CHAPTER XXXII
A PAINFUL DUTY
It is all very fine for those fine people who can carry on like that. My sister Grace gave ten thoughts to every pound of her own butter, for one she could spare to every thousand pounds of Stoneman's money. A great weight of cash hung against him at first, in the scales of honest affection; but goodness, and kindness, and manly conduct, and bashfulness – thriving rather shyly in "the House" perhaps, but sprouting more freely in our fine air – had gone down plump against the adverse weight of a metal which we seldom find too heavy. Yet people should keep their felicity quiet; even as a cat (whose name may be akin to it) should purr before the fire, instead of squealing on the chimney-pot.
But Jackson went aloft, and began to look down upon me, to whom he owed everything, as he surely must have known. He chaffed me about my Oriental Princess, a subject not only too lofty for him, but exceedingly painful to me just now. For I felt myself out in the cold, as it were; and with all due allowance for exalted spirits, there is such a thing as good taste; and there is, or ought to be, such a thing as sympathy. And the deeper a man is down in the hole of love, the more should the fellow at the top desire, and strive (without hooking him in the back) to wind him up to bank again. However, I never let them hear a groan, but endeavoured to content myself by meditating on the comparative grandeur of my own position.
Grace was all pity, and flutter, and excitement, and very tender interest about my state of mind, and laid down the law, like the Lord Chief-Justice in some very complicated Liquidation-suit. But when I said to her point-blank, "Very well; as you have it all so clear, let me drive you in mother's pony-trap; and then you will make it all right for me with Sûr Imar, and with Dariel," to my great disgust her answer was, "I am quite ready, George – if dear Jack thinks it proper."
"Dear Jack, indeed!" I replied with undisguised contempt, for Stoneman had persuaded her to drop the "son"; or perhaps she had made him his own father. At any rate, they had found out between them that "Jack" was of higher rank among the novelists than his offspring had as yet attained. However that might be, he was her Jack-of-all trades now; and I, who once did everything, must be proud of second fiddle.
That settled all interference of theirs. And, in truth, I would not have let her interfere if a thousand dear Jacks had sanctioned it. In the flow or ebb of his own affairs, let every man paddle his own canoe.
Inspirited thus, I made up my mind that if Harold did not appear right early, the proper thing for me would be to pay my visit without him, for the master of the place had clearly said that I might call upon him at any time; though that would be of little comfort to me, unless I might call upon his daughter too. And here I confessed myself quite at a loss, being entirely in the dark as to the social usages, and the tiptop tone of the Caucasus, which must be in a position to look down upon ours. But I said to myself, "Shall extreme humility bring me to so low a pass, that a savage young Osset – whatever that may be – shall trample on the British flag? That a swaggering bully who scorns noble dogs, and breaks the legs of lovebirds, shall scare a young Englishman from his true love, and carry her off, and disdainfully treat her, as Rakhan his father behaved to his mother? Where is my courage, or sense of right, or even manly compassion, that I should permit such a sacrilege as that?"
Not only was I warmed by these large reflections, but touched up also by the little prick of thorns, which the May-bloom hedge of another fellow's love-nest sometimes administers to the plodder in the lane. So I came to this practical conclusion – take the bull by the horns, and have it out with him. For this gallant purpose, forth I set about two o'clock of a November day, with a little drizzle in the air, but not what an Englishman would call a real fog.
Perhaps I may have mentioned, though I will not be too sure, that a little trifle of a brook arises, among the few fields which we still kept in hand, and contrives to make its way, without venturing upon noise, but accepting every zigzag that any hedgerow offers, down the trend of land that goes away very mildly, until it gets view of a valley. And then there are thickets, and corners of halt, and windings of the little water, and flat beds strewn with the season's leaves, where birds of the neighbourhood, or of passage, find an agreeable change of diet, or of rest when their wings are weary. And a man with a gun may get a very pleasant shot, if he probes this sweet home of theirs warily.
