“Hide where you are, for I can tell you one thing, I am not afraid of the whole pack.”
Then poor Malca, terrified, clung round old Nichifor’s neck, and stuck to him like a leech, and as she sat there she said, trembling:
“Where is the wolf, Mosh Nichifor?”
“Where is it? It crossed the road just in front of us, and went into the wood again. But if you had strangled me, young lady, and then the mares had bolted, it would have been a fine look out.”
He had scarcely ceased speaking when Malca said softly:
“Never tell me again that a wolf is coming, Mosh Nichifor, I shall die from fright.”
“It is not that I say so; there is one just coming; there you have one!”
“Alas! What are you saying?”
And again she hid close to old Nichifor.
“What is young is young. You want to play, young lady, isn’t that it? It seems to me you’re lucky, for I keep my self-control. I am not very afraid of the wolf, but if some one else had been in my place——”