Even Javtuch stretched himself out in the sun and closed his eyes.
Tremblingly, and on tiptoe, the philosopher stole softly into the garden, whence he thought he could escape more easily into the open country.
This garden was generally so choked up with weeds that it seemed admirably adapted for such an attempt.
With the exception of a single path used by the people of the house, the whole of it was covered with cherry-trees, elder-bushes, and tall heath-thistles with fibrous red buds.
All these trees and bushes had been thickly overgrown with ivy, which formed a kind of roof. Its tendrils reached to the hedge and fell down on the other side in snake-like curves among the small, wild field-flowers.
Behind the hedge which bordered the garden was a dense mass of wild heather, in which it did not seem probable that anyone would care to venture himself, and the strong, stubborn stems of which seemed likely to baffle any attempt to cut them.
As the philosopher was about to climb over the Hedge, his teeth chattered, and his Heart beat 60 violently that he felt frightened at it.
The skirts of his long cloak seemed to cling to the ground as though they had been fastened to it by pegs.
When he had actually got over the Hedge He seemed to hear a shrill voice crying behind him
“Whither? Whither?”
He jumped into the heather and began to run, stumbling over old roots and treading on unfortunate moles.
When He had emerged from the heather he saw that He still had a wide field to cross, behind which was a thick, thorny underwood. This, according to his calculation, must stretch as far as the road leading to Kieff, and if he reached it He would He safe.
Accordingly He ran over the field and plunged into the thorny copse.
Every sharp thorn he encountered tore 8 fragment from His coat. Then He reached a small open space; in the centre of it stood a willow, whose branches hung down to the earth, and close by flowed a clear spring bright as silver.
The first thing the philosopher did was to lie down and drink eagerly, for he was intolerably thirsty.
“Splendid water!” he said, wiping his mouth.
“This is a good place to rest in.”
“No, better run farther; perhaps we are being followed,” said a voice immediately behind him.
Thomas started and turned; before him stood Javtuch.
“This devil of a Javtuch!” he thought.
“I should like to seize him by the feet and smash his hang-dog face against the trunk of a tree.”
“Why did you go round such a long way?” continued Javtuch. “You had much better have chosen the path by which I came; it leads directly by the stable.
Besides, it is a pity about your coat.
Such splendid cloth!
How much did it cost an ell?
Well, we have had a long enough walk; it is time to go home.”
The philosopher followed Javtuch in a very depressed state.
“Now the accursed witch will attack me in earnest,” he thought.
“But what have I really to fear?
Am I not a Cossack?
I have read the prayers for two nights already; with God’s help I will get through the third night also.
It is plain that the witch must have a terrible load of guilt upon her, else the evil one would not help her so much.”
Feeling somewhat encouraged by these reflections, he returned to the court-yard and asked D’Dorosch, who sometimes, by the steward’s permission, had access to the wine-cellar, to fetch! him a small bottle of brandy. The two friends sat down before a barn and drank a pretty large one. Suddenly the philosopher jumped up and said,
“I want musicians! Bring some musicians!” But without waiting for them he began to dance the “tropak” in the court-yard.
He danced till tea-time, and the servants, who, as is usual in such cases, had formed a small circle round him, grew at last tired of watching him, and went away saying,
“By heavens, the man can dance!”
Finally the philosopher lay down in the place where he had been dancing, and fell asleep. It was necessary to pour a bucket of cold water on his head to wake him up for supper.
At the meal he enlarged on the topic of what a Cossack ought to be, and how he should not be afraid of anything in the world.
“It is time,” said Javtuch; “let us go.”
“I wish I could put a lighted match to your tongue,” thought the philosopher; then he stood up and said,
“Let us go.”
On their way to the church, the philosopher kept looking round him on all sides, and tried to start a conversation with his companions; but both Javtuch and Dorosch remained silent.
It was a weird night.
In the distance wolves howled continually, and even the barking of the dogs had something unearthly about it.
“That doesn’t sound like wolves howling, but something else,” remarked Dorosch.
Javtuch still kept silence, and the philosopher did not know what answer to make.
They reached the church and walked over the old wooden planks, whose rotten condition showed how little the lord of the manor cared about God and his soul.
Javtuch and Dorosch left the philosopher alone, as on the previous evenings.
There was still the same atmosphere of menacing silence in the church, in the centre of which stood the coffin with the terrible witch inside it.
“I am not afraid, by heavens, I am not afraid!” he said; and after drawing a circle round himself as before, he began to read the prayers and exorcisms.