Even the tiniest brook ever seen must lead to something larger; but according to the lie of the land, this runnel must wayfare long on its own account, before it meets the Pebblebourne. Woodcocks are apt to be somewhat capricious birds. Sometimes we never heard of one almost throughout the winter, and the next year, perhaps, it would come into their heads that there was nothing like a happy Surrey coppice. This year they had taken that correct view of us, and our duty was to make it final. So I whistled for my favourite spaniel Bess, and with my old breechloader on my arm, set off for a roundabout walk towards St. Winifred's. If I had the luck to bring down a long-bill, perhaps a fair creature might immortalise him.
After a long rough trudge through fern and swamp and briary thicket, I heard the murmur of a larger stream, which could be no other than the Pebblebourne. Daylight began to fail, and the mist was deepening in the valley, so I took a short cut towards the ancient walls with my little offering provided. A woodcock, a leash of snipe, and a widgeon were more than I had expected, and a pheasant or two would have borne them company, if it had been lawful.
Suddenly from a little glade of covert a frightful sound invaded me. It was not like the cry of a cow for her calf, nor that of a dog with a cart-wheel on his tail, nor even the fitful palinode of a cat upon the roof, suffering deep remorse of love. But if there be any organ capable of combining a wail, a bellow, a shriek, and a yell, with a howl and a moan, and a few other indications that all is not perfect bliss here below, that instrument must have been doing its utmost in the dusky copse before me. My pet spaniel little Bess slank away behind my heels, and covered her eyes with her ears to exclude such an audible vision of the Evil One. But a man alone, or at any rate a member of the human race alone, could compass an effect so horrendous. My blood ran as cold as the water in my boots, and if I had stopped to think for even half a second, right-about-face would have been the order.
But real curiosity must never stop to think. With a few rapid steps I was over the low stile, and stood in the tangled enclosure. Like the shrillest fog-screecher that has ever been invented, that sound led me unmistakeably, until I saw a little dark man struggling for his life against victorious bondage. He was corded to a tree no larger in the trunk than he was, so that it just filled the hollow of his back; his wrists were tied behind it, and his feet being lifted high enough above the ground to deprive him of all leverage, the publication of his sorrow was the sole resource. The last light of day was rolling, rather than flashing, in his helpless eyes; and the cruel distortion of his anguished face might have foiled his own mother's faith in him. And his yells were not those of our language, which can assert itself, even in our outcries.
My impulse of course was to rush forward, and succour this poor victim; and I went for it at once, although I saw that two strong men sat gazing at him. One of them was tall and dark, and a foreigner all over; while the other was bulky and big of limb; and both were jeering pleasantly. With my gun on the left arm, I pulled out a knife, and rushing between them before they could rise, cut the cords of the captive, and eased him down on my shoulder, and lo, it was Allai!
He uttered a guttural something, altogether beyond my philology, and picked up his pet little jingal from the moss, and was off like a hare, before I could speak. When I turned round, a man stood on either side of me, but not quick enough to grasp my arms. I jumped back, so as to get the tree in front, and cried, "Fair play, you rascals! If you want to taste an ounce of shot apiece, here it is at your service."
The tall man turned away, as if that proposal were not much to his liking. But the other stood his ground, and spoke, as if he knew that I would not fire. "Who are you? What's your business here? Mind your own affairs. We were only having a bit of fun."
"Well, and so am I. It is quite as good fun to scare two scamps, as to bully a helpless little devil."
"Right you are," he exclaimed with a laugh, which made me think better of him, for he could not know that I had drawn my cartridges when I left off shooting; "but we are not scamps, young man; we were performing a painful duty."
"You said it was a bit of fun just now. At any rate I have stopped it. And if you find that a grievance, I will put down my gun and meet you. But only one at a time, mind."
"What an obliging man you are! And you stand nearly six inches over me. My friend would have a better chance with you. But he does not understand 'the box.' You have spoiled our day's work. Who are you?"
"I have a right to ask that question first. I am in my own neighbourhood, as you can see. But you are a stranger, and doing strange things. Tell me your name, sir; and you shall have mine."
"Fair enough. I am Captain Strogue of the British Pioneers, – not ashamed of my name, and not likely to be, though it is better known all round the world than at home. You think me a coward for tormenting a small chap. It only shows your ignorance of that race."
