MOTHERS AND CHILDREN
BUT to get little Clava away from her mother, Tatiania, was a hard
task, almost an impossible one. The other parents recognised the
absolute impossibility of evading the order of the consistory, and they
listened submissively to the arrangements made for their children by
the Batoushka, who was supported by Alexis Ivanoff. But Tatiania would
listen to no reasoning or persuasion. Her husband had been in prison
for nine months, and but for Sergius and Marfa, who had done all the
work on their land, and with their beehives, the family would have
fallen into dire poverty. They were, of course, much poorer than they
had been in former years. But she would not give up her darling, she
declared—no, not if the archbishop himself came to take her away. The
Matoushka came to entreat her to trust little Clava to her, but in vain.
"Oh, foolish woman!" cried Paraska to her. "You'd know where she was,
and how kind they were to her, and you'd see her in the street, and
watch her growing up and changing into a girl. And I shouldn't know my
boys now if I saw them. They were babies when they took them from me
eight years ago, and now—! No, I'd pass them in the road and not know
them for my own sons."
It was not until a letter came from Khariton Kondraty, written in
his prison cell in Kovylsk, bidding his wife give up the child, that
Tatiania yielded, and little Clava went to the church-house, where
Velia was already settled.
Profound grief, underneath which lay a presentiment of still heavier
calamities, if that were possible, took possession of the little
community of Stundists. Every house had lost one or two of its
children. Several of the mothers, with their hungry love for their
little ones, could not keep aloof from the village church, where alone
they could see them and be for a short time under the same roof.
Paraska told them they were highly favoured; she did not even know if
her boys were living. Alexis Ivanoff in his great pity did not reproach
the women for their stolen attendances at the parish church. Velia had
returned to him for two or three days before he was compelled to resign
her to the care of Father Cyril and the sweet-tempered Matoushka. They
had been days of unutterable anguish, the Gethsemane of his soul. After
this sacrifice to his faith, no trial could be too bitter.
The old Matoushka, Father Vasili's widow, took care that a report of
the return of the heretic mothers to the Orthodox Church should reach
Father Paissy's ears. He heard it with a smile of self-satisfaction. At
last, then, he had discovered a way of dealing with the Stundists of
the diocese.
Michael's spirit in those days was hot and mutinous within him. Not
so much on account of Velia, whom he could visit frequently, but for
the sake of his father and little Clava's mother, who could hold no
intercourse with their children, and who were visibly aged by their
grief. Why could not the Stundists do as the Scottish Covenanters had
done before them, set up the standard of revolt, and defend themselves
until the right cause triumphed? Why should not they strike a blow for
freedom—at any rate, for freedom to serve and worship God according to
their conscience? Alexis listened to his boy with a melancholy smile.
"First of all," he answered, "because we remember that our Lord
suffered His enemies to take Him and crucify Him, though He might have
had a legion of angels to take vengeance on them. He said to Simon
Peter, 'Put up thy sword into its place: for all they that take the
sword shall perish with the sword.' 'The cup that My Father hath given
Me, shall not I drink it?' Yes, Lord, we must drink the cup that Thou
givest us! Cannot God save us, if that be best for us and for our
country?"
"Yes," replied the boy.
"That is the chief point," pursued Alexis, "but to revolt would be
utter madness. It would mean our extermination. Scotland is a small
country, and the Covenanters could easily band together. Besides, the
people were mostly in their favour. But Russia is vast, and the people
are our enemies, and will be as long as superstition and drink have the
upper hand. Here in Knishi, with nearly a hundred parishioners—that is,
heads of families—only nine of us are Stundists. Our nearest sister
church is in Kovylsk, a day's journey from us; there are some thousands
of inhabitants, and not more than a hundred brethren who are quite
sound in the faith. Our little churches are feeble in themselves, and
lie miles apart. Truly, if we took the sword, we should quickly perish
with the sword. We could not combine for resistance; we can only do so
for mutual sympathy and help. No, my boy, it is God's will, and we must
submit to it."
The Russian people, like all Eastern nations, are fatalists; and
Alexis Ivanoff was not without this strain in his temperament. There
is an element of peace in it, but not much element of progress. Boy
as he was, Michael chafed against it with all the love of freedom,
and a desire to strike a blow for it, which he had inherited from
his Scottish ancestors. God's will was ever for the right, and this
persecution was wrong.
The children over ten years of age were suffering in many ways, besides
having their younger brothers and sisters ruthlessly separated from
them. They could not pass along the village street, or drive their
parents' oxen to water at the village well, without having stones
or clods thrown at them. If they went out in numbers for mutual
protection, the Orthodox children formed bands which lay in ambush to
attack them. At a lonely cottage, left in charge of two girls whilst
their parents were working in the communal lands, the door was locked,
and the young persecutors gathered a quantity of reeds and ill-smelling
weeds, and set fire to them under the unglazed window, until the
noisome smoke almost suffocated the terrified girls. It was useless to
complain to the Starosta, and Father Cyril found himself powerless to
prevent such outrages.
The women dared not send their girls to the shop; and only big
boys like Michael and Sergius could water the cattle, or fill the
buckets for home use. They did it under a constant shower of abuse,
occasionally accompanied by skilfully aimed missiles. But on the whole
the village boys were afraid of Michael.
