if there was danger.

Having received all his orders Alpatych, wearing a white beaver hat--a
present from the prince--and carrying a stick as the prince did,
went out accompanied by his family. Three well-fed roans stood ready
harnessed to a small conveyance with a leather hood.

The larger bell was muffled and the little bells on the harness stuffed
with paper. The prince allowed no one at Bald Hills to drive with
ringing bells; but on a long journey Alpatych liked to have them. His
satellites--the senior clerk, a countinghouse clerk, a scullery maid,
a cook, two old women, a little pageboy, the coachman, and various
domestic serfs--were seeing him off.

His daughter placed chintz-covered down cushions for him to sit on and
behind his back. His old sister-in-law popped in a small bundle, and one
of the coachmen helped him into the vehicle.

"There! There! Women's fuss! Women, women!" said Alpatych, puffing and
speaking rapidly just as the prince did, and he climbed into the trap.

After giving the clerk orders about the work to be done, Alpatych, not
trying to imitate the prince now, lifted the hat from his bald head and
crossed himself three times.

"If there is anything... come back, Yakov Alpatych! For Christ's sake
think of us!" cried his wife, referring to the rumors of war and the
enemy.

"Women, women! Women's fuss!" muttered Alpatych to himself and started
on his journey, looking round at the fields of yellow rye and the
still-green, thickly growing oats, and at other quite black fields just
being plowed a second time.

As he went along he looked with pleasure at the year's splendid crop
of corn, scrutinized the strips of ryefield which here and there were
already being reaped, made his calculations as to the sowing and the
harvest, and asked himself whether he had not forgotten any of the
prince's orders.

Having baited the horses twice on the way, he arrived at the town toward
evening on the fourth of August.

Alpatych kept meeting and overtaking baggage trains and troops on the
road. As he approached Smolensk he heard the sounds of distant firing,
but these did not impress him. What struck him most was the sight of a
splendid field of oats in which a camp had been pitched and which
was being mown down by the soldiers, evidently for fodder. This fact
impressed Alpatych, but in thinking about his own business he soon
forgot it.

All the interests of his life for more than thirty years had been
b