THE ROMANCE OF THE WOODS

The Romance of the Woods

CONTENTS

		PAGE
I.	ON A RUSSIAN MOOR	1
II.	IN AMBUSH AT THE LAKE-SIDE	33
III.	A DAY AFTER CRAWFISH	55
IV.	A FINLAND PARADISE	75
V.	AFTER DUCKS ON LADOGA	105
VI.	ABOUT BEARS: BY ONE OF THEM	115
VII.	THE FOLK-LORE OF THE MOUJIK	185
VIII.	THE BEAR THAT DIED OF CURSES	212
IX.	AMONG THE WOOD-GOBLINS	232
X.	AN UNBAPTIZED SPIRIT	253
XI.	A WITCH! A WITCH!	273

THE ROMANCE OF THE WOODS

 CHAPTER I

ON A RUSSIAN MOOR

I once had a strange dream. I dreamed that I was dead, and that dyingI suddenly discovered all my preconceived ideas as to the future stateto have been entirely erroneous, at any rate in so far as concernedsuch persons as myself—the respectable middle class, so to call it,of mundane sinners. Had I belonged to the aristocracy of piety andgoodness, which, alas! I did not, or had I occupied a position at thelower end of the list, other things might have befallen me, better orworse, as the case deserved; but being, as I say, one of the decentlyrespectable middle-class sinners, I was shown, in this foolish dreamof mine, into a committee-room marked No. 2, and there informed thatsince I was neither very good nor very bad, my present destiny was tocontinue to inhabit this planet for a number of years—I forget howmany—not, indeed, in my present corporeal form, but as a spiritualessence; and that I might select any place this side of the darkriver, the Styx, as my temporary abode, there to live in Nature's

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