CHAPTER XXVIII
SANGUINE STILL
When the Prince Imar's tale was told, and I thought of all he had been through, I could not find it in my heart, or even in good manners, to crave explanation of certain points which had not been made quite clear to me. For any such inquiry might appear to proceed from a hankering to hear more about his darling daughter. He had enjoyed, beyond our chance, a quantity of romantic love; and though he might not be hard on mine, remembering his own tender time, and allowing for like state in others, on the other hand that lesson might have taught him how to look at this, before it went too far to stop. And it is not in the gift of men, or at least of such as I am, to be certain how a brother man may take what seems so clear to self. But while I was buried in these thoughts, he spoke again quite cheerfully, and as if he had understood them all, but would not blame me for them.
"From what I have said, you will perceive that I have now two things to think of. The first, and dearest, is my own child, the daughter of the blameless wife, whom I lost through my own madness. The other is my duty towards the people who have been so true to me; who can be raised by one who knows them, to a better and more peaceful life, and the first condition of happiness the rule of Christianity. We have had the name for ages; but we have never known the meaning; of which you too must wait to learn till sorrow has washed the eyes of pride.
"That vile blood-feud, the curse of the mountains, the cause of a myriad murders, could not exist if we were more than mere ticket-porters of the cross. Therefore I am doing my best, without aid of your good societies, which would get into trouble with Russia at once, to print 10,000 copies of the New Testament, in the Lesghian tongue. In a short time now my period of exile, fourteen years, will expire; and the rest of my life will be given up to the spread of good-will amongst us. Thus alone can I hope to have done some good to balance my evil deeds. But the difficulty of the thing is this. Not a man in a hundred of us can read, and perhaps not a woman of all the race. To meet this I am preparing primers, horn-books, alphabets, all the rudiments; and I shall set up a school in every village. It is too much for one short life, but at least I can begin it, and when once begun, it will go on, for the Russians will not stop me. The Russians have been very good to me, and they hate the rule of Islam, which is warlike and implacable. The Commander of the Caucasus is a man of great humanity. If he could have done as he liked, I should have received at once a free pardon; and as it is, my revenues have never been confiscated. He knows that I would be the last to attempt or join in another insurrection. There never was a chance, since time began, of a great Caucasian nation. We are split into about seventy tribes, and each loathes all the others. Young as I was, when I joined Shamyl, the folly of it was clear to me; and my father perished not by a foreign but a neighbour's hand, as usual. That may be my fate also, especially when I attempt reforms. But if so, I shall have done my best to redeem a life of violence."
As I looked at him, I could wonder no more that Dariel thought so little of all other men compared with him. Here was a man, one might well believe, who never knew what fear was, suspicion, falsehood, meanness, envy, or even the love of money. It had been the sense of justice only, and no greed or jealousy, which had led him to reject the demand of Rakhan, his father's murderer; whence all the disasters of his life ensued. And it seemed to me that if ever there had lived a man of honour and kind heart, who deserved the favour of Heaven and the reverence of his fellows, it was this man long oppressed by some mysterious curse of destiny.
My voice was trembling with something more than regard for my own interests, when I fetched him back from his great ideas, which were ever so far above my scope, to the matter which concerned me most.
"Sûr Imar, I am quite small of mind, and would rather receive than do good things. And of all the blessings of the blessed world, you know the one that I value most." He smiled a little, for his face was always ready to yield to gentle turns.
"My friend, I know what your desire is. You want to rob me of my one delight. But I feel myself safe for a long while yet. I rely upon many obstacles. In the first place, will your own discretion and judgment bear you out in wishing, even if you had my consent, to connect yourself with a race of such dark fortunes and sad calamities, and crimes as well – for crimes they are? And perhaps there are more before us. I have told you my tale, to show you this. I believe not of course in any heathen conceptions – Até, Nemesis, Ananché, or what not? But who can deny that there is an inheritance of evil quite beyond our power to explain?"
"That may be so. But my one prayer is to be allowed to risk such penalty."
