The crowd respectfully made way for her, and she passed out into the darkness.

With breathless expectation all awaited the arrival of St.Nicholas, who is the favourite saint of the Russian peasantry; but hours passed, and he did not appear.

At last, toward sunrise, some of the less zealous spectators began to return home, and those of them who had come from the neighbouring village discovered to their horror that during their absence their horses had been stolen! At once they raised the hue-and-cry; and the peasants scoured the country in all directions in search of the soi-disant St.Barbara and her accomplices, but they never recovered the stolen property.

"And serve them right, the blockheads!" added my informant, who had herself escaped falling into the trap by being absent from the village at the time.
It is but fair to add that the ordinary Russian peasant, though in some respects extremely credulous, and, like all other people, subject to occasional panics, is by no means easily frightened by real dangers.
Those who have seen them under fire will readily credit this statement.
For my own part, I have had opportunities of observing them merely in dangers of a non-military kind, and have often admired the perfect coolness displayed.

Even an epidemic alarms them only when it attains a certain degree of intensity.