The Woman of Business, Chapters XXX-XXXI [pp. 427-431]

LIlIERl TURE, SCIENCE, AND AR T.
count, "they are lined with tin. Our peasants eat all the mushrooms
they find, and are so much the better for it."
"Prevent her at least from eating that Agaricus zecator, which I
see in her basket," I exclaimed, and my hand was stretched toward
one of the most poisonous, but the old woman quickly withdrew the
basket. "Take care," said she, "they are guarded. - Pirkuns!
Pirkues!"
Pirkuns is the Samogitian name of that divinity called by the Rus sians P6roune, and who is the Jupiter Tonaits of the Slavic race. If
I was surprised at hearing the old woman invoke a god of paganism,
I was still more so to see the mushrooms stir as though they were about
to boil up. Then the black head of a snake issued and rose a foot
above the basket. I sprang backward, and the count spat over his
shoulder in accordance with a superstitious habit of the Slaves, who
imagine thus to avert sorceries, like the ancient Romans. The old
woman set down the basket, crouched beside it, then, with her hand
stretched toward the snake, muttered some unintelligible incantation;
the serpent remained still for a moment, then coiling itself round her
old skinny arm, disappeared in the sleeve of her sheepskin capote,
which, with a worn-out chemise, seemed to compose the whole cos tume of this Lithuanian Circe. She looked up at us with a smirk of
triumph, like a juggler who has compassed some difficult trick. In
her countenance cunning was blended with stupidity, as I have often
remarked among pretenders to sorcery, who are at once'dupes and
knaves.
"Here," said the count to me in German, "is a specimen of local
color, a sorceress charming a serpent, at the foot of a kapas, in pres ence of a learned professor and of an ignorant Lithuanian gentleman.
That would make a fine subject for a tableau de genre of your compa triot Knauss.... Would you like to have your fortune told. You
have here an opportunity."
I answered that I should beware of encouraging such practices.
"I would like better," I added, "to ask her if she knows any particulars of the curious tradition about this forest."
"Good woman, have you not heard mention of a place in these
woods where the beasts live in society, beyond the power of men?"
The old woman nodded yes, and with her little half-silly, halfshrewd giggle, said: " I am come from there. The beasts have lost
their king. Noble, the lion, is dead; the beasts are going to elect
another king. Go there-you will be the king, perhaps."
"What are you saying there, mother?" cried the count, laughing
heartily. "Do you know whom you are talking to? You don't know
that this gentleman is (how the deuce do they call a professor in
Jmoude?)-he is a great scholar, a wise man, a waidelote?" *
The old woman looked at him attentively.
"I was wrong," she said; "it is you that ought to go yonder.
You will be their king, not he; you are tall, you are strong, you have
claws and teeth."
"What say you to these spicy epigrams that she lets fly at us?"
asked the count.-" You know the way, good mother?" he asked her.
She pointed in a certain direction.
"Yes, indeed," said the count; "and the swamp, how do you get
across that?-You must know, professor, that on the side she points
to is an impassable morass, a lake of liquid mud covered over with
grass and weeds. Last year, a stag, wounded by me, threw himself
into this satanic pool. I saw him sinking, slowly, slowly. After a
few minutes, I could see but his horns, presently all disappeared, and
two of my dogs along with him."
"But I am not heavy," said the old woman, grinning.
"I believe that you could easily cross this swamp on a broomstick."
A lightning of anger flashed in her eyes.
"My good lord," she resumed, in the drawling nasal whine of
beggars, "have you not a pipe of tobacco to give a poor woman?
You would do better," she added, lowering her voice, "to seek the
passage of the swamp, than to be going to Dowghielly."
"Dowghielly!" exclaimed the count, reddening. "What do you
mean?"
I could not help remarking the singular effect which this word
produced upon him. He was evidently embarrassed; he bent his head,
and, to conceal his trouble, fumbled at his tobacco-pouch, hung upon
the hilt of his hunting-knife.
* The waidelotes were the bards of Lithuania.
"No, don't you go to Dowgielly," resumed the old woman. "The
little white dove is not for you.-Is it, Pirkuns?" As she spoke, the
snake lifted its head through the collar of the'old cloak, and length ened its neck toward the car of its mistress. Trained, no doubt, to
this trick, the reptile moved its jaws as if it were speaking. "It says
that I am right," added the old woman.
The count gave her a handful of tobacco. "You know me?" he
asked her.
"No, my good lord."
"I am the proprietor of Medintiltas. Come and see me one of
these days. I will give you tobacco and brandy."
The old woman kissed his hand and strode away. We lost her
out of sight in a moment. The count remained pensive, knotting and
untying the strings of his pouch with the air of an absent-minded
man.
[CONCLUSION NEXT WEEIK.]
THE WOMAN OF BUSINESS.
A XNOVEL.
BY THE AUTHOR OF " TME BACHELOR OF THE ALBANY."
CHAPTER XXX.-IN WHICH MR. ALEXANDER USES STRONG LAN GUAGE, AND AN OLD LADY IS IN A DILEMMA BETWE'EN A
BULL AND A SWINDLER.
"THE Moffats, by G-! " roared Alexander, as soon as he heard
Arnaud's tale. He rang his bell, and sent for Malrjoram.
Arnaud went through his story again.
"M ioffat in every step, and both the scoundrels at the finale," said
Alexander. "There is a droll rascality about it, which is Nick Moffat
all over."
Marjoram shook his head dubiously. He always maintained that
Moffat had done justice on himself in the Serpentine.
"Moffat's hair," he said, "was growing gray ten years ago, and
ought to be white now. Mr. Sandford's, it appears, was a grizzly
black."
"Tut, man," said Alexander; "Moffat's'hair is all colors; it would
be black-and-tan to-morrow, if it suited his purpose."
"But surely Mr. Woodville is entitled to be heard," said Mr. Mar joram.
"Woodville is a gander," said Alexander. " But why should the
Moffats do it? What interest has either of them in the disposition of
the Rowley property?"
" None. Of course, they are hirelings."
"But whose?-but whose?"
"Who takes the bulk of the property under this will, suppose it
were to stand? The cui bono answers the question."
"Mr. Upjohn is, by all accounts, utterly incapable of dishonorable
conduct."
"But Upjohn has a wife."
"I should think twice before I imputed such a piece of wickedness even to her. That she is a selfish and worthless woman, I am
perfectly ready to believe, on Mr. Cosie's authority; but it's a long
way from that to such an atrocious piece of iniquity as this."
"And what explanation occurs to yourself?" said Alexander,
calmly, accustomed to receive with respect every thing that fell from
his partner.
"Simply that Mr. Rowley, sane or insane, made this will under
the impulse of animosity to his wife, and the person who assisted
him happened accidentally to bear a strong resemblance to this Mr.
Sandford."
"Who accidentally bears a prodigious resemblance to the Moffats.
The two concurring accidents are unfortunate, Marjoram, for your view
of the case."
"Be that as it may," persisted Marjoram, "this waill is only to be
shaken by proving the unsoundness of Mr. Rowley's intellect-a point
about which I know nothing; the case will turn on that much more
than on Moffat's concern in it."
"But it may be of vast importance," said Alexander, "to show
that Mr. Rowley, at the time of making his will, was under the influence of a notorious scoundrel, especially if we can connect him with
the people who are to be the gainers."
"I don't deny that," said Marjoram;" it's an ugly business, in
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