Sasha could no longer restrain himself.
"And the boy is a freeman, grandfather," he exclaimed; "we are all free: here is the baron's deed, which says so, with the seal of the empire upon it. Look, grandfather, look!—do you understand, you are free!"
Gregor was lifted to his feet as if by an unseen hand. At that moment Sasha's father and mother, and brothers entered the house. The old man did not heed their cries of astonishment; clasping the parchment to his breast, he looked upward and exclaimed in a piercing voice:
"Free at last! all free! I will carry the news to God!"
Then, before any one—not even Sasha—could step forward to assist him, he reeled and fell on the floor—dead. His prayer had been granted.
THE COOLEST MAN IN RUSSIA.
I've seen many a brave man in my time, sure enough," said old Ivan Starikoff, removing his short pipe to puff out a volume of smoke from beneath his long white moustache.
"Many and many a one have I seen; for, thank heaven, the children of holy Russia are never wanting in that way, but all of them put together wouldn't make one such man as our old colonel, Count Pavel Petrovitch Severin. It was not only that he faced danger like a man—all the others did that—but he never seemed to know that there was any danger at all. It was as good as a reinforcement of ten battalions to have him among us in the thick of a fight, and to see his grand, tall figure drawn up to its full height, and his firm face and keen gray eyes turned straight upon the smoke of the enemy's line, as if defying them to hurt him. And when the very earth was shaking with the cannonade, and balls were flying thick as hail, and the hot, stifling smoke closed us in like the shadow of death, with a flash and a roar breaking through it every now and then, and the whole air filled with the rush of the shot, like the wind sweeping through a forest in autumn,—then Petrovitch would light a cigarette and hum a snatch of a song, as coolly as if he were at a dinner party in Moscow. And it really seemed as if the bullets ran away from him, instead of his running away from them; for he never got shot. But if he saw any of us beginning to waver he would call out cheerily:
"Never fear, lads, remember what the old song says!" for in those days we had an old camp-song that we were fond of singing, and the chorus of it was this:—