CHAPTER I.

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ILLUSTRATIONS

OF

POLITICAL ECONOMY.

BY

HARRIET MARTINEAU.

--------------

THE CHARMED SEA.

BERKELEY THE BANKER—PART I.

BERKELEY THE BANKER—PART II.

--------------

_IN NINE VOLUMES._——VOL. V.

ROUTLEDGE, WARNES, & ROUTLEDGE,

FARRINGDON STREET;

NEW YORK: 56, WALKER STREET.

859.

CONTENTS.

---

THE CHARMED SEA.

PAGE

Song in a Strange Land 1

To each Heart its own Bitterness 14

A wounded Spirit 25

A Lodge in the Wilderness 43

Traffic in the Wilds 73

The Patriot’s Altar 89

Wisdom from the Simple 106

The Patriot’s Martyrdom 120

The Patriot’s Vow 129

BERKELEY THE BANKER.—PART I.

PAGE

The Haleham People 1

The Pride of Haleham 24

The Haleham Riot 37

Wine and Wisdom 64

Husbands and Wives 97

Suspense 119

Certainty 131

Market-day 152

A Future Day 168

BERKELEY THE BANKER.—PART II.

PAGE

The Wife’s Journey 1

The Wife’s Holiday 24

Suspicion 50

The Wife’s Return 66

The Wife’s Obedience 83

An Arrangement 100

The Wife’s Recompense 123

Arrangements completed 132

THE CHARMED SEA.

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CHAPTER I.

SONG IN A STRANGE LAND.

“These, then, are the mountains,” said a Russian officer to one of a

band of armed Siberian peasants, appointed to guard a company of exiles

who were on their way, some to the mines of Nertchinsk, and others to be

attached to the soil as serfs, wheresoever the governor of Irkutsk

should please. “These, then, are the mountains, and here they cross the

frontier, to give work to the Emperor’s enemies, in digging out their

gold and silver.”

“Yes, those are the mountains, and within them lies the Charmed Sea,”

replied the peasant, who, however, did not trouble himself so much as

even to look up towards the peaks, now beginning to wax dim in the long

northern twilight. This man lived in the next hamlet, and traversed this

road almost every day, as did his companions; for, though the Russian

officer had accompanied the exiles all the way from Poland, the peasant

guard was changed from village to village.

“Call the prisoners forward, and make way,” ordered the officer office,

and the peasants, who had not felt it necessary to trouble themselves

much about their charge in a region where escape was next to impossible,

now began to look how far off the prisoners might be, and ran to urge

the men on foot to greater speed, and to lash the tired horse of the

kibitka in which the women were seated.

At the first glance the men looked all alike, their heads being shaved,

and their dress uniform in its sordidness. It required a little

observation to discover that some were old and others young; which of

them bore the wrinkles of care, and which of years also. A still closer

observation was necessary to distinguish the respective rank and quality

of those who externally so nearly resembled each other. No Siberian

serfs looked so toil-worn and poverty-stricken; but neither did any

husbandmen in all the Emperor’s dominions display such countenances as

those of some of the company appeared, when they could be viewed without

reference to the disfigurement of the rest of their persons.

The women in the kibitka appeared alarmed at the signal to make speed;

of the men, some ran on, under an impulse of curiosity, as fast as the

weight they carried would permit; the rest preserved the slow and steady

pace at which they had been walking since they came in sight. Every

other man shouldered an iron bar, with a short chain at each end, and

all were, at present, marching in silence.

“Make haste!” cried the Russian, shaking his lance impatiently. “You

march as if you had still a thousand miles to go; but there, among those

mountains, is Nertchinsk, and we are close by the lake, where we are to

halt for the governor’s orders about some of you.”

“You will not cross the testy sea to-night,” observed one of the

peasants. “The spirits let no boat get back safe after dark.”

“That depends on who crosses it,” observed another of the escort. “If

some call it the testy sea, others call it the charmed sea. Sometimes it

foams and gathers its waters into a heap when not a breath is stirring;

but, just as often, it is as smooth as glass while the pines are

stooping and shivering on all the hills around. Learn who it is that the

spirits favour, and who it is that they hate, and then you will know

whether a boat will go straight across, like an eagle flying home, or

whether it will turn over and over in the water, like an eider duck shot

under the wing.”

“Hold your tongues, slaves,” cried the officer. “Here, you other slaves;

let me hear you thank the Emperor for sending you here, where grass

grows under your feet, instead of ordering you into Kamtchatka.”

In answer, the exiles uplifted one of the patriotic chaunts, of which

the loyal ears of their guard had long been weary:—

“Our Poland mourns,—

She shall not die!

Her watch-fire burns,

And help is nigh.

Her ruffled eagle speeds from shore to shore,

Till nations rise to bid her weep no more.”

“Wretches!” cried the Russian, “how dare you abuse the Emperor’s

clemency? Will your treason never be silent?”

“Never,” replied a young Pole, “to judge by the look of the place we are

coming to. There must be echoes enough among these rocks to tell the

tale from eve to morning, and from morning to eve again. In the steppe

we have passed, our voices were stifled in space; but among these

mountains the plaint of Poland shall never die.”

“I will silence it,” growled the officer.

“Not by threats,” replied Ernest. “The Emperor has wrought his will upon

us; we have no more to fear from singing our country’s songs, and we

will sing them.”

“You carry your bar on your shoulder,” said the Russian. “You shall all

be chained to it by the wrists as before, unless you cease to blaspheme

the Emperor.”

Ernest, the young Pole, cast a glance behind him, and seeing the

exhaustion of his friend Taddeus, who had been lately crippled, and the

fatigue of Owzin, the father of Taddeus, and of old Alexander, the

feeblest of the party, he had compassion on them, and refrained from

answering the tyrant who had it as much in his will as his power to

fetter them, though no chance of escape afforded him a pretence for

doing so. In order to remind them of their present position in relation

to himself, the officer addressed them by the new titles which he had

never yet been able to get them to recognize.

“Three! you will sink in the marsh presently, if you do not keep the

line. Halt, there, Seven! If you get on so fast I will shoot you. Two!

no shifting your bar yet. You have not had your fair share of it.”

His words were wasted. Owzin still straggled from the line. Ernest

strode on as fast as ever, and Taddeus persisted in resigning his load

to his stronger companion, Paul, who walked by his side. A volley of

oaths from the Russian, or rather one indecent oath repeated a dozen

times, seemed likely to be succeeded by blows from the attendant

peasants, when a woman’s voice was heard above the creaking of the

kibitka.

“Husband, do try to remember your number, that I and your children may

not see you murdered before our faces. Taddeus, my son, if you can bear

your load no farther, say so. Is it manly to bring new sufferings on us

all by irritating those whom we cannot resist? Ask for relief, since you

want it.”

Taddeus could not bring himself to do this; but he cast a submissive

look towards his mother, and took his burden again from Paul, who was

not sorry, being eager to run forwards to see as much as Ernest of the

pass they were approaching.

Lenore silently descended from the kibitka, charged herself with the

load of her crippled son, who was too weak and weary to resist, and sent

him to occupy her place beside his sister. The Russian looked on

surprised, but did not interfere with the arrangement.

Of all this miserable group, none, probably,—not even their

parents,—were so wretched as the brother and sister, who now sat side by

side for the first time since they had left Poland. During the whole of

the journey they had avoided each other, though, till of late, no two

members of one family had mutually loved more tenderly. But, henceforth,

Sophia had a quarrel with her brother, which could, she believed, never

be reconciled; and the spirit of Taddeus was grieved as much by his

sister’s injustice as by his own remorse. Sophia had long been betrothed

to Cyprian, a friend of both her brothers; and there had been hope that

the marriage might shortly take place in peace, as Cyprian had borne

little share in the troubles of the times, and had the character, in his

provincial residence, of being a quiet citizen. But this scheme of

happiness was unconsciously broken up by Taddeus.’ In accordance with

the Russian Emperor’s new rule, that every family, where there were two

sons, should spare one to his majesty’s armies, Taddeus, described as an

active young rebel, had been drafted into one of the condemned regiments

which was to guard the frontiers of Siberia. His brother, Frederick, was

a theological student in the university at Wilna, fit for something so

much better than being a private soldier, under the severest discipline,

in a desert country, that Taddeus generously acquiesced in the lot

having fallen on himself, and prepared to go into ignominious

exile,—with whatever heart-burnings,—with an appearance of submission.

But when, not long after, tidings came that Frederick had passed the

frontiers, and was safe in France, the resolution of Taddeus was at once

changed. Now that he was sure of not endangering his brother, he felt

that it would be easier to him to die than to enter the armies of the

ravager of his country; and he did,—what was then no uncommon act,—he

crippled himself so as to be unfit for military service. In

consideration to his parents, he left it to his enemies to take his

life, if they should so choose. He was willing to have it spared as long

as that of his father. But it required all his resolution to refrain

from laying violent hands on himself when he discovered the result of

his manœuvre. The commissioners whom he had cheated, found it necessary

to make up, as rapidly as possible, the 20,000 recruits that were to be

brought from Poland, and also to allow no instance of evasion to escape

punishment; and, in order to accomplish both these objects at once, and

as Frederick was beyond their reach, they seized upon Cyprian, as one

who was almost a member of the family. Before the fact could be made

known at Warsaw, or, consequently, any measure of prevention or

remonstrance could be taken, Cyprian was marching far away in the

interior of Russia, and confidence was broken down between the brother

and sister for ever. It would have been difficult to say which was the

most altered by this event. Sophia, who had always been gay and amiable,

and of late made hopeful amidst the woes of her country by the faith

which happy love cherishes in the heart, seemed to have suddenly lost

the capacity of loving. She hated, or was indifferent. Her indifference

was towards her parents, and most who crossed her daily path: her hatred

was not only towards the enemies of her country, but towards an

individual here and there who could not be conceived to have given her

any cause of offence, or to have obtained any great hold on her mind.

The passion appeared as capricious as it was vehement. No one could

declare that it extended to her brother, for towards him alone her

conduct was cautious. Her one object, as far as he was concerned, seemed

to be avoidance; and he did not cross her in it, for he felt that he had

much reason to be hurt at her conduct, as well as grieved at the

consequences of his own. The only point in which they now seemed to

agree was in shunning mutual glances and speech. This had been easy from

the day when the doom of banishment fell on the whole family, for

supposed political offences. During all the days of their weary journey

of four thousand miles, they had been able to keep apart; Sophia

preferring to walk when she saw that her brother must soon ask a place

in the kibitka; and it being the custom of her mother, herself, and a

little girl who was under their charge, a daughter of one of the exiles,

to appropriate a corner of the post-house where they stopped for the

night, apart from the rest of the band of travellers.

Now that they were at length side by side, they proceeded in perfect

silence. Taddeus folded his arms, and Sophia looked another way. It was

some relief that little Clara was present, and that she talked without

ceasing. She was allowed to go on unanswered, till she observed that

mamma (for so she called Lenore) must be very tired with having carried

the iron bar so long.

“What are you talking about, child? Paul is carrying the one Taddeus

had.”

When Clara explained that Lenore had carried it till that moment, Sophia

cast a look of indignant contempt upon her brother, who was equally

surprised, supposing that his mother had only taken his burden from him

to hand it to some one else.

“Have patience, Sophia,” he said, as he let himself down from the

carriage. “You will none of you have to bear my burdens long.”

He looked so desperate, that the apprehension crossed Sophia’s mind that

he meant to rid himself of his life and his miseries altogether, perhaps

by means of the very iron bar which was the subject of dispute. Whatever

might have been his intention, however, he was prevented from executing

it, for he fell in a swoon as soon as he left hold of the carriage, and

was replaced in it, as his marching any farther was out of the question

that day. As his mother sat, wiping the moisture from his forehead while

he rested his head against her knees,—as she looked on her children, and

saw that their misfortunes were further embittered by the absence of

mutual confidence,—it required all the fortitude of the woman to bear up

against the anguish of the mother.

It was a relief to all when they at length arrived at their

halting-place, on the banks of that extraordinary lake on which no

stranger can look without being awed or charmed. As the procession

emerged from a rocky pass, upon the very brink of the waters, the

peasants carelessly took off their caps, and immediately resumed them,

being too much accustomed to the prospect before them to be much

affected by it, except when their terrors were excited by storms, or by

any other of the phenomena of the charmed sea which they were wont to

ascribe to the presence of spirits. Now, this vast lake, extending to

the length of 360 miles, and more than 40 miles broad, lay dark in the

bosom of the surrounding mountains, except where a gleam of grey light

fell here and there from their openings upon its motionless surface. Not

a movement was seen through the whole circuit of the vast panorama, and

not a sound was heard. If there were bears in the stunted pine woods on

the mountain side, or aquatic birds on the opposite margin, or eagles

among the piled rocks that jutted into the waves, they were now hidden

and still. If there were ever boats plying on the lake, they were now

withdrawn into the coves and creeks of the shore. If there were human

beings whose superstition was not too strong to permit them to live

beside the very haunt of the invisible powers, their courage upheld them

only while the sun was above the horizon. As soon as the shadows of

twilight began to settle down, they hastened homewards, and avoided

looking abroad till they heard the inferior animals moving, in sign, as

it was supposed, of the spirits having retired. Neither man, woman, nor

child was to be seen, therefore, at this moment, and it was difficult to

imagine any, so perfect a solitude did the place appear. As soon as the

peasants perceived this, they began to quake, and gathered round the

Russian, with whispered entreaties to be allowed to return homewards

instantly. This being angrily refused till a shelter should have been

found for the whole party, the poor creatures, divided between their

fear of an officer of the Emperor and of invisible spirits, prepared

themselves for a somewhat unusual method of march. They took off their

caps again, crossed themselves every moment, and walked with their backs

to the lake, carefully shunning any appearance of a glance over either

shoulder. Their consternation was at its height when their prisoners

broke the silence by singing, as before,—

“Our Poland mourns,—

She shall not die!

Her watch-fire burns,

And help is nigh.

Her ruffled eagle speeds from shore to shore

Till nations rise to bid her weep no more.”

Before the last echo had died away, a gurgling, rushing sound came from

a distance, and those who gazed upon the expanse of waters saw a

prodigious swell approaching from the north-east, and rolling

majestically towards them, slowly enough to afford the strange spectacle

of half the lake in a state of storm, and the other half as smooth as

glass. Presently, the whole was surging, tossing, foaming, roaring,

while not a breath of air was at first felt by those on the shore. Next

followed a flapping of wings overhead, for the eagles were roused; and a

prodigious cackling and hurry-scurry in the marshes on either hand, for

the wild-fowl were alarmed; and a crashing of boughs among the firs in

the background, whether by a rising wind, or by wild beasts, could not

be known. Then the clouds were parted, and the stars seemed to scud

behind them; the fogs were swept away in puffs, and the opposite shores

appeared to advance or recede, according to the comparative clearness of

the medium through which they were seen. By this time the peasant guards

were muttering their prayers with their hands before their eyes, the

officer, astounded, sat motionless in his saddle, and the Poles burst

into a shout, as if they had partaken of the superstition of the

country. Louder than ever arose

“Our Poland mourns,—

She shall not die!”

