ROSES AND BATH TOWELS
"He moved about the house with joy
And with the certain step of man."
--_Tennyson._
"Good-morning, Mr. John, I give you my salvation."
Very softly and sweetly fell the English words from the pretty lips of
Shushan. Jack stood before her (it was spring now) with a great basket
of spring flowers--glorious red anemones, fragrant wild roses, pink and
yellow--wild heliotrope, wild hyacinths, and other flowers for which we
have no name in England. They were not alone together, of course; Mariam
Hanum was there at her wheel, and two or three other women or girls of
the family, spinning or sewing. Shushan herself was bending over a piece
of the beautiful silk embroidery she had learned in Urfa, when the
entrance of the young Englishman with the flowers they all loved so well
made all look up together. Only the men and boys of their own family
might come in thus freely to the room where the women sat; for any
others the younger ones would have withdrawn, or at least have veiled
their faces modestly. Shushan, at her first home-coming, used to do so
for Jack; but the practice had gradually and insensibly fallen into
disuse. She had been learning English in the school in Urfa, and at this
time it was the greatest pleasure Jack had in life to hear her speak it.
She was not unwilling to do so, being most anxious to remember all she
had been taught.
"Is that right said, Mr. Yon?" she asked.
"It is very nice. And now, for my _salutation_, I give you my flowers.
Here are enough for everybody."
He laid the basket down beside Mariam, having first taken out a fragrant
nosegay of roses and heliotrope, carefully chosen and tied with grass.
"It is for saying a good lesson," he explained, as he offered it to
Shushan.
Jack was now a tall, handsome youth of eighteen. Of late he had grown
strong and active, and he took part as much as he could in outdoor life,
especially in riding. In the saddle he was utterly fearless, and he
began to be very helpful to Hohannes in the training of his young
horses.
A month after the departure of Thomassian, he began to look out for
answers to his letters. But in vain he watched and waited; nothing came
for him. Weeks passed away, and then months; still the silence was
unbroken. Jack was astonished, disappointed; sometimes, by fits and
starts, he was angry. It looked as if his English friends did not care
for him any longer, as if they chose to forget him. If it were not so,
why had they, all this time, made no effort to find out what had become
of his father and himself? Very well; if so it were, he could do without
them. He could not just then feel any pressing anxiety to leave
Biridjik; although of course he always meant to go back to England some
time or other. When he came of age, he would certainly go, for then he
could claim his inheritance.
But it was pleasant here. How richly glowed the Eastern sky! how
glorious the wealth of roses! how sweetly smelled the blossoming vines,
as he rode past the vineyards on the hills!
At last the vintage time came round again.
One fine autumn morning a string of horses, mules, and donkeys stood at
the door of the Meneshians' house. Upon them were packed two tents of
coarse black cloth--that cloth of Cilicia which the tent-maker of Tarsus
used to weave. Some thin mattrasses and rugs were thrown over the
bright-coloured saddles, and in the saddlebags were provisions, cooking
utensils, and a few changes of dress. Then the whole family, from old
Hohannes down to the youngest child, seated themselves, or were seated,
on the animals as best they could find a place; and the yearly visit to
the vineyards--the great autumn holiday of the Armenians--began.
If ever they shook off the deep melancholy which ages of oppression had
stamped upon their race, it was in the simple pleasures of those sweet
vintage days. The days were all too short for them, so they began them
very early, with the singing of a psalm or hymn together. Then they
dispersed to the different kinds of work allotted to them. Some stripped
the low trees of their wealth of clusters, others trod out the juice in
wooden troughs; again, others made it into sherbet, or into a kind of
sugar, or mixed it with starch and with the kernels of nuts for the
preparation of bastuc. Again, a company of happy children plucked the
large grapes singly from their stalks and laid them in the sun, on great
white linen cloths, to turn themselves into raisins. Their labours were
lightened with talk and song, and sometimes even with jests and
laughter.
One morning John Grayson, gathering grapes apart from the rest, heard a
piteous cry for help. The voice was Shushan's; she was in pain or
danger. Dropping his basket on the ground, he tore along, leaping over
the low vines, making a straight line for the spot whence came the cry,
whence came also horrible sounds--the yelps, the snarls, the growls of
savage dogs.
In a corner of the vineyard Shushan and little Hagop clung together,
just keeping at bay, with loose stones from the low wall, five or six
wild, half-famished, wolfish dogs. Their strength was nearly gone.
Another minute and they would be torn to pieces.
Jack dashed in amongst the dogs, dealing frantic kicks and blows about
him. No matter what came next, if only he saved Shushan.
"Run! make for the tent!" he cried to her and Hagop.
The brutes being for the moment occupied with him, the thing was
possible, and they did it.
The sunshine flashed on something bright in the belt of his zeboun--the
great scissors used for cutting grapes. He seized it, and drove it with
all his might into the neck of the nearest dog. Yelping with pain, the
creature ran off. But the stoop was nearly fatal; two or three sprang on
him at once;--he felt fierce teeth meeting in his flesh.
"Done for!" he groaned, conscious only of agony and blackness.
But the next moment a tumult of cries and shouts rang in his ears; the
dogs were flying in all directions before the sticks and stones of his
friends, who had hurried in a body to his help. They had heard the
yelping even before Shushan and Hagop, trembling and exhausted, were
able to reach them. The creatures belonged to some Kourdish shepherds,
who chanced to be passing that way, and the low wall of the vineyard was
no protection against their attacks.
Jack was brought back to his tent amidst the praises and condolences of
the whole company. Mariam Hanum bound up his wounds, weeping and
blessing him, and saying many a hearty "Park Derocha" ("Praise to the
Lord") for the deliverance of her children.
Shushan did not say much; but, after they went home from the vineyard,
she was observed to be very busy over some choice embroidery. She did
not take the time for it from her ordinary work, or from any of her
domestic tasks, but she worked diligently all her spare time, and
sometimes far into the night.
At last, one day, she laid a parcel of considerable size at the feet of
the astonished English youth, saying timidly, "Yon Effendi, you saved my
life. I want to thank you."
The parcel contained what an Armenian lady considers the most graceful
and most appropriate gift she can offer to a gentleman, especially if
it be all her own work--a set of beautifully embroidered bath towels!
But a day was to come when John Grayson would have given all he
possessed, nay, his very life, that he had _not_ heard Shushan
Meneshian's agonized cry for help in the vineyard, or had heard it too
late.