Iermola

by Józef Ignacy Kraszewski

"What can it be?" said the old man, interrupting his prayers, and rising from his bench. "It is now so late. Can it be possible that any silly woman can have crossed the river with her baby to come and ask for medicine?"

He paused and listened, but the trembling, feeble wailing did not seem to come nearer nor to recede; evidently the child remained in the same place. It was impossible to believe that any woman working in the fields could have left her cradle there; the chilliness of the evening, the lateness of the hour, the solitude of the secluded place, would not permit such a thought. And still the wailing cry continued.

"Ah! it is doubtless an owl," thought the old man, as he seated himself once more. "It is perched on one of the trees at the end of the garden, singing. But one could swear that it was a baby. How perfectly they can imitate the human voice!"

He continued to listen; the wailing became more and more distinct and pitiful.

"No, truly, it cannot be an owl; I must go and see. Perhaps some accident has happened. But what can it be?"

So saying, Iermola rose quickly, put on his cap, seized his stick, and rushed to the door, forgetting his pipe, which usually he never left behind him. When he reached the threshold, he became convinced that there was no longer any doubt that the cry he heard was not that of an owl, but the wail of an infant. This frightened the good man, who, following the sound of the voice, set out to see whence it came. He went at once to the garden, and thought he saw something white lying at the foot of one of the nearest oak-trees. The old man's eyes had not deceived him; on the thickly interwoven roots, padded and made velvety with mosses, a little baby, wrapped in swaddling-clothes, lay crying.

A baby! A baby here! all alone! deserted and cast off by its parents! The good man could scarcely conceive such an idea. He trembled with fright, surprise, sorrow, and pity; and darting forward, scarcely knowing what he did, he tenderly lifted the poor little creature, who, feeling perhaps that some one was near, immediately ceased to cry and be frightened.

Then, bewildered and forgetting his stick, the old man fled back to his chamber, carrying the baby, trembling, crying, and repeating over and over to himself, "A baby! A baby! How could this have happened?"

Suddenly it occurred to him that doubtless the little one had only been left alone for a moment; that the mother would be very anxious if she should not find it again on the spot where she had just left it.

He then began to shout as loudly as he could, repeating all the calls known to the Polesian tongue, which brought back to him his shepherd days; but no one answered.