Through Russian Snows (37 page)

"Stephanie," he said, "there are some of your people coming. They will
soon be here, and you must tell them who you are, and ask them to send
you to your father, and tell them that he will give them lots of money
for bringing you back to him."

"Yes," the child said, "and he will thank you very, very much for having
been so good to me."

"I am afraid, Stephanie, that I shall not go back with you. The people
kill the French whenever they take them."

"But you are not French; you are English," she said, indignantly.
"Besides, the French are not all bad; they were very good to me."

"I am afraid, dear, that it will make very little difference to them my
being an Englishman. They will see that I am in French uniform, and will
regard me as an enemy just as if I were French."

"I will not let them hurt you," she said sturdily. "They are serfs, and
when I tell them who I am they will obey me, for if they don't I will
tell them that my father will have them all flogged to death."

"Don't do that, dear. You are a long way from your father's house, and
they may not know his name; so do not talk about flogging, but only
about the money they will get if they take you back. They are poor men,
they have had a great deal to suffer, and have been made very savage; so
it is best for you to speak kindly and softly to them. Now, dear, let us
turn down that collar, so that they can see your face, and take your
things off your head, and then go out and speak to them. They are close
here."

The child did as he told her, and as he opened the door she stepped out.
The peasants, who were only some twenty yards away, stopped in surprise
at the appearance of the strange little figure before them. Her golden
hair fell over her shoulders, and the long loose jacket concealed the
rest of her person. She spoke to them in Russian, in a high, clear
voice:

"I am the Countess Stephanie Woronski. I am glad to see you. I was
travelling to go to my father, when there was an accident, and my nurse
and the coachman were both killed; and I should have died too, but a
good man—an Englishman—took me up, and he has carried me many days,
and has fed me and kept me warm and been my nurse. He must go with me
back to my father; and my father will give you lots of money for taking
us both to him, and you must remember that he is an Englishman and not a
Frenchman, although somehow he has been obliged to go with their army;
and he is very, very good."

All this time Julian was standing behind her, musket in hand, determined
to sell his life dearly. The peasants stood irresolute; they conferred
together; then one of them advanced, and took off his fur cap and bowed
to the child.

"Little mistress," he said, "we are but peasants, and do not know the
name of your honoured father; but assuredly we will take you to our
village, and our priest will find out where he lives, and will take you
home to him; but this man with you is a Frenchman, and an enemy."

The child stamped her foot angrily. "Pig of a man!" she exclaimed
passionately, "Do I, then, lie? I tell you he is English. I have a
French coat on, just as he has. Will you say next that I am a French
girl? I tell you that my friend must come with me, and that when I come
to my father he will give you much money. He is a friend of the Czar,
and if I tell him that you have hurt my friend, he and the Czar will
both be angry."

A murmur broke from the group of peasants. The anger of the Czar was, of
all things, the most terrible. Doubtless this imperious, little countess
was a great lady, and their habitual habit of subservience to the nobles
at once asserted itself, and, while they had hesitated before, the
threat of the Czar's anger completed their subjugation.

"I AM THE COUNTESS STEPHANIE WORONSKI. I AM GLAD TO SEE
YOU."

"It shall be as the little mistress wills it," the peasant said humbly.
"No harm shall be done to your friend. We cannot promise that the troops
will not take him away from us, but if they do not he shall go with you
when we find where your father lives. If he has saved your life, he must
be, as you say, a good man, and we will take care of him."

"They will take care of you," the child said in French, turning to
Julian. "I told them that my father would reward them, and that the Czar
would be very angry with them if they hurt you; and so they have
promised to take you with me to him."

Julian at once placed his gun against the wall, and, taking her hand,
walked forward to the peasants.

"Tell them," he said, "that the English are the friends of Russia, and
that there are some English officers now with their army, for I have
several times seen scarlet uniforms among the Russian staff."

The child repeated this to the peasants. One of them went into the hut,
and looked round; and then securing Julian's musket, rejoined the
others, who at once started across the snow, one of the party carrying
Stephanie. On her telling them that she was hungry, some black bread was
produced. She gave the first piece handed her to Julian, and then sat
contentedly munching another. The peasants had now come to the
conclusion that the capture would bring good fortune to them, and one of
them took from the pocket of his sheep-skin caftan a bottle, which he
handed to Julian. The latter took a drink that caused him to cough
violently, to the amusement of the peasants, for it was
vodka
, and the
strong spirit took his breath away after his long abstinence from
anything but water. It did him good, however, and seemed to send a glow
through every limb, enabling him to keep pace with the peasants. Their
course lay north, and after four hours' walking they arrived at a
good-sized village at the edge of a forest.

Their arrival created much excitement. There was a hubbub of talk, and
then they were taken into the largest house in the village. Stephanie,
who had been asleep for some time, woke up; and Julian threw aside his
cloak, for the close heat of the interior was almost overpowering. A
very old man, the father of the families that occupied the house,—for
in Russia married sons all share the houses of their parents,—made a
deep bow to Stephanie, and placed a low seat for her before the stove.
Julian helped her off with her jacket and her other encumbrances, and
her appearance in a pretty dress evidently increased the respect in
which she was held by the peasants. In a short time bowls of hot broth
were placed before them, and, weak as was the liquor, both enjoyed it
immensely after their monotonous diet of horse-flesh. Then Stephanie was
given a corner on the cushion placed on a wide shelf running round the
apartment. The place next to her was assigned to Julian, who, after
swallowing another glass of vodka, was in a few minutes sound asleep,
with a sweet consciousness of rest and security to which he had long
been a stranger.

