She would often sing the ancient lays of their country to her boys, of an evening, while she sat spinning and the noble lads hung fondly about her. Andrei would kneel at her feet, while Mirea leant upon the arm of her chair, and drew in the sweet scent of the heavy, dark braids that shone lustrous through her delicate white veil.
“Our mother is still quite a young woman,” said Andrei.
“Yes, indeed,” cried Mirea; “she has not yet a single grey hair.”
“Nor a wrinkle,” rejoined Andrei.
“We shall find no wife worth our mother,” continued Mirea, kissing the veil upon her head.
“Thou dost cast them all into the shade,” laughed Andrei, and kissed the fingers that were spinning such wondrous fine threads.
“Our father was a happy man,” cried the one. “And we are lucky children,” rejoined the other. Then the mother would smile at the tender dialogue, and tell them tales of their grandmother, and of the rough times she lived in—of her stern father and yet sterner husband.
The meals that the three partook of together were as merry as though the house had been full of company; and, indeed, when guests were really present they grew graver, as beseemed the dignity of their house. They were the most kindly of hosts, and spent many a night upon the bare ground, that their soft couch might be given up to some stranger guest. All who entered there felt at ease in that happy home, wherein love made its dwelling.
One day the two brothers were out hunting a bear that had been making sore havoc in the district. They climbed up the steepest of their cliffs to find him, and got at last upon his track, as a loud growling and a shower of dislodged stones betokened. At the very moment, however, that Mirea was about to cast his spear, another flew out of the underbrush hard by and smote the beast in the vitals. A peal of silvery laughter followed the stroke. Then the bear, growling with rage, rose upon his hinder feet and made for the patch of undergrowth. Andrei perceived the danger in which the bold huntsman stood, and while Mirea called out indignantly, “Let him end the chase he has begun!” his brother exclaimed, “Canst thou not hear?—it is a boy’s voice!” and casting himself before the bear, which towered high above him, he plunged his knife up to the hilt in its shoulder. The brute clawed the air for a moment and then fell dead. “Oh, what a pity!” cried a clear voice, and from the bushes there stepped forth a wondrously fair maiden, clad in short garments and sandals, and having a white fur cap set upon her wild and abundant brown locks. Her eyes shone beneath dark, highly arched brows; they were green eyes, yet with a glint of gold in them. From her shoulders hung a mantle of snow-white, silky goatskin; like Andrei, she held in her hand a broad hunting-knife, with which she had unflinchingly awaited the onslaught of the bear. “What a pity,” she cried again, “now it is not I that have slain him!” and her eyes filled with tears. Andrei stood quite shame-faced, gazing at the bear, as though he would gladly, to please the lovely maiden, have restored him to life again. To conceal her ill-humour, she thoughtlessly thrust at the brute with her foot—when, behold! he turned in the death-throe and clawed at her once again. But on the instant she was caught back by Mirea, who set her on her feet with the reproving words, “Foolish child!” She gazed upwards in astonishment, for the voice was that of the young man before her—and the face, too, was bewildering in its likeness to his. Open-mouthed, like a child indeed, she looked from one to the other till all three broke out into a storm of laughter.