CHAPTER X.
Yagenka herself melted out a large pot of bear's fat, the first quart of which Matsko drank with pleasure, for it was fresh, not burnt, and had the odor of angelica, which the girl, skilled in plants, had added to the pot in measure. Matsko was strengthened in spirit at once, and received hope of recovery.
"That was needed," said he. " When everything inside is oiled properly, that dog mother of an arrow-point may slip out of me somewhere."
The succeeding quarts did not taste so well to him as the first, but he drank because of good sense. Yagenka comforted him too, saying,—
"You will recover. Zbilud of Ostrog had a link of armor driven deeply into his shoulder, and it came out from bear's fat. But when the wound opens one must stop it with beaver fat."
"Hast thou that fat?"
"We have. If fresh fat is needed we can go with Zbyshko to the beaver dam. It is not hard to get beavers. But it would be no harm either, if you would make a vow to some saint who is a patron of the wounded."
"That came to my head also, but I know not well to what saint. Saint George is the patron of knights. He guards a warrior from accidents, and in need gives him valor; they say that often in his own person he stands on the just side and helps to conquer those who are hateful to God. But a saint who fights gladly is rarely willing to cure, and there is perhaps another with whom he would interfere if he did so. Every saint has his own work in heaven, his own management—that we understand. One of them never meddles with another, for disagreements might spring up, and in heaven it would not befit saints to dispute or to quarrel. There are Cosmo and Damian, great saints too; to these doctors pray, so that disease may not vanish from the earth; if it did doctors would have no subsistence. There is also Saint Appolonia for teeth, and Saint Laborious for the gravel—but all this is not to the point! The abbot will come and tell me to whom I should turn, for not every common priest