"You speak like an Englishman," he answered, looking at me very gravely; "other men equally brave would decline, through the force of superstition. But I have only begun my objections yet. For instance, what would your own friends have to say about this question? You have not mentioned it yet, I suppose, as nothing was likely to come of it. But without that, you must know pretty nearly how your friends would take it."
I answered in so many words that they left me to follow my own judgment now; that while things continued as they were, it would be wrong of me to forsake them, as they could never get on without me; but that a change for the better might be expected now with all confidence, for England was sick of that farce so ridiculously called "free-trade," and then the land might feed her sons again, instead of giving them nothing but a weedy grave.
"It is the standing joke of Europe," he replied; "there is nothing to compare with it in history. Your benevolence is of the highest order, because so purely unconscious. But it will require another generation to restore your sanity, unless you have a war that blocks your supplies; and then how simple! That man who can fast for forty days may challenge the nation, when war is declared, and outlive them all, though they eat all they can get. But let me not interrupt you."
What is the loaf compared to love? The dealers and the middlemen have the chief pull of the former. Turn me into a Radical, if the labourer gets an ounce the more for his fourpence, than he often did of old, when his right hand stood him in good stead, and his Saturday night was certain. But a foreigner is allowed to show the common-sense, which an Englishman is hooted down for hinting.
"We shall never be as we were," I said, "we shall always be poor, Sûr Imar. And I am only a younger son. If it is your duty to repel me for that reason, I have nothing more to say."
"We will not part like this," he answered, feigning, as every man should do, to be blind when another man is moved; "there are many things in your way, my friend; but I will not make the worst of them. You have my respect and liking, which I do not give to every one. But in spite of all I have gone through or perhaps by reason of it, I have some romance about me still. You say that you love my daughter, and I thoroughly believe it. But does she love you?"
"I have no reason to think so yet. What right have I to hope for it? She is far above me in every way. But if you do not forbid me – why I could try – I could try my best, you know."
It was almost more than he could do to look with becoming gravity at the sadly waning phase of hope depicted on my countenance. He smiled, because he could not help it. And I smiled, to keep time with him.
"You are honest, at any rate," he said, "and that you have been from first to last. Of English modes of wooing, I know nothing; and they are not like ours. But this strikes me as an unusual thing; though perhaps all you ask is what you would call 'a fair field and no favour.' You shall have it, as far as I am concerned; though I will not pledge myself afterwards. But remember that in a month or so, we return to our native mountains."
This was awful news to me; and I seemed to have no fair chance left. Moreover I felt very deep alarm concerning that Prince Hafer, Dariel's cousin, about whom I had heard so much, and of whom I had seen too much already. Was he the son of that terrible woman, Marva – Sûr Imar's sister – and that hateful man, and horrible plotter, Rakhan, Prince of the Ossets? I had longed to ask his Uncle Imar for more particulars, about him, and especially what he was doing here, but my courage had failed me on that point. Alas that he was no longer dumb; and if he had fallen 200 feet in his childhood, no wonder that he could jump 10 now; for Nature always strives towards a balance. And if he could not jump 10 feet in height (which perhaps is more than any man even of the mountains has achieved), it was plain enough that he would prove a very awkward customer, whenever my sense of the gross injustice inflicted by his presence should urge me to attempt by hand or foot his desirable removal. But one thing I might ask, as I thought, without showing any impertinence, or reviving painful memories.
"Your sister, the Princess Marva, sir? I hope she continued to show good-will, and afforded you some comfort before you were banished from Daghestan. She herself remains there, I suppose?"
