"She must have assumed his likeness," said the starost, who felt, nevertheless, a spasm of uncomfortable surmise dart through his brain. "What was this pastuch like?"
The stranger described the Tirnova herdsman to the life. The starost, in spite of himself, now grew very grave with unpleasant reflections. When the strange moujik had departed he confided the story to a friend, who was, like the starost, immediately assailed by similar uncomfortable thoughts, which played havoc with the repose of his inmost soul. The pair decided to speak with the pastuch on this matter so soon as that functionary should have returned from the pasture.
But that wily herdsman never did return to Tirnova. When the herd trooped into the village street at night, its meekly lowing members were without the guidance of their authorised protector. Moreover, the herd was short of a good horse which had belonged to the starost himself. Furthermore, when the proprietors of each cow came forward to make the usual demand upon the udders of the patient creatures, it was found that not one of them had a single pint of milk to present to its lawful and indignant owner.
Then those villagers realised that poor Marfa had been a victim to the guile of the herdsman, and they fished her up from the bottom of the pond. But, alas! she was quite dead—both she and her companions; and this it was agreed was conclusive evidence that poor Marfa had been all the while an innocent znaharka and not a witch. Had she been a vyedma she might still have been alive, for—the starost declared—she had only been under water eight-and-forty hours, and a vyedma must soak for fully ten days or a fortnight before she can be got to drown.
As for the herdsman, the direct cause of the flagrant miscarriage of justice which ended in the drowning of poor old Marfa, he escaped scot free.
The Souls of Tirnova did, indeed, hold a specially convened meeting in order to decide what steps could or should be taken to find and bring the rascal to justice, but it was unanimously decided that it would save trouble to take no steps at all. This decision was arrived at partly as the result of the starost's eloquence, and partly because it was in perfect agreement with the disposition of the councillors, who, being Russian peasants, were naturally unwilling to take any unnecessary trouble or to do anything that could with equal ease be left undone.
As for the starost's speech, it was short but very much to the point. Here it is:
"Brothers," he said, "God is in heaven and the Tsar is far away; also Russia is very large and the pastuch is very small. How should we set about to find one little herdsman?"
Clearly the thing was ridiculous.
THE END