"It is not brave to torture anybody, Captain Strogue. But that is no longer my business. My name is George Cranleigh, well known about here. What I have done I would do again, and so would any other Englishman."
"Likely enough. But it is unlucky, and you may have done a world of mischief. However, I bear no grudge against you. Some day perhaps you will be sorry for it. But where the deuce is the – why, hang me upside down, if he has not vanished!"
The Captain seemed eager to do the like, and it was not my place to stop him. He lifted his brown hat to me, and was gone, leaving upon me the impression of a man, resolute, testy, adventurous, excitable, and perhaps unscrupulous.
As to the other man, although he had not presented himself distinctly, what other could he be than Hafer, the son of Imar's sister Marva, and now the Chief of the Osset tribe? Although I had not seen his face that night when he left Dariel weeping (neither had I seen it plainly now), the figure and carriage and style of dress were quite enough to convince me. Even in the dark there had been something about that fellow – or Prince, as some would call him – and about the moral smell of his nature, unpleasant, to use the mildest word that I can think of, to my plain and simple elements. He might be the better man of the two, more kindly, more trusty, more lovable, and of a higher stamp in every way. Never mind; I had not the least desire, though he were all that, to resemble him. And Providence, having made us as we are, cannot take it amiss if we are satisfied.
"I shall have a good look at him some day," I thought, "and then I am sure to feel that I was right. I can have no prejudice against him, merely because he has dared to look at Dariel. She, who takes so long to see what I am, is not at all likely to be carried by storm by this fellow's olive complexion, and fine nose, and black eyes, and sable moustache, and all the rest of it. Why, he is a brute, and nothing else, however handsome he may try to look! I can scarcely believe him to be that noble man's own nephew."
CHAPTER XXXIII
TREMBLING
However, these great reflections did not save me from being in a rather nervous state when Stepan, who was most obsequious now, – if such a word may be used of such a steadfast hero, – showed me into Sûr Imar's room. And before he raised the curtain, he whispered in best English, "Milord, me good friend to milord now. Allai worth dogs, dogs, all right a hundred dogs." I pressed his hand, because he was thus cultivating our dear language.
"It is long since I have seen you," Sûr Imar began, with his kind and cheerful but never joyful smile. "I began to fear that you had taken amiss something of what I said the other day. It is difficult at such times to consider one another. But all right, as Stepan says. He is becoming quite an Englishman. Did you notice the fogle, as you call it, this child of the Caucasus has picked up somewhere? It is the envy of all our encampment. What a simple-minded race we are! But that is a material to work upon for good. And soon we shall be among the heart of it again. What will my daughter think of her native mountains?"
"But surely," I answered in a melancholy voice, – "surely you will not take her to that frightful place – I beg your pardon, to all that world of grandeur – when everything is frozen, and there is not a place to sit upon. When there is not a flower, not a blade of green grass, nor even a tree that is not a hump of snow. You may find it very nice; but young ladies – Sûr Imar, have you thought about her constitution?"
"My young friend, I have; and it is as sound as mine. There will not be much society; but has she any here? From all that I have seen of it, and I lived some time in London, society means pretence, affectation, jealousy, littleness, stale slang instead of humour, slavish imitation, contempt of fellow-creatures, and cowardly blindness to the afflictions of this earth. My daughter has no taste for such a life as that."
He appeared to me to speak too strongly, and too much from a primitive point of view; and all who set up such a standard as that are impatient, and apt to exaggerate. But it was not for a country Lubin to vindicate the ladies, and I was in haste to deal with nearer considerations.
"Perhaps you will be angry with me," I said, "but you have told me so much of yourself, that you will not regard it as a liberty. Are you sure, sir, that you do not imperil your life by returning to people so revengeful?"
"As certain as a man can be who knows their obstinacy, and the power of long tradition. And who would wish to harm me now? My sister made much for a time of her wrongs about the marriage portion; but her wicked husband's public vaunt that he had slain our father, and my surrender of all her share as soon as she was a widow, must have taken the sting from that. And as for Rakhan, and his death, could she prefer a faithless husband to her own twin brother?"
"Well, you know best, sir. But is there not a son of that same Prince Rakhan, 'Hafer' you called him the other day, who may feel himself bound by that fiendish law, even if his mother rejects it?"
