to do so, and for the most part succeeded. Whenever I was likely to be
involved in military operations, I let my hair and beard grow, and the
white-haired old man was usually exempted. I have had far more experience
in keeping out of battles than any other human being has had in the art
of winning them. But what you two want is a story, and I will give you
one.
"During some of the earlier years of the seventh century, I was living
in Ravenna, and there I had three or four scholars whom I taught
occasionally. I did not dare to keep a regular school, with fixed hours
and all that; but while I was not working at my trade, which was then
that of a mason, I gave lessons to some young people in the neighborhood.
Sometimes I taught in the evening, sometimes in bad weather when we did
not work out of doors. No one of my scholars showed any intelligence,
except a girl about eighteen years old. Her father, I think, was a
professional robber, for his family lived very well, and he was generally
absent from home at the head of a little band of desperate fellows, of
whom there were a great many in that region.
"This girl, whose name was Rina, had an earnest desire for knowledge, and
showed a great capacity for imbibing it and retaining it. In fact, I
believe she was the most intelligent person in that region."
"Was she pretty?" asked Mrs. Crowder.
"Yes," replied her husband; "she was very good-looking. I was so
interested in her desire for knowledge that I taught her a great deal
more than I would have dared to teach anybody else; and the more I taught,
the more she wanted to learn.
"I soon became very much concerned about Rina. Some man of the
neighborhood, old or young, would be sure to marry her before very long,
and then there would be an end of the development of what I considered
the brightest intellect of the day."
"So to keep that from happening to her, thee married her thyself?" asked
Mrs. Crowder.
Her husband smiled. "Yes; that is what I did. You know," he said,
addressing me, "that I believe that Mrs. Crowder takes more interest in
my marriages than in anything else I have done in the course of my
career."
"Certainly I do," she said, with a little flush. "Of course thee had to be
married, and it is natural enough that I should want to know whom thee
married, and all about it."
"Well," said Mr. Crowder, "we must get on with this. A priest with whom
I was acquainted married us, and we immediately fled from Ravenna. After a
year or two of wandering through benighted countries where even kings
and rulers could not write their names, and where reading seemed to be a
lost art, except in the monasteries, we made up our minds, if possible,
we would go from darkness into light, and so we set out on a journey to
China."
At this statement Mrs. Crowder and I looked surprised.
"I don't wonder you open your eyes," said he. "It must seem odd to you,
unless you are very familiar with the history of the period, that we
should go from Europe to China in search of enlightenment and
civilization; but that is what we did, and we found what we looked for.
As the Pope had sent an envoy to China, and as some Nestorian
missionaries had gone there, I believed that we could go.
"This journey to the Chinese province of Nan-hae occupied the greater
part of five years; but to me personally that was of no account, for I
had time enough. Although we passed through all sorts of hardships and
dangers, my wife was greatly interested in the strange things and people
she met. Sometimes we traveled by water, sometimes on horses and asses,
and very often we walked. During the last part of the journey we joined
a caravan which went through central Asia.
"At that time China was ruled by a woman, the Empress Woo. For a long
time back there had been a period of great intellectual activity in China.
Literature and the arts flourished, and while the great personages of
Europe did not know how to write, these people were printing from wooden
blocks.
"The empress was a remarkable woman. She had been one of the widows of a
monarch, and when his son succeeded to the throne she married him. She had
great ambition and great ability. She put down her enemies, and she put
herself forward. She took her husband's place in all the imperial
consultations and decisions, and very soon set him aside, and for forty
years was actual ruler of the empire.
"She was a great woman, this Empress Woo. Very little happened in her
dominions that she did not know, and when two wanderers arrived from the
far and unknown West, she sent for me and my wife to appear before her at
the palace. We were received with much favor, for we could do her no
possible harm, and she was very eager for knowledge. My wife was an object
of great curiosity to her, as she was so different from the Chinese women.
