"Look sharp, my girl!" the old man shouted after her,
good-humoredly, and he went up to Levin. "Well, sir, are you
going to Nikolay Ivanovitch Sviazhsky? His honor comes to us
too," he began, chatting, leaning his elbows on the railing of
the steps. In the middle of the old man's account of his
acquaintance with Sviazhsky, the gates creaked again, and
laborers came into the yard from the fields, with wooden ploughs
and harrows. The horses harnessed to the ploughs and harrows
were sleek and fat. The laborers were obviously of the
household: two were young men in cotton shirts and caps, the two
others were hired laborers in homespun shirts, one an old man,
the other a young fellow. Moving off from the steps, the old man
went up to the horses and began unharnessing them.

"What have they been ploughing?" asked Levin.

"Ploughing up the potatoes. We rent a bit of land too. Fedot,
don't let out the gelding, but take it to the trough, and we'll
put the other in harness."

"Oh, father, the ploughshares I ordered, has he brought them
along?" asked the big, healthy-looking fellow, obviously the old
man's son.

"There...in the outer room," answered the old man, bundling
together the harness he had taken off, and flinging it on the
ground. "You can put them on, while they have dinner."