'Yes.'
'And whereabouts, now?'
'To the Charred Wood,' said Kondrat.
'You 're going to the Charred Wood? mind you don't get into the fire.'
'Eh?'
'I've seen a lot of woodcocks,' the peasant went on, seeming all the while to be laughing, and making Kondrat no answer. 'But you'll never get there; as the crow flies it'll be fifteen miles. Why, even Yegor here—not a doubt but he's as at home in the forest as in his own back-yard, but even he won't make his way there. Hullo, Yegor, you honest penny halfpenny soul!' he shouted suddenly.
'Good morning, Efrem,' Yegor responded deliberately.
I looked with curiosity at this Efrem. It was long since I had seen such a queer face. He had a long, sharp nose, thick lips, and a scanty beard. His little blue eyes positively danced, like little imps. He stood in a free-and-easy pose, his arms akimbo, and did not touch his cap.
'Going home for a visit, eh?' Kondrat questioned him.
'Go on! on a visit! It's not the weather for that, my lad; it's set fair. It's all open and free, my dear; one may lie on the stove till winter time, not a dog will stir. When I was in the town, the clerk said: "Give us up," says he, "'Lexandritch; you just get out of the district, we'll let you have a passport, first-class one …" but there, I'd pity on you Svyatoe fellows: you'd never get another thief like me.'
Kondrat laughed.
'You will have your joke, uncle, you will, upon my word,' he said, and he shook the reins. The horses started off.
'Wo,' said Efrem. The horses stopped. Kondrat did not like this prank.
'Enough of your nonsense, Alexandritch,' he observed in an undertone: 'don't you see we're out with a gentleman? You mind; he'll be angry.'
'Get on with you, sea-drake! What should he be angry about? He's a good-natured gentleman. You see, he'll give me something to drink. Hey, master, give a poor scoundrel a dram! Won't I drink it!' he added, shrugging his shoulder up to his ear, and grating his teeth.
I could not help smiling, gave him a copper, and told Kondrat to drive on.
'Much obliged, your honour,' Efrem shouted after us in soldierly fashion. 'And you'll know, Kondrat, for the future from whom to learn manners. Faint heart never wins; 'tis boldness gains the day. When you come back, come to my place, d'ye hear? There'll be drinking going on three days at home; there'll be some necks broken, I can tell you; my wife's a devil of a woman; our yard's on the side of a precipice…. Ay, magpie, have a good time till your tail gets pinched.' And with a sharp whistle, Efrem plunged into the bushes.
'What sort of man is he?' I questioned Kondrat, who, sitting in the front, kept shaking his head, as though deliberating with himself.
'That fellow?' replied Kondrat, and he looked down. 'That fellow?' he repeated.
'Yes. Is he of your village?'
'Yes, he's a Svyatoe man. He's a fellow…. You wouldn't find the like of him, if you hunted for a hundred miles round. A thief and cheat—good Lord, yes! Another man's property simply, as it were, takes his eye. You may bury a thing underground, and you won't hide it from him; and as to money, you might sit on it, and he'd get it from under you without your noticing it.'
'What a bold fellow he is!'
'Bold? Yes, he's not afraid of any one. But just look at him; he's a beast by his physiognomy; you can see by his nose.' (Kondrat often used to drive with gentlemen, and had been in the chief town of the province, and so liked on occasion to show off his attainments.) 'There's positively no doing anything with him. How many times they've taken him off to put him in the prison!—it's simply trouble thrown away. They start tying him up, and he'll say, "Come, why don't you fasten that leg? fasten that one too, and a little tighter: I'll have a little sleep meanwhile; and I shall get home before your escort." And lo and behold! there he is back again, yes, back again, upon my soul! Well as we all about here know the forest, being used to it from childhood, we're no match for him there. Last summer he came at night straight across from Altuhin to Svyatoe, and no one had ever been known to walk it—it'll be over thirty miles. And he steals honey too; no one can beat him at that; and the bees don't sting him. There's not a hive he hasn't plundered.'
'I expect he doesn't spare the wild bees either?'
'Well, no, I won't lay a false charge against him. That sin's never been observed in him. The wild bees' nest is a holy thing with us. A hive is shut in by fences; there's a watch kept; if you get the honey—it's your luck; but the wild bee is a thing of God's, not guarded; only the bear touches it.'
'Because he is a bear,' remarked Yegor.
'Is he married?'
'To be sure. And he has a son. And won't he be a thief too, the son! He's taken after his father. And he's training him now too. The other day he took a pot with some old coppers in it, stolen somewhere, I've no doubt, went and buried it in a clearing in the forest, and went home and sent his son to the clearing. "Till you find the pot," says he, "I won't give you anything to eat, or let you into the place." The son stayed the whole day in the forest, and spent the night there, but he found the pot. Yes, he's a smart chap, that Efrem. When he's at home, he's a civil fellow, presses every one; you may eat and drink as you will, and there'll be dancing got up at his place and merry-making of all sorts. And when he comes to the meeting—we have a parish meeting, you know, in our village—well, no one talks better sense than he does; he'll come up behind, listen, say a word as if he chopped it off, and away again; and a weighty word it'll be, too. But when he's about in the forest, ah! that means trouble! We've to look out for mischief. Though, I must say, he doesn't touch his own people unless he's in a fix. If he meets a Svyatoe man: "Go along with you, brother," he'll shout, a long way away; "the forest devil's upon me: I shall kill you!"—it's a bad business!'
'What can you all be thinking about? A whole district can't get even with one man?'
'Well, that's just how it is, any way.'
'Is he a sorcerer, then?'
'Who can say! Here, some days ago, he crept round at night to the deacon's near, after the honey, and the deacon was watching the hive himself. Well, he caught him, and in the dark he gave him a good hiding. When he'd done, Efrem, he says to him: "But d'you know who it is you've been beating?" The deacon, when he knew him by his voice, was fairly dumfoundered.
"Well, my good friend," says Efrem, "you won't get off so easily for this." The deacon fell down at his feet. "Take," says he, "what you please." "No," says he. "I'll take it from you at my own time and as I choose." And what do you think? Since that day the deacon's as though he'd been scalded; he wanders about like a ghost. "It's taken," says he, "all the heart out of me; it was a dreadful, powerful saying, to be sure, the brigand fastened upon me." That's how it is with him, with the deacon.'
'That deacon must be a fool,' I observed.
'A fool? Well, but what do you say to this? There was once an order issued to seize this fellow, Efrem. We had a police commissary then, a sharp man. And so a dozen chaps went off into the forest to take Efrem. They look, and there he is coming to meet them…. One of them shouts, "Here he is, hold him, tie him!" But Efrem stepped into the forest and cut himself a branch, two fingers' thickness, like this, and then out he skips into the road again, looking so frightful, so terrible, and gives the command like a general at a review: "On your knees!" All of them fairly fell down. "But who," says he, "shouted hold him, tie him? You, Seryoga?" The fellow simply jumped up and ran … and Efrem after him, and kept swinging his branch at his heels…. For nearly a mile he stroked him down. And afterwards he never ceased to regret: "Ah," he'd say, "it is annoying I didn't lay him up for the confession." For it was just before St. Philip's day. Well, they changed the police commissary soon after, but it all ended the same way.'