So he comes into the pensioners’ wing, where the pensioners are sitting round the fire, and without a word throws the bear-skin down among them. Let no one think that he told about that expedition; it was not until long, long after that any one could get out of him the truth of it. Nor did he betray the Broby clergyman’s hiding-place, who perhaps never noticed the theft.
The pensioners examine the skin.
“It is a fine skin,” says Beerencreutz. “I would like to know why this fellow has come out of his winter sleep, or perhaps you shot him in his hole?”
“He was shot at Bro.”
“Yes, as big as the Gurlitta bear he never was,” says Gösta, “but he has been a fine beast.”
“If he had had one eye,” says Kevenhüller, “I would have thought that you had killed the old one himself, he is so big; but this one has no wound or inflammation about his eyes, so it cannot be the same.”
Fuchs swears over his stupidity, but then his face lights up so that he is really handsome. The great bear has not been killed by another man’s bullet.
“Lord God, how good thou art!” he says, and folds his hands.