In the morning there was a gathering composed of the papa or priest of
the village and the principal men. When it was concluded, Stephanie was
informed that none of them knew the place of residence of her father,
but that a messenger had been sent off to the nearest town with a letter
from the priest to the bishop there, asking him to inform them of it.
She was asked how many days had passed since she had fallen in with the
French, and how long she had been travelling before she did so. Julian
was able to say exactly where he had fallen in with her—about thirty
miles from Smolensk. Stephanie herself was vague as to the time she had
travelled before the accident to the carriage, "days and days" being the
only account that she could give of the matter. The priest then spoke to
her for some time in Russian.

"They want you," she said to Julian, "to take off your uniform and to
put on clothes like theirs. They say that though they wish to take you
with me to my father, they might on the way fall in with other people or
with soldiers, who would not know how good you are, and might take you
away from them and kill you, so that it would be safer for you to travel
in Russian dress. You won't mind that, will you?"

"Not at all, Stephanie; I think that it is a very good plan indeed."

A quarter of an hour later Julian was equipped in the attire of a
well-to-do peasant, with caftan lined with sheep-skin, a round fur cap,
a thick pair of trousers of a dark rough cloth, bandages of the same
material round the leg from the knee to the ankle, and high loose boots
of untanned leather with the hair inside. The transformation greatly
pleased the peasants, whose hatred of the French uniform had hitherto
caused them to stand aloof from him, and they now patted him on the
shoulder, shook his hand, and drank glasses of
vodka
, evidently to his
health, with great heartiness. Julian could, as yet, scarcely believe
that all this was not a dream. From the day that he had crossed the
Niemen he had been filled with gloomy forebodings of disaster, and
sickened by the barbarities of the soldiers upon the people, while,
during the retreat, he had been exposed to constant hardship, engaged in
innumerable fights and skirmishes, and impressed with the firm belief
that not a Frenchman would ever cross the frontier save as a prisoner.
After this the sense of warmth, the abundance of food, and the absence
of any necessity for exertion seemed almost overpowering, and for the
next three or four days he passed no small proportion of his time in
sleep.

Stephanie was quite in her element. She was treated like a little queen
by the villagers, who considered her presence among them a high honour
as well as a source of future reward. They were never weary of
listening to the details of her stay among the French, and accorded to
Julian a good deal of deference both for the kindness he had shown the
little countess and for the service that he had thereby rendered to
themselves. It was ten days before an answer was received as to the
count's estates. They lay, it said, far to the south, but the bishop was
of opinion that the little countess had better be sent to St.
Petersburg, as the count had a palace there, and would be certain to be
at the capital at the present juncture of affairs. He offered that, if
they would bring her to him, he would see that she was sent on thither
by a post-carriage, but that in view of the extreme cold it would be
better that she should not be forwarded until the spring.

A village council was held on the receipt of this letter, and the
proposal that she should be sent by the bishop was unanimously
negatived. It seemed to the villagers that in such a case the glory of
restoring Stephanie to her parents, and the reward that would naturally
accrue from it, would not fall to them; but, at the same time, no
alternative method occurred to them. Finally, after much consultation,
Stephanie was asked to interpret the bishop's letter to Julian, and when
she had done so she was told to add: "They think, Julian, that if they
send us to the bishop papa will not know that it was they who found me
and took care of me."

Julian understood the difficulty. He first inquired how much the village
could raise to pay for the expenses of a post-carriage to St.
Petersburg. He said that it would, of course, be only a loan, and would
be repaid by the count. This led to a considerable amount of discussion,
but the difficulty was much diminished when Julian said that he could
himself supply five napoleons towards the fund. It had been decided that
three times that amount would be required to pay all expenses of travel,
and the priest agreeing to contribute an equal amount to Julian's, the
remaining sum was speedily made up. It was then arranged that the
priest would himself go to Borizow and obtain the
podorojna
or order
for the supply of post-horses at the various stations. He would have to
name those who would accompany him. The head man of the village was
unanimously elected to go with him, and after some talk it was settled
that Julian should be put down as Ivan Meriloff, as a foreign name would
excite suspicion and cause much trouble, and possibly he might be
detained as a prisoner, in which case the peasants saw that there would
be considerable difficulty in inducing the little countess to go with
them. The priest was absent three days, and then returned with the
necessary document authorizing him to start from Borizow in four days'
time. Julian was sorry when the time came for his departure. After four
months of incessant hardship and fatigue, the feeling of rest and
comfort was delightful. He had been more weakened than he was aware of
by want of food, and, as his strength came back to him, he felt like one
recovering from a long illness, ready to enjoy the good things of life
fully, to bask in the heat of the stove, and to eat his meals with a
sense of real enjoyment.

Rumours had come in every day of the terrible sufferings of the French
as they were hotly pressed by the triumphant Russians, and of the
general belief that but few would survive to cross the Niemen. Still,
while the French were thus suffering the Russians were in but little
better plight, following, as they did, through a country that had been
swept bare of everything that could be burned by the retreating French.
Their sufferings from cold were terrible, 90,000 perished, and out of
10,000 recruits, who afterwards marched for Wilna, as a reinforcement,
only 1500 reached that city, and the greater portion of these had at
once to be taken to the hospital mutilated from frost-bite. Thus, then,
the number of Russians that perished was at least as great as that of
their harassed foes, and this in their own climate, and without the
necessity for the constant vigilance, that had assisted to break down
the retreating army.