“Oh, my brother Nicholas!” Elijah guessed: “you must have told him what to do!”
“Well, I thought it all out, and was going to say....”
“What are you after? It’s all your work. Never mind; your peasant shall still have a reminder of me.”
“What will you do?”
“I shall not tell you this time!”
“Well, if evil is to be, it will come.”
Nicholas thought, and again went to the peasant, told him to buy two tapers, one big and one small, and gave him instructions.
Next day Elijah the Prophet and St. Nicholas were out together in the guise of wanderers, and the peasant happened to meet them, carrying two waxen candles—one big one that cost a rouble, and a little one that cost a kopek.
“Where are you going to, peasant?” St. Nicholas said.
“Oh, I am going to light the rouble taper to the Prophet Elijah; he has been so charitable to me. My field was ravaged by hail, so he intervened, bátyushka, and gave me a crop twice as good.”