And it was not till the commotion had subsided, nearly as rapidly as it

had arisen, that either threats or persuasions could induce them to stir

a step from the station they had taken up on the brink. They all wished

that it might be the lot of their whole party to remain near this mighty

waste of waters. Those who were destined for the mines of Nertchinsk,

that is, Owzin and his family, and Andreas, the father of little Clara,

were within easy reach of the Baïkal lake: but where the others, Ernest,

Paul, and old Alexander, might be located as serfs, no one could guess,

till the will of the governor of Irkutsk should be revealed.

Nothing was heard or seen of the invisible powers through the thick

darkness which surrounded their halting-place during the whole night.

How different was the face of things when that darkness fled away! By

sun-rise, the officer having received his directions from Irkutsk, the

whole party were on the lake in boats managed by the neighbouring

fishermen, who had come forth from hidden dwellings here and there among

the rocks. The snowy peaks, on the western side, looked of a glittering

whiteness in the morning light, while the fir-clad mountains opposite

seemed of a deeper blackness from the contrast. The waters were of all

hues of green, in proportion as their depth varied from twenty to more

than two hundred fathoms. In the shallower parts it might be seen that

their bed was a rocky basin, with no mud, and scarcely any sand to

injure the transparency of the waters, even after the most searching

storm. Pillars of granite shoot up from this rocky foundation, and in

sunshine show like points of light amidst the emerald waves. The only

circumstance which the boatmen could find it difficult to account for

was, why fish were permitted to exist in this lake; neither did it live

in the memory of man when permission was given to mortals to catch them:

but some pretty traditionary stories were current respecting the last

question; and as to the former, perhaps it might be an amusement to the

lake-spirits to chase a finny prey among the pillars and recesses of

their green-roofed sea-halls, as it is to kindred beings to follow the

wild-ass among the hills, or the roebuck over the plain.

CHAPTER II.

TO EACH HEART ITS OWN BITTERNESS.

It happened to be the pleasure of the governor of Irkutsk that the two

divisions of the band of exiles should settle near each other. This was

more than either had expected. A sentence to work in the mines is

usually equivalent to one of complete separation from countrymen as well

as country; for, as only a limited number of miners can be employed, in

comparison with serfs and soldiers, the exiles condemned to the mines

run a risk of isolation proportioned to the smallness of their numbers.

In the present case, the risk was lessened by the station being one from

which escape was out of the question. The miners of Ekaterinburgh may

dream of getting away, even though they must cross the Uralian chain,

and the whole of the interior of Russia, before they can see a friendly

face, or set foot in a neutral country; and therefore they are watched,

and not allowed to associate with such as speak a friendly language. But

in the depths of eastern Siberia, 2000 miles further into the wilds than

even the last-mentioned station, what hope of deliverance can exist? It

is found the least troublesome and expensive way to leave the exiles

alone, as long as they do their work and keep quiet; and there is no

objection to letting them communicate, unless it should be found

profitable or convenient to send on some of them a thousand miles or so,

or into Kamtchatka. The governor had received intelligence from

Petersburgh that a party would soon be sent through his district to

Kamtchatka, and hesitated for a short time whether he should not send on

this procession, and keep the next that might arrive within his

jurisdiction; but, as the officer could prove by documents which he

carried that Owzin and his son and Andreas were to be miners, it seemed

best to trust to another arrival for Kamtchatka, and to locate the

present party where work was waiting for them.

A silver mine, near the western extremity of the Daourian range, and

within hearing of the waters of the Baïkal when its storms were

fiercest, was the appointed station of Owzin and his little band of

companions; while plots of ground, within sight of the lake, were marked

out for the three who were to become crown peasants.

The whole procession was permitted to stop for a while at the future

abodes of the latter, before proceeding to the almost equally forlorn

dwellings of the convict miners. They had little comfort to offer each

other: but the new homes might be made somewhat less desolate by being

entered in company.

They were miserable places. Log-huts, consisting of one room, were

thought good enough dwellings for serfs. The holes between the

rough-hewn logs were stuffed with moss, which hung out in shreds,

leaving spaces for the biting wind to whistle through. A bench at one

end, intended to be covered with a hide, and thus to constitute a bed,

and a space built round with bricks, which was to be an oven, were all

the preparations for warmth in one of the severest climates in the

world. An earthen pan, to cook food in, was the sole utensil provided;

but Ernest was told that he might make himself a wooden platter, bowl

and spoon, when he had provided a plough and harrow, the first

necessaries of all, as the season was getting on. All these were to be

made of wood; the harrow being a mere hurdle, with the twigs bent

downward to serve as teeth, and the plough being a wooden hook, pointed

with iron, and with two sticks tied on the back as tillers. Where was

the necessary wood to be obtained? asked one and another; for none was

to be seen but fir and pine, and a few dwarf shrubs. The oak, hazel,

plane, lime, and ash had disappeared long ago, and it was some weeks

since they had seen elms and poplars. The officer only knew that other

peasants had these utensils, and so the material must be within reach.

It struck him that the best thing Ernest and his companions could do

would be to take each a wife from among the women who would soon be sent

to them for their choice. These native women could put them in the way

of knowing and doing what they wanted; and it must be the best plan for

their comfort, since the emperor’s own clemency had suggested it.

Ernest ground his teeth in speechless fury at this proposal; but his

friend Paul, who was not so apt to take things to heart, begged to know

how they were to maintain their wives?

“The best fields we have passed, within some hundred miles,” said he,

“bear only a little winter-rye, and a few straggling oats. The potatoes

are no larger than gooseberries, and not a single fruit,—not even the

sour crab we have all heard of, will grow in this region. When we have a

plough and harrow, will they give us food?”

“Leave it to the women to find that out,” replied the officer. “You see

people do live here, and so may you, if you choose to do as others

do—marry, and sit down peaceably to praise the Emperor’s mercy in

sending you here, when he might have taken your lives.”

Some one now asked if they were not to be provided with rifles, powder,

and ball, as their subsistence must mainly depend on the chase. When

they could purchase them, was the reply; these things were always to be

had at Irkutsk.

It was well that the governor had more humanity, and understood better

the necessities of the case, than the Russian escort. With the promised

assortment of native women, he sent the most needful articles for which

the exiles had inquired; and Ernest’s first pleasurable thought this day

was of going alone into the woods with his gun, when the rest of the

party should be gone, to relieve his bursting heart where none might

witness his anguish. A disgusting scene, however, had to be gone through

first.

On coming in from a survey of his miserable plot of ground, he found

Paul amusing himself with making acquaintance with new comers, who had

arrived in company with the rifles and fowling-pieces, to be examined

and selected after somewhat the same manner as they. The gray-haired

Alexander gazed with a grave countenance of philosophical curiosity.

Sophia looked more terrified than it might have been supposed she could

now ever feel; and her mother, who sat retired with her and the

wondering Clara, was pale, and evidently appalled at the new society she

seemed likely to be placed in. She looked eagerly for her husband and

son, who were not in the hut. As soon as they appeared, she said, in a

low voice,—

“Husband, this is worse than all.”

“It would have been so to me, Lenore, if you had not come with me; and

Sophia, too. Taddeus will not have anything to do with these people

while his mother and sister are with him.”

Taddeus turned from the group at the door with no less disgust than

Ernest; but it was not to meet his sister’s eye. This family had no

further wish to stay. They chose their implements and arms, put them

into the kibitka, and begged to proceed without delay. Their companion,

Andreas, allowed them to guide his movements as they would. He had a

ruling passion, which he could not at present gratify; and, till he

could, he remained perfectly passive.

When the adieus were spoken, amid many hopes of soon meeting again, and

before the creaking kibitka was out of sight, Ernest ran and shut

himself into Paul’s neighbouring hut, since he could not get undisturbed

possession of his own. He closed the ricketty door of deal-boards, set

his back against it, rested his forehead on the butt-end of the

fowling-piece he carried, and struggled in body as he had long struggled

in spirit. A driving rack of thoughts swept through his brain, like the

storm-clouds that he was destined to see deform many a wintry sky.

Providence,—whether there be one or not, or where now hidden?—an instant

recall of the doubt; Man,—why doomed to connexion with, to subservience

to, man? Life,—what it is, from pole to pole—from nothing to eternity?

His own life,—at his mother’s knee, in college halls, in the field,—and

all for this! His home, with its civilization and its luxuries;—his

beloved Warsaw, with its streets thronged as in former days, and not, as

now, resounding with the voice of weeping;—the gallant army filing from

its gates, and his own brave regiment, first going forth in the

solemnity of its heroism, then sadly falling away when hope was

over;—his own words, little thought of at the time—“My poor fellows, it

is over! leave me, and save yourselves;”—all these, and a thousand other

images, came in turbulent succession, almost as rapidly as the pictures

of a whole life flit before the very eyes of a drowning man; and from

each was breathed, as it passed, the same thought—“and all for this!”

Then came efforts to endure,—to reconcile himself to be the bondsman of

an enemy; and though in a desert, watched from afar with eyes of

malicious triumph! As if actually at this moment beheld in his retreat

from the throne of Petersburgh, Ernest drew himself up, and commanded

his emotion. But again the remembrance of his country, more potent than

any considerations for himself, unnerved him, and again his head sank

upon his breast, and the conflict was renewed. He was roused from it by

a voice at the opening which was meant to serve for a window.

“Come, Colonel, make the best of it, and take a wife while one is to be

had, as I have done.”

“I am going to make the best of it,” replied Ernest, starting from his

position, and examining the lock of his piece; “but I am not going to

take a wife.”

“Well, come among us, at any rate, instead of staying in this cursed

cold place: the women have got us a fire already. But, bless me! you

have found the secret of warming yourself,” he continued, as Ernest came

out, the perspiration yet standing on his forehead. “I beg your pardon,

from the bottom of my soul, Colonel, if I have gone too far about taking

a wife; if I have touched upon——”

“You have not, indeed, Paul. I was no more likely to take a wife in

Warsaw than here.”

“Well, I am glad of it; but I shall always need a forbearance I cannot

practise. There does not seem much temptation to joke in Siberia; but

see if I do not joke my friends away from me, even here, before five

years are over.”

“Joke away, friend, and we shall all thank you if you can keep it up for

five years. But, Paul, this marrying——it is no joke. You will not,

surely, give into any of the Emperor’s schemes; you will not bring among

us——”

“I will not be chilled, and starved, and solitary, while I can get

anybody to take care of me, and keep me company,” replied Paul; “and let

me tell you, a Mongolian wife has accomplishments which are not to be

despised by a man in my condition,—as you might see presently, if you

would condescend to give a little attention to them.”

Ernest looked impatient, and was turning his steps towards the woods,

when Paul laid a finger on his arm, saying,

“I do not mean their white teeth and black hair, though some of them

braid it very prettily; nor yet, altogether, that they can handle the

plough while one goes out shooting; but you have no conception what use

they make of eye and ear, and smell and touch. They can tell in the

darkest night when one comes within twenty miles of a hamlet, by the

smell of smoke; and, when there is no fog, they will distinguish the

tread of a bear, or the neighing of a horse, or detect the tiniest white

mouse stealing to its hole, at distances that you would not dream of.

Think what a help in sporting!”

“No matter,” replied Ernest; “I thought you had too much disgust at

being a slave yourself to wish to have one of your own.”

“But, Colonel, did you ever know me use anybody ill?”

“Never, except yourself: seriously, I mean. I will not say what you have

done in jest.”

“The jesting happens very well in the present case; for a merrier and

more sociable set than these girls I never saw. But I really mean to be

very kind to my wife; and you will soon see how fond she will grow of

me, and what I shall make of her.”

“And when we go back to Warsaw—what then?”

“My dear fellow! you do not expect that, surely?”

“I do! And at your peril say a single word against it,” said Ernest,

vehemently, to his astonished companion. “Do you think I will live here?

Here! hedged in with forests! buried in snow! petrified in ice! while

the tyrant watches me struggling in his snares, and laughs! No! I shall

go back to Warsaw!”

“But how?—tell me how?”

“How? Step by step, if I live; in one long flight, if I die. Oh! if it

should please Providence that I should die in these wastes, I will wring

from Him that which I have not hitherto obtained. I will open a volcano

in these wilds that shall melt all the snows between yonder lake and our

own river. I will make a causeway in one night through all the steppes,

and in the morning every Pole shall be marching to Petersburgh to drag

the dastard——”

“Come, come,” said Paul, “no more of this. I must take care of you for

once, Ernest, and bid you be reasonable. You will take me for Nicholas

next, and shoot me as you would him, or his likeness—a hyæna.”

“Have patience with me,” replied Ernest, resuming his calmness, “and

leave me my own way of making the best of things, as you say. My way is

to dream of going home, in the body or in the spirit.”

“Aye; but we shall be afraid to let you go out shooting alone, lest you

should see the towers of Warsaw at the bottom of the Baïkal, or be

persuaded that a pull of your trigger will take you to them.”

“No fear, Paul. I am most religious when alone; and I shall best recover

my faith where man is not present to drown the whispers of Providence,

or mar the signs He holds out in the skies and on the mountain tops.

Even these heavens are measured out with the golden compasses; and the

same sun which shines on the graves of our heroes fires the pines on

yonder mountain steep, and unlocks its torrents in spring.”

“How much further will your faith carry you? To forgive Nicholas?”

Ernest drew a long breath between his teeth, but calmly replied—

“Perhaps even so far. Philosophy alone might lead me to this, if it

could so enable me to enter into the constitution of a tyrant’s mind as

to conceive the forces under which it acts.”

“But, once allowing that it is acted upon by forces, known or unknown,

you cannot withhold forgiveness? Your faith refers all forces to one

master impulse, does it not?”

“It does; and therefore my faith, when perfected, will impel me to

forgive,—even Nicholas. But no more of him now. Shall I bring you some

water-fowl? Can your fair Mongolian tell you how much longer they will

stay with us? Their flight must be very near.”

And without waiting for an answer, the badged Siberian serf strode into

the pine-woods with a step very like that of a free man.

CHAPTER III.

A WOUNDED SPIRIT.

If Owzin and his family had been offered a choice whether to be attached

to the soil as serfs, or to work in the silver mine by the mouth of

which they were located, they would have found it difficult to make

their decision. Amidst the manifold woes of both positions, each had

some advantages over the other. The regular amount of labour required of

the miners,—labour in which there was room for the exercise of

intelligence,—was a relief rather than a burden to overwrought minds and

sinking hearts; while they might not have had resolution to appoint for

themselves, and execute, a daily task on plots of land for whose

improvement they were responsible only at the end of the season. On the

other hand, they were exposed to the control of Russian task-masters;

and it was all a chance whether they would be tyrannical, or whether

they would appreciate and reward skill and industry. Again, the

dwellings of the miners were somewhat less wretched than those of the

cultivators, and were situated, high and dry, among picturesque rocks,

instead of standing alone in the midst of a marsh, or on the borders of

dreary fir-woods. On the other hand, again, the cultivators could supply

themselves with necessaries from their own resources, while the miners

suffered much for some time from the want of all but the commonest

necessaries, and seemed likely to be always exposed to the

inconveniences attending the rudest state of barter. Those who had been

long settled had agreed upon plans of mutual accommodation as to

providing furniture, clothing, and food; but it was difficult for new

comers to obtain a share of the compact; both because an increased

demand is rather a trouble than an advantage, in a very rude system of

barter, and because it must be some time before they could have any

thing to change away which their neighbours would be willing to take. Of

all the silver which passed through their hands, not one grain was to

become their property; nor, if it had, would it have been of any use to

them: for no coin was circulated in this wild region, and metal in its

native state is neither fit for ornament nor for a medium of exchange.

