“Go to sleep, little lad, it is nothing! It is only—the forest murmuring.”
And the forest was murmuring indeed! Oh, how loudly it was talking that night!
We sat there together a little while longer and then I heard what I thought was a shot in the forest.
“Aksana,” I asked, “dear Aksana, who is that shooting with a gun?”
But she only rocked me and answered:
“Be quiet, be quiet, little lad; that is God’s lightning striking in the forest.”
But she herself was crying, and holding me close to her breast. She rocked me to sleep, repeating softly:
“The forest is murmuring; the forest is murmuring, little lad.”
So I lay in her arms and went to sleep.
And when morning came, lad, I jumped up, and there was the sun shining and Aksana sitting all dressed in the hut. I remembered what had happened the night before and thought: “It was all a dream!”