A WOLF-MAIDEN.
Happy as she had been before, Nancy was now in the seventh heaven of
content. There was no more dulness and waiting for her now, when Boris
had set forth for a full day's hunting in the forest and left her to
look after household matters at home. That little baby was companion
and occupation and amusement to her, all in one tiny person, and the
days passed right joyously at Karapselka.
When spring came, and the frost and snow had disappeared from the
woods, Nancy loved to take her little companion in the tiny hand-cart
and pass a pleasant hour or two wandering beneath the waving pine
trees, enjoying the fine air, and listening to the thousand and one
sounds of awakening forest life. The little birds populating the
tree-tops were noisy at this time of year, and there were the crooning
of the amorous blackcock to listen for, and the tok-tok of the gluhar,
or capercailzie, while in the distance might always be heard the
screaming of cranes in some damp corner of the woods, as they kept up
their constant sentry-cry. There was plenty both to see and hear in
these glorious woods--there always is for those who have eyes and ears,
and know how to employ them to advantage--and Nancy was never weary of
strolling with her baby asleep in her cart into the delightful glades
which lay within easy reach of her home.
Since her adventure with the bear, Boris had insisted that she should
go armed, and had presented her with a neat hunting-knife, without
which she was never, he said, to stir from home, were it but for a
hundred paces into the forest and back again. So Nancy went armed,
though she declared she would be far too frightened to use her dagger
if she were to encounter a second bear anything like the first. But
Boris explained carefully how the knife should be used in emergency,
and how not to use it, of which there appeared to be a great many ways.
One day, while out strolling as usual in the forest, Nancy suddenly
caught sight of two small animals whose aspect was quite unfamiliar to
her, which was odd, for she was as well acquainted with the life of the
forest by this time as any Russian peasant-woman who had lived in it
from childhood. The little creatures were somewhat like puppies, with
a suggestion of fox, and when Nancy ran after them they scuttled away
with comical little barks.
Nancy mentioned this matter to Boris on his return from hunting.
"What colour were they?" Boris asked.
Nancy said they were of a yellowish gray.
"They were young wolves, then," said Boris; "and if you see them again,
catch one for me if you can--I long to possess a tame wolf-cub; but
have your knife handy in case of the mother interfering."
It so fell out that a few days after this conversation Nancy did see
these same little creatures again, four of them together; whereupon,
mindful of her husband's great wish to possess one, she left the
baby asleep in its hand-cart and gave chase. The wolflings scampered
bravely, and led her up and down and about in every direction, until
Nancy bethought herself that she was getting winded, and besides that
she might easily get confused, if she went further, as to the position
in which she had left her precious little Katie. So she gave up the
hunt, and returned towards the place whence she started.
Then she realized how just had been her fears, for it was with
difficulty that she succeeded at last in retracing her steps to the
place where the hand-cart had been left. To her surprise and alarm she
saw that the cart lay over upon its side; and hastening towards it she
perceived, to her unspeakable consternation and horror, that it was
empty.
Poor Nancy was not the person to sit down and do nothing in an
emergency; but the horror of the discovery she had just made bereft her
for some few moments of the power of action as well as of thought. Her
mind instantly flew back to the words of Boris telling her to beware
of the mother-wolf, and for several minutes these words danced in
her brain. The mother-wolf, it was the mother-wolf! it had taken her
darling child in order to feed those detestable little gray scuttling
things which she had chased through the trees! While she had been
senselessly hunting the cubs, the mother-wolf--some lean-looking, gray,
skulking brute--had crept secretly up and carried away her Katie, her
darling baby.
In another moment Nancy had drawn her sharp little dagger, and with
shriek upon shriek had rushed wildly into the forest and disappeared
among the pines, whither she knew not, but full of a wild determination
to find that gray thief and force her to deliver up to her the
priceless thing she had stolen.
When Boris returned home late in the afternoon he was somewhat
surprised to find that Nancy was not at home. She and the baby had gone
for a stroll in the woods, the old servant explained, and had not been
home to dinner.