The neighbouring peasantry cared nothing for silver, further than as

something which was valued by great people at a distance, and gave

consequence to the region they inhabited, and brought new settlers into

it. They knew nothing of the use of money; and merely exchanged with one

another so much rye every year for so much cloth, coarsely woven from

wool that came from the south in exchange for skins. In like manner,

rough-hewn deal benches went for game or bear’s flesh; and no one

article was fixed upon which might maintain a tolerably steady value,

and change away for all other things. Such a plan would have simplified

their commerce considerably, and have admitted strangers to share it;

but they did not wish to have their commerce simplified, and strangers

must shift for themselves as they best might.

The little company of Poles were some time in learning to do this

cleverly; and they endured more hardship than they need have done. If

they had been voluntary settlers, seeking their fortunes, they would

have found the elements of prosperity even here; but they were

perpetually suffering under a sense of injury; and there was a spirit of

listlessness, if not unwillingness, in them about improving their state,

which protracted their inconveniences in a way that one or two of the

more buoyant-minded of the party did not scruple to call very foolish.

Paul, in the one settlement, and Andreas, in the other, were the first

who rallied, and began to stimulate their companions to ingenuity and

forethought; and they had efficient helpers,—the one in his native wife,

and the other in his little daughter Clara. Ernest cared for nothing but

solitude; and of Owzin’s family, the only one who seemed fit for a state

of adversity—of this kind of adversity, at least,—was Lenore. Each

morning before it was necessary to be stirring,—hours before the day

began to break,—Owzin rose from his bed of disturbed sleep; disturbed,

not by the hardness of the planks, or the ill-odour of the hide on which

he slept, or by the suffocating smoke with which it was necessary to

fill the hut to keep out the cold; not by these, for Owzin had been a

soldier, and had learned to sleep in any temperature, and on the bare

battle-field; but by cruel thoughts, which came back all the more

vividly at night, for being driven off amidst the toils of the day.

Lighting his torch of pine-wood, he went forth before the night-fogs

were dispersed, or while the stars glittered like steel through the

biting air, and was always the first to arrive at the shaft, and to bury

himself in the dark chambers of the mine. Taddeus soon followed to the

smelting-house, which was the province of his labours. There, amidst

heat and toil, the father and son could lose in part the sense of their

misfortunes for hours together; for nothing is so beguiling as labour:

at least, when that of the head must aid that of the hands, which is the

case in most mining operations.

The women were far more unhappily circumstanced. Though they wanted

almost every thing, there was little for them to do, from the absence of

materials. They looked around them upon a scene of discomfort which they

could not remedy, and felt themselves as helpless as ladies of their

rank often are in much happier circumstances. When Taddeus had been

attended to the smelting-house by his anxious mother, who always went

with him to carry his food and ease his painful steps, and when Sophia

had meanwhile ventilated the hut and removed the sleeping-skins, little

employment remained, but to collect more wood to burn, more moss to stop

up crevices, and to see how nearly their stock of food was consumed.

Their clothes began to drop to pieces; but they had neither

spinning-wheel, distaff, nor wool. The draught under the door seemed to

cut off their feet at the ancles, and the floor was damp, although the

oven was always kept heated; but carpets were a luxury unheard of, and

not a yard of matting was to be seen nearer than Irkutsk. There was one

little person, however, who did not see why these things need be; and

that was Clara. She had the advantage of childhood in being able to

accommodate herself to a new set of circumstances, and she had learned

from her father how to make the most of whatever came to hand,—though

their object was different enough; her’s being the pleasure of

enterprise, and his pure avarice.

The case of Andreas was, in his own opinion, a desperately hard one; and

he secretly advanced as nearly as he dared towards cursing Providence

for it. He cared no more than the babe of six months, who ruled over

Poland, and what character its government bore; and during many months,

while the struggle was pending, he preserved, and with ease, a strict

neutrality. At last, however, an army contract, which he had peculiar

means of supplying with profit to himself, was offered by the patriots.

This appeal to his ruling passion overcame him. He was one of the first

of the inhabitants of Warsaw that the Russians laid hold of; and he who

had never had a patriotic thought in his life, who would have prayed for

the Emperor or the Diet as mammon pointed to the one or the other, was

punished in the same degree with those who were really guilty of loving

their country. It was very hard thus to lose all the gains and scrapings

of nearly twenty years, and to be deprived of the prospect of making any

more. It was very hard that his property, of all men’s, should be

confiscated, when, of all men, he cared most for the property and least

for the cause. From his feeling his misfortune so acutely, and being

absorbed in it during the journey, his daughter felt it little. For many

weeks, he never once reproached her with wasting anything, or being

idle, and she was therefore happier than usual during the long journey;

for she minded cold and fatigue little in comparison with her father’s

watchfulness. Nor did her spirits sink when arrived at her future home,

for it was less dull than the one at Warsaw. There she was closely mewed

up, to be kept out of mischief; and from the day that she had lost her

dear mamma, she had never known what companionship was. Here, she had

liberty at first to do what she pleased; and when some degree of

restraint followed, from her father resuming certain of his old feelings

and ways, it was compensated for by an increase of consequence. She

began by wandering abroad to watch the field mice to their holes, and

pulling rushes to weave baskets in play. Her father, seeing the

capabilities of both these amusements, employed her in stripping the

nests of these mice of their winter store of onions and other roots, in

collecting rushes enough to cover the floor when dried, and even in

attempts to weave them into a sort of matting. When Clara thus found her

sports turned into work, she consoled herself with being proud of it,

and thought she had good reason to be so when she saw even the wise and

grave Lenore adopting her little plans, and trying to make matting too.

Sophia also began to follow her when she went into the woods to pull

moss at the foot of the trees, or climbed rocks to see how the wild

birds built, that she might know where to look for eggs in spring.

Sophia was sometimes moody and sometimes kind, but the little girl had

always been used to moodiness in her father, and to kindness no one was

more sensible; so that, on the whole, she would rather have Sophia’s

companionship than not.

As for Sophia, anything like enjoyment was out of the question for one

whose mind was so embittered as hers. Unable to be soothed by her

mother’s tenderness, yet obliged to regard her with high respect, she

felt relieved to be out of her presence; and yet the solitude of these

wildernesses was oppressive to her restless spirit; so that the society

of a child was welcome as a refuge from something more irksome still,

and the child’s pursuits beguiled her of more minutes and hours than

anything else could have done. She too began to look for a mouse’s nest,

now and then, and to learn to distinguish the traces of game and wild

animals. Her mother perceived this with pleasure, and hoped that she

discerned in it a means of interesting her unhappy son and daughter in

one object, and of bringing them into something like their former state

of intercourse. If she could but once secure their remaining together,

without witnesses, for a few hours, so as to be tempted to free

communication, she thought it impossible but that they must understand

one another, and mutually forgive.

It was a thing agreed upon that Owzin, Taddeus, and Andreas should go

out in turn in pursuit of game, for the common good, before or after the

hours of work at the mine. On holidays, which were not very rare

occasions, they were at liberty to unite their forces for a hunt on a

larger scale; but, in the common way, it was thought better for one only

to go, as the fatigue of their daily labour was quite enough for the

strength of those who were new to the occupation. Owzin preferred making

excursions quite alone; and as he could have no four-footed helper,

chose to have none at all. Andreas presently found that the attendance

of his little daughter would be very convenient to him, and he therefore

speedily trained her to perform the part, not only of gamekeeper, but of

spaniel. She not only carried the powder, and bagged the game, but

plunged among the reeds to disturb the fowl, and waded in the shallow

water to bring out those that had fallen wounded or dead. Few fathers

would have thought of exposing a child thus to cold and wet; but Andreas

had a great idea of making Clara hardy, as well as of shortening his own

work as much as possible, and he therefore wrapt her in skins which

could be changed with little trouble when she had been in the water, and

obliged her, on emerging, to start a hare, or take some such exercise to

warm her. Though it was by no means desirable that Sophia should undergo

discipline of this kind, it was that poor Taddeus, lame and fatigued,

should have a companion and helper: and when his mother had accompanied

him once or twice, it was naturally Sophia’s turn. She looked astonished

and indignant at being asked, and replied that she had rather he should

take Clara.

“Clara had her share yesterday,” said Lenore; “and I must see that our

little hand-maiden is not wearied out among us all. Besides, Taddeus

wants more help than she has strength to give. He should be relieved of

his gun, and wants a shoulder to lean upon in difficult places.”

“If my father would but have taught me to load and fire,” exclaimed

Sophia, “I might have gone alone; for there is such a quantity of game

that very little sporting skill is required.”

“Ask your brother to give you a lesson to-day,” replied Lenore, “and

then you and Clara may save our harder workers the toil they undergo,

partly for our sakes. But I shall hardly like your going alone till, by

some means or other, better guns are to be had.”

“Papa says that his misses fire three times out of four,” observed

Clara.

“I do not like the idea of a bear-hunt while this is the case,” said

Lenore. “It is a fearful thing to miss fire when within reach of the

gripe of a bear.”

“As Poland has found,” said Sophia gloomily. “It is an ugly hug that the

monster gives; but some manage to get a knife into its heart while it is

at the closest.”

“My child,” said her mother, mournfully, “why are your thoughts for ever

set upon revenge? Why——”

“Revenge!” cried Sophia, clenching her small fingers, and looking upon

them with contempt. “No, mother; it is folly for us to think of revenge.

If I had been a soldier,—if I had made the false promise to serve the

Emperor for twenty-five years,—if I had taken the false oath of

allegiance forced upon these loyal new soldiers, I might have thought of

revenge: I might have stolen through forests, crept across the steppes,

waded, dived,—made my way like Satan into Eden, to dog the Emperor’s

heels, and get within reach of his heart’s-blood. But a woman in eastern

Siberia cannot do all this, and must not think of revenge. But hatred is

left, mother;—women and slaves can hate!”

“I cannot,” replied Lenore.

“I am sorry for you, mother. There is a pleasure in it; and, God knows,

we have few pleasures left.”

“What pleasure, Sophia?”

“The pleasure of changing everything about one to one’s own mood; of

staining these snows, and blasting these pine woods, and dimming the sun

and stars.”

“The pleasure of a child that beats the floor, of an idiot that grinds

his teeth: the pleasure of spite. My poor child! is this your best

pleasure?”

“Mother, all is changed in the same way, and at once, so that there is

no struggle, like the child’s or the idiot’s. I never was so calm in my

life as I have been since we left Warsaw.”

“Because you hate all. You say there is no struggle.”

“I hate all that has to do with the Emperor. This waste of snow, and

these woods are his.”

“And the sun and stars?”

“The sun and stars of Siberia, mother; and every thing that moves on his

territory.”

“Yes, my dear: I see it all. You hate Andreas.”

“Who would not? The mean-souled, cringing wretch!”

“And Taddeus?-you hate Taddeus, Sophia.”

Sophia was some time before she answered; but, as Lenore continued to

look steadily in her face, she at length said, in a low voice,

“Mother, I loathe him. When he is away, I can turn my thoughts from it:

but when I am with him,—that limp of his,—his voice,—they make my heart

sick.”

“Grief made your heart sick, my child; and you cannot separate that

grief from the sight of your brother’s lameness, or from the voice which

told you the tidings. These things are not Taddeus: though, alas! he

suffers from your hatred as if they were. But, Sophia, how is this

wounded spirit of yours to be healed?”

“O! let nobody think of healing it, mother. I am happier as it is. I am

happier than you. You rise with swollen eyes when I have been sleeping.

Your countenance falls when you hear me laugh; and you are altered,

mother, very much altered of late. It would be better for you to be as

calm as I am.”

“And for your father? Would it be better for all if each grew

indifferent? The easiest way then would be to live each in a cave alone,

like wild beasts.”

“Much the easiest,” exclaimed Sophia, drawing a long breath, as if

impatient of confinement beneath a roof. “I am so tired of the whole

domestic apparatus,—the watching and waiting upon one another, and

coaxing and comforting, when we all know there can be no comfort; the——”

“I know no such thing. There is comfort, and I feel it. But I will not

speak to you of it now, my dear, because I know you cannot enter into

it.”

“Not now, nor ever, mother.”

“Yes, Sophia; hereafter. You cannot suppose that your present feelings

are to last through your existence?”

An internal shudder was here visible which gave the lie to what the

sufferer had said of the enviableness of her calm state of feeling. Her

mother continued,—

“Just tell me what you are to do with such a spirit as yours in the next

world?”

“How do we know that there is another world?” cried Sophia, impatiently.

“I know you told me so when I was a child, and that you think so still.

But I see nothing to make one believe it; but the contrary. What is worn

out, drops to pieces and is done with. Whatever is weary goes to sleep

and is conscious of nothing, and so it will be with us and the world

about us. We shall soon be weary enough, and it is folly to pretend that

we shall therefore go somewhere to be more lively and active than ever.

The world is wearing out very fast: so everybody hopes, unless it be the

Emperor. Let it fall to pieces then, and be done with, and the sooner

the better.”

“It will outlast your unbelief, my child.”

“No, mother; mine is not a fickle,—it is a progressive mind. A year ago,

if we had been coming here, I should have expected to see some such

sights as Clara apprehends, when she looks fearfully round her. I should

have watched for flitting spirits among the rocks, and have sung hymns

in the woods, and fancied they were heard and answered, because there

are echoes about us. I am wiser now, and shall not go back into the old

state. I see things as they are, bleak and bare, and soulless. You will

not find me among the worshippers of the Charmed Sea. I leave such

worship to the peasants.”

“And another kind of worship to us to whom all things are not bleak and

bare. But, Sophia, how far is your mind to be progressive, and why, if

there is so soon to be an end of it?”

Sophia was not prepared with a very clear answer to this. She denied

that, by progression, she meant anything proceeding regularly, according

to a plan. All that she meant was that she once believed a great many

things that she did not know, and now she only believed what her senses

taught her.

“And do you believe what actually passes before your eyes?” inquired her

mother.

“Why, one would think,” said Sophia, half laughing, “that you knew what

passed within one. Do you know, mother, all the things that I see are

often so like shadows or dreams, that I am obliged to touch and grasp

them before I am sure that I am awake.”

“I knew it, my dear. Your life is like the adventure of a sleep-walker:

but are not you aware how sure sleep-walkers sometimes are that they

know better what they are about than those who are awake? I do not ask

you to take my word on any matters of faith. I only ask you to believe

the word of one who has never deceived you, that there is calmness to be

had without hating, and comfort without superstition.”

“If you mean to tell me so from your own experience, mother, I must

believe you: but if you are going to tell me that Ernest is calm and

Paul comfortable, that is a different thing.”

“I can tell you of myself, my child. I am not happy, and it would be

mocking Providence to pretend to be so; but I am not without comfort.

You speak of swollen eyes; but tears flow from other causes than grief.

