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Updated: June 3, 2025
In his efforts he had got half through his girths and the saddle was back on his rump. A pretty spectacle we must have looked, I sitting back on his tail, my hat in my hand, both stirrups dangling, and the bullets whistling round both of us like hailstones.
They plunged in, and were soon up to the horses' girths, with the reeds far above their heads. They could hear the animals forcing their way through the reeds, but could not see them; and after some severe labor, Swinton said "Alexander, it will be prudent for us to go back; we can do nothing here, and we shall stand a chance of being shot by our own people, who can not see us.
Cold shivers ran down his spine and his whole body pulsed rhythmically. "Well, is ev'wything weady?" asked Denisov. "Bwing the horses." The horses were brought. Denisov was angry with the Cossack because the saddle girths were too slack, reproved him, and mounted. Petya put his foot in the stirrup.
Beyond, the road and fields were strown with knapsacks, haversacks, jackets, canteens, cartridge-boxes, shoes, bayonets, knives, buttons, belts, blankets, girths, and sabres. Now and then a mule or a horse lay at the roadside, with the clay saturated beneath him; and some of the tree-tops, in the depth of the woods, were scarred, split, and barked, as if the lightning had blasted them.
He started to speak, then shut his mouth with a snap, turned on his heel, and strode across the treeless glade to where his noisy riders were saddling up, tightening girths, buckling straps, and examining the unshod feet of their horses or smoothing out the burrs from mane and tail. The red sun glittered on their spurs, rifles, and the flat buckles of their cross-belts.
"Peggy, my bonny bird," continued the hostess, addressing a little girl of twelve years old, who had by this time appeared, "tak the gentleman's horse to the stable, and slack his girths, and tak aff the bridle, and shake down a lock o' hay before him, till the dragoons come back. Come this way, sir," she continued; "ye'll find my house clean, though it's a puir ane."
Girths and bridles, the horse furniture, and the shoes of the horses themselves, were carefully inspected with his own eyes, that there might be as little chance as possible of the occurrence of any of those casualties, which, petty as they seem, often interrupt or disconcert travelling.
But as I rode the valley, I saw a smoke go up O'er the crest of the last of the grass-hills 'twixt me and the Hunding roof, And that smoke was black and heavy: so a while I bided aloof, And drew my girths the tighter, and looked to the arms I bore And handled my spear for the casting; for my heart misgave me sore, For nought was that pillar of smoke like the guest-fain cooking-fire.
The tantalizing restlessness of the yaks forced us to make many attempts before we actually succeeded in properly fastening the loads, particularly as the Shoka deserters had stolen our best pieces of rope and the leather straps. One of the remaining pieces of rope was hardly long enough to make the final knot to one of the girths.
I found, as I expected, four horses tied up in the shed, the bits hanging round their necks and their girths loosed; while my surprise was not lessened by the arrival, before I had fastened up my own horse, of a sixth rider, who, seeing us by the shed, rode up to us, and saluted me as he dismounted.
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