But as poor Rina could never acquire a word of the language of the country,
the empress soon ceased to take interest in her. As I was always very good
at picking up languages, she had me at the palace a great deal, asking all
sorts of questions about the Western countries and people. I was also able
to tell her much about bygone ages, which information she thought,
of course, I had acquired by reading.
[Illustration: "'ASKING ALL SORTS OF QUESTIONS.'"]
"One day the empress asked me about the marriage customs in the West,
and wanted to know how many wives a man could have in our country. She
seemed to be so much in earnest, as she spoke, that I was frightened.
I did not know what to answer. But fortunately one of her generals was
announced, and she did not press the question. As I was leaving the
palace, one of the officers of the court took me aside, and told me that
the empress was thinking of marrying me, and that I had better put on some
fine clothes when I came again. This was terrible news, but I was bound to
tell my wife, and we sat up all night talking about it. To escape from
that region would have been impossible. We were obliged to stay and face
the inevitable, whatever it might be.
"The question which Rina and I had to decide was a very simple one, but
terribly difficult for all that. If I should tell the empress that men
of my country believed that it was right to have but one wife, Rina would
quickly be disposed of; so she had to decide whether she would prefer to
die so that I might marry the empress, or to preserve her life and lose
her undivided possession of a husband."
"I know what I would have done," said Mrs. Crowder, her eyes very bright;
"I would have let her kill me. I would never have consented for thee to
marry the wretch."
"That would have pleased her," said Mr. Crowder; "for she would have had
me all the same, and you would have been out of the way."
"Then I would not have died," said the little Quakeress, almost fiercely;
"I would not have done anything to please her. But I don't know. What did
thee and thy wife do?"
"We talked and talked and talked," said Mr. Crowder, "and at last I
persuaded her to live; that is to say, not to make herself an obstacle
to the wishes of the empress. It was a terrible trial, but she consented.
The more insignificant she became, I told her, the greater her chances
of safety.
"The next day the empress sent for me, as I was sure she would do.
"'You did not tell me,' she said, 'how many wives your men have.' 'That
all depends upon the will of our sovereign,' I replied; 'in matrimonial
affairs we do as we are commanded. When we have no commands from the
throne, our circumstances regulate the matter.'"
"Thee did tell a dreadful lie while thee was about it," said Mrs. Crowder,
"but I suppose thee had to."
"You are right there," said her husband; "and my answer pleased the
empress. 'That is what I like,' she said. 'The monarch should settle all
these matters. I hope some day to settle them in this country.' Then,
without any hesitation or preface, she announced her intention of marrying
me. 'I greatly need,' she said, 'a learned man for an imperial consort.
My present husband knows nothing. I never trust him with any affairs of
state. But I have never asked you anything to which you did not give me
a satisfactory answer.' Now, my dear," said Mr. Crowder, "you see the
reward of vanity. If I had pretended to be a fool instead of aspiring to
be a philosopher and an historian, I should never have attracted the
interest of the queen."
"And did thee marry her?" asked his wife. "I do so pity poor Rina!"
"I'll tell you how it turned out," he continued. "After pressing me a
good deal, the empress said: 'I had intended to marry you in a few days,
or as soon as the preparations could be made; but I have now postponed
that ceremony. I find that military affairs must occupy me for some time,
and it would be better for me at present to marry one of my generals. A
military man is what the country needs. But I shall want a counselor of
your sort very soon, so you must hold yourself ready to marry me whenever
I shall notify you.'
"My instincts prompted me to ask her what the imperial general might be
apt to think about the increase in her matrimonial forces, but I was wise
enough to hold my tongue. When the general should cease to be of use to
her, I knew very well that he would not be likely to offer opposition to
anything on earth."
"How glad I am," ejaculated Mrs. Crowder, "that thee didn't ask any
questions, and that thee consented to everything the wicked creature
said!"