Night is the time for devotion, and there are some who can seldom look

up into the starry heavens without the homage of emotion. You say my

countenance falls when you laugh; and I dare say it is true, for your

laugh now gives me more pain than any sound I hear. But even this is not

a hopeless pain. I believe that everything proceeds according to a

plan,—the progression of your mind, as well as of yonder morning star

towards its setting,—the working out of your suffering, and of Cyprian’s

punishment——”

At the mention of the name, Sophia flinched as if pierced through the

marrow. The next moment, she gazed fiercely at her mother, who met her

eye with a mild look of compassion.

“I have done wrong, my child, in avoiding all mention of this name so

long. Nay; hear me. We each know that he is perpetually in our thoughts:

that every foot-fall is taken for his, every deep tone felt to thrill us

like his; every——”

“Stop, mother, stop. Nobody can—nobody dares—he is _mine_; and if any

one——”

“No one shall speak his name lightly, my love; but you cannot prevent

our remembering him. You would not wish it.”

“Yes, I would have him forgotten,—utterly.”

“No, Sophia, that cannot be. It was on my shoulder that you first wept

your confession that you loved him; it was to me that you both came,

when your love was not too engrossing for sympathy; and by me,

therefore, shall your love never be forgotten. If it were forgotten, how

could I trust for forgiveness for you? You will ask me why I should

either hope or pray for you. It is because I have faith; and I have

faith because I have not, like you, been tried beyond my strength. I

have your father left me, and my deprivations are therefore nothing to

yours; nothing to make my heart sick, if yours were less so.”

Sophia grieved her mother by coldly entreating that she might not add to

her sorrows in any way. She was so far from being tried beyond her

strength, that at present she did not feel herself tried at all. Nobody

could have less occasion for effort, for strength. That was all over

long ago. She must beg that she might occasion no uneasiness. Nothing

could be further from her wish.

“I take you at your word,” said Lenore, with a calmness which was the

result of strong effort, for she saw that the moment for indulging

tenderness was not yet come. “I take you at your word. If you wish to

save me uneasiness, go with Taddeus to-day.”

“O, certainly. It will be a very creditable day to begin, too: a fine

day for sport, if we can but get out before the fogs come on. Those fogs

are so choking, and this smoke too! Between the two, one can scarcely

breathe anywhere. What is there wanting to be done before I go? Is there

nothing that I can do to save you trouble?”

Lenore shook her head, and said no more.

“One thing besides,” said Sophia, returning from the door; “I go with

Taddeus because you wish it: but if he dares to whisper so much as——”

“He will not.”

“You are sure?”

“Quite sure. I advised him not, and I have his promise.”

“Why was I not assured of this before? It might have saved you much

pain.”

“Who could venture, my dear?”

“You have ventured, you see, and where is the harm?” asked Sophia, with

a stiff smile. As she turned away again, she thought within herself,——

“If I could feel in any way as I used to do, I should be full of remorse

for treating my mother so coldly. But it cannot hurt her, as I am also

different towards every body else. No; it cannot hurt her: and so——it

does not signify. Nothing signifies.”

Yet at this very moment Sophia felt her flesh creep at the sound of

Taddeus’s limping tread approaching.

“I am going with you, Taddeus,” said she, lightly, “and you are to teach

me to load and fire;” and she talked on till out of her mother’s

hearing, when she became suddenly silent.

She was not the less obsequious to her brother, watching every motion,

and offering attentions which were painful to him from being

over-strained. Presently they saw their little friend Clara in an odd

situation, which afforded some relief to their formality. She was doing

battle with a large bird, the Russian turkey, which had been caught in a

snare laid by Andreas. Clara had been walking round and round at a safe

distance, pondering how best to attack the creature, whose flapping

wings and threatening countenance might well seem alarming to a little

girl.

“Stand aside, my dear, and I will dispatch him,” said Taddeus, and the

turkey forthwith ceased its clamour.

“I will carry him home; he is too heavy for you,” said Sophia, “and you

will go with Taddeus. You know so much better——”

“I can’t go to-day,” replied the child. “I went yesterday, and there is

a great deal indeed to do at home.” And the little house-keeper gave a

very sage account of the domestic duties that lay before her.

Sophia would not listen to some, and promised to discharge others; but,

seeing that the child looked distressed, Taddeus declared that she

should go where she liked, slung the big bird over her shoulders, and

sent her tripping homewards.

In the midst of the next wood they saw somebody moving among the firs at

a distance. Sophia changed colour, as she always did on distinguishing a

human figure in unfrequented places. Another soon appeared, whose aspect

left no doubt as to who the first was. They were Paul and his wife.

“Well met!” cried Sophia, disengaging herself from her brother, and

running on to meet them. “You three will take care of one another

admirably; and, Paul, your wife will carry Taddeus’s gun when he is

tired, and you will see him safe on the way home; and the game may lie

any where that he chooses to put it till the evening, and I will go for

it. And O, Paul, we want some more money sadly, and you must give us

some, for our guns are not to be trusted to shoot it. You see we cannot

get more money without better guns, nor yet better guns without more

money.”

And Sophia took flight without any resistance from her brother, who

could not indeed very reasonably require her to be the companion of

Paul’s wife in a sporting expedition.

CHAPTER IV.

A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS.

It does not follow that Sophia had lost her senses because she talked of

shooting money,—of replenishing the funds of the little company by means

of rifle and powder. It only follows that their money was not made of

gold and silver.

“I think, Paul,” said Taddeus, “you change your arms as often as a

court-lady varies her dress. The last time we met, you were carrying a

lance twice as long as yourself, and to-day you have a bundle of

arrows.”

“According to our game should be our arms. When we begin to hunger for

bear’s flesh, I carry a lance, and bring old Alexander with me to teach

the creature to squat on its hind legs, convenient for a thrust. I tell

him he will be qualified to lead one about the streets of Warsaw by the

time we get back. To-day, I come out for skins,—sables if I can get

them; and am my wife’s pupil for the occasion. She made these

arrows,—blunt, you see, so as not to injure the skins, and she is to

bring down the first we see. She carries my rifle, however, that we may

not lose the chance of other game by the way.”

“Are your sable-skins for sale or exchange?”

“O, for sale, to be sure. Our money system must extend very much before

we shall want so valuable a medium. The inhabitants of a poor hamlet can

get on a long time with copper and silver before they begin to want

gold: and mouse, ounce, and hare skins may serve us at present as well

as sables could do. But how do your neighbours take to your plan of

exchange by a medium? Do they see that it is more convenient than

barter?”

“Many do; and this is the reason why we are in want of more skins, as

Sophia told you. The man who was vexed with us for not taking a whole

sheep, when we really did not want to have more than a quarter of one,

and had nothing so valuable as a whole one to give in return, was more

angry than ever when we first offered him a hare-skin for a quarter of

his mutton, and told him that you would give him a wicker seat and

basket for the same hare-skin. And his wife thought us fools for

offering to take three or four ounce-skins in exchange for two of

Clara’s mats. But now they begin to find it convenient for those who

have little merchandise to barter away, to make some one article a sort

of rough measure of the value of the rest.”

“The women like the plan, I will answer for it,” said Paul. “Instead of

having to carry the carcase of a whole sheep about with them, with a

bench and a bundle of clothing, perhaps, in addition, with the chance of

having to convey them all home again, because nobody may happen to want

just these things at this very time, and in these very quantities, they

have now only to tie up their package of skins, and go out bargaining,

trusting that those who want mutton will come in like manner to them. O,

yes; the burden-bearers must find their account in there being, at last,

a medium of exchange.”

“But how is it that they had had none before?” said Taddeus. “One would

have thought that the burden-bearers, at least, would have been driven

to such a device long ago.”

“Burden-bearers have more bright ideas than their lords allow them to

make use of,” observed Paul. “I will ask my good lady whether she ever

thought of such a thing, while she roved about in the south at her

mother’s heels.”

And Paul beckoned to his wife, Emilia, (for so he had called her,) and

by means of gesticulations and gibberish, of which Taddeus could make

nothing, learned from her that the men of the southern tribes valued

their possessions at so many horses, or so many sheep, and that they had

no other measure.

“As clumsy folks as the patriarchs themselves,” pronounced Paul, “though

the world is so many ages older. Only conceive what a method for rovers

to carry their purses! Instead of a pocket-book, or a money-bag, or even

a package of skins, to have to transport herds of horses, and droves of

sheep spreading half a mile square. Why, a rich man must keep a dozen

salaried purse-bearers, instead of having his wealth in his pocket, or

under lock and key.”

“Do not forget the advantage,” replied Taddeus,—“no small one in the

deserts of Asia,—of being able to eat one’s money when one is hungry,

which is not the case with gold and silver, nor even with our skins.”

“True; but still they might easily have other denominations of money for

common use on small occasions.”

“Even as we may, if necessary. At present, our money serves either for

use or exchange. We can either make mittens of our mouse-skins, and

leggings of our hare-skins, or give them in return for fish and

rye-bread; and hereafter——”

“Hereafter,” interrupted Paul, “the Siberians may grow civilized enough

to have money that is fit for nothing but to be money, like the

paper-medium of our merchants; but it will hardly be in our time. There

is gold and silver money still in every country in Europe, and gold and

silver are used for ornaments and dinner-services as well as for

coinage. But my good woman has something more to tell us. Do look at her

now, and say whether you ever saw a European wife wait so prettily for

leave to speak.”

Taddeus had no pleasure in witnessing the slavish delight testified by

Emilia when her lord seemed disposed to attend to her. He turned away

from seeing her loaded with caresses with nearly as much disgust as if

they had been stripes; and his thoughts glanced proudly and painfully

towards the daughters and sisters of the heroes of Poland. He was in a

reverie when Paul called him to look at a little ornament of virgin

silver which Emilia carried at the end of each of the thick braids of

hair which hung down on either side her head.

“She says,” continued Paul, “that the women carried on exchanges among

themselves which their lords had nothing to do with. These bits of

silver, with a very few of gold, are liked the best; then come bright

pebbles, and lastly, flakes of something which I take to be the

semi-transparent mica that we were talking of making windows of.”

“Their lords might, for once, have condescended to receive a lesson from

them,” observed Taddeus. “The ladies used the more convenient media, in

my opinion.”

“I think we might take the hint,” said Paul. “I question whether we

shall not soon find ourselves in difficulties, not only as to the

quantity but the quality of our money. Our skins get sadly worn by

passing from hand to hand; and our neighbours will refuse to take them

when the hair is all off, and they look like nothing better than bits of

old leather.”

“Besides,” observed Taddeus, “there are no means of keeping those of the

same denomination of equal value. One mouse’s skin may be as good as

another, at first; but it depends on how much each circulates, and on

what care is taken of both, whether they are equally fit to be made

mittens of at the close of the season. There will be endless trouble

whenever our neighbours begin to look sharp, choose which mouse’s skins

they will take in exchange, and which not.”

“There is another danger,” responded Paul, “though a distant one. The

seasons here do not affect all animals alike, and a winter that may

freeze our poor little mice in their holes, may do no harm to the ounces

or hares. Now, if it should happen that we could for a whole year get no

mice, and double the number of hares, our whole commerce will become

perplexed. No one will know whether he is rich or not, if the value of

his money is totally changed; and little Clara may find that she can buy

more with a single mouse’s skin than her father with the twenty

hare-skins he will have been hoarding for years!”

“It is very difficult to devise a kind of money that is steady in its

value,” replied Taddeus. “Metals will always prove the best, I should

think.”

“Yes; because they may be divided into very small portions; and they are

little subject to wear and tear; and they carry great value in small

bulk, so as to be convenient in removal.”

“So far so good. All this is true of such chance bits as are dangling at

your wife’s shoulders; bits found near our smelting-house, or in the

beds of rivers. But to make them as useful as they may be made, they

must be coined. Without this, they cannot be marked out into

denominations, nor, if they could, would their value remain steady. We

could only determine the denomination of jagged, misshapen pieces of

silver like those by perpetual weighing; and there would be many

gradations between the weights required. And the circumstance of a thief

running away with a handful, or of some lucky person picking up a dozen

pieces in a day, would change the value, both of each denomination, and

of all together, in a way which can scarcely take place where the

process of coining has to be gone through, before the metals can be used

as money.”

Paul thought that beauty was a quality which should be taken into

consideration in the choice of all things that man meant to possess

himself of, from a wife to a pair of mittens. Now, he thought gold and

silver by far the prettiest commodities that can pass for any length of

time from hand to hand.

“Clara would give it against you there,” replied Taddeus. “She is a

great admirer of bright feathers, and would think such bunches of them

as the Indians use as pretty a kind of money as need be devised. She had

a fine assortment of them in her little cabinet at home. She was

wondering, the other day, poor child, whose hands they were in now, and

saying how gaily they would dress up the screen that she is weaving, to

stand between the door and the oven. She thinks our mouse-skins very

soft and pretty, too, and would like of all things to have a snow-white

hare for a favourite, that she might cherish its beautiful coat.”

“Look, look!” cried Paul, “there is a Persian duck among the reeds. If I

can get it for Clara, she need not wish for a prettier bunch of feathers

than it will make. Shall I use powder, or try my arrows? I give you

warning that we shall have a terrible din if I fire, whether I hit my

[missing lines]

The arrow whizzed from Paul’s inexperienced hand over the back of the

beautiful bird, just touching the tuft on its head. It set up a scream,

which caused a plashing in all the marshes for a mile round, and roused

innumerable woodcocks from their nests among the reeds. Emilia, out of

patience that such a hubbub had ensued upon the failure of an arrow made

by her, snatched the bow, and shot without more ado, while the wings of

the bird were yet spread. The duck sprang convulsively out of the water,

plumped in again, and sank; but the lady was already up to the middle in

the water. She, too, dived, and presently reappeared with the prey

between her teeth, seized upon two more unfortunate birds which happened

to be within reach, strangled them, shook the water from their oily

plumage, and laid them down at her husband’s feet. Then she returned for

the arrow which had been first shot, found, and presented it, and

retired behind the sportsmen, wringing her hair and garment, and being

ready for further orders. Paul could not restrain his admiration at all

this. Unlike the Indian who awaits such performances from his squaw in

profound gravity, and takes no notice when they are done, he clapped,

shouted, looked as if he was going to jump in after her, and rewarded

her, wet as she was, with a kiss and a hearty shake of the hand, when

the adventure was over.

Taddeus seemed to admire the duck more than the lady.

“What a splendid creature!” said he. “What size! What proportions!”

“Aye, has she not? And such an eye, too!”

“Brilliant, indeed.”

“So you can get over the slant up from the nose. I think nothing of it;

but, Alexander—”

“Beak, I should rather say. How jet black that beak is! And the crest

that rose and fell in its terror. And the plumage! Clara had not a finer

rose colour in all her cabinet.”

“O, you are talking of the duck! I thought you meant Emilia; and I am

sure there is the most to admire in her of the two. But you have not

seen half her accomplishments yet. There was no room for her to swim in

that pond. She swims beautifully. You shall see her in some broad reach

of the Selinga some day, when she goes to watch the beavers. She might

help them to build. On my honour, she can stay in the water for hours

together, and keep under to frighten me, till I expect never to see her

again. O, you have no idea yet what she can do.”

