In a few days Michael came joyfully to inform “Barrinka” that he had attained the desire of his heart. “Praised be the great St. Nicholas!” he said, “I am to be a gunner. My officer tells me that after a little training I shall be able to pull a thing they call the lanyard. It makes the gun go off, and kills the Nyemtzi.” But no earthly happiness is ever without alloy, and Michael’s was not an exception. There was one hardship, in his own estimation very serious, to which he had to submit. “Barrinka,” he asked, “why must our beards be cut off before we go to fight the Nyemtzi?”
“It has been always done,” said Ivan. “It is the custom. Besides, do you not know it makes you a free man? The very hour your beard is cut, you cease to be a serf; you have no longer any lord on earth except the Czar.”
“I do not care to be a free man,” grumbled Michael; “and I do not see why I must part with my beard, which God gave me. It is very hard.”
Ivan laughed. “My dear lad,” he said, “you have given your hand for our lord the Czar; you are ready to give your life for him; then why do you grudge him your beard?”
“Do you call it giving to him?” asked Michael. “That makes a difference certainly. Though I cannot see what the Czar wants with my beard, still, if it be his Majesty’s pleasure, he shall have it.”
Shortly afterwards he paid Ivan another visit. Great was the transformation in his outer man. The cherished beard was gone; he wore, instead of his caftan, the green uniform of a gunner; and he was already beginning to acquire the indefinable but unmistakable air of the trained soldier. “Only think, Barrinka,” he began eagerly;—“I am afraid you will not believe me, but I am ready to swear it is true upon the picture of my saint. Besides, all the men in our corps heard it, and can tell you I say nothing but the fact, just as it happened.”
“But you have not yet told me what the fact is. What has happened to you, Michael?”
“The Czar has spoken to me,” said Michael with beaming eyes—“the Czar, his very self.”
“How?—when?—what did he say?” cried Ivan, now thoroughly excited.
“He came to-day to inspect our corps—‘recruits for the artillery service,’ we are called. You will not need to be told that every man of us did his best, and that we made the air ring with our cheers and ‘houras.’ When the parade was over, I saw him speaking to our captain, who looked towards me, and then called me forward. ‘Your Imperial Majesty,’ says he, ‘this is the man.’ ‘Give me your hand, my brave lad,’ says the Czar, taking in his own this very hand of mine that you see now. ‘I know how you lost the other, and I honour your courage and devotion. You have been tried and found faithful.’ I fell on my knees and kissed the hand that held mine; which would be honour enough for such as you, Barrinka, not to speak of a poor mujik like me. Then he said to all of us, ‘You have done well, my children;’ and we answered with a shout, ‘Father, we will do better next time’[38] So he rode away,—God bless him!—and the rest all crowded round me, embraced me, and wished me joy. Now my one hand, which he has touched, is quite as good as two.”