"Not in Daghestan, but in Ossetia, which lies to the west of the great Russian road that marks the division of the Mountain-range. No, I cannot say that she showed any sisterly feeling towards me, except the true sorrow for my child of which I spoke; and perhaps no woman who witnessed a scene of such distress could have helped being touched. But when I heard of her tender behaviour, and remembered that old scruples were partly removed by the death of the offender, I sent her all that she could claim, and much more, of her inheritance in goods and chattels. But it is impossible for her, as long as she continues Rakhan's widow, to show much affection for me, though I may hope that she has it in her heart. For unhappily that most fiendish and accursed institution, which I hope to begin to extirpate, by the spread of the Gospel and of education – the blood-feud is set up between us. By marriage she is an Osset, and among the Ossets she holds sway, like a petty Queen almost. Although she cannot have any vindictive feelings against me, after all her husband's behaviour to both of us, she must respect their customs, and not show herself too friendly. Therefore I take it as unusually kind and good on her part, that knowing how soon my time expires, she has sent her only son, Prince Hafer, to congratulate me, and to offer an ancient residence or Court-house of the Ossets, which stands very conveniently, for us to occupy on our return, till Karthlos (which is in a sad condition) can be put into good repair. That I call a true extension of the olive-branch; and it is the more remarkable to one who knows as I do that this infernal code, for I can call it nothing else, is supposed to be doubly binding when it inures betwixt near relatives. Blessed are they that never heard of it. No flight of time, no acts of kindness, no natural affections avail against it."
"It is horrible indeed," I said, "and nothing can be more un-English. We are the most sensible race in the world, as well as the most straightforward. 'Have it out and be done with it,' is our rule; no steel, no lead, no poison; but a fight with what the Lord has made."
"You also have your brutality, I fear. But it is not my place to talk of that, after all the kindness I have received among you. And you are wide awake to all your own virtues, so that I need not insist upon them. Is there anything more you would ask me?"
"Nothing, Sûr Imar. And I may have seemed to trespass already on your patience. But I have a brother who is wonderfully clever in all mechanical and chemical affairs. May I bring him to see your type-stamping process, and other beautiful devices? They are out of my line altogether; but he would appreciate all of them. And more than that he is gifted, as you are, with the faculty of languages. He is the genius, and I the dunce. May he come? He has nothing to do with the Press, and will not even talk of what he sees."
"It will give me great pleasure to see such a man;" my host replied most courteously. "There is no secrecy about my work, beyond this – if your journals spoke of it – and they speak of even smaller matters – it might get into some Russian paper, and my little ideas would be quenched at once. Russia does not encourage education, outside her own narrow grooves. But if I could only begin unforbidden, probably I might go on for years. You see how sanguine I am still."
"And your nephew will be of great service, no doubt, as his mother is so friendly. In his early days he had no power of speech I think you told me. But that comes sometimes rather late in life."
"I do not think that I spoke about it; because I had no knowledge. His father mentioned it in that fatal letter. But before I left the mountains I was told that an operation at Tiflis had relieved the child of the tongue-tie; and now he seems to be in many ways a fine specimen of the Caucasus. He cannot speak your language well, though he has picked up a little of it, and he is not very fond of your nation. But if your brother is a linguist, possibly he might get on with him. And I should like to try the experiment. When will you bring your brother? But tell him not the story of my life, as I have told it to you. It is a thing I never speak of, without a special reason."
"You may depend upon me, Sûr Imar; I know the favour you have done me, and the reason for it. There are few who would have gone through so much pain, for the sake of almost a stranger. But I know not when I can bring Harold. He is a most uncertain fellow. Nobody can ever tell where to find him. He says it is the beauty of his character. But I hope that I may come before he does; or it will be a bad look-out for me."
"You may come to see me every day, my friend, and I shall be pleased to see you. But if you meet Hafer, be on your guard. He has the rough manners of the mountains still, and has not seen the world, as I have."
Thus I was obliged to leave it. Not at all to my liking; yet with no right to complain of any one. This Lesghian Chief had laid me under a very great obligation, by overcoming for my sake his natural reluctance to recall a past so full of pain, and in such bitter contrast with the present conditions of his life. As a nation we make little of the debt which a foreigner incurs to the hospitality of England. The guest, moreover, is too graceful ever to inflict on us the pain of seeing him overwhelmed with gratitude. But this Lesghian Chief had formed what was perhaps a romantic view of the greatness of our policy, and a liking for us which is, I fear, by no means universal. This I hoped to work with diligence for my own advantage; as our Government used to do, as long as it still subsisted.