"Yes, and I hope to introduce him to you. A young man of what you call a rough and ready nature, the natural produce of a rugged land. Too free-spoken perhaps, and apt to give offence to those who dislike strong convictions. But I hear that among his own people he is beloved, and admired beyond all example, for his justice, mildness, and unbounded generosity. The Ossets are not what you have in this country, advanced and experienced Christians. On the contrary, it is a painful fact that the larger half are idolaters; and of them, and of the Christians too, not one in ten is far off from a thief. This makes them thoroughly worthy of the deepest British interest. In going round the globe so much, you never care about any race that is beginning to get better. Your own, for instance, is nothing to you. You can hope for the best about them; and believe that the Lord, who governs the earth for the benefit of the British race, will make it all right for the worst of you. Upon that point you have no misgivings, any more than you have about any others, when you feel yourselves summoned to improve the world. But my duty is upon a very small scale, and is limited to my own people."
Great as my reverence was for Sûr Imar, it was difficult not to suspect that some adverse influence had been at work with him. Hitherto he had always expressed a genial admiration of our race, which had produced on my part a corresponding respect for his uncommon powers of insight and freedom from foreign prejudice. "You have taken a turn against us," I replied with some warmth, and looking at him as I had never looked before; "time will show who is right, Sûr Imar."
"My young friend," he answered, "you are quite mistaken. I am not leaving you through my own wish. Such quiet days I shall never know again, and such kind respect for my privacy, even with ten feet of snow round my walls. For the sake of my countrymen I must go. That I cannot do much is quite certain; but I hope to start them on a better course. For years, as you know, I have been preparing, and my first chance of trying it is come at last. Am I likely to speak ungratefully of the only land on the face of the earth that would receive me, without a thousand mortifications and annoyances? Why, even your tax-collectors have been civil."
This was a climax of approbation which amazed, and by power of contrast puzzled the warmest asserter of national virtue. "Surely you cannot mean that!" I exclaimed. But romantic as he was, he nodded.
"Now, as you charge me with distrust of England, and I may have said some ungracious things," he spoke with a smile almost as bright as Dariel's, "show your forgiveness, my dear friend, by coming with me into my daughter's room. We are beginning to put up our little possessions, for the journey to a rougher place. How many thousand times shall we regret the halcyon days in this quiet little vale! But come and have a cup of coffee."
"I am not fit to go into a lady's room. I have got about a pint of water in either boot. They are warranted waterproof, and so they won't let it get out again."
"We'll soon put that to rights. You should wear arabas. Come into this passage, and Stepan will see to it, and bring you a pair of my sandals. I will be with you again in a minute."
While the faithful henchman was pulling off my boots, which was no small tug for even his great arms, his mind was evidently in a condition of still more strenuous exertion. She – if the higher portion of our composition lays claim to the higher half of gender – was struggling and rolling and flopping about (being over-bulky for lighter process) in quest of some fugitive English word, earnestly courted, but wickedly coy.
"Milord, put on more smoke, more smoke. Yes, yes, more smoke, else be too late. Me good friend to milord now. Wicked mens come every day. But milord smoke, smoke, smoke."
He puffed with his lips and panted, as if to impress me with the need for a vast fumigation. "I want a pipe sadly, my friend," I replied; "but how can I have it in a lady's room?"
The Lesghian stared at me, and stroked his beard, and shook his head angrily, as if he had found it empty. "Stepan fool. No say, no say," he exclaimed as he made off to fetch the slippers; but I am afraid that I heard him mutter, as he turned the corner, "Inglese, dam languidge; dam languidge, Inglese!" In a minute, however, he returned, with a broad smile lighting up all his battered countenance, as if he had found what he wanted in the sandals.
"Me know now. Stepan big fool. Milord put on shteam, shteam, shteam! Go ahead! Who's afeard? Won't go home till mornin'? The gal I left behind me. Nancy is my darlin'! Milord know now."
"I am blest if I do," I endeavoured to reply; but he would have no more quenching. In the triumph of philology his dignity was lost; and I saw that he must have spent at least a day in London. "Is the Caucasus come to this?" I asked, and was glad to see my host return.
