But Anyutka was a sharp wench.  For all she was so simple, she thought of something that, I must say, not many an educated man would have thought of.  Maybe the Lord had compassion on her, and gave her sense for the moment, or perhaps it was the fright sharpened her wits, anyway when it came to the test it turned out that she was cleverer than anyone.  She got up stealthily, prayed to God, took the little sheepskin, the one the forester’s wife had put over her, and, you understand, the forester’s little daughter, a girl of the same age as herself, was lying on the stove beside her.  She covered this girl with the sheepskin, and took the woman’s jacket off her and threw it over herself.  Disguised herself, in fact.  She put it over her head, and so walked across the hut by the drunken men, and they thought it was the forester’s daughter, and did not even look at her.  Luckily for her the woman was not in the hut, she had gone for vodka, or maybe she would not have escaped the axe, for a woman’s eyes are as far-seeing as a buzzard’s.  A woman’s eyes are sharp.

Anyutka came out of the hut, and ran as fast as her legs could carry her.  All night she was lost in the forest, but towards morning she came out to the edge and ran along the road.  By the mercy of God she met the clerk Yegor Danilitch, the kingdom of Heaven be his.  He was going along with his hooks to catch fish.  Anyutka told him all about it.  He went back quicker than he came—­thought no more of the fish—­gathered the peasants together in the village, and off they went to the forester’s.

They got there, and all the murderers were lying side by side, dead drunk, each where he had fallen; the woman, too, was drunk.  First thing they searched them; they took the money and then looked on the stove—­the Holy Cross be with us!  The forester’s child was lying on the brooms, under the sheepskin, and her head was in a pool of blood, chopped off by the axe.  They roused the peasants and the woman, tied their hands behind them, and took them to the district court; the woman howled, but the forester only shook his head and asked: 

“You might give me a drop, lads!  My head aches!”

Afterwards they were tried in the town in due course, and punished with the utmost rigour of the law.

So that’s what happened, sir, beyond the forest there, that lies behind the creek.  Now you can scarcely see it, the sun is setting red behind it.  I have been talking to you, and the horses have stopped, as though they were listening too.  Hey there, my beauties!  Move more briskly, the good gentleman will give us something extra.  Hey, you darlings!

THE FISH