CHAPTER XXIX
LARGE AND LONG VIEWS
Sûr Imar had spoken of happiness as resembling a mountain-eagle in the brevity of its visits, and the speed of its flight away from us, rather than the gentle dove whose nest is always near our roof, while the cooing of her soft content pervades the summer evening. And probably he was right enough as regards his own race and country, where all is rugged, strong, and fierce, and a pious life too often means pure impotence for robbery.
But if he only could have seen my father of a sunny morning, sitting in his little room, with the red cloth on the table, and the drawers of his cabinet pulled out, and his choicest coins laid gingerly with their faces tilted towards the light, and a chamois leather, and a box of powder, and a tiny bottle of acid to be used most sparingly – that Chief of great stature, and still greater mind, would have perceived that bliss may come with the downy plume of the dove, as well as the swoop of the eagle's pinion. For here was an ancient gentleman, who had never known flash and clash of steel, or the rush of hot blood upon frozen snow; but had only been damaged by the rapid fall of grain, and no longer had the spirit to cry out at that; yet in the evening of his days found pleasure in the coinage of the past, when the currency failed so painfully. Often he shouted for his wife or daughter, to share some great discovery, some new interpretation of his magnifying glass, or the lens of imagination, over some battered disc, resembling the plate which our blacksmith clamps red-hot on the nose of a vainly squealing porker.
Then was Sir Harold's pleasure at the acme and the apex. What delight is perfect without something to find fault with? And the fonder one is of the poor short-comer, the sweeter it becomes to correct the loose idea.
"This indeed is frightful, my dear Grace! Will you never know an old L from a T? And how often must I tell you, that they run the other way? There's a tangle of your hair coming in the light again! If you want to be of any use, which you never can be, do go and cut off at least three quarters of it. One would think that girls were made of nothing else but hair. Show me any mops and frizzles, on a feminine obverse. Look at this fascia! I'll get you one to-morrow. You fetch it round tightly, and then you cut off all the rest. Unless you like to bunch it, as a jockey does a horse, I shall speak to your mother about it. Nothing shall be done that you dislike. But you see for yourself how becoming it is?"
"Lovely, oh, lovely! I am wild about it, father. But the lady has no nose. Is mine to come off too?"
"She has had a nose, and as good a one as yours. It is the mere accident of attrition. But here comes George! What can George want now? He knows that I never should be interrupted, with all these drawers open. If any rival Numismatist – I am sorry to say there is no honesty among them. Even the people at the British Museum, when I lent them for comparison, kept back three most valuable – the gems, the gems of my whole collection!"
"Well, sir, I don't blame them. It was for the instruction of the nation." I knew that my father was even more proud than indignant at this fact – if fact it was, and he had long ago made it one, by telling it at least twice a-day. "But I don't want to disturb you, sir, and I don't often do it. Only there are two things that I am bound to consult you about immediately, if you can spare me a few minutes, without having to put more important work aside."
My father sighed; for he hated business, as he had good cause to do, while Grace walked away with a lofty air, like a lady denied the franchise. Finding myself rather nervous, I began in a craven manner with other people's business.
"Bandilow wants to know, sir, whether he may break up half-moon meadow, and plant it with apple- and pear-trees. He says it is the only chance of his being able to pay his rent, next Lady day."
"But, my dear George," Sir Harold replied, while he spread a silk handkerchief over his coins, lest the atmosphere of business should corrode them, "does the silly fellow expect to realise a fruit-crop betwixt this and then?"
"Very likely he does, for he has found an apple on a tree he planted not more than two years ago; and the Society for the Promotion of British Fructiculture has sent him a coloured print of apples bigger than turnips and brighter than prize carnations. And you know what Lord Melladew did for him; they would not advance him any money, – in fact, he had to subscribe to them, – but for a 'nominal price' they supplied him with a list of fifteen hundred kinds – "
"Oh, I don't want to hear any more about that! I should have some faith in it, if they put their own money into it, instead of being paid for persuading other people to invest in it. However, it is no concern of mine."
