Then he took a slice of bark-bread, put a knife into his boot, and went to the forest. He walked on, sniffing; does it smell of honey anywhere? No, not a bit. He went on and on; he had eaten his bread, and had to live on roots and acorns, and still no honey. At last he smelt it faintly in the distance, and went on till he came to a great lime-tree, with the bees swarming round it. But see! a huge bear was standing by the hollow trunk, and just going to put his paw in.
“Oh, Lord!” cried the peasant, “surely he is not going to take the honey from me!”
He drew out his knife and rushed at the bear; the bear turned round, drew himself up grandly, and came to meet him. The peasant hastily tore off a lot of fine birch twigs, twisted them round his left hand, and took the knife in his right.
They met. The bear put out his paw, but the peasant warded him off with the left hand, and with the right plunged the knife up to its handle right into his heart. Then he sprang back sharply, but unluckily he got tangled in a branch, so that the bear was able to catch him, and they met in a hand-to-hand fight. First the bear hugged him and nearly broke his bones; then he hugged the bear. The blood rushed from the wound, and Mishka fell down dead.
The peasant rubbed himself a little after the bear’s embrace, and thought: “God is merciful even to peasants! If He had not sent me the bear I should have had to go hunting for a wolf heaven knows how long; but now, perhaps, the shopkeeper won’t mind taking a bear’s skin instead of a wolf’s.”
He skinned the bear, took the honey, and went home with his prize. But when the shopkeeper saw the bear-skin he shook his head and said—
“A bear-skin instead of a wolf-skin! What will you give into the bargain?”
“Why, what can I give?” said the peasant; “my breeches?”
“All right.”
The peasant took off his breeches and gave them to the shopkeeper; then he received his kopeck and took it to the barine to pay off his debt for last year’s cattle-drinking tax; no doubt it was the barine’s prayers that made the water flow in the river so that the peasant’s cattle could drink.