"God grant the _lieshui_ [wood-spirits] have not got hold of them, or
done them some injury!" the old fellow concluded, sighing deeply. "The
forest is a terrible place, and for my part I have always warned the
barina."
Boris did not stay to exchange words with his faithful old serf, but
taking a horse from the stable galloped off as fast as he could into
the forest, shouting Nancy's name in every direction. Up and down,
and through and through every glade and pathway, wherever there was
room for the horse to pass, Boris rode; and ever as he rode he shouted
Nancy's name, until his voice grew hoarse, and the cob waxed weary, and
the light began to wane, and still he neither found trace nor heard
sound of his lost wife and child.
Still he rode on and on, and would have ridden all night rather than
return home to misery and uncertainty; but when he was upwards of
twelve miles from the house, and his heart was despairing and his
spirit mad within him, he heard at length a faint reply to his calling.
Lashing up his tired horse he dashed on, and presently, to his infinite
joy and relief, he came upon Nancy sitting worn and utterly fagged out
beneath a tree, crying bitterly, and nursing in her arms a portion of
her baby's frock which she had picked up in the forest.
For many minutes poor Nancy could do no more than cling to her
husband's broad breast, and sob and weep as though her very heart were
melted within her for sorrow. At last she held up the tiny torn dress,
and murmured, "The mother-wolf," and then betook herself once more to
her bitter crying.
Boris realized at once what had happened--realized also that he had
arrived far too late to do any good; for the wolf, even if it had
not at once eaten the poor baby but carried it away to feast upon at
leisure, must now be far away beyond the reach of pursuit. In his
great joy and thankfulness to have found Nancy safe, Boris did not
feel in all its poignancy, in these first moments, that grief for the
child which he was destined to suffer acutely afterwards. His chief
thought was for Nancy; she must be got home and at once, that was the
most important duty of the moment. As for the baby, it was gone beyond
recall, and would assuredly never be seen again by mortal eye.
"Come, Nancy," he said, when he had comforted and petted his poor
stricken wife, "let me get you home, and then I will scour the forest
on a fresh horse. You need food and rest. If our Katie is alive, I
shall not cease searching till she is found; if not, I shall not rest
until I have killed every wolf within fifty miles of the house!"
But Nancy would not hear of it. "Oh no, no," she cried, "I shall never
go home till we have found our darling. She is alive, I am sure of it.
See, there is no blood on the frock; the wolf has not hurt her. It
stole her away because I was wicked to chase her little ones. It is
wrong to catch the wild animals of God's forest and enslave them. We
ought to have known it, Boris."
The frock had no stain of blood, that was true enough; and the
circumstance gave Boris some slight hope that it might be as the
stricken mother had suggested, though the chances were much against
it. Boris had heard often enough stories of how wolves had taken and
befriended babies, allowing them to grow up with the cubs. His own
experience of the ferocity and greed of these animals, however, had
always led him to laugh at such tales as old women's yarns, unworthy of
a moment's serious consideration. Nancy had heard of them too, that was
evident, and was now leaning upon the hope that in poor little Katie's
disappearance was living evidence of their truth.
No persuasions would induce the sorrowing mother, therefore, to give up
the search. All night long Boris walked beside the horse, supporting
his weary little wife, who could scarcely sit in the saddle for
weakness and fatigue; and not until the horse was unable to go further
would she consent to pause in the work of quartering the ground in
every direction, and riding through every clump of cover, in case the
beloved object of her search should have been concealed in it.
