`Thank you, kindly. We are very well content, sir, with your treatment, as it is.'

Levin got on his horse and rode toward the field where last year's clover was, and the one which was plowed ready for the spring corn.

The crop of clover coming up in the stubble was magnificent. It had revived already, and stood up vividly green through the broken stalks of last year's wheat. The horse sank in up to the pasterns, and he drew each hoof with a sucking sound out of the half-thawed ground. Over the plowland the riding was utterly impossible; the horse could only keep a foothold where there was ice, and in the thawing furrows he sank in deep at each step. The plowland was in splendid condition; in a couple of days it would be fit for harrowing and sowing. Everything was capital, everything was cheering. Levin rode back across the streams, hoping the water would have gone down. And he did in fact get across, and startled two ducks. `There must be woodcock here too,' he thought, and just as he reached the turning homewards he met the forest keeper, who confirmed his theory about the woodcock.

Levin went home at a trot, so as to have time to eat his dinner and get his gun ready for the evening.