“She can see in the dark like an owl, you say, and track game like a

pointer, and fetch it like a spaniel, and hearken like a deer, and run

like an ostrich. Now, tell me what she can do like a woman.”

“Cook my dinner, and keep my house warm, and wait upon me.”

“So this is to be a woman, is it?”

“Yes; and a few other things. To scrape lint and nurse the wounded was

proper woman’s employment down in Poland yonder. As for the other things

you value so much,—the power of thinking, and reasoning, and all

that,—where is the Polish woman that would not now be better without

it?”

“In the same way, I suppose, as their husbands and brothers would be

better without either thoughts or feelings. Polish men would be happier

now as savages than as enslaved heroes, and, in like manner, women would

be better as mere animals than as rational beings; therefore, patriotism

is to be eschewed by the one sex, and rationality by the other. This is

your reasoning, is it not?”

“Let us have no reasoning, pray. All I mean is, that I am sorry to see

your mother look so wasted, and your sister so haggard; and that I wish

they could be as happy as my little woman. There! she has started a

sable.”

And Paul, who had talked more gravity this day than any day since the

loss of the last battle in which he fought, bounded off to his sport. He

was not recoverable, for five minutes together, till near nightfall,

going hither and thither, faster than Taddeus could follow him, and

having not a word to spare while taking aim, or beating about for a new

prey. He was very careful of his friend, however, making signs to Emilia

that she was to attend upon and aid him to the utmost. At first, Taddeus

would rather have been left to himself, and found it difficult to

receive the lady’s kind offices thankfully; but they really were offices

of kindness, and so modestly and gently urged, that his repugnance gave

way, and he soon submitted to have his infirmity relieved by one who was

certainly a far better help in guiding, walking, and preparing for

sport, than either his mother or sister could have been.

To his own surprise, he was not the first to think of returning home,

though he had presently obtained all the game he wanted. While he was

still moving onwards, and Paul was roving, nobody knew where, Emilia

began to look about her, and up into the sky, with a countenance of some

anxiety, and a gesture implying that she either felt very cold, or

expected soon to feel so. It had not been one of the most trying days

Taddeus had known. The sun, very low in the sky, had shone with a dim,

hazy light, in which, however, there was some warmth. There had been

little wind, and that little had not told of frost. The heavens were

grey, and there was a very dark line to windward; but this was so usual,

as was the moaning among the firs which now began to make itself heard,

that Taddeus would have taken no particular notice of it if Emilia had

not appeared to do so. Communication by language not having yet been

established between him and his supporter, he could not make out the

extent of her fears, till she at length slipped from under the arm which

leaned on her shoulder, climbed a neighbouring pine like the nimblest of

the squirrels that harboured near, and uttered a peculiar call, which

could be heard to a vast distance, from its unlikeness to any of the

deep and grave sounds of a northern wilderness. She came down, and

pointed the way back; refusing, by signs, to wait for Paul, and seeming

confident that he would immediately follow. He did not appear, however,

and again she climbed, and again she called, more loudly and hastily, as

volumes of black clouds unrolled themselves before the wind, and seemed

to sink as well as spread. Taddeus saw that she apprehended snow, but

was not fully aware how very soon the atmosphere, in its now approaching

state, becomes incapable of transmitting sound to any distance; and that

if Paul was to be warned homewards by the cry, it must be immediately.

It was not long before he came, considerably out of humour at finding

that both his companions were safe and well. He had concluded that some

accident had caused such repeated alarms, and was vexed to have been

called off from a very tempting chase.

“Call, call, call!” he exclaimed; “they came as thick as an English

traveller’s calls at an hotel; and all for nothing. I wonder the jade

dared to take such a liberty with me. She made my heart turn over; I can

tell you that. I thought of nothing less than that a bear had bugged one

of you. Before I was frightened, I would not hear her, for you never saw

such a beautiful animal as I was at the heels of. A black fox, if you

will believe me; but you won’t; nor any body else, for black foxes are

oftener seen than caught; and so one is winked at for a tale-telling

traveller, if one says what I am saying now. But it was a black fox, as

sure as that is a white hare over your shoulder; and I should have had

him in another minute, if that jade had not sent a call that went

through me when my shot should have gone through him. His coat would

have been a fortune to me. My hut would have been a palace presently, in

comparison with Ernest’s, to say nothing of the glory of being the first

of you to shoot a black fox. And to have been called off just because

there is snow in the air! As if snow was as rare here as it is at

Timbuctoo!”

And thus the disappointed sportsman went on growling,—not so that his

wife could understand him. She only comprehended that, for some unknown

cause, her potent lord was displeased with her. This was enough to make

her look very penitent. She scarcely glanced at the threatening sky,

when Taddeus pointed it out as her excuse, and stood, looking the

quintessence of a slave, till motioned to to lead the way.

She led them nearly as straight as the arrow flies;—a mode of proceeding

more practicable in that country than in many less wild. The forests

were not tangled, like those of a southern region, but composed of

multitudes of stems, bare to the height of some feet from the ground.

There were few small streams in the plains; and those few were rendered

passable by stepping-stones, the precise situation of which Emilia

seemed to know by instinct. Though it was now nearly dark, she did not,

in one instance, fail to arrive in a straight line with the passage over

the stream: nor did she once pause, as if perplexed, when her companions

saw nothing out a wilderness of wood around them. There was no hope of

star-light guidance this evening. The clouds hung so low that they

seemed to rest on the tops of the stunted firs; and they slowly rolled

and tumbled, as if they were about to enwreath and carry up those who

were moving beneath them. It was time now, Paul perceived, to cease his

grumbling, as something more important was on hand than the chase of a

black fox. On issuing from a wood, a blinding, suffocating mass of snow

was driven in their faces, and compelled them all to turn their backs if

they wished to breathe. Not the more for this would Emilia allow them

one moment’s pause; and perceiving that the lame Taddeus, who had long

had some difficulty in proceeding in the usual manner, was utterly

unable to walk backwards, she snatched his handkerchief from his neck,

hung it over his face like a veil, seized both his hands, and pulled him

on thus blind-folded.

“Surely,” said Taddeus, “we had better climb a tree, and wait till the

drift is past.”

“Aye, and have our feet frozen off, to say nothing of noses and ears,”

replied Paul. “And supposing we lived till morning, how are we to get

home through snow three yards deep, maybe, and not frozen to walking

consistence? No, no; our only chance, if we have one, is in getting on

as far as the rocks, at any rate. But God knows I can’t keep this up

long.”

Paul had more to say; for the last thing he ever thought of was leaving

off talking; but his companion could no longer hear him. The snow,

falling noiselessly as the light, yet stifled all sounds, and the last

words of Paul’s which were heard, came like murmurs from under a pillow.

When these had ceased for some little time, Taddeus addressed him, and

got no answer. Growing uneasy, he put out his hand to feel for him. Paul

was certainly not within some yards. Uttering now her first exclamation

of fear, Emilia sprang back upon her footsteps, motioning to Taddeus not

to stir, and in two minutes returned with her husband, who had tripped

and fallen, and been half buried in snow before he could recover

himself. In order that this might not happen again, his wife slipped her

girdle, and tied it round his arm, holding the other end herself, and

dragging on their lame friend as before.

“This will never do,” said Taddeus, resolutely stopping short. “You two

will be lost by lagging with me. I shall go back to the wood, and fare

as I best may till the storm is over; and God speed you!”

Paul answered only by pushing him vigorously on, setting his back

against Taddeus’s, so that the breadth of only one person was opposed to

the drift, and one made a path for all. This was an amendment; but

Taddeus was still convinced that the two would get on better without

him, and again he stiffened himself against being driven forward.

“I am going back,” said he, very distinctly. “If the plain is passable

in the morning, you will come and look for me. If not, never mind. You

know _I_ cannot be sorry to get quit so easily of such a life as mine.”

Paul growled impatiently; but, for once, Taddeus was too nimble for

them. He had played them the slip, and they groped after him for some

minutes in vain.

“It does not much matter,” muttered Paul to himself. “It is only being

found a few feet further from one another eight months hence, when the

snow melts. Emilia and I will stay together, however; we will keep one

another warm as long as we can. ’Tis not so very cold now, though, to my

feeling, as it was; and yet I can scarcely tell whether Emilia grasps me

or not. ’Tis the sleepiness that is so odd. One might choose a better

time for going to sleep, though there is a big, soft, feather-bed about

us. But I don’t believe I can keep awake two minutes longer. Holla!

there! What’s that? Why! is this Poland again? Aye, home: yes, yes. Why,

mother, you have seen me faint before, and you did not scream so then.

But it is so dark. Bring lights. Have you no lights? Eh, what? I can’t

hear you. My ears;—how they ring? Lights, I say! Eh? Good-night, mother.

I’m sleepy. I ... I can’t ... good-night.”

And Paul ceased his muttering, having sunk down in the snow some moments

before. Emilia did not cease to scream in his ear, to attempt to raise

him, to chafe his limbs, and warm his head in her bosom. He made feeble

resistance, as if angry at being disturbed; and in keeping this up lay

the only chance. Before he became quite passive, a new hope crossed her.

For one moment the drift slackened, ceased; and in that moment came

tidings that help was not far off. There was yet neither gleam nor

sound; but Emilia detected that there was wood-smoke in the air. She at

once gave over her chafing, and shouting into the ears of the dying man,

lifted him on her back, and struggled forward in the direction of the

fire. It was not so difficult for her to do this as it would have been

to Sophia, for she had been accustomed from childhood to bear heavy

burdens of skins, and to bring faggots from the woods. Before she was

quite exhausted, she not only was encouraged by a scent of turpentine

which reached her, but could distinguish a red gleam through the veil of

falling snow.

Her appearance was somewhat startling to those who had kindled the fire.

They were Siberian merchants,—that is, itinerants, who knew as well as

any people in the world how to keep body and soul together in all

weathers. The present company consisted of three who were just finishing

their yearly circuit, and, having been detained on the road by the great

increase in the number of their customers, in consequence of the

Emperor’s accession of convict subjects, had found the autumn close upon

them while they were yet some way from their several homes. They were

now encamped for the night, and seemed to have no other anxiety amidst

this terrific wilderness than that the frost should immediately follow

the snow, in order that the plains might be passable. They had banked up

the snow in a circle round them, and lighted a huge fire within. A bear

skin, stuck upon poles, made a sort of tent covering, and one at a time

was employed to prevent its becoming too heavily laden by the drift. The

others lazily fed the fire, as they lay on hides within the heat of it,

and smoked their pipes and drank brandy as calmly as if they had been

under the best roof in Tobolsk. The glittering of the white wall in the

background, the sparkling of the snow-flakes as they drizzled thick and

slanting over the darting blaze, had less of a domestic character than

the retreat in which the merchants alternately dozed and gossiped. The

place altogether looked very tempting to Emilia as she emerged from the

utter darkness, and stood dripping with her load in the presence of the

shoveller. The man swore, the dogs leaped up, the dozers roused

themselves; and, though vexed at the interruption, they could not refuse

a place by their fire to the wanderers.

More than this, however, they would not do. They were impenetrable about

poor Taddeus’s fate; and as they would not stir, Emilia was exposed to a

sad struggle between duty and inclination. Her husband began to revive

almost immediately, and she believed that there was yet time to save his

friend, if she could bring herself to leave the further cure of Paul to

the merchants.

She did her duty. Pointing out to the smokers the method in which they

were to proceed, and in which they were indeed much practised, she

seized a handful of brands, some of which might, she hoped, escape being

quenched, called the dogs without ceremony, and stalked forth again the

way she had come, the brands casting a scanty red light for a few

moments only before she disappeared.

The shoveller nearly forgot his duty in looking out and listening, for

he was better aware than his mates below what Emilia had to contend

with. He began to give her over, and his companions to swear at the

probable chance of losing their dogs, before there was any sign of

motion near.

“Keep that man quiet, can’t ye?” the watchman cried. “I want to listen.”

“He won’t be still,” they replied. “His pains and twitches are on him.

We have warmed him too soon. You should see him floundering like a duck

in the water. Listen how he moans.”

“Move him farther from the fire, then, and make him hold his tongue. I

could not hear the dogs two yards off with such a screeching coming up

from between you.”

As soon as Paul began to collect his ideas, he kept his pain more to

himself, and began to listen as eagerly as any body for sounds from

afar.

“I see something; but it cannot be the light she carried,—it is so high

up in the air,” proclaimed the watchman. “It is coming this way,

however. No: it is out. Aye; there it is again. It was a thick wreath

that hid it. Now, where is it gone?”

Paul scrambled up on his hands and knees, intending to play the watchman

too; but he could not yet stand. His feet were as numb as ever, though

his ancles burned with pain. The light was not out, and it came riding

in the air, dimly dancing, and then steadily blazing again. It was

preceded by one of the dogs, leaping backwards and forwards between the

little camp and the party behind. The other dog did not do the same,

being otherwise engaged. He was the torch-bearer.

When Emilia had been led by the dogs to the place where Taddeus lay, and

had reared him up insensible from under the drift, she found she could

not charge herself with both the body and the light, the one of which

was nearly as indispensable as the other. She carried Taddeus as she had

carried her husband, and made one of the tractable dogs mount to the top

of all with a flaming torch in his mouth; and thus they proceeded, the

drift sometimes being nearly as thick as ever, and threatening to plunge

them in darkness; and sometimes slackening so as to allow gleams and

flickerings to point out her former footsteps.

She could think no more of Taddeus when she saw her husband dizzily

falling back as often as he attempted to rise, and groaning with his

torments. She was in consternation when she had examined his ancles and

feet; and seizing a large knife and an earthen bowl that lay near, she

disappeared behind the fire. A fearful howl from each of the dogs gave

the next tidings of her. The merchants swore that they would cut the

animals’ tongues out if this bark brought any more strangers in upon

them. They presently saw that their dogs would never howl more. Emilia

appeared with a bowl full of reeking blood in one hand, and the

carcasses of the two poor animals in the other: and immediately

proceeded, as if she saw and heard nothing of the fury of the merchants,

to pour the warm blood down the throats of Paul and Taddeus, and to

cover up their feet in the bodies which she had slain and ripped up for

the purpose. When the enraged owners seized her two braids, and pulled

them as if they would have divided her scalp, she quietly lifted the

great knife to either side of her head and severed the hair. When they

griped her by the shoulders, as if they would have shaken her to pieces,

she ducked and disappeared behind the bearskin. When one of them

wrenched the knife from her, and made a thrust in his passion, she

leaped through the fire, and took up a position, with a flaming

pine-splinter in each hand, which they did not choose to brave. As soon

as Paul could make himself heard, he offered the value of many dogs, if

they would let his wife alone; and, as the animals could not be brought

to life again, the owners saw that their best wisdom would be to make as

good a bargain as they could.

Paul not only offered this high compensation under immediate

apprehension for his wife’s safety, but thankfully confirmed the bargain

when she was sitting securely beside him, or helping him to use his

stiff limbs, by leading him to and fro in the little space beside the

fire. He felt that he should be paying for the restoration of his own

feet, and perhaps of Taddeus’s life; for he much doubted whether either

limbs or life could have been saved by other means than Emilia had so

promptly adopted, and the efficacy of which she, in common with other

natives, well knew. The suspicion never crossed him that he might not be

able to fulfil his engagement, and that these men were now in possession

of the very wealth he had promised them.

