would agree to do it;
then they cast lots. It fell to the forester. He drank another full
glass, cleared his throat, and went to the outer room for an axe.

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 f