“Instantly.—Ho, play the fife there; and you, bear, dance!” the bear-leader cried. Then the fife poured forth one of its sweetest tunes, and the lads tapped the floor with their sticks, and shouted loudly in cadence, while the leader mimicked the voices of many a beast, and the “bear” jumped about as on all fours, twitching his ears, putting his tongue out and in again, and running after the girls. The bear-leader seemed to be pulling him back, and struck with his lash at everyone within his reach, crying: “Have found no husband yet, lass?—A rope’s end you shall get, lass!” The noise in the room, with the racket and scampering and squealing, waxed louder and louder; and the merriment grew to its height, when the bear began to frolic wildly, rolling on the floor, roaring, leaping for fun, and catching at the girls with his long wooden arms, making them dance to the tunes played on Michael’s fife: the two bear-leaders, meanwhile, and the lads who accompanied them, making such an uproar that the old cabin might well have fallen to pieces with the horse-play and the din and fun of it. Then, Klemba’s wife having treated them very bountifully, they left the place; but far along the road came the sound of shouting men and barking dogs. “Who played the bear?” Sohova asked, when they had quieted down. “Could ye not find out? Why, Yasyek Topsy-turvy.” “How could I know him, with that shaggy head of fur?” “My dear,” Kobusova observed, “for such games as that, the doodle has quite enough sense.” “Yasyek is not such a fool as ye make him out to be!” said Nastka, taking his part. No one contradicted her; but sly significant smiles flickered on many faces. They again sat down and began chattering merrily. The girls, headed by Yuzka, who was the least shy of them all, crowded round the fire-place where Roch sat, coaxing and teasing him to tell them some such story as he had told at Boryna’s in the autumn. “Well, Yuzka, do you remember the tale I told you then?” “Certainly: ’twas about the Lord Jesus and His dog Burek.” “If ye care, I will tell this evening about our kings of old.” They placed a stool for him beneath the lamp, made a circle round him, and he sat in their midst like an old hoary oak in a clearing, compassed about with a clump of many bushes. He spoke deliberately and in a quiet voice.