No wonder the poor mother lifted her voice in lamentations which the whole village could hear, for the little chap she had just lost had been a splendid specimen of baby humanity, and the wise woman of the village had prophesied great things for him; and now!
Let me explain what had happened. Fedosia, being a house-serf at the mansion of the manor-lord—for all this happened towards the close of the fourth decade of this century, and in the days of serfdom—and being busy up at the big house, had permitted her eldest daughter, a child of twelve, to wander away into the woods mushroom-hunting, and to take the baby Petka for an airing. She had often been entrusted with her little brother before, so that, the mother thought, there was no risk in allowing her this responsibility. But Katinka came back alone, and told a terrible tale. The poor child could scarcely speak for fright and horror; but when the distracted mother had succeeded in persuading her to find her tongue, the tale she told was sufficient to horrify the whole village, as indeed it did. The children had been some little distance from home, Katinka said—perhaps a mile and a half from the beginning of the forest, but quite close to the path, so that they were perfectly safe, as she thought; and Katinka had laid the child down while she filled her basket with the beautiful mushrooms which abound in that spot. The baby fell asleep, and Katinka wandered about from place to place, but always, as she believed, remaining within a few yards of the child. Suddenly, on looking up from the ground, she was horrified to hear a savage growl, and to see just in front of her, glaring at her with big eyes, and showing its large white teeth, a huge wolf, accompanied by seven or eight little ones. She could not, of course, be sure of the number, and there might have been fewer. Katinka rushed back to where she imagined little Petka was lying asleep, but to her horror she found that he was no longer there. Either he had crawled away, or she had mistaken the place. Frantically she rushed from spot to spot, calling to the boy, and peering under every tree; but all in vain. He was nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, the big wolf and the little ones stood and looked after her, following her with their eyes wherever she went, and the mother growled and showed her teeth, so that Katinka, after a time, became so frightened that she was obliged to give up hope of finding the baby, and ran away homewards as fast as she could, leaving the wolves behind—for they did not follow her—and reaching home more dead than alive, to tell her mother the terrible story of her adventure and poor little Petka's dreadful end. Of course no one could for a moment doubt that the wolf family had made a meal of him by this time, even supposing that the poor little man had not already been torn to pieces and bolted while Katinka was still looking for him in the forest.
On learning the news, a party of men had immediately set out to search the place for any evidence they might find as to the child's fate, but they had returned without having obtained the slightest clue. The wolves had disappeared, naturally enough, and so had the baby. There was no use to hope any longer. Poor Fedosia must resign herself to the inevitable: little Petka was dead, eaten by the wolves. Of this there could no longer be the slightest doubt. Enough that it was God's will, and He knew best what was good for the child; but for all that, the poor, bereaved mother was inconsolable. Petka had been her favourite, her baby boy, and she should never see his bright face and his splendid limbs again! No wonder she wept, and that her lamentations were to be heard by the whole village, or that she cried incessantly over the needlework that her mistress gave her to do next day up at the big house, thereby incurring the wrath of the lady, and bringing upon her head sundry bracing but heartless truisms, such as the following:—
"What are you crying about, fool? Are you so rich that it is not a true blessing to have got rid of one of your brats? It is I who have a right to weep, for by your carelessness I have lost a future serf. Stop crying at once, or you shall be fined for spoiling my dress-stuff."
The family up at the mansion were of the worst type of the Russian serf owners of former days—cruel, stupid, unsympathetic, utterly unable to understand the peasants whom fate had placed at their mercy, or to treat them with intelligent consideration; not even wise enough to keep within the laws as to the rights of manor-lord and peasant, but exacting more labour than they were by law entitled to, and, in a word, treating them as very slaves, instead of as—what they really were, or ought to have been—semi-free peasants holding land allotments for which they paid rent by the labour of their hands.
For two whole months and a week the poor mother wept as much as she dared, for she could in no wise get over the loss of her darling. In vain the mistress threatened, and her companions, fatalists all, argued. The soul of the mother refused comfort; she still mourned for her baby boy.
Then, one glad day, the most astonishing, marvellous, and joyful thing happened that any one in the village had ever heard tell of. The wise woman said that it was certainly a miracle, and pointed out that she herself had always prophesied a wonderful future for the little son of the widow Fedosia. The marvel, for it was nothing less, was in this wise. A moujik happened, as he declared, to be walking about in the woods (he was stealing firewood, as a matter of fact, but that detail did not appear in the man's tale) when he suddenly saw one of the most astonishing spectacles that ever the eye of moujik beheld. A large wolf, a she-wolf, lay fast asleep under the shade of a spreading pine, and around her gambolled a whole family of little wolves, amongst which was a small form which Ivan first of all took to be a lieshui, or wood-spirit, but soon decided could be none other than a human child. It played quite naturally with the little wolflings its companions, and presently went for refreshment to the old she-wolf, just exactly as they did.
Ivan did not know, what is nevertheless the case, that ever since the world began there have been tales and legends, some well authenticated, of lost human babes being fed and protected by she-wolves, the maternal instincts of which animals seem to be most highly developed.
The peasant was, naturally, much alarmed. He stood and stared, crossing himself and praying, as he declared, for quite a long while, not able to decide what would be the best course to pursue. It was Fedosia's child. He was soon certain of that fact, for when he had collected his scattered wits he recognized the infant; but what was to be done in order to make sure of securing the boy while driving away the wolf to a safe distance? He was not afraid for himself, for he had his axe at his girdle, but he was in terror lest the old wolf should awake suddenly, and, perceiving him, either make off with the baby, or else gobble it up or injure it, then and there, in the excitement of the moment. However, something must be done, for he must have the baby at all hazards; so, after reflection, Ivan decided to awake the old mother with a shout, and then rush in before she should have time to attend to her human foster-child.
Ivan crossed himself, took a deep breath, yelled his very loudest, and ran in. In an instant big wolf and little wolves were all on their feet and half a score of yards away, galloping through the pines in a long grey procession, quick as the flight of a thought, the little human baby trying its utmost to follow and keep up with them, scrambling on feet and hands, but lagging hopelessly behind, though it crawled quickly—far quicker than Ivan had ever before believed a child capable of getting over the ground in that way. The wolves disappeared in the density of the forest, and Ivan made after the poor little scrambling amateur wolf, and caught him without much difficulty, though the savage little thing bit and scratched at him, emitting queer growls and snarls, as though it had acquired the ferocious spirit of its foster-mother. Ivan had considerable difficulty in carrying the little savage home, for it struggled and fought the entire way. Once or twice he put it down upon the ground in order to rest his arms, when it would make off on all fours as fast as it could in the direction of the forest.