'What do you want? For me to keep quiet?' he said. 'But she rode on me, on me myself! By God, she did!'
'And what, uncle,' said the young shepherd with the buttons, 'are there some tokens you can tell a witch by?'
'No,' answered Dorosh. 'There's no way to tell. Read through all the psalters, you still won't be able to tell.'
'You can, too, Dorosh. Don't say that,' said the same comforter. 'Not for nothing did God give everybody a special trait. People who've got some learning say witches have little tails.'
When a woman s old, she s a witch, the gray-haired Cossack said coolly.
'Ah, you're a good lot, too!' picked up the woman, who was just then pouring fresh dumplings into the emptied pot. 'Real fat boars!'
The old Cossack, whose name was Yavtukh but who was nicknamed Kovtun, showed a smile of pleasure on his lips, seeing that his words had struck the old woman to the quick; and the cowherd let out such dense laughter as if two bulls, facing each other, had bellowed at once.
The beginning conversation awakened an irrepressible desire and curiosity in the philosopher to learn more in detail about the chief's deceased daughter. And therefore, wishing to bring him back to the former matter, he addressed his neighbor with these words:
'I wanted to ask, why is it that all the folk sitting here over supper consider the young miss a witch? What, did she cause some evil or put a hex on somebody or other?'
'There were all kinds of things,' replied one of the seated men, with a smooth face extremely like a shovel.
'And who doesn't remember the huntsman Mikita, or that…'
'And what about the huntsman Mikita?' said the philosopher.
'Wait! I'll tell about the huntsman Mikita,' said Dorosh.
'I'll tell about Mikita,' said the herdsman, 'because he was my chum.'
'I'll tell about Mikita,' said Spirid.
'Let him! Let Spirid tell it!' shouted the crowd.
Spirid began:
'You, mister philosopher Khoma, didn't know Mikita. Ah, what a rare man he was! He knew every dog like his own father, so he did. The present huntsman Mikola, who's sitting third down from me, can't hold a candle to him. He also knows his business, but next to Mikita he's trash, slops.'
'You're telling it good, really good!' said Dorosh, nodding approvingly.
Spirid went on:
'He'd spot a rabbit quicker than you could take a pinch of snuff.
He'd whistle: 'Here, Robber! Here, Racer!' and be off at full speed on his horse, and there'd be no telling whether he was ahead of the dog or the dog ahead of him. He'd toss off a pint of rotgut as if it had never been there. A fine huntsman he was! Only in more recent days he started staring at the young miss all the time. Either he was really smitten, or she'd put a spell on him, only it was the end of the man, he went all soft, turned into devil knows what- pah! it's even indecent to say it.'
'Good,' said Dorosh.
'The young miss would no sooner glance at him than he'd drop the bridle, call Robber Grouchy, stumble all over, and do God knows what. Once the young miss came to the stable where he was grooming a horse. 'Mikitka,' she says, 'let me lay my little leg on you.' And he, the tomfool, gets all happy. 'Not only your little leg,' he says, 'you can sit right on me.' The young miss lifted up her leg, and when he saw her bare leg, white and plump, the charm, he says, just stunned him. He bent his back, the tomfool, grabbed her bare legs with both hands, and went galloping like a horse all over the fields. And he couldn't tell anything about where they rode, only he came back barely alive, and after that he got all wasted, like a chip of wood. And once, when they came to the stable, instead of him there was just a heap of ashes and an empty bucket lying there: he burned up, burned up of his own self. And what a huntsman he was, you won't find another like him in the whole world.'
When Spirid finished his story, talk came from all sides about the merits of the former huntsman.
'And have you heard about Shepchikha?' said Dorosh, addressing Khoma.
'No.'
'Oh-ho! Then it's clear they don't teach you much sense there in your seminary. Well, listen! In our settlement there's a Cossack named Sheptun. A good Cossack! He likes to steal or tell a lie sometimes without any need, but… a good Cossack! His place isn't far from here. At this same time as we're now having supper, Sheptun and his wife finished eating and went to bed, and since the weather was fine, Shepchikha slept outside and Sheptun inside on a bench; or, no, it was Shepchikha inside on a bench and Shep-tun outside…'
'And not on a bench, Shepchikha lay on the floor,' the woman picked up, standing in the doorway, her cheek propped on her hand.
Dorosh looked at her, then at the floor, then at her again, and after a pause said:
'When I pull your underwear off in front of everybody, it won't be so nice.'
This warning had its effect. The old woman fell silent and did not interrupt anymore.
Dorosh went on.
'And in a cradle that hung in the middle of the hut lay their one-year-old baby-I don't know whether of male or female sex. Shepchikha lay there, and then she heard a dog scratching outside the door and howling so loud you just wanted to flee the house. She got frightened-for women are such foolish folk that you could stick your tongue out at her behind the door at night and she'd have her heart in her mouth. 'Anyhow,' she thinks, 'why don't I go and
