Kuba’s poaching of a hind is revealed not as a witnessed hunt but as a guarded story told in the stable. His account turns a clandestine killing into a private bond with Witek: the boy learns what happened, is warned not to betray it, and eventually persuades Kuba to take him along and teach him to shoot.

The Hunt Recounted

While Kuba cleaned his shotgun on his pallet, Witek watched solemnly and kept an eye on the window in case anyone approached. The boy had heard the gun’s report and wondered whether the squire or woodsman had been shooting. Kuba explained that he had packed the gun heavily, making it boom like a cannon; the recoil had swollen his shoulder.

Kuba described going to the manor side of the forest, where deer came out to feed on the winter wheat. He waited in the dark until dawn. When a stag appeared, he crouched only five paces away, but judged the animal too large to manage and let it pass. The hinds came afterward. Kuba chose one, aimed, and fired.

The shot did not kill the hind immediately. She kicked and bleated with several pellets lodged in her side. Afraid the woodsman would hear, Kuba finished her off. His account gives the hunt a practical, hurried ending: the injured animal’s cries threaten to expose him, so he kills her rather than leave her calling in the forest.

Secrecy and the Invitation

Witek wanted to know whether the hind had been left in the woods. Kuba refused to tell him where, insisting that it was none of his business and warning him that he would regret telling anyone. The secrecy marks the danger of the deed, while Kuba’s warning makes the boy a keeper of the confidence.

Witek promised not to tell, then asked Kuba to take him along next time. When Józia called them to breakfast, Kuba told the boy to keep quiet and promised to bring him. Witek pressed further, asking to be allowed to shoot once. Kuba objected that gunpowder did not come free, and Witek answered that he had money of his own.

The money had been given to Witek by the master at the fair: two zloty that the boy was saving for the dead souls at the listing. Kuba agreed to teach him and stroked his head, won over by the pleading. The exchange shifts the scene from a confession about a completed hunt to a promise of shared participation, while leaving the promised lesson in the future.

After the Story

After breakfast, Kuba and Witek set off for church. Kuba hobbled along quickly; Witek, barefoot because he had no shoes, dragged behind and quietly wondered whether he could enter the sacristy without them. The return to the ordinary churchgoing routine follows the secret hunting conversation without resolving it: the two leave together, but the account does not show Witek firing a gun or disclose where Kuba left the hind.

Narrative Significance

The event reaches the reader through Kuba’s recollection within his conversation with Witek. The hunt’s sequence is therefore shaped by what Kuba chooses to confess: his wait in the dark, his decision to spare the stag, the shot that wounded the hind, and the need to finish her before the woodsman heard. His withheld information about the carcass preserves the boundary of the secret even as he draws Witek closer to it.

The relationship between the two boys is expressed through practical gestures and bargains rather than a broad declaration. Kuba first threatens silence, then offers ten groszy to reinforce it; Witek refuses to be bought off and asks instead to accompany him. His two zloty, set aside for the dead, becomes the means by which he argues for a place in Kuba’s dangerous pastime. Kuba’s final agreement and the touch on Witek’s head make the exchange a small moment of trust, though the promised instruction remains only a promise in this scene.