Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/80

64 'fima,' a felt boot, or a heavy iron ball attached to a strong leather strap."

Kuchtierin took a deep breath and concluded his story.

"That frosty night we killed twenty-three of the 'shpana,' and the two leaders of the band, Wanka Chromy and Kurzina Bezrodny, we caught and hanged on the pine-trees by the road. On the trails of the fleeing 'shpana,' we reached the village Kudjeyarova. We had a real good time. The peasants of that thievish village paid dearly for the shelter they gave to the 'shpana,' who dared to attack the Yamshchiks. We spent three days there in mortal revelry in our fashion. Sure, the children's children of those peasants will remember us!"

Such a man was the old Yamshchik Kuchtierin. His spartan life developed in him a kind of a savage, overwhelming romanticism. He was in love with nature, and knew her as one knows a book read a hundred times. He knew the habits and voice of every beast and every bird. He knew how to imitate indistinguishably the strains of the nightingale and the bullfinch, the belling of the deer, the roar of the enraged bear, and the howl of a pack of wolves.

During one of his wanderings, being still an ordinary Yamshchik, only with a single pair of horses and a sledge, he met somewhere in the inn of a little town the innkeeper's wife, and fell madly in love with her. Saving little by little, and accumulating money with