the lawn and set fire to the heap for the mere fun of the thing
apparently. Absolutely the only one solitary thing which they left whole
was a small ivory crucifix, which remained hanging on the wall in
the wrecked bedroom above a wild heap of rags, broken mahogany and
splintered boards which had been Mr. Nicholas B.'s bedstead. Detecting
the servant in the act of stealing away with a japanned tin box, they
tore it from him, and because he resisted they threw him out of the
dining-room window. The house was on one floor but raised well above the
ground, and the fall was so serious that the man remained lying stunned
till the cook and a stable-boy ventured forth at dusk from their
hiding-places and picked him up. By that time the mob had departed
carrying off the tin box, which they supposed to be full of paper money.
Some distance from the house in the middle of a field they broke it
open. They found inside documents engrossed on parchment and the two
crosses of the Legion of Honour and For Valour. At the sight of these
objects, which, the blacksmith explained, were marks of honour given
only by the Tsar, they became extremely frightened at what they had
done. They threw the whole lot away into a ditch and dispersed hastily.

On learning of this particular loss Mr. Nicholas B. broke down
completely. The mere sacking of his house did not seem to affect him
much. While he was still in bed from the shock the two crosses were
found and returned to him. It helped somewhat his slow convalescence,
but the tin box and the parchments, though searched for in all the
ditches around, never turned up again. He could not get over the loss of
his Legion of Honour Patent, whose preamble, setting forth his services,
he knew by heart to the very letter, and after this blow volunteered
sometimes to recite, tears standing in his eyes the while. Its terms
haunted him apparently during the last two years of his life to such an
extent that he used to repeat them to himself. This is confirmed by
the remark made more than once by his old servant to the more intimate
friends. "What makes my heart heavy is to hear our master in his room at
night walking up and down and praying aloud in the French language."

It must have been somewhat over a year afterwards that I saw Mr.
Nicholas B., or, more correctly, that he saw me, for the last time.
It was, as I have already said, at the time when my mother had a three
months' leave from exile, which she w