"So am I," he replied; "and I was glad to get out of that palace, which I
never entered again. From that day I began to grow old as fast as I
could. My hair and beard became very long; I ate but little; I stooped
more and more each day, and walked with a staff. I began to be very
forgetful when people asked me questions. About a year afterward the
queen saw me. I was in the crowd near the palace, where I had purposely
gone that I might be seen. She looked at me, but gave no sign that she
recognized me. The next day an officer came to me, and roughly told me
that the empress had no use for dotards in her dominions, and that the
sooner I went away the better for me. I afterward heard that the execution
of two strangers had been ordered, but that a certain superstition in the
mind of the empress had prevented this. She had heard, through persons
who had met the Nestorians, that people of our country were protected in
some strange manner which she did not understand.
[Illustration: "'AND ROUGHLY TOLD ME.'"]
"Rina and I could not leave China, for I had now no money; but we went
to a distant province, where I lived for more than ten years, passing as
a Chinaman."
"And Rina--poor Rina?" asked Mrs. Crowder.
"She soon died," said her husband. "She was in a state of fear nearly all
the time. She could not speak the language, and it may be said that she
gave up her life in her pursuit of knowledge. In this respect she was as
wonderful a woman as was the Empress Woo."
"And a thousand times better," said Mrs. Crowder, earnestly. "And then?"
"Then," said her husband, "I married a Chinese woman."
"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder, her eyes almost round.
"Yes, my dear; it was a great deal safer for me to be married, and to
become as nearly as possible like the people by whom I was surrounded."
"But thee didn't have several wives, did thee?" asked Mrs. Crowder.
"Oh, no," he answered; "I was too poor for anything of that kind to be
expected of me. When an opportunity came to join a caravan and get away,
I took my Chinese wife with me, and eventually reached Arabia. There we
stayed for a long time, for I found it impossible to prosecute my
journeying. Eventually, however, we reached the island of Malta, where
my wife lived to be over seventy. Travel, hardships, and danger seemed
to agree with her. She never spoke any language but her own, and as she
was of a quiet disposition, and took no interest in the things she saw,
she generally passed as an imbecile. But she was the first Chinese woman
who ever visited Europe."
"I guess thee was very sorry thee brought her before thee got through
with her. I don't approve of that matrimonial alliance at all," said
Mrs. Crowder.
During this and succeeding evenings of narration, it must not be supposed
I sat silent, making no remarks upon what I heard; but, in fact, what I
said was of hardly any importance, and certainly not worth introducing
into this account of Mr. Crowder's experiences. But the effect of his
words upon Mrs. Crowder, as shown both by the play of her features and her
frequent questions and exclamations, interested me almost as much as the
statements of my host. I had previously known her as the gentlest, the
sweetest, and the most attractive of my female acquaintances; but now I
found her to be a woman of keen intellect and quick appreciation. Her
remarks, which were very frequent, and which I shall not always record,
were like seasoning and spice to the narrative of Mr. Crowder. Never
before had a wife heard such stories from a husband, and there never could
have been a woman who would have heard them with such religious faith.
Naturally, she showed me a most friendly confidence. The fact that we were
both the loyal disciples of one master was a bond between us. He was so
much older than either of us, and he regarded us sometimes with what
looked so much like parental affection, that it would not have been
surprising if persons, not believers as we were, should have entertained
the idea that, in course of time, he would pass away, and that we two
should be left to comfort each other as well as we might. But I, who had
heard my friend speak of the coming years, could not forget the picture he
had drawn of two aged and feeble people, looked up to in love and
veneration by a fresh and hearty man of fifty-three.
"Thee never seemed to have any trouble in getting married," said Mrs.
Crowder. "Did thee ever stay an old bachelor any length of time?"
Crowder laughed. Such questions from his wife amused him very much.
"I was thinking of changing the subject," said he, "and was about to tell
you something which had not anything to do with wives and marriages.
I thought you might be tired of that sort of thing."
"Not at all," said she, quickly; "that's just what I want to hear."
"Very well," answered he; "I will give you a little instance of one of
my failures in love-making.