One day, as Michael was going down to the river to look after some
wicker fish-traps he had hidden in the water, he saw a girl standing
in the track leading to the washing-place, with a big boy brandishing
a whip over her. Before he could reach them, the long lash was falling
upon the girl's bowed shoulders and bare ankles in rapid stinging
stripes. She stood motionless, protecting her face with her hands,
and uttering no cry. The clothes she had been washing lay trampled in
the mud. It was Marfa, and the boy who was flogging her was Okhrim's
grandson, and a bully and a coward. Michael had just been reading how
Moses in Egypt saw one of his brethren suffer wrong, and forthwith
avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian. He considered
the example of Moses was to be followed.
"Stop that!" he cried, seizing the whip, and breaking the handle of
it in two. "You coward! Come on and fight me, if you dare, you mean,
skulking, miserable coward!"
But the boy dared not fight. He stood still for a moment glaring at
them; then, spitting at Marfa, turned away, running as fast as he
could. Michael was for pursuing him, but Marfa held him fast by the arm.
"Oh, Michael, you shouldn't, you shouldn't!" she sobbed, lifting up her
tear-stained face. "I could have borne it. Oh yes, I was bearing it. I
was saying to myself, 'This is for Jesus Christ's sake.' I didn't cry
out, did I, Michael?"
"No," he answered; "you were quite dumb. But I couldn't stand by and
see a girl flogged like that. No, no, Marfa! I did right, and I should
do it again."
"It will bring us both into trouble," said Marfa, picking up the soiled
clothes, and carrying them back to the washing-stage.
Michael lingered about till she was ready to go home. And after seeing
her there safely, he went on to his father's house, carefully avoiding
the village street. Alexis looked greatly troubled when Michael told
him what had happened.
"I will go and tell Father Cyril after dark," he said. "If anyone can
help us, he can and will. You did right, but no one knows what the
issue may be. Tell me, my son, did you feel angry with the boy?"
Michael flung back his head, and his face grew crimson.
"I felt as savage as a wild beast," he cried; "if I had not broken the
whip and flung it away the first moment, I should have flogged him."
"Thank God you didn't!" answered Alexis. "But oh, Michael, my boy, you
must learn to 'love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good
to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and
persecute you.' It is our Lord's command."
"It is too hard for me yet, father," said Michael frankly. "I could
forgive them gladly and make friends again, if they wanted it. But they
delight in being enemies. It's as much fun to some of them to lurk
round corners and throw stones at us from behind, as it used to be to
play games with us. But I'll try to keep our Lord's commands; I'll try
my utmost. A boy can't be perfect all at once."
"Nor a man either," said Alexis, with a smile and a sigh. "It is a hard
saying, but He who said it will give us grace to obey it. Only love
Him, Michael, and, presently we shall learn to love all for whom He
died."
In the dusk Alexis went to the church-house. It was somewhat larger
than his own, and possessed a slate roof, and glass in every casement.
It stood near the church, and not far from the cemetery, where, until
the last few years, all the village comrades in life had found their
last resting-place for their toil-worn and wearied bodies. But now the
Stundists were forbidden to bury their dead beside their forefathers.
Any unconsecrated hole was good enough for their unhallowed corpses.
Father Cyril was sitting alone, but the voices of the Matoushka and
the children could be heard in the kitchen, where supper was being
prepared. Alexis heard Velia's beloved voice singing an evening hymn
with the other little ones. Father Cyril was reading by the light of
a lamp with three wicks. Through the uncurtained window could be seen
the dim, great plain, which lay like a sea round the little island of
Knishi. The first slight veil of snow was lying softly upon it, for the
autumn was already over.
Father Cyril invited Alexis to sit down. The former Batoushka had
zealously testified to his religion by not permitting a heretic to
take a seat in his house. Alexis sat down by the window, gazing out at
the white wilderness on which the moon was shining softly. He told his
story simply, without looking at the Batoushka.
"Would to God I had been there instead of Michael!" exclaimed Father
Cyril. "I always suspected that young rascal was the ringleader in this
persecution of children by children. If I could but have laid my hand
upon him! Then I would have sent a report to the archbishop. Surely no
servant of God could wink at such an evil. It frustrates all my efforts
to teach them mercy and loving-kindness. It is making them more savage
and cruel than their parents were before them."
Father Cyril's voice faltered, and Alexis turned to see why he ceased
speaking. He had buried his face in his hands, and the lamplight shone
upon tears trickling through his interlaced fingers.
"Father, forgive them! They know not what they do," murmured Alexis.
"Amen!" said the Batoushka.
Before them both, the Orthodox priest and the heretical Stundist,
there rose a vision of their crucified Lord, in the hour of His bodily
anguish, when rude, rough hands were nailing Him to His cross on
Calvary. Both thought of that hour with profound pity and love, but the
remembrance brought more strength and comfort to Alexis than to Father
Cyril.
"Amen!" he repeated. "Our Lord said it. And He also said, 'Blessed are
you when men shall revile you, and persecute you, for My sake. Rejoice,
and be exceeding glad.' Father Cyril, we are ready to follow where the
Lord leads."
"But what about the persecutors?" said Father Cyril. "And I am on their
side. Alexis, it will break my heart!"
They were silent for some minutes.
"I fear this will bring fresh trouble," said the Batoushka, "but I will
send a report at once to the archbishop. You are sure Michael did not
strike the Starosta's grandson?"
"He confesses he would have done it," replied Alexis, "if he had not
broken the whip and thrown it away the first moment. But who will
believe him?"
"I will go and see Marfa first thing in the morning," said Father
Cyril. "Little Clava and your Velia are in there," he added, nodding
towards the kitchen; "they are dear children to us."
The children had just finished singing, and pattering steps came
towards the door to fetch Father Cyril to supper. He hastened to
intercept them and send them back; for no heretic parents were
permitted to hold any intercourse with the children taken from them.