The facts of the matter were as follows. Radion brought home the herd of cows on a certain evening one short. The pastuch arrived from the pasture looking pale and haggard, escorted the herd as far as the village street, and himself turned aside into the house of the starost, whom he found lying asleep upon the top of his stove. Radion spent a considerable time bowing and crossing himself before the ikon, prostrating himself several times and touching with his forehead the bare boards of the floor. Then he turned his wild eyes towards the chief peasant of the village.
"Starost," he said, "a fearful thing has happened. The liéshuie are against us. We have offended the Spirits of the Forest, in whose service are the bears and the wolves. Let us propitiate them before it is too late, or a worse thing may happen!"
"Worse than what?" asked the starost. "It appears to me, my brother, that you are drunk."
"I may be a little drunk, brother Ivan Ivanich," replied Radion, "but who would not take a little drop if he had been chased by two enormous wolves and laughed at by the king of the liéshuie himself?"
"Are you sure it was not a bielaya kooropatka (willow grouse)?" said the unbelieving starost. "Even sober men have ere now mistaken the cry of the kooropatka for the laugh of a wood-goblin."
"And what of the wolves, your charitableness, and the cow that is eaten up together with her bones and skin?" retorted the offended pastuch.
"What!" cried Ivan Ivanich, starting to his feet; "not one of my cows, Radion Vasilitch?" The starost was serious enough now!
"Yes, Ivan Ivanich; and the best cow in the village, and the fattest. Do you think the wolf-hunters of the liéshuie do not know which is the pick of the herd? As for me, though I blew my horn—yes, and cracked my long whip at them and shouted—all I could do was to attract their attention to myself instead of to the cow. Starost, I would not again go through that fearful chase for ten times four roubles a month. They pursued me to the foot of a tree, Ivan Ivanich—it is a true word" (here Radion turned towards the ikon and crossed himself); "and had I not remembered to call upon the holy saint and equal to the Apostles, my patron, they would have eaten me as well as the cow Masha! As it was, from the top of a tree I saw the furious beasts fall upon poor Masha, tear her to pieces, and eat her entirely up, so that not a trace remained, while an invisible liéshui spirit laughed aloud until every particle was consumed. Then the wolves came licking their lips, to the foot of my tree, and, looking up at me, howled three times and vanished. It was with difficulty that I succeeded in reaching the village, for my knees have no strength, and my heart is as the heart of a lamb or of a sucking-pig after this terrible day."
The starost looked grave and troubled. That these wolves should have appeared after Radion's warning as to liéshuie was curious. That they should have selected his cow would surely indicate a deliberate intention on the part of the spirits—if, indeed, the spirits were at the bottom of the trouble—to accentuate the significance of their action; for they had eaten Masha, and that cow represented the starost; therefore the liéshuie had struck their blow at the starost, who, again, was the representative man of the community. This surely would mean that the spirits desired to demonstrate their displeasure with the community through their representative, the starost. A meeting of the Mir was held that very evening in order to discuss the situation, and a Soul was sent on horseback to the priest of the district, five miles away, to ask for guidance in the emergency which had arisen. Late at night the deputy returned to the village bearing a message from the priest. The message was extremely to the point, though very short, and ran thus: "Tell the starost and his moujiks and the pastuch that they are a set of drivelling fools. The only spirits they have to keep clear of are vodka and cognac."
This was encouraging, if somewhat lacking in courtesy. But a difficulty arose. The pastuch professed to be so terrified with his experiences of the preceding day that he really could not bring himself to enter the woods again unless the usual ceremonies were first performed to protect the herd from the perils of the forest. However, a na chaiok of a rouble from the public funds proved a strong argument, and Radion was persuaded to convoy his cows as usual into their pastures.