three, but the third one began to move under him and he jumped back on
the rock.

"'Stay there,' I called to him. 'Not far from here lives the forester;
I will run for him and he will help you.' I ran as fast as I could but
not to the forester's house.

"'Petrik, do not leave me. I am afraid,' called Stephen after me, and
right after that followed a cry:

"'Mother mine!'

"Thus I have heard him day and night, as in the past years, so even
till today, and I shall perhaps in the hour of death and in the whole
of eternity. I was still a small boy, but a bad one, and at that
moment hard as a rock. 'Surely he will fall in and will drown,' I
consoled myself. 'Nobody will give him any more apples, and people
will love me and me only.' No old criminal could have felt worse than
I felt then. I began to run still faster till my legs broke down under
me and my breath failed. Yes; I ran through the woods alone, forsaken,
as once Cain did when he killed his brother and ran away from the face
of God. Suddenly a great pain gripped me that could not be expressed,
because the voice that whispered to me before, 'Drown him in that
swamp,' now whispered to me, 'You dare not go home. What will you say
when they ask you about Stephen?' Tired and hungry as I was I threw
myself on the ground and started to cry bitterly till I fell asleep.

"At day-break the drivers passed by with their wagons for lumber. They
found me and, recognizing me, laid me sleeping on a wagon and took
me as far as our hut. There they awakened me, laid me down, and