Catharines Peril, or The Little Russian Girl Lost in a Forest | Page 5

the room.
Catharine was sitting at his bedside. Suddenly she uttered a cry: she had recognised the Polish lord Barezewski, her preserver and benefactor.
The Count recovered from his wounds, but he had only escaped one peril to fall into another even more terrible; his name was on the list of proscribed persons, and the mildest punishment for this in Russia means degradation and exile to Siberia.
Catharine no sooner discovered the fresh misfortune impending over the noble Pole than she determined to risk everything, and obtain an audience of the Czar Nicholas, when, falling before him, she embraced his knees, and with tears implored him to accord the pardon of her generous protector, Barezewski.
Nicholas, much touched by her gratitude and her earnest entreaties on behalf of the Polish lord, graciously granted his pardon.
Perhaps some of my readers may think Catharine need not have been so frightened at what she had to do in seeking an interview with the Emperor; but in our highly-favoured land we can scarcely enter into her feelings, for in Russia the sovereign is all-powerful, and, especially in past days, political offenders, or those taking their part in any way, were punished with the greatest severity.
I will tell you what happened during the reign of the Empress Elizabeth to the most beautiful and delicately nurtured lady at the court of Russia, because, poor creature, she had the misfortune to offend her imperial mistress. She was condemned to the knout, a fearful instrument of punishment made of a strip of hide, which is whizzed through the air by the hangman on the bare back and neck of the hapless victim, and each time it tears away a narrow strip of skin from the neck along the back. These blows were repeated until the entire skin of the lady's back hung in rags; then this woman's tongue was plucked out by the roots, and she was at once sent off to Siberia.
What does 'sent to Siberia' imply? Worse, far, far worse than any criminal, however vile and hardened, endures in our beloved country. We frequently hear of persons being condemned to penal punishment for many years, or even for life; but this is absolutely nothing compared to being exiled to Siberia, a place where the criminals of the Russian empire, and persons suspected of intrigues, are often sent without even knowing the cause of their banishment.
A faint idea of what the poor unfortunate exiles have to suffer may be gleaned from the description which follows:--'Barren and rocky mountains, covered with eternal snows, waste uncultivated plains, where, in the hottest days of the year, little more than the surface of the ground is thawed, alternate with large rivers, the icy waves of which, rolling sullenly along, have never watered a meadow or seen a flower expand. The Government supplies some of the exiles with food, very poor and very scanty; those whom it abandons subsist on what they obtain by hunting. The greater number of these hapless beings reside in the villages which border the river from Tobolsk to the boundaries of Tschimska; others are dispersed in huts through the plains. For these unfortunates not a single happy day exists.'
To such a state of exile and misery would the noble Polish lord have been reduced if Nicholas had not granted Catharine's petition. This tale shows how the eye of a tender and watchful Father is ever over the young and unprotected. How true are these beautiful words:
'No earthly father loves like Thee; No mother, e'er so mild, Bears and forbears as Thou hast done With me, Thy sinful child.'

THE SHABBY SURTOUT.
My reader, need you ever say, With Titus, 'I have lost a day,' When right, and left, and all around, God's poor and needy ones are found?
[Illustration]

THE SHABBY SURTOUT.
I had taken a place on the top of one of the coaches which ran between Edinburgh and Glasgow, for the purpose of commencing a short tour in the Highlands of Scotland. It was in the month of June, a season when travellers of various descriptions flock towards the Modern Athens, and thence betake themselves to the northern or western counties, as their business or fancy leads. As we rattled along Princes Street, I had leisure to survey my fellow-travellers. Immediately opposite to me sat two dandies of the first water, dressed in white greatcoats and Belcher handkerchiefs, and each with a cigar in his mouth, which he puffed away with marvellous self-complacency. Beside me sat a modest and comely young woman in a widow's dress, and with an infant about nine months old in her arms. The appearance of this youthful mourner and her baby indicated that they belonged to the working class of society; and though the dandies occasionally cast a rude glance at the mother, the look of calm and settled