After this, matters went quietly enough at Kushlefka. Nothing happened to the herd or to the pastuch himself, for both were protected by the solemnities conducted as above by the znaharka. But the bull which had formed a meal for the two demon wolves on the occasion of their second attack upon the herd was still unreplaced, and it was necessary to buy one somewhere. The starost, therefore, allowed it to be known far and wide that Kushlefka was in need of a bull and open to offers.
In a few days bulls began to come in, bulls of every kind; but for some little while the right bull could not be found: one was too savage, another too big, a third too small. A week went by and still Kushlefka remained without the head and ornament to its herd of cows. Then a most curious and astonishing circumstance happened. One morning, not long after the pastuch had set out with his cattle for the day's wandering over moor and grass-land, a man arrived from a village distant some seven or eight miles through the forest, accompanied by a bull whose appearance filled the minds of those who witnessed its arrival with astonishment and some awe. If they had not already known that old Vasilice, the late lord of the herd, was in his grave, or rather in the stomachs of two grey demon-wolves of the forest, they would have said that this new bull was Vasilice redivivus. He was strangely like. From the brown stocking on his off hind-leg to the one black ear and browny-black patch on his nose—big white body and all—he was the very image of Vasilice. What made it the more astonishing was that no sooner did the animal arrive in the village street than he walked straight to the lodgings of the late lamented Vasilice, and would take no denial, but must needs be let into the yard, and thence to the cowshed, where he immediately sniffed about as one who knows the lie of the land, helping himself, presently, to hay and other delicacies which he found to hand, as though it were his own of right. In vain his owner tried to turn him out of shed and yard; he would not budge; indeed, he surveyed the man with a look of mild surprise, as who should say, "What on earth is the matter with you? Go back to Drevnik if you like, but as for me, I stay here!"
Deep was the astonishment of Kushlefka. This thing was a mystery. Could the bull be the spirit of the departed Vasilice? Some of the spectators spat on the ground, some crossed themselves; it depended upon how the thing suggested took them.
But stay; the starost has an idea. Vasilice used to have a faint mark of an old brand, a mere scar on the off hindquarter. Ivan Ivanich entered the shed and made a close inspection of the animal.
When he came out his face was grave; but his glance was serene and high, as of one who has triumphed over mysteries, and has discerned light through the darkness.
"It is Vasilice," he said. "Where did you buy him, brother?"
"At Drevnik, your mercifulness," replied the seller.
"And from whom?"
"From a stranger, a pastuch, who drove him, with a fine cow, into Drevnik—oh—a fortnight ago nearly; he said he had been commissioned to sell the pair by a moujik in Koltusha, which your mercifulness knows is twenty miles away, and that——"
"Should you know the man again?" interrupted the starost.