Catharines Peril, or The Little Russian Girl Lost in a Forest | Page 2

or amid the numerous ills of a captured city? This was a problem not to be solved for many long years. Nothing could be heard of them, so Catharine left her native place with her kind friend and protectress, the sutler's wife.
The snow was very deep, and every puff of wind increased the inconvenience of travelling; in some parts the snow-drifts were so bad that the poor horses sank into them till nothing but their heads was to be seen. The days were short, and the fugitives made but little progress, although they were often obliged to march during the night. It was owing to this that so many unhappy creatures wandered from their regiments. The weather was unusually cold. Even those who were fortunate enough to have on a complete dress of coarse cloth lined with sheep-skin, the wool left on and worn next the body, and over all a large cloth shubb lined with wolf-skin, the fur inside, and a warm lamb-skin cap, their feet encased in boots lined with fur, found their sufferings very great. What must it have been for those unfortunates who had but tattered pelisses and sheep-skins half burnt?--how fared they? They were perishing from exposure, hunger, and cold. Wretched men were seen fighting over a morsel of dry bread, or bitterly disputing with each other for a little straw, or a piece of horse-flesh, which they were attempting to divide.
It is difficult to imagine what the tenderly-nurtured Catharine Somoff had to undergo in this perilous journey. The hills and forests around presented only some white, indistinct masses, scarcely visible through the thick fog. At a short distance before them lay the fatal river the Beresina, the scene of untold horrors, which, now half-frozen, forced its way through the ice that impeded its progress. The two bridges were so completely choked up by the crowds of people, horsemen, foot-soldiers, and fugitives, that they broke down. Then began a frightful scene, for the bodies of dead and dying men and horses so encumbered the way, that many poor fellows, struggling with the agonies of death, caught hold of those who mounted over them; but these kicked them with violence to disengage themselves, treading them under foot. Thousands of victims fell into the waves and were drowned.
The reader will not be surprised to hear that at this awful time the little Catharine was separated from her protectress, who was probably drowned or killed, or else imagined the child to be engulfed in the waters of the fatal river. At all events, the Russian child and the sutler's wife never met again in this world.
'There is a power Unseen, that rules th' illimitable world-- That guides its motions, from the brightest star To the least dust of this sin-tainted mould; While man, who madly deems himself the lord Of all, is nought but weakness and dependence. This sacred truth, by sure experience taught, Thou must have learnt, when, wandering all alone, Each bird, each insect, flitting through the sky, Was more sufficient for itself than thou.'
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CHAPTER II.
In spite of all obstacles, Catharine managed to cross over one of the bridges to the opposite side of the Beresina, and then the poor child came on with a detachment of the French army as far as Poland. Many of her companions perished of exposure and want; others were lost on the way; some lay down from sheer exhaustion, or to try to sleep, and, ignorant of the hour of march, on awaking found themselves in the power of the enemy.
The sick and the wounded anxiously looked around for some humane friend to help them, but their cries were lost in the air. No one had leisure to attend to his dearest friend--self-preservation, the first law of nature, absorbed every thought.
Under these distressing circumstances, it so happened that the friendless little Russian girl found herself quite alone, forsaken in the midst of a large forest, where wolves and even bears were frequently seen.
The poor child, half-dead with cold, hunger, and fear, the snow nearly up to her knees, saw ere long, to her intense horror, a savage bear approaching; and Catharine, making a frantic effort to escape, found her limbs so benumbed and her weakness so great that she could not move.
The bear was coming nearer, preparing to attack her, when Catharine, in mortal fright, uttered a piercing scream, imploring help.
Thanks to a merciful Providence, at the precise moment that the savage bear was preparing to attack her, a shot was fired, and the bear fell dead at the feet of the astonished child.
The stranger, when he came to the spot where Catharine was still cowering, trembling with fright, looked with an eye of pity on the lonely little creature whose safety had been so wonderfully entrusted to him.
He proved