"Excuse me, sir, but I think it is. In a sort of sideway, at any rate. You would not like an old tenant, whose family has held under ours for at least three centuries, to be robbed by private folly of the little the public mania has left him. I know the climate of Surrey pretty well, and there are very few better in England. Last May, the mercury stood below freezing point at six in the morning, no less than eight times; and twice it was eight degrees below. Have we any fruit-bloom that can laugh at that? You would not like an elderly man like Bandilow, with a large family dependent upon him, to be ruined, would you now? And he is already in arrears of rent?"
"Certainly I should grieve at that, and throw him off every farthing, little as we can afford it. But my dear boy, you make the worst of things, and you are sadly obstinate; which, perhaps, is a family failing. Men of tenfold your knowledge have proved that the only remedy, and a very easy one, offered by Providence itself, for the present starvation of agriculture, is to take to horticulture. If wheat will not pay at 30s. per quarter, fall back upon apples at a pound a bushel. And then there is jam, a glorious scheme."
I saw that all reason was in vain. Lord Melladew had got hold of my good father, and tip-top prices upon West-end counters had been quoted for orchard average. It was useless to say another word. But who ever ceased on that account?
"If the wheat crop is precarious, I should like to know what the fruit crop is. Two years in three give a fair crop of grain; scarcely one in three of fruit. If we turned every field into a broom of trees, would even the present low prices hold, in the years when there was anything on them? The fruit might roll on the ground and rot, whenever the season was plentiful. Englishmen cannot live on apples; and jam is only fit for children. But do as you like, sir. Do as you like."
"George, I am guided too much sometimes by the way in which you look at things. You have formed very strong opinions, and there may be something in them. Nothing is more wonderful to me than the difference in character betwixt you and Harold. Harold looks at a thing all round, and is never quite sure about it. But you make up your mind without looking at all, and I defy anybody to move you."
"I have made up my mind, sir, about another matter, which I came to put before you. And though I am not to be moved from it, I do hope that you will take my view. But is Bandilow to have his way?"
"Certainly," my father answered with a pleasant smile, for he had formed the most erroneous opinions about me; "is no one to have his way, but my son George? It is only fair to let a tenant crop his land as he thinks best, unless he injures it permanently; and especially such a man as Bandilow, who has stuck to us, when all the others dropped off. And there is another reason. Many of the newspapers, loving, as some of them seem to do, to stir up ill-will among Englishmen, keep on declaring that the landlords form the chief obstacle to the improvement of land. The thing is absurd. You might just as well say that if you borrow a hundred pounds of me, I must long for your bankruptcy, lest you should repay me. What landlord would not be delighted if his tenant could make £50 an acre, as these people say? I only wish this fruit-craze could last."
"Father, you are right. What a blessing it would be, if they could only fetch it round! Let us hope for the best, as they do. And now for the other question, all about myself; and I hope you will take the same liberal views. But it is a long story. Have your easy chair, and your little glass of mead that stops the cough. Well, Harold did some good in recommending that. You never get the cough as you used to have it."
"Harold is a very clever fellow," my father said, after a sip or two; "if that boy would only stick to something – or if I could make a blend of you two – well, well, we can't have everything."
"That is a righteous law for us; but it ought not to apply to you, sir, whose wishes are so moderate. For instance, I want a thing that I shall never get. May I call Mother in, to hear what it is?"
In this there was wisdom, gracious wisdom, such as we are inspired with sometimes, however foolish we may generally be. For whatever opinion my father might form, he would have my mother looking at him, and then she would be sure to give a glance at me, and the experience of years would be belied unless she gave utterance to a conclusion not directly counter, but sub-contrary, hypenantious – if such a word is pardonable – to the view which her husband had ventured to form without waiting for her suggestion. For they had grown so much alike, that both of them doubted about the joint-stock wisdom; as we all despise home-produce.
Seeing myself in the right way thus, while indulging in all due deference, I did my very best to let them know that I had striven after things above me. My father was ready to concede that point; but my mother could not conceive it; and was eager to branch out into a long discourse, about all the great people akin to us in body, but in mind not as yet awake to it. My father joined me in abbreviating that – though at such a time it was hard measure – but he heard the old Grandfather Clock strike one; and if mother got wound up on that chain, the hour-hand might go round the dial before he got any luncheon! Therefore he spoke decisively.