When morning came, and the sun rose warm and bright over the aspen
bushes, Boris found a place where the horse could obtain a meal of
coarse grass, and where Nancy, upon a soft couch of heather, could lie
down and take the rest she so greatly required. He was lucky enough
to find and kill a hare, and with the help of a fire of sticks, which
no man in Russia was better able to kindle than he, an excellent
improvised breakfast was soon prepared. Afterwards, Nancy slept for
several hours while Boris watched, listening intently the while in
the hope of hearing the sound of a wolf-howl, which might possibly
indicate the whereabouts of the thief. But the hours passed, and there
was nothing to guide him to take one direction more than another, and
poor Boris knew well enough that he had set himself a hopeless task;
nevertheless, for Nancy's sake, he agreed to continue the search for
the rest of that day, and the forest was hunted as it had never been
hunted before, until his feet ached with walking, and Nancy was but
half-conscious for sheer weariness. Then Boris took the law into his
own hands and directed the horse for home, and the weary trio reached
Karapselka as the shadows of night fell upon the forest behind them.
The next morning a peasant came early and inquired for the barin.
Boris, who was about to set out once more upon his hopeless search,
received the man unwillingly, as one who is in a hurry and cannot stop
to discuss trifles.
"Well?" he said; "quick, what is it?"
The man scratched his head for inspiration, then he cleared his throat
and began the business upon which he had come. He had been in the
forest yesterday, he said, collecting firewood. The winters were cold,
he proceeded, and the poor peasants must spend a good deal of their
time during summer in laying up a store of fuel for the winter. But it
was God's will that the peasants should be always poor.
"Get to the point," said Boris impatiently, "or I must go without
hearing it."
That would be a pity, the man continued, for he believed that when the
barin heard what he had to tell, the barin would give him a _nachaiok_
(tea-money) for the news. He had been in the forest collecting wood,
he repeated, when suddenly he saw a sight which filled him with
fear--nothing less than a great she-wolf with a whole litter of young
ones following at her heels. The man had at once thought to himself,
"Here now is a chance of a nachaiok from Boris Ivanitch, who is a
great hunter, and will love to hear of a family of wolves close at
hand." But the moment after, said the peasant, he saw something which
quite altered the aspect of the affair. When the wolf saw him, she
had stopped and picked up from the ground where it lay close to her
a small creature something like a human child, and which cried like
one, but which was of course one of the lieshui, or wood-spirits, which
often enough take the form of babe or old man. The she-wolf took up the
creature in its mouth and trotted away with it into the forest. "Oho,"
the man had thought, "still more shall I earn a nachaiok from Boris
Ivanitch; for now I must warn him that if he meets with this particular
she-wolf and her brats he must give them a wide berth and be sure not
to shoot or injure them, for this wolf is the handmaid of the lieshui,
and woe to him who interferes with the favoured creatures of those
touchy and tricksy spirits, for they would assuredly lure him to his
destruction when next he ventured deep into the heart of the forest."
Boris hastily bade the man follow him and point out the exact spot
where he had seen this wonderful sight. The peasant showed a place
within a short distance of the house, and added that the wolf family
had passed at sunset on the previous evening.
Here then was joyous news for Nancy; her babe had been alive and well
some thirty-six hours after its disappearance, and had actually been
seen within call of its own home, while its distracted parents had
scoured the woods for a score of miles in every direction, little
dreaming that the child was left far behind.
Nancy received the news calmly, but with the intensest joy and
gratitude. "I was sure our darling was alive," she said; "but oh,
Boris, if only it were winter and we could track the thief down! What
are we to do, and how are we to find the child before the she-wolf
carries her far away, or changes her mind and devours her?" And Nancy
wailed aloud in her helplessness and misery.
There was nothing to be done but to search the forest daily, taking
care to do nothing and permit nothing to be done in the village to
frighten the wolves, and scare them away far into the depths of the
forest, where there would be no hope of ever finding them again.
Accordingly no day went by but was spent by Boris and his ever-hopeful
but distracted wife in quartering the woods far and near, the pair
going softly and speaking seldom, and that in whispers, for fear of
scaring the wolves away.
But the days passed, and the weeks also, and a month came, and slowly
there crept over their souls the certainty that their labour would
be in vain, and that they had seen the last of their beloved child.
Still, they would never entirely lose hope, and day by day they
continued their wearisome tramping, sometimes going afoot, sometimes
riding when their feet grew sore with the constant walking. Another
fortnight went by, and it was now high summer, and still they were
childless.