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."
The lovely maiden, thus exhorted, smiled as she cast back her hair, and
upon the white rise of her breast laid a musical affair of some dark
wood, having divers strings and curves. Lute, zither, mandolin,
tambourine, lyre, it was none of those, and I knew not, neither cared
what it was, only to watch her swift white fingers dancing like
snowdrops inspired by the wind, and her lips like rosebuds tremulous.
The words were nothing but sounds to me; yet I knew, by the power she
gave to them, that whoever could bring them home to her would have no
cold-hearted wife to wed. And this is what Harold made of it:--
THE SONG OF THE STORK.
"When the veil of the mountains is lifted by Spring,
And the voice of the water saith--Winter is past:
When the stork from Armenia plies her glad wing,
And the ibex lies down, without fear of the blast;
With a heart that is warm as the nest of a dove,
In the bend of the valley, I wait for my love.
"When the splendour of summer makes spangles of snow,
And lights with red lilies the gloom of the glen;
While the forest is flushed with azalea's glow,
And the melody of fountains floats through it again;
With a heart that is true to its nest as a dove,
On a lawn of sweet roses, I wait for my love.
"When the tempests of Autumn have turban'd the peak,
And the gray shadows hover above their stronghold;
Yet the fruitage still lingers--a faint purple streak,
And the ripe corn embroiders the breastland with gold;
Though my heart may be quailing at the storm-clouds above,
Like the harvest, it answers the sunshine of love.
"When the mountains are turned into caverns by snow,
And the heavens are black with the fury of cold,
When the spectre of Rakhabat stalks to and fro,
And the gaunt wolf is howling alone on the wold;
With the ice-crags around us, and the avalanche above,
My love shall not shiver in the breast of his love."