ringing his riding-whip, he rode off at a gallop, accompanied for the rst time during the whole campaign by gleeful guffaws and roars of urrah from the men as they moved out of rank.
The words uttered by Kutuzov were hardly understood by the soldiers No one could have repeated the field-marshal’s speech at first of sue! solemnity, and towards the end of such homely simplicity. But the meaning at the bottom of his words, they understood very well, and the sanu feeling of solemn triumph in their victory, together with pity for th( enemy and the sense of the justice of their cause—expressed, too, witl precisely the same homely coarseness—lay at the bottom of every soldier’s heart, and found a vent in delighted shouts, that did not cease for a lone while. When one of the generals addressed the commander-in-chief after this, asking whether he desired his carriage, Kutuzov broke into a sudder sob in replying. He was evidently deeply moved.
VII
It was getting dusk on the 8th of November, the last day of the battlf of Krasnoe, when the soldiers reached their halting-place for the night The whole day had been still and frosty, with now and then a few ligh flakes of snow. Towards evening the sky began to grow clearer. Througl the snowflakes could be seen a dark, purplish, starlit sky, and the fros; was growing more intense.
A regiment of musketeers, which had left Tarutino three thousanc strong, but had now dwindled to nine hundred, was among the first tc reach the halting-place, a village on the high road. The quartermasters on meeting the regiment, reported that all the cottages were full of sic! and dead Frenchmen, cavalrymen, and staff-officers. There was only one cottage left for the colonel of the regiment.
The colonel went on to his cottage. The regiment passed through the village, and stacked their guns up at the furthest cottages along the road
Like a huge, many-legged monster, the regiment set to work preparing its food and lodging for the night. One party of soldiers trudged off knee-deep in the snow, into the birch copse, on the right of the village and the ring of axes and cutlasses, the crash of breaking branches, anc the sounds of merry voices were immediately heard coming thence. Another group were busily at work all round the regimental baggage-wag gons, which were drav/n up altogether. Some fed the horses, while other: got out cooking-pots and biscuits. A third section dispersed about the vil lage, getting the cottages ready for the staff-officers, carrying out the deac bodies of the French lying in the huts, and dragging away boards, dr) wood, and straw from the thatch roofs, to furnish fuel for their fires anc materials for the shelters they rigged up.
Behind the huts at the end of the village fifteen soldiers were trying . with merry shouts to pull down the high wattle wall of a barn frorr which they had already removed the roof.
Now then, a strong pull, all together!’ shouted the voices; and in the dark the huge, snow-sprinkled boards of the wall began to give. The lowei stakes of the wattle cracked more and more often, and at last the wattk
all heaved over, together with the soldiers, who were hanging onto it. A ud shout and the roar of coarse merriment followed.
‘Work at it in twos! give us a lever here! that’s it. Where are you lining to?’
!‘Now, all together. . . . But wait, lads! . . . With a shout!’ . . . All were silent, and a low voice of velvety sweetness began singing a mg. At the end of the third verse, as the last note died away, twenty ! dices roared out in chorus, ‘O-O-O-O-O! It’s coming! Pull away! Heave way, lads! . . .’but in spite of their united efforts the wall hardly moved, nd in the silence that followed the men could be heard panting for reath.
‘Hi, you there, of the sixth company! You devils, you! Lend us a hand . . We’ll do you a good turn one day! ’
Twenty men of the sixth company, who were passing, joined them, and le wattle wall, thirty-five feet in length, and seven feet in breadth, was ragged along the village street, falling over, and cutting the shoulders f the panting soldiers.
‘Go on, do. . . . Heave away, you there. . . . What are you stopping )r? Eh, there?’ . . .
The merry shouts of unseemly abuse never ceased.
‘What are you about?’ cried a peremptory voice, as a sergeant ran up D the party. ‘There are gentry here; the general himself’s in the hut here, nd you devils, you curs, you! I’ll teach you!’ shouted the sergeant, and snt a swinging blow at the back of the first soldier he could come across. Can’t you go quietly?’
The soldiers were quiet. The soldier who had received the blow began rumbling, as he rubbed his bleeding face, which had been scratched by is being knocked forward against the wattle.
