"At this Tobicza was mad with rage. 'Let him come hither then, if he loves you,' cried he, 'let him tear you away from me if he be the better man. I will strike him dead with this—see!' And drawing a long goat-skin bag out of his girdle, the bottom of which was choke full of ducats, and whirling it round his head like a morning-star[27] he turned forestwards and roared: 'Come hither, tattered Juon, thou ragged dog! 'Tis now maiden-market day if you want to buy Mariora! Come forth thou cowardly hound and let me beat you to death! I'll fell you to the earth with my ducats. I'll break your head with my gold money.' And the whole crowd laughed at and loudly applauded these witticisms.
[27] A spiked club.
"But just as he was raging most furiously, a great roaring suddenly arose from the direction of the forest,—whereupon the crowd rushed away from their tents to their horses, overturning barrels and trunks as they went, the women screaming and the men cursing, and all with one voice exclaiming: 'the bear is coming!' 'Juon is coming with his bear!'
"That was enough for every one. Only the most determined sportsmen care about tackling a bear in the open, for even when mortally wounded the beast is quite capable of taking his revenge. In an instant every soul rushed headlong from the summit of Geina into the roads below, leaving behind bride, dowry and drinking booth; so that when the bear and Juon leaped out of the juniper bushes there was nobody left on Geina. Nobody, that is, but Mariora, who did not fly with the fugitives, but hid herself in the tent.
"Tobicza had headed the race, but as his legs were heavy with the mead he had drunk, he threw away his big bag of gold to lighten his limbs and prevent Juon from overtaking him. But Juon, snatching it up, whirled it round like a sling and threw it with all his might after his rival, exclaiming: 'There's your money, big voice! take it and buy a wife with it. You are nothing at all without it. But I am still Juon, though I have only an axe in my hands.'
"Then he went up to Mariora, kissed and embraced her, and asked her if she would be his bride and go away and live with him in the forest. And when she said: 'Yes,' he kissed her again and took her with him into the free forest without once looking back at the dowry lying abandoned there with all its gold and glitter. In his eyes only Mariora was of gold, nothing else.
"The bear meanwhile made some little havoc in a mild sort of way, among the honey-cakes, but he did no other damage.
"And I can assure your ladyship that this wife who has nothing in the world but her husband, but that husband all her own—is even now very happy."