"What we have heard from George is not altogether what I expected. Everybody knows, though he seems to imagine that nobody ever dreamed of it, that he had found some attraction among those very strange people that live in the dell. Who they are, or what they do there, it has never concerned me to inquire. When strangers come into a neighbourhood, and desire to keep themselves to themselves, no English gentleman would ever think of obtruding himself upon them. They may be very estimable, and even of very high rank in a foreign way, as George supposes. But when they pack themselves up inside a wall, without even a bell, or if they have one with only fierce dogs to answer it, all we can do is to leave them to the Police, or the Government, or the Newspapers. The right of asylum is sacred in England. Of Continental intrigues we know nothing, and we refuse to be mixed up with them. Even with a Radical Government in power – my dear, you quite agree with me?"
"In every word that you have said, my dear. But when our George, without asking his mother, goes out of his way to make strange acquaintance, and people who pretend to look down upon us – "
"You have no right to say that, my dear. We must not think that they are so absurd. They have the highest opinion of this Country, as of course they are bound to have, except as to our one great mistake. And there, if I understand George aright, Prince – what's his name, Mari? It sounds like New Zealand, but at any rate his views do him very high credit. He spoke of Free Trade with very fine contempt; I think you told me so, George?"
"Sir, he could not find any word strong enough to describe our folly. And the testimony of an outsider – but you never use such language, sir."
"No, I leave that to younger people, who may live to see the worst of it. But this gentleman must have great perception, as well as much integrity. You think that he draws a large revenue, and this young lady is his only child."
"My dear, you forget how they live out there," said my mother, who was above lucre, and my father as well too superior to show it. "Who can tell how many wives they have? And their laws not too respectable, I am half afraid, upon such points."
"I was very well up in Geography once," my father replied with a smile at her, "I could construe some of Prometheus vinctus, and I have a coin, with the rock and the chain and the vulture, but the Titan has been eaten to nothing by time. It is extremely valuable; yet the British Museum failed to steal it. That Prince comes from the very same spot. It may have been struck by his ancestors. George says that they come in a direct line from Noah's own great-grandson."
"In that case, indeed, who are we to talk of our own children? Who, indeed, are we?" My mother glanced upward, as if to watch the whole of creation sliding. "Although to a reasonable mind the Heptarchy is as much as one requires to be sure of. But I should like to see that girl, George."
"Stop," said my father, "I am not a sceptic; Mama, you must not set a bad example. I had my little doubts about the Ark, I must confess, until so many people attacked it, among them a Bishop of our Church, who continued to enjoy his income. If he was in earnest, he scarcely could be honest, and in that case, who would listen to him? And if the Ark rested upon Ararat, that would be the neighbourhood to know all about it. I will not contradict Prince Maori."
"But it is the girl I care about;" my mother made a great point of the tempers of young women. "George is so peaceable, and he never argues. I cannot risk his happiness with a wife who may be descended from – from even the females mentioned in the Bible."
"My dear mother, what a hurry you are in. The young lady does not care a fig about me yet. And I am very much afraid that she never, never will. Only I thought that I had better let you know."
"This sort of thing has never happened to you before, and that is very greatly to your credit, George." My father looked stealthily at my mother, lest her conscience should involve her in some misconstruction here. "But we must talk it over first, your mother and myself. We could have no idea that such a thing was happening on our property, I mean – of course, what used to be ours. It seems to be departing from the proper way so much, and the practice of the family. I am sure there are plenty of nice girls round here."
"I am not so sure of that," said my mother, rather quickly, and giving me a signal to leave the rest to her; "English girls are not at all as they were in my time. They have dropped all their modest looks and delicacy. They talk slang, and they speak without being introduced, and they call one another Jack and Jemmy, and they let young men give them pairs of gloves, and they come into a room with both arms swinging; and as for their dresses, and the way they do their hair – "