"It was long before my visit to Empress Woo; in fact, it was about eleven
hundred years before Christ, and I was living in Syria, where I was
teaching school in the little town of Timnath. I became very much
interested in one of the girls of my class. She was a good deal older
than any of the others; in fact, she was a young woman. She had a bright
mind, and was eager to learn, and I naturally became interested in her;
and in the course of time she pleased me so much that I determined to
marry her."
"It seems thee was in the habit of marrying thy scholars," said Mrs.
Crowder.
"There is nothing very strange in that," he replied; "a schoolmaster
usually becomes very well acquainted with some of his scholars, and if a
girl pleases him very much it is not surprising that he should prefer to
marry her, or, at least, to try to, than to go out among comparative
strangers to look for a wife."
"If I had been in thy place," said Mrs. Crowder, reflectively, "sometimes
I would have enjoyed a long rest of bachelordom; it would have been a
variety."
"Oh, I have had variety of that kind," said he. "For many succeeding
decades I have been widower, or bachelor, whichever you choose to call
it.
"As I was saying, this girl pleased me very much. She was good-looking,
bright, and witty, and her dark, flashing eyes won her a great deal of
attention from the young men of the place; but she would not have
anything to do with them. They could not boast much in regard to
intelligence or education, nor were any of them in very good
circumstances; and so, in spite of my years, she seemed to take very
kindly to me, and I made up my mind I would marry her the approaching
autumn. I had some money, and there was a house with a piece of land
for sale near the town. This I planned to buy, and to settle down as
an agriculturist. I was tired of school-teaching."
"No wonder," said Mrs. Crowder, "as thee intended to take out of it
its principal attraction."
"We were walking, one evening, over the fields, talking of astronomy,
in which she took a great interest, when we saw a man approaching who was
evidently a stranger. He was a fellow of medium height, but he gave the
impression of great size and vigor. As he came nearer, striding over the
rough places, and paying no attention to paths, I saw that he was very
broad-shouldered, with a heavy body and thick neck. His legs were probably
of average size, but they looked somewhat small in comparison with his
body and his long arms, which swung by his sides as he walked. He was a
young man, bushy-bearded, with bright and observant eyes. As he passed us,
he looked very hard at my companion, and, I am sorry to say, she turned
her head and gazed steadfastly at him.
[Illustration: "'SHE TURNED HER HEAD.'"]
"'That's a fine figure of a man,' she said. 'He looks strong enough for
anything.'
"I didn't encourage her admiration. 'He might be made useful on a farm,'
I said; 'if his legs were as big as the rest of him, he could draw a plow
as well as an ox.'
"She made no answer to this; but her interest in astronomy seemed to
decrease, and she soon proposed that we should turn back to the town. On
the way we met the stranger again, and this time he stopped and asked us
some questions about the country and the neighborhood. All the time we
were talking he and my scholar were looking at each other, and each of
them seemed entirely satisfied with the survey. The next day the girl was
very inattentive at school, and in the afternoon, when I hoped to take
a walk with her, I could not find her, and went out by myself. Before
long I saw her sitting under a tree, talking to the stranger of
yesterday."
"She was a regular flirt," said Mrs. Crowder.
"Apparently she was," replied her husband; "but although I might have
excused her, considering how much better suited this stranger was to her,
in point of years at least, I was not willing to withdraw and leave her
to another, especially as he might be a person entirely unworthy of her.
"I did not disturb them, but I went back to the town and made some
inquiries about the stranger. I found that he was a Danite, and lived
with his parents in Zorah, and that his name was Samson. I also learned
that his family was possessed of considerable means.
"It soon became plain that it would not be easy for me to carry out my
marriage plans and settle down among my vines and fig-trees. Samson went
home, told his parents of his desire to marry this girl, and in the
course of time they all came down to Timnath and made regular matrimonial
propositions to her parents."
"Was this the great Samson who tore lions apart and threw down temples?"
asked Mrs. Crowder, in amazement.
"The very man," was the reply; "and he was the most formidable rival I
ever had in that sort of affair. The proper thing for me to do, according
to the custom of the times, would have been to take him aside, as soon
as I found that he was paying attentions to my sweetheart, and fight him;
but the more I looked at him and his peculiar proportions, the more I was
convinced that he was not a man with whom I wanted to fight."