The whole party not only lived till morning, but were of better cheer

when the day dawned than they had been twelve hours before. The two

sportsmen were weak and stiff, and not a little dispirited when they

looked out upon the dreary waste around, and pondered how they were to

reach home; but the danger and the fearful battling with the elements

were over.

The sky was still dark, but the air so serene, that if a solitary

snow-flake had found its way from the clouds, it would have sauntered

and danced through the air like a light leaf in autumn. There were no

such flakes, however, and all the snow that the atmosphere of the globe

could be charged with seemed to be collected within view. Snow was

heaped on the eastern mountains, and tumbled in huge masses among the

stark, black rocks at their base;—snow was spread to a vast depth upon

the steppe, as far as a horizon which it made the eyes ache to attain,

clearly distinguishable as it was from the leaden sky;—snow was spread,

like a cushioned canopy, over the black woods which extended northwards

for many miles. Amidst this waste of whiteness, black waters lay here

and there in pools, or in wide reaches of rivers; and in other parts

there was a rushing of the currents, and a smashing and tumbling of the

young ice, which had begun to form, but was already giving way at the

touch of light and of more temperate airs. All this was dreary enough;

but the smoke of the smelting-house could be seen far off; home was

visible, if they could but reach it.

The merchants travelled back with the party, in order to receive the

promised compensation for their dogs; and Paul was not a little amused

with the accounts they gave of their mode of traffic.

“You must have a troublesome journey of it sometimes, friend,” he

observed to the man next him, who had, like all his brethren of the

craft, picked up enough of the languages of the various people he dealt

with to be able to carry on something like a conversation. “You must

have a troublesome journey in such weather as this,” said Paul to him;

“but you are free from the danger of being robbed, as people of your

trade are in some countries. It is very hard, when they have disposed of

their wares, and begin to enjoy the lightness of their load, and the

goodly look of the gold and silver they carry in their bosoms, to be

stopped in the dark and robbed, or to wake in the morning and find their

pouch as empty as their packs. You are never so robbed, I suppose?”

The Siberian indulged his scorn at the idea of gold and silver, and

thought that those who carried their wealth in such small compass

deserved to lose it. How much better, be urged, was a pack of skins, or

a drove of black cattle, or a sledge-load of rye-flour, which no man

could hide in his bosom and slip away with! Though Paul thought robbery

a bad thing, he did not consider the not being subject to it the very

first quality in money. He asked why the merchant mentioned three kinds

of money; and whether all his customers did not agree to use the same.

“Oh, no! Some give us all things that they make or grow in return for

our tea from China, and the pepper we buy from abroad, and the clothing

we bring from Tobolsk. Others give us only skins; others only cattle;

others, again, only rye.”

“That is, they use these articles respectively as money.”

“Yes; and what we take as money in one district we sell as merchandise

in another.”

“So you use no coin at all.”

“Not here. We travel along a vast line;” and he stretched his arms east

and west with a most important look. “In the west, we do as they do in

the west,—we pass the Emperor’s coin. In the east, we do as they do in

the east,—we make no objection to whatever gain they put in our way.”

“But do they make no objection? It seems to me that there must be

perpetual objections. One says, ‘Give me wool for rye.’ ‘I have rye

enough,’ says the shepherd. ‘What do you want most?’ asks the

cultivator. ‘Fish.’ So the cultivator goes to the fisherman, and says,

‘Give me fish for rye.’ The fisherman wants no rye, but skins; so, even

if the hunter happily wants rye, the cultivator has to manage three

bargains before he can get his wool. This seems to me a system open to

many objections.”

“Yes; the people are as long in exchanging their fish and their furs as

in catching and curing them. But what is that to us? We reckon upon

spending twice as much time where there is barter as where there is

sale; but we make our gain accordingly.”

“Aye, to the injury of your customers: they lose their time in

bargaining, and by not dividing their labours; and they also pay you

largely for the loss of your time. Truly, they are losers in every way.

Why do not you teach them to use money?—then you would finish your

traffic, and get home before these storms could overtake you.”

The merchant laughed, and said that some ways were better for some kinds

of people, and others for others. The thing that took the most time,

after all, was the measuring quantities of different articles against

one another, and agreeing upon their value. Every man could tell how

much trouble and expense his own article had cost him, and nobody could

judge in the same way of his neighbour’s: a third party was necessary to

decide between them.

“Oh, aye; and you merchants are the third party, and so have the

pronouncing upon the value both of the goods you buy and the goods you

sell. It may be very profitable to you to keep exchange in this rude

state; but it would be a prodigious convenience and saving to the people

to have the value of their produce measured, and made somewhat steady,

by a standard which should not vary very much.”

The merchant thought things had better go on as they were. Gold and

silver coins were much more valuable among the wise people that lived

westwards than among the simple folks to the east.

“As gold and silver, certainly,” said Paul; “for savages have little

notion of their being valuable. Even my wife there wore as much gold as

a duchess would have been glad of, the first time I saw her, and would

have given it all away for as many steaks of horse-flesh as she carried

ounces of precious metal. But, as money, some such article would be

useful to savages in the same way as to civilized people. It would save

their time and labour, and prevent their being cheated by you, Mr.

Merchant.”

The merchant still remained an enemy to innovation; like all who profit

largely by things as they are. So Paul pursued,

“I assure you I can speak to the want savages have of money. Even in our

little company, inhabiting only five huts in all——”

“You are not going to call us savages,” sternly interrupted Taddeus, who

had just joined his friend.

“O yes, I am. What would you have more savage than our way of passing

last night? or our huts? or our implements? or all about us on this side

Irkutsk?”

“That has nothing to do with the matter. You are talking of a social

arrangement, and its subjects; and when the subjects are civilized, you

cannot show by their example how the arrangement suits a savage state. I

suppose you allow that we, as Poles, are civilized.”

“Savage; absolutely savage,” persisted Paul. “Why now, who can look more

savage than Ernest when you catch him talking to the spirits of the

Charmed Sea, or whoever else it is that sets him raving there? Where was

there ever a savage, if it is not Andreas when any one alludes to his

iron chest at Warsaw? Or your own sister, for that matter,—ten times a

day she looks as savage as——”

“As your wife,” said Taddeus, moved beyond his patience.

“Just so; only my wife is more like a faithful dog, and your sister like

a hunted tiger-cat. But, as I was saying, Mr. Merchant, even in our

little company, we presently found we could not get on without a medium

of exchange.” And he explained their device of skins of three several

values. The merchant seemed more amused than he could well account for,

and asked if all were so honest that nobody stole this kind of money.

“It is never stolen entire,” replied Paul. “Such a theft would be

detected at once in so small a society as ours.”

“Even supposing,” interrupted Taddeus, “that there was a Pole among us

who would steal.”

“Take care how much you answer for, friend,” said Paul. “I was going to

say, that though no entire skin has been abstracted, some expert fingers

have been at work clipping. A curious mouse-skin came into my hands

lately, made of cuttings from the jags and edges of other mouse-skins.”

“Indeed! I should not have thought an article of so low a denomination

worth the labour.”

“Some people,—you know who I mean,—think no labour too much for gain.

Besides, this was probably a first experiment; and if it had succeeded,

there would have been a rising up early, and sitting up late, to make

patch-work hare-skins or sables,—if we should ever attain to high a

denomination of money.”

“Well; but what did you do to the miser; for I conclude you mean him? He

is no Pole, remember; he does not like to be considered so, so and we

may as well take him at his word.”

“Since I could not threaten him with the ancient punishment of

counterfeiters of the current money, namely, pouring it molten down the

throat, I came as near to it as I could. I fried a bit of the tail, and

made him eat it, on pain of being pilloried at the mouth of the mine.

Then I let him burn the rest, and told him he should be watched, and not

get off so easily the next time he was caught clipping and manufacturing

money. I dare say he cursed our medium for not being metal. You may melt

metal, and nobody knows how many clippings a lump is made of; but piece

a skin as neatly as you may, and daub over the inside as cleverly as

Andreas himself, and the seams still remain visible to the curious eye.

The public has the advantage over counterfeiters where leather money is

used.”

“And how many advantages knaves have over the public where leather money

is used, we may live to see,” observed Taddeus. He was right: it was not

necessary for them to be many hours older to ascertain this point.

They were yet at a considerable distance from home when they heard

shouts ringing among the rocks before them, and saw one or two dark

figures moving among the snow in the plain. The young men answered the

shouts, and made signals, the most conspicuous they could devise. The

merchants at once became exceedingly inquisitive about the exact

situation of Paul’s abode; and having learned it, were suddenly in far

too great a hurry to go any farther. As for the promised payment, the

sportsmen were welcome to the dogs, unless indeed they would give their

arrows and a rifle, and the game they carried, in consideration of the

loss. Paul sighed over his valuable new arrows, Taddeus over his only

rifle, and both over the skins which they were conveying home to be made

money of, and which they had managed to retain with that view through

the whole adventure. They could not refuse, however, considering what

the martyred dogs had done for them; so they surrendered their goods,

and returned from this memorable sporting expedition much poorer than

they set out; and the merchants retired precipitately in the opposite

direction.

At an abrupt turn of the rock they came upon Sophia, who was alone,

busily engaged in tracking the path they had followed after parting from

her the preceding day, and sounding in the snow. Sometimes she looked

intently into the black stream which flowed sullenly by, and then

renewed her sounding, so eagerly, that she did not perceive the approach

of the young men and Emilia. Their footsteps could not be heard. She

started when they came close up to her, and said, with an indescribable

expression of countenance,——

“O, you are safe, are you? We have all been out since dawn to look for

you. You will find my mother farther on. They would not spare my father

from the mine.——So you are safe, after all!”

“You are disappointed,” said Taddeus, in a low and bitter tone. “You

hoped to see me no more. You were praying to find my body in those

waters.”

“I do not pray,” said Sophia, pettishly.

“Not to demons?” asked her brother.

“What and where are they?” inquired she, laughing. And she turned to go

home without objecting to her brother’s construction of what she had

been doing.

“I wish Emilia had let me alone last night,” thought Taddeus. “No; there

is my mother. What would become of her with poor Sophia for her only

child?”

And as he shuffled forward painfully to meet his mother, he felt that

there was yet something to live for, even if Poland should not be

redeemed.

CHAPTER V.

TRAFFIC IN THE WILDS.

There was a very good reason for the merchants turning back when they

discovered whither they were being conducted. They had not only made an

enormous profit of their traffic in the little settlement during the

absence of the young sportsmen, and the employment of the rest of the

men in the mine, but had carried off nearly all the skins they could lay

their hands on. They had frightened Clara, and cheated Sophia, out of

their respective stocks, and fairly robbed Lenore: so that, with the

exception of half a dozen skins, too much worn to be saleable, and

therefore left behind, the little company was once more moneyless. Some

of them looked rather grave upon the discovery of this new

inconvenience, and not the less because the weather was now of the

dubious kind which sets in at the end of autumn, and renders the pursuit

of game impracticable for a few weeks. But nobody looked so dismal as

Andreas, who could not hold up his head for some days after this new

misfortune. The loss of anything once possessed was to him the most

intolerable of evils; and it certainly seemed to be the one from which

he was to have no rest. “I would be deaf, dumb, and blind to be rich,”

was the sentiment which had been heard to escape from him in his agony.

He was not deaf, dumb, or blind; but neither was he rich. “I would live

directly under the sun in the Sandy Desert, or burrow in the snow at the

North Pole, if I could get gold there,” was another of his aspirations.

He was fixed among the snows, but not, alas! so as to get gold; and he

considered himself a much-tried man, and appeared with a countenance of

great dejection when the next time of meeting their neighbours for the

purpose of making purchases came round.

This little market presented a curious scene. It was held near the mouth

of the mine, and either on holidays, or at leisure hours; so that groups

of grim-faced miners stood to look on, or took part in the traffic, if

they chanced to have anything wherewith to conduct it. It seemed

remarkable that there should be an unbounded store of what is commonly

considered wealth beneath their feet, and piles of bars of shining

silver in the smelting-house at hand, while the traffickers were

exchanging their goods laboriously, and with perpetual disputes, for one

another, or for some common commodity which bore a different value

according as it was wanted for use or to serve as a circulating medium.

Andreas, and some others cast longing glances towards the store-houses

of the metals procured by their labour; but there was always an ample

array of green coats and red collars,—of sabres and fire-arms,—and,

above all, a full exhibition of the knout: in the face of which terrors,

no one could dream of fingering his Majesty’s mineral wealth, coined or

uncoined.

The next was a somewhat awkward market-day for the Polish settlers.

Having been disappointed of getting game, they had nothing to sell; and,

having been robbed, they had no purchase-money but five or six clipped

and worn skins. They were some time in perceiving the advantage this

gave them as to the quantity of goods they might obtain in return; but

the discovery, when made, helped to raise the spirits even of Andreas

himself; as did another circumstance, which acted in some degree as a

remedy of their new inconvenience,—the increased rapidity of the

circulation of their money.

Sophia could never bring herself to take part in any social business or

amusement, and regularly walked off into solitude when there was a

congregation of numbers. To-day, she wanted to have Clara with her, and

consented, though unwillingly, to wait on a sheltered ledge of rock

near, till the little girl should have made a purchase for her father

with her little mouse’s skin, the only one she had.

The article she wanted was a pair of pattens for her father;—broad

sandals of light wood, tied on with leather thongs, to prevent the feet

from sinking in the snow before it was frozen into a hard surface. The

right time for chasing the elk is when the snow is in this state; for

the elk, wearing no pattens, sinks in the snow at every step, while the

shod hunter gains upon him in the open plain. Clara thought the

possession of a fine elk would comfort her father for his losses sooner

than any other consolation she could devise; so into the market she

went, to look for a pair of pattens. There were several to be sold; but,

at first, the holders laughed at the little girl for offering so low a

price; and only laughed again when she made melancholy signs that she

had no more money to offer. When they found, however, that nobody could

give more, they began to be afraid of having to carry their wares home

again, and grudgingly offered the worst pair in the market. There was a

very suspicious crack in one patten, and the thongs of the other were a

good deal worn; but Clara thought they would last till one elk was

caught, and then her father would be rich enough to buy a better pair.

So she untied her precious mouse-skin from about her neck, gave one more

look at it, and paid it away. She wondered whether she should ever see

it again, and was sure she should know it by the little hole she had

burned in one corner to pass a string through.

Seeing that Sophia looked in a reverie, and in no hurry, she thought she

would stand a minute or two to see what became of her mouse-skin.

She had not to wait long. The five who held money were by far the most

important people in the market, where money was the scarcest commodity

of all; and this importance shifted from one to another more quickly as

the exchanges became more brisk.

The countryman who sold the pattens had not intended to purchase

anything; but others who did, and who wanted money to do it with, came

to him with so many offers of goods that at last he was tempted, and

gave the mouse-skin for a quiverful of blunt arrows and a wooden bowl

and platter.

“O dear!” thought Clara, “I have certainly made a very bad bargain; for

the bowl and platter, without the arrows, are worth as much as these

trumpery pattens.”

She could not help following to see who would have her mouse-skin next.