Stepan stood up, and shut his mouth in the curtain of his beard, like a casement closed under the ivy, and looked at me, as if there had never been less than a mile of moral distance between us. In the name of the Lord, where does sham end? But I had to do a little on my own account.
Dariel's room! I had never been in the shrine of my divinity till now; and when I was there I could look at nothing except her entrancing presence. She was resting upon something – it might have been a cloud, for all that I could tell about it. The soft light fell upon the sweetest face that heaven itself ever shone upon; and I tried to speak, but no words came; neither could I look upon her as I longed to do. If she had been too much for me out of doors, what possibility was left me here?
"My child," said her father, – for she too was silent, which emboldened me to steal an ecstatic dream of the petals of a blush-rose fluttering on her face, – "my child, I have brought our kind friend, Mr. Cranleigh, who has placed us under so many obligations, to say good-bye, or at least good-night; for I hope that we may see him again before we leave. We have taken you a little by surprise, I fear."
"But it is a pleasant surprise, dear father. I was a little – what is the proper English word? – melancholy? No, I can never be that with you. But sorry, perhaps, – out of spirits, is it so? We have been so happy in this very tranquil rest."
"It is true," replied Sûr Imar, as he turned to me; "perhaps we shall never have so smooth a time again. It is like the beginning of a new life to us. But Dariel knows that we must not think of our own comfort only."
"No, but of our lives – of your life, father. What does it matter to me where I go? But we are travelling from a land where you are safe to a country of savages, where there is no law, but everybody burning to kill everybody else."
"A pretty description of your native land! It is the air of this country, Mr. Cranleigh. My daughter has breathed it so long that she believes that there is no other excellence under the sun. We know that it has some such effect upon the natives. But why should it be so with a little foreign girl? Dariel, my dear, I feel ashamed of you?"
"Oh, how much better does he know than that!" the loving daughter exclaimed, as she placed both hands upon his shoulders and her face among his beard, whose dark cascade spared a silver rill or two to glisten through the sable of the young abundance; and thence she looked at me with a snug composure, as if to ask, "What do you want with passion? This is affection, if you please. This is all that a sweet girl needs." And then she very calmly stroked his moustache up, and put her lips to his, and kept them there, till I could almost hope that he might prove to have taken a taste of garlic. But perhaps if he had, it would have been all the same to her.
"You see what our manners are," said the father, with a laugh; "we have not quite attained the proper self-command, I fear." And then I had my revenge; for Dariel blushed as if she had done an outrageous thing, and whispered, "Oh, I beg your pardon!"
It was a lucky thing for her, perhaps, although a sad one for poor me, that her father was so close at hand; else how could I have controlled myself? For, being a little repressed, she turned the ardent appeal of her eyes on me, quite as if – quite as if I had been a member of the family. And when I smiled, not reassurance only, but most loyal encouragement, what did she do but glide away from papa, and sit down by the visitor!
"Oh, Grace, you are graceful enough," thought I, "for yourself, and for any stockbroker. But if you want to know how to sit down, you must come and see Dariel do it." For she had told Jackson, and he in his lunacy thought it too good to be kept to himself, that her brother George, if he got the wife he wanted, would be obliged to put her through a course of chair-drill before he could give a dinner-party!
How I trembled to find myself sitting at her side, indoors, unhurried, with the sanction of authority, civilised, waiting for a cup of coffee, watching the turn of her exquisite hands, nettled by the dancing of the clustered hair, which drew a veil, always at the most provoking moment, over the lustrous speech of those myriad-flashing and yet ever gentle eyes, as the filigree of some crafty jeweller tempers and deepens the delight within! What was there for me? Could a common sort of fellow, with nothing but rough truth and deep worship to commend him, dare to suppose that he could ever get in there, and be cherished as the owner of the heart that moved the whole?
I assure you that I made a great fool of myself; though such an assurance is superfluous to any man who has ever earned his salt. I had just enough sense left to say "Yes" or "No," with a "Please" in a deep breath now and then, and a "Thank you" that took away breath altogether. Dariel, who was as fit as a fiddle – how those low expressions spoil one's most exalted moments! – saw with her ill-timed serenity the confounded tumult of my system; and, as she told me in the wiser days, felt ashamed of herself for enjoying it. Ah, me! it is not often, in the little square-round of human life, that we get tossed over the boundaries thus, with the profundity of misery struggling with the sublimity of ecstasy.