"I should think not," said Mrs. Crowder. "How glad I am thee never
touched him!"
"The result might not have been disastrous to me," he said; "for although
I have always avoided military matters as much as possible, I was probably
better versed in the use of a sword than he was. But I did not care to
kill him, and from what I heard of him afterward, I am sure that if he had
ever got those long arms around me I should have been a mass of broken
bones.
"So, taking everything into consideration, I gave up my plan to marry
this girl of Timnath; and I was afterward very glad I did so, for she
proved a tricky creature, and entered into a conspiracy to deceive her
husband, actually weeping before him seven days in order to worm out of
him the secret of his strength."
"I suppose thee never met Delilah?" asked Mrs. Crowder.
"Oh, no," he answered; "before Samson was married I left that part of the
world, and I did not make the acquaintance of the attractive young person
who was so successful in the grand competition of discovering the source
of Samson's strength. In fact, it was nearly a hundred years after that
before I heard of those great exploits of Samson which have given him
such widespread fame."
"I am glad thee never met Delilah," said Mrs. Crowder, reflectively;
"for thee, too, was possessed of a great secret, and she might have gained
it from thee."
IV
"I think thee was in great danger," continued Mrs. Crowder, "in that
Samson business. It makes me shudder to think, even now, of what might
have happened to thee."
"There was not much danger," said he; "for all I had to do was to
withdraw, and there was an end to the matter. I have often and often been
in greater danger than that. For instance, I was in the army of Xerxes,
compelled to enter it simply because I happened to be in Persia.
My sympathies were entirely with the Greeks. My age did not protect me at
all. Everybody who in any way could be made useful was dragged into that
army. It was known that I had a knowledge of engineering and surveying,
and I was taken into the army to help build bridges and lay out camps.
"Here it was that I saw the curious method of counting the soldiers which
was adopted by the officers of Xerxes's army. As you may have read, ten
thousand men were collected on a plain and made to stand close together
in a mass nearly circular in shape. Then a strong fence, with a wide gate
to the west and another to the east, was built around them, and I was
engaged in the constructing and strengthening of this fence. When the
fence was finished, the men were ordered to march out of the inclosure,
and other soldiers marched in until it was again entirely filled. This
process was repeated until the whole army had been in the inclosure. Thus
they got rid of the labor of counting--measuring the army instead of
enumerating it. But the results were not accurate. I was greatly
interested in the matter, and on three occasions I stood at the exit gate
as the soldiers were coming out, and counted them, and the number never
amounted to ten thousand. One counting showed less than seven thousand,
--the men did not pack themselves together as closely as they were packed
the first time,--so I am confident that Xerxes's army was not so large as
it was reported to be.
"I became so much interested in the operations and constitution of this
great horde of soldiers, attendants, animals, vehicles, and ships, that
I went about looking at everything and getting all the information
possible. In these days I would have been a war correspondent, and I did
act somewhat in that capacity; for I told Herodotus a great many of the
facts which he put into his history of this great campaign."
"Thee knew Herodotus?" his wife asked.
"Oh, yes; I worked with him a long time, and gave him information which
helped him very much in writing his histories; but it would have been of
greater advantage to the world if he had adhered more closely to my
statements. I told him what I discovered in regard to the enumeration of
the army of Xerxes, but he wanted to make that army as big as he could,
and he paid little attention to my remonstrances.
"Herodotus was only four years old when Xerxes invaded Greece, and of
course all his knowledge concerning that expedition was second-hand, and
by the time he began to write his history of the campaign there were very
few people living who knew anything personally about it. If he had not
been a man so entirely wrapped up in his own work he would have wondered
how any one of my apparent age could give him so much in the way of
personal experience; but he seemed to have no suspicions, and, at any
rate, asked no questions, and as I had a great desire that this remarkable
historical event should be fully recorded, I helped him as much as
I could.