Father Cassimer was an experienced general in expeditions of the kind; he knew the turns of the woods where the wolves scented best; and when we had got fairly among the tall oaks, down went his pork.  For some time it dragged on without a single wolf appearing, though the odour came strong and savoury through cords and straw.

‘If I were a wolf myself, I would come for that,’ said old Metski.  The priest quickened his speed, vowing he would not say mass without a skin that night; and we got deeper into the wilderness of oak and pine.  Like most of our Lithuanian forests, it had no underwood.  There was ample space for our sledge among the great trees, and the moonlight fell in a flood of brightness upon their huge white trunks, and through the frost-covered branches.  We could see the long icicles gleaming like pendants of diamond for miles through the wide woods, but never a wolf.  The priest began to look disappointed; Metski sympathised with him, for he relished a hunt almost as well as his reverence; but all the rest, with the help of the Russians, amused themselves with making game.  I have said they were in great spirits, particularly Count Theodore; indeed he was generally the gayer of the pair—­his sister being evidently the more prudent—­and in this respect they resembled the Lorenskis.  Many a jest, however, on the non-appearance of the wolves went round our sledge, of which I remember nothing now except that we all laughed till the old wood rang.

‘Be quiet, good children,’ said the priest, turning in his seat of command:  ’you make noise enough to frighten all the wolves in creation.’

‘They won’t come to-night, father; they are preparing for mass,’ cried Count Theodore.  ’Juana, if the old Finn were here now, wouldn’t he be useful?’

‘Perhaps he might,’ said the countess, with a forced laugh; but she cast a look of strange warning and reproof on her brother.

‘What Finn?’ said the priest, catching the count’s words.

‘Oh, he is talking of an old nursery-tale we had in St Petersburg,’ hastily interposed the lady, though I thought her face had no memory of the nursery in it.

‘About the Finns I’ll warrant,’ said Father Cassimer.  ’They are a strange people.  My brother the merchant told me that he knew one of them at Abo who said he had a charm for the wolves; but somebody informed against him for smuggling, and the Russian government sent him to the lead-mines in Siberia.  By Saint Sigismund, there’s the first of them!’

As the priest spoke, a large wolf appeared, and half the guns in the sledge were raised.  ‘Not yet, not yet,’ said our experienced commander, artfully turning away as another and another came in sight.  ‘There are more coming,’ and he gradually slackened our pace; but far off through the moonlit woods and the frozen night we could hear a strange murmur, which grew and swelled on all sides to a chorus of mingled howlings, and the wolves came on by troops.