Gunpowder Treason and Plot, and Other Stories for Boys

by Harold Avery; R. B. Townshend; Frederick Whishaw

I must not attempt to describe the joy of the mother when, in the evening, she returned to find her house filled with neighbours who surrounded, and cried over, and attempted to fondle the little one, recovered, as it were, from the very depths of the grave. The wise woman was there among others, pronouncing charms over the fierce little creature, in order to exorcise the savage spirit which had usurped its breast. It did not appear that these exorcisms produced much discernible effect, for as soon as any one touched or attempted to approach the child, it still bit and clawed at them with its tiny brown hands and long, sharp nails with the greatest energy and spirit. Even the poor mother, weeping and laughing, and thanking God by turns, was scarcely more successful than her neighbours in placating it; but in her joy at finding the child alive and well she thought little of so trifling a drawback to her perfect happiness. "He will soon learn to know his mother again," she said, with true maternal instinct. "God has sent him back to me from the jaws of the wolves. That is enough of mercy for the present. My Petka will soon love his mother. If a savage wolf could teach him to love her so well, cannot I, his own mother, find his heart? Good-night, neighbours, and thank you all for your sympathy. God has been good to the poor widow. In a week Petka will be wholly mine."

The widow was right. Gradually the child, who had temporarily forgotten his own mother during his association with his foster parent and brothers and sisters, became humanized; and gradually the present began to efface the lately past, just as it must have done when he first fell into the company of the wolves; and his mother day by day enjoyed the rapture of seeing how her own influence was perceptibly gaining ground in the child's affections. From the very first evening he no longer bit and scratched at her when she came near, for he soon comprehended that there was nothing to fear from this amiable human being whose presence had filled him, at the beginning, with terror and suspicion.

The key to the heart with animals, and, to a certain extent, with little children, is through the stomach, and the tiny wolf-boy soon learned whence to expect his rations. He was fed upon bread and milk, and took kindly to the new food, though it was impossible to administer it with a spoon. He would, for the first day or two, lie upon the floor with the basin in front of him, and get at the food as best he could, making a terrible mess of the place, and growling in a ridiculous cat-like manner as he consumed it, and until the last drop was finished.

He had arrived at his old home naked, as might be expected, and it was some little while before he could be persuaded to wear any clothes put upon him by his mother. Gradually, however, he learned to sit upon his mother's lap, and allowed himself to be nursed, and washed, and fondled, and dressed, like ordinary children. He was not, indeed, to be touched by any of the neighbours. It was long before he would trust any one but his mother, but to Fedosia herself he was tame.

As the boy grew older and learned to talk, he lost all his wolfishness, excepting that it occasionally showed itself in bursts of savage passion if irritated, when he would relapse into wolfish ways until the fit passed off, giving vent the while to the most curious sounds, half growling and half articulate, which at once betrayed his connection with the lower animals.

Moreover, he never lost that love for the open air and for the freedom of the forest which he had acquired while in the society of his foster-brethren. He loved to roam about the woods seeking mushrooms, or dreaming beneath the pine trees; but as years went on, and he became strong enough to carry a gun, he became a matchless wood-craftsman. He was a hunter from the top of his head to the sole of his foot—savage in the pursuit of every bird and beast, with one exception: nothing would ever induce him to shoot a wolf. Whether his aversion to the very idea of killing one of those animals sprang from any natural instinct of personal connection with them, or whether from an equally natural sense of gratitude for the great service which his foster-mother had undoubtedly rendered him in cherishing and suckling him in the old days, it is impossible to say, but the fact remained that he would never raise his hand to do hurt to any member of the family, nor would he suffer any one else in the village to injure one. For this reason, and on account of his experiences as a baby, Petka had been christened by his companions "Volkitch," or Wolfson, and by this name alone he was known.

As time went on, Volkitch came to be renowned for miles around by reason of his marvellous skill and courage as a hunter of every conceivable animal, great or small. He had inherited from his foster-relations a singular faculty for tracking and stalking, and could glide through the cover as stealthily as one of themselves, or as one of the foxes which formed an important objective for his hunting expeditions. He made his living and supported his mother by means of this instinct or talent in the pursuit of game, selling the skins to a dealer in the nearest town, and hawking grouse, black-game, and other birds about the country on those days when he was free to do so—that is, when his services were not required by the manor-lord.

The latter was a late acquisition to the community. His father and predecessor as lord of the manor was, happily for the peasants, dead. He had been a thoroughly bad master to them while alive—cruel and unjust, disregarding alike the laws of the emperors Paul and Nicholas and those of common humanity, exacting four and even as many as six days in the week in labour from the serfs, instead of the maximum three, as by the law of Paul enjoined. Worse than this, he had sold or exchanged serfs, separating families which had in any way made themselves obnoxious to him, and thus severing their connection with the land of their fathers, of which he had no right to deprive them.

The present lord was a young fellow of about five-and-twenty, scarcely older than Volkitch himself, who was now of age, and a strapping, strong lad, active and powerful as the creatures which gave him his name. The young lord, though infinitely juster and more humane than his late father, was still imbued with some of the autocratic spirit of his predecessor—haughty and arrogant. He treated the moujiks as beings of an altogether inferior order, and though he bore himself towards them with strict legality, and allowed them the full rights and privileges to which they were by law entitled, yet he never showed them the slightest personal sympathy or took any notice of them beyond occasionally swearing at them or gruffly bidding them do this or that. There was, however, one exception to this rule of hauteur towards his serfs; for the manor-lord invariably showed himself kindly disposed towards Volkitch, the great hunter. Sportsman himself, he admired this young Nimrod's wonderful skill in every matter bearing upon the pursuit of wild animals, and was glad enough to have Petka with him when out in the forest after game. Together they hunted the wily lynx, pursuing it on snowshoes until they tired it out and "treed" it; or attacked the sleepy bear in his den, disturbing his winter's rest with the rude awakening of the long pole, and smashing in his brain with axe or bullet as he rushed out to wreak his vengeance upon the destroyers of his peace.

But it was an understood thing between the lord and his hunter that wolves were to be exempt from attack. It was a sign of grace on the part of the young man that he should thus have humoured his companion in this matter; but there was another reason for his concession besides that of desiring to keep on good terms with the wolfman. It was a very remarkable thing, and yet nevertheless an actual fact, that wolves, though occasionally known to be in the neighbourhood of Dubina—indeed, any one could hear them howling at night often enough—never either attacked the peasants of that privileged village, or attempted to carry off their dogs, their cattle, or anything that was theirs. The wise woman declared that the reason for this friendly abstention on the part of the wolves was undoubtedly the presence in the village of Volkitch, the beloved of wolves, and in a manner their relative. The fact that the same wolves, while sparing Dubina, frequently carried off the property of dwellers in neighbouring villages, certainly seemed to lend colour to the statement of the wise woman, though the priest at Lvof and perhaps a few other sceptical persons in the district were of opinion that the "gentlemen in grey," being about as astute and cunning as any creature that has a vested interest in the forest, were well aware of the wolfman's presence certainly, but that they kept away from that great hunter, not out of a sentimental regard for his connection with their family, of which connection they were probably ignorant, but simply out of respect for the prowess of Volkitch and the safety of their own grey skins. However this may have been, it is a fact that they did no hurt to any fellow-villager of Volkitch, and that was a very admirable characteristic about the Dubina wolves.