Petro stood petrified, without moving from the spot, when the innocent child lisped out Pidorka’s words to him.  “And I, unhappy man, thought to go to the Crimea and Turkey, win gold and return to thee, my beauty!  But it may not be.  The evil eye has seen us.  I will have a wedding, too, dear little fish, I too; but no ecclesiastics will be at that wedding.  The black crow will caw, instead of the pope, over me; the smooth field will be my dwelling; the dark blue clouds my roof-tree.  The eagle will claw out my brown eyes:  the rain will wash the Cossack’s bones, and the whirlwinds will dry them.  But what am I?  Of whom, to whom, am I complaining?  ’T is plain, God willed it so.  If I am to be lost, then so be it!” and he went straight to the tavern.

My late grandfather’s aunt was somewhat surprised on seeing Petrus in the tavern, and at an hour when good men go to morning mass; and she stared at him as though in a dream, when he demanded a jug of brandy, about half a pailful.  But the poor fellow tried in vain to drown his woe.  The vodka stung his tongue like nettles, and tasted more bitter than wormwood.  He flung the jug from him upon the ground.  “You have sorrowed enough, Cossack,” growled a bass voice behind him.  He looked round—­Basavriuk!  Ugh, what a face!  His hair was like a brush, his eyes like those of a bull.  “I know what you lack:  here it is.”  Then he jingled a leather purse which hung from his girdle, and smiled diabolically.  Petro shuddered.  “He, he, he! yes, how it shines!” he roared, shaking out ducats into his hand:  “he, he, he! and how it jingles!  And I only ask one thing for a whole pile of such shiners.”—­ “It is the Evil One!” exclaimed Petro:  “Give them here!  I’m ready for anything!” They struck hands upon it.  “See here, Petro, you are ripe just in time:  to-morrow is St. John the Baptist’s day.  Only on this one night in the year does the fern blossom.  Delay not.  I will await thee at midnight in the Bear’s ravine.”

I do not believe that chickens await the hour when the woman brings their corn with as much anxiety as Petrus awaited the evening.  And, in fact, he looked to see whether the shadows of the trees were not lengthening, if the sun were not turning red towards setting; and the longer he watched, the more impatient he grew.  How long it was!  Evidently, God’s day had lost its end somewhere.  And now the sun is gone.  The sky is red only on one side, and it is already growing dark.  It grows colder in the fields.  It gets dusky and more dusky, and at last quite dark.  At last!  With heart almost bursting from his bosom, he set out on his way, and cautiously descended through the dense woods into the deep hollow called the Bear’s ravine.  Basavriuk was already waiting there.  It was so dark, that you could not see a yard before you.  Hand in hand they penetrated the thin marsh, clinging to the luxuriant thorn bushes, and stumbling at almost every step.  At last they reached an open spot.  Petro looked about him:  he had never chanced to come there before.  Here Basavriuk halted.