"My dear young friend," said the tranquil Lesghian, who had let his eyes follow the lines of his beard in amiable serenity, though there must have been a stealthy smile under it, "few things are more gratifying than to have one's own productions valued by those who understand the subject, and speak without prepossession; especially when the producer has departed from general usage, and carried out his own opinions. You are really sure that you admire – "
"Admire is too weak a word, Sûr Imar," – my eyes were still upon the charming result of his system of education, – "worship, love, adore, enshrine – "
"We will put it on the labels of our tins, as soon as we have a London agency. But only your initials, as your friends might not approve. I am always at a loss for those strong, expressive words of your language, which now survive only in advertisements. My dear, put them down in your tablets; I defy any soap to surpass them. G. C. worships, loves, adores, and enshrines the coffee of the Caucasus. I am not enthusiastic, Mr. Cranleigh; but next to education and the spread of Christianity, I trust to the civilising effects of commerce, which your nation insists upon, perhaps even more strenuously than the other two great agents. The Russians have introduced the growth of tea, and I heartily hope that it may answer. But knowing the genius of our people, which certainly is not inclined to persistent toil, I have come to the conclusion that coffee, which requires less constant attention, would have a better chance upon our Southern slopes, where the summer is long and the heat intense. I wish I could have seen your brother Harold, that universal genius, about it. The preparation which has so impressed you is not from our native berries yet, only from the slopes near Tiflis. But I hope we shall have our own in a few years' time. And then my discovery comes in."
For all that I knew to the contrary, I might have been drinking bilge-water flavoured with tar and stirred with marlin-spikes. But I grasped his hand with emotion, and said, "No words are adequate, Sûr Imar."
He must have known as well as I did – or what would be the good of his having ever loved his Oria? – that confusion was far too weak a word, and fusion itself not strong enough to describe the condition of my brain. Till Dariel, with one precious glance of reserve and soft sympathy – as if her father really must not claim to be the only one having any knowledge of me – bowed for me to move a little; and oh, she quite hung over me! For, being so stupid, I had not moved; and stupidity gets the prize more often than the cleverest volatility. "Darling!" I whispered through her hair; for her father was gone to his coffee-grinder, to secure some more of my adoration. And Dariel only whispered "Hush," with a quiver, but no repugnance.
"Father," she said with pure presence of mind, as he looked round from his grinding, "my senestra is a little out of tune; but Mr. Cranleigh will allow for that. He is kind enough to wish to hear me sing; and he thinks that my voice is rather agreeable."
"He is right enough in his judgment there. But what opportunity has he ever had of hearing it?" This question made me tremble when I thought of my first offence; but the nymph answered very bashfully —
"You remember – the day, dear father, when you invited Mr. Cranleigh to attend our little service. We all sang in our quiet way; and he was kind enough to be pleased with it."
"How could he be pleased? They do their best; and I am always proud to hear them. But, my dear friend, it is a frightful noise that drowns my child's soft melody. Englishmen who have travelled among our mountains, tell their countrymen that all our voices are harsh and cackling, guttural and disagreeable. Some may be so, but not all, and in my opinion few of them. I am not a judge of music, but I think my child sings beautifully."
"Oh, father, you have spoiled it all. Mr. Cranleigh will expect wonders. And all I can do is so simple; only it sounds nice to me because – because I feel that I mean it."
"Then your voice must be of your own tongue. She can sing in English very sweetly; but never with the expression which her native language brings to her. Mr. Cranleigh says he would like best to hear you in your own language, dear; though he won't understand a word of it. That ancient lay of Inkulluk, I like it as well as any. The words are nothing; but the melody has a tinkle like a mountain-stream, which modern music seldom has. We call it the song of the stork, although there is very little about them in it. If you like it, you shall have a prose translation, and perhaps your brother will put it into verse, for you tell me he has even that accomplishment. Now try that simple little song, my dear."