The woman who held it seemed to have a great wish for a hunting knife;

for she passed by a variety of offered goods, and pushed through a group

of eager sellers, to where Ernest stood leaning on his lance, and

observing what was going forward. She seized the knife with one hand, as

it was stuck in his belt, and proffered the money with the other; but

Ernest smiled, and made signs that he had no wish to sell his knife.

“What have you to do with it, my dear?” he inquired, struck with Clara’s

look of anxiety. “You look as if you wished me to part with my knife.”

“This was my mouse-skin,” she replied, half crying, “and look,—this is

all I got for it!”

“Indeed! I could make a better bargain than that for you now. Let us

try; and perhaps I may get both a better pair of pattens and my knife

back again soon, if we manage cleverly; and if not, your father will

lend me his knife till I can get another from Irkutsk.”

And the good-natured Ernest made the exchange for Clara’s sake; and,

moreover, bought the pattens, which he declared he wanted very much.

Clara had too much sense of justice not to insist on his taking

something more; and Ernest promised to accept the first mat she should

make.

“And now,” said he, “we will look out for the best pair of pattens in

the market; but you must not be in a hurry to make your bargain this

time. What else would you like to have?”

There were so many tempting things in sight that it was somewhat

difficult to choose: and she was half-frightened by the eagerness with

which she was courted when she was perceived to be one of the favoured

five money-holders. She grasped Ernest’s hand, and clutched her

treasure, and saw nothing of Sophia’s signs of impatience, while engaged

in negociation. By Ernest’s help, and to her own utter astonishment, she

presently found herself mistress of a perfect pair of pattens of the

finest wicker-work, a large package of tea which had just crossed the

frontier, pepper enough to last the winter, and a vigorous young

rein-deer. The rich little lady thought a scarcity of money a fine

thing; and having thanked Ernest very gratefully, and given her wealth

into the charge of her delighted father, she at length joined Sophia on

the rock.

“I am glad you had a reason for staying,” said Sophia; “but I do not

care now for going any farther. These people must soon have done now, I

suppose, and leave us in peace.”

“O, I am sorry I kept you,” said Clara; “but yet,—I should like to see

who has my mouse-skin after all. I shall know it anywhere by the hole in

the corner.”

“You need not move from where you are, child. You may see where money is

passing from hand to hand, by the gathering of the people about the

holder. Look how they run after the man with the Chinese belt who sold

you the tea.”

“Will he carry it away, I wonder?”

“No. He is going back to China for more tea, I suppose; and your

mouse-skin will be of no use to him there, or on the road; so he will

part with it in this neighbourhood, you will see.”

And so it proved; and the exchanges became quicker and quicker every

moment till it began to grow dark, and it was necessary for the people

to be going home. The five skins remained in the possession of three

strangers; viz. one cultivator, one Russian soldier placed as a guard

over the silver, and a travelling merchant, who held three out of the

five skins.

“How busy they have been all day!” observed Clara, as she turned

homewards, after seeing the last trafficker pack up and depart. “They

seem to have had as much buying and selling to do as if everybody had

had a purse full of money.”

“And so they have,” replied Paul, who was carrying his purchase home in

the shape of as heavy a load of grain as a strong man’s back would bear;

and groaning under it all the more discontentedly for knowing that, if

he had but waited till the close of the day, he might have had a sledge

into the bargain, on which to convey his burdens, or be conveyed

himself, whenever he should have a rein-deer, or dogs from Kamtchatka to

draw it. “They have as much buying and selling to do, my dear, with

little money as with much. The difference is, that when there is much,

some of it lies still in the purse, or moves into only one or two new

hands; while, where there is little, it flies round and round the market

as fast as it can go from hand to hand.”

It had never before struck Clara that any piece of money made more than

one exchange. She thought that her mouse-skin was worth a pair of

pattens, but forgot that if the person with whom she exchanged it did

the same thing that she had done, it would become worth two pair of

pattens; and if a third bargainer followed the example, it would become

worth three pair. She now began to exclaim upon the prodigious value of

money. Paul laughed at her for having fancied for a moment that there

must be a piece of money for everything that is bought and sold.

“If,” said he, “it was necessary for us to have a skin for every

individual thing we want to buy, there would soon be an end of all the

poor animals in Siberia. And if it was necessary for everybody in Russia

to have a piece of coin for every article purchased, the Emperor would

have to collect all the gold and silver that were ever dug out of the

ground, and to be always digging more at a great expense. And, after

all, the value of the money of the kingdom would be no greater than if

there was only a tenth part of all this existing.”

“Why, to be sure, a ruble that was used yesterday does just as well to

use again to-day as a new one; and my mouse-skin bought as many things

just now as twenty mouse-skins once used, would have done. But some

people lay by their ducats and rubles, as father used to do in Warsaw.

If some lie idle in this way, must others go round faster, or will there

be more money made?”

“That depends upon whether money is easy or difficult to be had, and on

whether people want to make many exchanges. To-day, money was very

difficult to be had, and so it passed round very rapidly; which happened

to be the only way in which we could manage to have money enough to

carry on our dealings with any briskness. ‘Be quick, be quick,’ we said

to one another, ‘for if we can make five pieces of money go through

twenty bargains each, it will be nearly the same thing, as to the

quantity of business done, as if ten pieces went through ten bargains

each, or twenty pieces through five.’”

“It is not often that one of our skins belongs to five people in one

day,” observed Clara.

“True; and we never before had any pieces go through twenty hands.”

“I think it is a fine thing to have very little money,” said Clara.

“I do not. Many of us would have been very glad, before the market was

over, to have caught more mice and killed more hares. I wish I could do

it now, before morning, to baulk that merchant who finished off with

pocketing three skins out of five.”

“What did he do that for?”

“To make things cheaper than ever to-morrow; fill his sledge at our

expense; and travel elsewhere to sell his goods, where money is cheaper

and goods are dearer than here.”

“How will he do so?”

“He will hide one of his skins; and then, when there will be only four

in use, more goods still will be given for each, and he will be able to

buy as much with two skins as he could buy to-night with three. Then he

will begin to sell again; and, to raise the price of his goods, he will

bring out the skin he laid by, and put it into circulation.”

“Then goods will be just the price they are to-night. But if he sells,

the skins will come back to him.”

“Yes; and then if he chooses to lay by two, goods will be dearer than

ever, and he may play the same trick over again with a larger profit,

till he gets all our goods into his hands in return for one skin.”

“What a shame!” cried Clara. “People will not let him do so, to be

sure?”

“If they must have his goods, and cannot get any more money, they must

submit; but it will not be for long. We must soon get more skins by some

means or another. I do wish I had the fur cap they took from me when

they gave me this horrible covering.” And he pulled off and threw away

the badge cap which the tender mercy of the Emperor had allotted to him.

His shaven head, however, could not bear the cold without it, and he was

obliged to let Clara pick it up and put it on again.

“I always thought,” she said, “that it was a very fine thing for goods

to be cheap,—and it has been a fine thing for father and me to-day; but

yet it seems as if they ought to be dearer again to-morrow.”

“And they should be, if I could make them so. You see, my dear, there

are two sorts of cheapness, one of which is a good thing, and the other

not. When it costs less trouble and expense, for instance, to grow corn

than it did before, people will exchange more corn for the same quantity

of tea or cloth or money than they did before; and this cheapness is a

good thing, because it is a sign of plenty. There is more corn, and no

less tea or money. But when more corn is given for a less quantity of

tea or money, not because there is more corn, but because the Emperor of

China will not let us have so much tea, or the Emperor of Russia so much

money as formerly, this kind of cheapness is a bad thing, because it is

a token of scarcity. This was our case yesterday. We had a scarcity of

skins, but no more goods of other kinds than usual.”

“And there was a scarcity of skins in two ways,” observed the thoughtful

little girl. “When we have had more than we wanted to use as money, it

answered very well to make leggings and mittens of them; but now we

could not get mouse-skin mittens if we wished it ever so much.”

“Not without buying money with more goods than a pair of mittens can

ever be worth.”

“I never heard of buying money before,” said Clara, laughing.

“Indeed! In all money bargains, one party buys goods with money, and the

other buys money with goods. How should countries that have no gold and

silver mines procure their money in any other way? England buys gold and

silver from South America with cotton goods; and the Americans get

cotton goods by paying gold and silver, sometimes in coin, and sometimes

in lumps of metal. These metals are sometimes, as you see, a commodity,

and some times a medium of exchange, like our skins. It there happens to

be plenty to be had, either of the one or the other, their value rises

and falls, like the value of all other commodities,—according to the

cost and trouble of procuring them, and a few other circumstances. If

there happens to be a scarcity, their exchangeable value may be raised

to any height, in proportion to the scarcity, and they cease to be

commodities.”

“And just the same, I suppose, whether they are in good condition or in

bad? My mouse-skin bought as many things to-day, worn and jagged as it

was, as it would have bought if it had been new, and sleek, and soft.”

“Yes; but as a commodity it would now bear little value. If there were a

hundred new ones in the market to-morrow, the old ones would scarcely

sell for anything as mitten materials.”

“To be sure. They would make very shabby, rotten mittens. But it is a

good thing that we have not always this rich merchant here, unless

indeed we could always get what skins we want. He might play all kinds

of tricks with us.”

“Like some foolish kings with their people, my dear; but kings are more

sure to be punished for such tricks than this merchant. When he has

ruined us all, he can travel away, and enjoy his profits elsewhere; but

kings who have put bad money into the market under the name of good, or

thought they could vary the quantity as they pleased for their own

purposes, have found themselves in a terrible scrape at last. When there

was too much coined money among the people, some of it was sure to

disappear——”

“Where did it go to?”

“If the people could manage to send it abroad to where money prices were

not so high, they did so. If not permitted to do this, it was easy to

melt it down at home, and make cups and dishes, and chains and watches

of it.”

“And then, if there was too little, I suppose they made their plate and

chains into coins again. But could they do this without the king’s

leave?”

“The kings are not sorry to give leave, because the people pay

governments something for having their metals coined. But whenever

governments meddle to injure the coin, or to prevent its circulating

naturally, they are sure to suffer; for violent changes of price make

many poor, while they make a few rich; and the consequence of this is

that the government is not well supported. The people are not only

angry, but they become unable to pay their taxes.”

“Do people know directly when more money is sent out, or some drawn in?”

“Very soon, indeed; because great changes of price follow. In this place

now, if we see the same quantity of goods brought for the same number of

people to buy, and our skins generally changing hands five times in the

day, and prices remaining the same, we are sure that the same quantity

of money is in use. If prices remain the same, and skins change hands

eight times a-day, we know that there must be fewer skins in the market;

and if prices fall very much at the same time, we may be sure that there

is very little money indeed, and that everybody will be on the look-out

to make more. If prices rise in an equal degree, it will be quite as

plain that there are more skins than we want as money; and, presently,

some of them will be made into mittens.”

“But in such a place as this, it is very easy to count the skins, and

observe who steals or hides, and who brings in a fresh supply.”

“True; but in the largest empire it may be just as certainly known as

here when there is more or less money afloat, by the signs I have

mentioned, without our being able to look into every hole and corner

where people are melting coins to be made into dishes or thimbles, or

looking out their bars of gold and silver to be coined. Though you may

not see all that may be done in the darkness of this night, you may

possibly perceive something to-morrow which will make you quite sure

that there has been a change in the supply of money.”

Clara wished she might, since the cheapness of goods this day was not in

reality an advantageous thing. She clearly saw that it was not so,

though she herself happened to have secured a vast return for her small

stock of money. She perceived that whenever she and her father wanted to

sell (which all were obliged to do in turn) they would have as much more

than usual to give of labour or goods as they had this day received,

unless the quantity of money in circulation could be increased.

“I suppose,” sighed she, “if I could get at the little holes under those

trees where the mice are asleep for the winter, I ought to kill as many

of them as I could catch before morning. The snow is too deep, however.

But I do wish we had something for money that might be had without

killing such pretty little creatures.”

Paul explained, very sagely, how right it was to sacrifice the inferior

animals when man could be served by their deaths; and how much better it

was that a score of field mice should be cut off in the midst of a deep

sleep, than that there should be dispute and deprivation among a little

society who had too many troubles already. He ended by asking on what

terms Clara would part with her young rein-deer this night? On none

whatever, she said at first. She had so pleased herself with the idea of

feeding and training the animal; and her father was so delighted with

her possession of it. But when she was reminded that money would at any

time buy rein-deer, while it was an unique circumstance that a single

rein-deer should supply a whole society with money, she began to see

Paul’s object in wishing to possess the animal, and referred him, with

some regrets, to her father for an arrangement of the terms of the

bargain. They were soon settled. Paul did not want, for his own use, the

money he meant to manufacture out of the hide in the course of the

night. He only wished to prevent the rich merchant possessing himself of

all the disposable goods of the settlement, and readily promised that

Andreas should keep the carcase, and have half the funds provided out of

the skin. Andreas heard slight sounds from one corner of the hut that

night, which led him to think that his little daughter was crying

herself to sleep, as quietly as she might, at the close of her day of

trafficking; but he said to himself that children must learn to bear

disappointments, whether about dolls or young rein-deer; and that it

would have been a sin to deprive his neighbours of a stock of money, and

himself of so fine a means of improving his resources, for the sake of a

little girl’s fancy to have a tame animal to play with. Clara would have

said so too, if she had been asked; but her tears did not flow the less.

It was a busy night in Paul’s hut. He put himself under the management

of his wife, who was well skilled in handling hides; and before morning

the skin was decently cleaned, and economically cut up, and a new supply

of the circulating medium distributed among the dwellings of as many as

chose to buy back of the merchant some of the articles he had obtained

from them the day before; or, at least, to refuse him the power of

making any more purchases on terms so ruinous to them.

CHAPTER VI.

THE PATRIOT’S ALTAR.

All possible pains were taken by the Russian superintendents of the mine

to prevent the convicts under their charge from hearing anything of what

was going forward in their own country, or even in Russia; and nothing

would have been easier than to keep them in utter ignorance, if the

Poles in the neighbourhood had all been miners, shut up during the day

in the chambers of the earth, and at night in huts at the mouth of the

mine. But those of them who were crown peasants were not so easily kept

within bounds. Paul visited the hamlets on the shores of the Baïkal, and

made acquaintance with every travelling merchant who could speak in his

wife’s tongue or his own; and Ernest was for ever on the look-out for

parties of convicts on their way to Kamtchatka, and contrived to cross

the path of several, while professedly out on a hunting expedition. He

never failed to procure some information from these meetings, or to

communicate it within a short time to his companions in exile. The hours

of the night were their own; and there were many nights, even in the

very depth of winter, when they could venture abroad to some one of the

several places of meeting appointed for such occasions. The miners could

sometimes foretell the approach of a procession of prisoners from

Europe, by what went on within the works. If there was more diligence

used than in common to prepare certain quantities of silver for removal,

it was a token that an escort was on the road, which was to be met by

the guards of the treasure, in order to exchange their respective

charges,—prisoners and precious metal. As often as Owzin was detained

longer than usual in the galleries of the mine, or Taddeus was

overworked in the smelting-house, Ernest prepared for a long walk across

the steppe, or daily mounted the heights in his neighbourhood to watch

for indications of a march along the horizon which bounded the vast

plain of snow. It was forbidden to all persons whatever, except the

armed peasants who formed a part of the escort, to follow the waggons

which contained the royal treasure, or dog the heels of the personages

in green and red who protected it. Since to follow was impossible, it

only remained to precede the train; and this Ernest did, keeping a

little in advance, concealing himself in woods, or behind ridges of

snow, and looking out from rock or tree for the glittering of sabres

when the sun was above the horizon, and the glare of pine-torches after

darkness came on. Having thus guided himself towards the point of the

two processions meeting, he began his hunting, and managed to fall in

with the party of convicts in time to be questioned whether the escort

from Nertchinsk might be speedily expected, and to exchange signs and

words with any of the prisoners who might be his countrymen.

