tears falling slowly from his eyes, followed his sister up to the tower, and there they remained till evening, straining their eyes over the wide stretch of desolate-looking water. It was some months afterwards. The flood was over, and the people of Viletna had begun to rebuild their log houses, and collect what could be found of their scattered belongings.
On the one hill of the district, just outside the village of Viletna, stood the great house belonging to Madame Olsheffsky. All round it lay, what had once in the days gone by, been elaborate gardens, but were now a mere tangle of brushwood, waving grass, and wild flowers.
Between the lake and the gardens of the great house, lay Viletna, with its rough log houses, sandy street, and great Church, crowned with a cupola like a gaily-painted melon; where Elena, Boris, and Daria, the three children of Madame Olsheffsky, drove every Sunday with their mother in the old-fashioned, tumble-down carriage.
Fortunately the winter that year was late in coming, so that the peasants of Viletna were able to build some sort of shelter for themselves before it set in with real severity. Volodia's house, which stood in the centre of the village, had been finished long before any of his neighbours'. "That's what comes of being a rich man," they said to each other, not grumbling, but stating a fact.
The streak of brown water surged higher and higher; and suddenly in one instant, as it seemed to the terrified child a vast volume of water shot over the dam, seeming to carry it away bodily with its violence; and with a crash like an earthquake, the pent-up lake burst out in one huge wave, that rolled towards the village of Viletna, tearing up everything it passed upon its way.
"The mistress won't go another day?" he enquired slowly. Boris shook his head. "The lake's overflowing, and the dam is none too strong over there by Viletna," continued Alexis; "it would be better for her to wait a little." "She says she must go to-day," said Boris, "but I will tell her what you say."
I have sent a great box of our title deeds to the lawyer in Viletna, and he is to go through them immediately but who knows how it may turn out? Oh, children! you must help me bravely, if more ill-fortune is to fall upon us!" Elena rushed towards her mother, and threw her arms round her neck. "We will! We will! Don't trouble about it, dear little mother," she cried.
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