He found himself aided in his object by the country people, whose

compassion for the exiles is as remarkable as the hard-heartedness of

the Russian guards. “Have you fallen in with the criminals?” asks a

Russian soldier, sent out to reconnoitre. “I passed a company of

unfortunates,” is the reply. If bidden to chain two restive prisoners to

their iron bar, the peasant obeys unwillingly, and takes the first

opportunity of releasing them, and bearing their burden himself. Several

such did Ernest fall in with, and interest in his cause; and when he had

once learned to pardon their compassionate opposition to all fancies of

escape, and to admit with them that the attempt would be insane, he

thankfully accepted their good offices on his expeditions, and was

grateful for the connivance of the two or three who could have told

tales of certain midnight meetings on the shores of the Charmed Sea. Few

dared to look abroad at such an hour in such a scene, or doubted that

the chaunts they heard, and the red lights they saw flickering on the

steep or among the dark pine stems, were connected with the spirits of

the deep; but there were a few who could distinguish human forms

hovering about the blaze, and shrewdly guess that the lake spirits would

not perpetually sing of Warsaw.

It was mid-winter—a winter which already seemed as if it would never

end—when Ernest set forth to seek traces of a party of “unfortunates” in

the manner above described, and left directions that as many as wished

for tidings from Poland should meet him on the third night from hence,

at an appointed spot overhanging the Baïkal. He accomplished his object;

was perceived from a distance with his rifle pointed, and apparently not

regarding the procession—summoned to be questioned, and permitted to

make inquiries in return. As usual, he received the oracular assurance,

“Order reigns in Warsaw.” As usual, he caught the flashing glance, and

marked the compression of lip with which the words were listened to by

as many as were within hearing. But the train was not like any which he

had before seen cross the desert. The convicts were Poles who had been

enrolled as soldiers in the condemned regiments, and who, having shown

symptoms of discontent, were being transported to serve as sentinels on

the frontiers of China. As there would be no possibility of escape for

themselves, it was thought that they would be trustworthy guardians of

any exiles of a different class who might attempt it; the supposition

going on the principle too commonly acted upon—that privation induces

jealousy. All these poor men were objects of deep compassion to Ernest,

who thought the lot of the military exile far more painful than his own,

or that of his mining companions. The being under incessant supervision,

and subjected to military punishments of the most barbarous kind, were

evils purely additional to those suffered by other classes of exiles.

What this military punishment amounted to in some cases, he had the

opportunity of perceiving in the instance of one of the prisoners who

was conveyed in a kibitka; the injuries he had received from the knout

rendering him incapable of walking.

As it was usual to leave under the care of the peasantry as many of the

“unfortunates” as fell sick on the road, or were found unable to travel,

Ernest was surprised that this soldier should be proceeding with the

rest. He was told that the man himself desired not to be parted from his

companions; and had persevered in his journey thus far at the risk of

dying before he should reach the frontiers of China. Ernest thought it

probable that he would consent to stop and be taken care of, if he could

do so among his own countrymen; and he advanced to the vehicle for the

purpose of conversing with those within.

“Are you Poles?” he asked in a low voice, and in his own tongue.

The sufferer tore open his clothes, and showed the well-known token,—the

Polish eagle, branded upon his breast. He had impressed it there, as he

was not allowed to carry the emblem about with him in any form in which

it could be taken from him. A few more words communicated all that

remained to be told,—in what capacity—civil, not military,—he had served

the cause; how he fell under punishment; and, in short, that this was no

other than Cyprian.

When he heard whom he was talking to, and how near he was to those whom

he loved best, he no longer objected to be left behind on the road. The

only fear was lest his eagerness should be too apparent. With a solemn

caution, Ernest left him, to say to the escort that he thought the

prisoner in a very dangerous state, and that there was a hut a few

wersts further on where he could be received and nursed till able to

pursue his journey to the frontier. He added that this hut was in the

near neighbourhood of Russian soldiers, who would be able to see that

the convict did not escape on his recovery. The guard condescended to

inquire of Cyprian himself whether he chose to remain; and observed that

he must feel himself much worse since he had given over his obstinacy.

Ernest denied himself all further intercourse with the prisoners on the

way, and seemed more disposed to divert himself with his rifle than to

converse. When within sight of his own hut, he pointed it out very

coolly, took charge of Cyprian as if he was merely performing a common

act of humanity, and asked for directions as to pursuing the route to

the frontiers when the sick man should have become again fit for duty.

Nothing could appear simpler, or be more easily managed than the whole

affair; and the procession went on its way, without either the guard or

the remaining unfortunates having any idea that Cyprian was not left

among perfect strangers.

There was but little time for intercourse at first. The hour of

appointment was just at hand, and Alexander and Paul were gone to keep

it, Ernest supposed, as their huts were empty.

“O, take me with you!” exclaimed Cyprian. “Only give me your arm, and

let me try if I cannot walk. To think of their being so near, and I left

behind alone! Cannot you take me with you?”

Ernest pronounced it impossible. Cyprian could not survive the fatigue,

the exposure, the agitation; and, if he did, how was Sophia to bear the

shock? By proving to him that it was only in his character of invalid

that he could secure a day’s permission to remain, he quieted him.

“And now,” continued Ernest, “give me tidings that I may bear to those

who are waiting for me. Briefly,—how fares it with our heritage?”

“Our heritage! Our patrimony!” exclaimed Cyprian, dwelling on the terms

by which the Poles lovingly indicate their country. “Alas! will it ever

be ours? They told you too truly—‘Order reigns in Warsaw!’”

“But what kind of order? Repose or secret conspiracy? None are so

orderly as conspirators while conspiring; and repose is impossible

already.”

“Alas! it is neither. There is order, because the disorderly, as the

Emperor calls them, are removed day by day. There is no conspiracy,

because all who could organize one are in chains like you, or badged

like me;” and Cyprian tore with his teeth the black eagle which marked

his uniform. Ernest observed, with a melancholy smile, that not even

this climate would blanch the Russian eagle.

“Therefore,” continued he, “we have each a Polish eagle, caught at

midnight, (when the superstitions of our enemies have blinded them;)

slaughtered with patriotic rites; and preserved in secret.” And, after

making sure that no prying eyes were looking in, he drew out from a

recess behind the screen, a large white eagle, stuffed with great care

into a resemblance of the beloved Polish standard. Cyprian clasped his

hands, as if about to worship it. Its presence was some consolation to

him for Ernest’s departure.

“But how,” asked the latter, “are the brave conveyed away from Warsaw?

On biers or in chains?”

“No one knows,” replied Cyprian. “They who informed me can tell no more

than that our friends are seen to enter their own houses at night, and

in the morning they are gone. Some few are known to have been called to

their doors, or into the streets, on slight pretences, and to have

returned to their expecting households no more. Then there is silent

weeping during the hours of darkness; and if grief is clamorous, it is

shut into the inner chambers whence none may hear it. Thus order reigns

in Warsaw.”

“And is this all the comfort I may carry?” asked Ernest, hoarsely.

“No: there is yet more. Tell any who may be fathers that there is no

danger of their children growing up traitors like themselves. The

Emperor takes them under his paternal care, and teaches them, among

other things,—loyalty.”

“And the mothers——”

“Are called upon to rejoice that the children will never be exposed to

their fathers’ perils. There is much wonder at their ingratitude when

they follow, with lamentations, the waggons in which their young sons

are carried away to be put under a better training than that of

parents.”

Ernest asked no more. These were tidings enough for one night. He strode

on over the frozen snow, the fires which burned within him seeming to

himself sufficient to convert this expanse of snow around him into a

parched and droughty desert. There was, however, something in the aspect

of a Siberian mid-winter night which never failed to calm the passions

of this ardent patriot, or, at least, to give them a new and less

painful direction. Ernest was of that temperament to which belongs the

least debasing and most influential kind of superstition. He had not

been superstitious in the days when there was full scope for all his

faculties and all his energies in the realities of social life; but now,

the deprivation of his accustomed objects of action, and the impression,

at striking seasons, of unwonted sights and sounds, subjected him to

emotions of which he could not, in his former circumstances, have framed

a conception. Though he this night quitted his hut as if in desperate

haste, he did not long proceed as if he feared being too late for his

appointment. He lingered in the pine wood to listen to the moaning and

wailing which came from afar through the motionless forests, like the

music of a vast Æolian harp. He knew that it was caused by the motion of

the winds pent under the icy surface of the Charmed Sea; but he listened

breathlessly, as if they came from some conscious agents, whose mission

was to himself. So it was also when the silent action of the frost in

fissures of the rock at length loosened masses of stone, and sent them

toppling down the steep, while the crash reverberated, and the startled

eagle rushed forth into the night air, and added her screaming to the

commotion. Then Ernest was wont to watch eagerly in what direction the

bird would wing her flight, and regard as an omen for his country

whether she once more cowered in darkness, or flew abroad to prevent the

roused echoes from sleeping again.

When strong gusts of an icy sharpness swept suddenly through the clefts

of the mountains to the north, carrying up the white canopy of the woods

in whirling clouds which sparkled in the moonlight, and creating a

sudden turmoil among the blackened pine tops, he watched whether they

stooped and raised themselves again, or were snapped off and laid low;

and involuntarily made them the interpreters of his doubts about the

next struggle into which he and his countrymen might enter.

Thus he lingered this night, and was therefore the last of the little

company appointed to assemble at their midnight altar. This altar was

one of the mysterious sculptured or inscribed rocks which appear at rare

intervals in these deserts, the records, it is supposed, of ancient

superstitions. The one chosen by the Poles for their point of

rendezvous, bore figures of animals rudely carved on a misshapen

pedestal; and on a natural pillar which sprang from it were characters

which no one within the memory of man had been found able to read. From

this pedestal, the snow was duly swept before the exiles gathered round

it to sing their patriotic hymns, or celebrate worship according to the

customs of their country; and little Clara engaged that when the snow

was gone, no creeping mosses should be allowed to deform the face of the

altar. As for living things, they were too scarce and too welcome to be

considered unclean, and the wild pigeons were as welcome to perch on

this resting-place, after a weary flight over the Charmed Sea, as the

swallow to build in the tabernacle of old. It was on the verge of the

steep, where it plunged abrupt and fathoms deep into the green waters,

that this altar stood; a conspicuous point which would have been

dangerous but for the superstitions of all who lived within sight, since

the blaze of the exiles’ fire gleamed like a beacon on the height, and

flickered among the pine stems behind, and shone from the polished black

ice beneath.

As Ernest approached, unperceived, he first drew near to Sophia, who sat

with folded arms on the verge of the rock, watching the white gleams of

the northern lights, which shot up into the midheaven from behind the

ridge of the opposite mountains, dimming the stars in that quarter, and

contrasting strongly with the red glow of the fire which behind sent up

wreaths of dim smoke among the rocks. Sophia’s mood was less quiet than

it should have been to accord with the scenery she was apparently

contemplating. Neither superstition, nor any other influence seemed to

have the power of soothing her. She was speaking, from time to time, in

a querulous or an indifferent tone to some one who leaned against the

altar on its shadowy side. It was Taddeus’s voice which was heard

occasionally in reply. The other Poles were collected round the fire;

and their own voices, and the crackling and snapping of the burning

wood, prevented their hearing that which it grieved Ernest’s heart to

listen to.

“Well, I do not know what you would have,” said Sophia; “I came out this

freezing night, instead of going to my warm bed, just because my mother

looks so miserable whenever I wish to stay behind. I neither wish to

worship, nor to be patriotic, nor to see you all degrading yourselves

with your superstitions. It was for my mother’s sake that I came, and

what more would you have?”

“It is not that, Sophia. You know it is not that.”

“O, you want me to bear about gravity in my looks, and to seem wrought

upon by what passes; but that is going a step too far for my sincerity.

There is no gravity in anything; and I cannot look as if I thought there

was; and it is not my fault if my mother makes herself uneasy about my

feeling so.”

“No solemnity in anything! Not in those quivering lights, shot forth

from the brow of Silence?”

“No. I used to think that there was in the lightning, and shrank from

the flash lest it should destroy me. But we see no lightning here; and

these fires do not scorch. They are idle, aimless things;—like all other

things.”

“Are your words aimless, Sophia, when they wound my mother and me? It is

well that my father does not hear them all.”

“They are aimless,” returned Sophia. “I have no object in anything I say

or do. I thought we grew tired of that in our childhood, Taddeus. We

were for ever planning and scheming; and what has it all come to? The

arbour that we built,—and the many professions that we chose for

Frederick and you,——Pshaw! What childish nonsense it was!”

“And the protection I was to give to you, Sophia, if troubles arose; and

your dependence upon me,—was this childish dreaming?”

“Was it not, Taddeus? What has your protection been to me? and how am I

dependent on you, or any one? My happiness, indeed, seems to have

depended on you more than any power but fate would have allowed. See

what has come of that too!”

“O, Sophia! if I innocently destroyed your happiness, did not my own go

with it? Have I not——”

“O, I have no doubt of all that; and I never thought of blaming anybody.

It only proves how lightly and strangely things befall; and after this,

you want me to see order and gravity in the march of events, and to

march gravely with them. No! I have tried that too long; so I shall sit

where I am while they sing yonder. You had better go. Go, if you think

it does you any good.”

But Taddeus still lingered, while his sister kept her eyes fixed on the

shooting lights.

“Sister!” he began, but seeing her writhe under the word, he added, in a

low voice, “There is something in that word which touches you, however.”

“No gravity,—no solemnity,” she replied, laughing bitterly. “It carries

no meaning but what old prejudice has put into it.”

“No thoughts of the arbour we built? No remembrance of the days when you

put a sword into my boyish hands, and a helmet on my head, and said you

would nurse my infirmities and soothe my banishment, if either should

befall me for freedom’s sake?”

“You came out of the battle without a wound,” replied Sophia, hastily.

“But not the less am I maimed for freedom’s sake. O, Sophia! what would

you have had me do? Think of the oath! Think of the twenty-five years of

vowed service——”

Sophia started up, and with a struggle repressed a fierce cry which had

began to burst from her lips. She turned her eyes upon her brother with

a look of unutterable hatred, and walked away down a winding path, in an

opposite direction from the group behind the altar.

Ernest drew near to the despairing Taddeus, and was about to communicate

his marvellous news; but the brother could not for a moment cease

pouring out his boiling thoughts to one who understood their misery.

“To be so hated,—to be so wronged! And to be able to offer no excuse

that does not pierce her heart, and make her passion more bitter than

ever! And to think how more unhappy she is than even I——”

“We must lead her to embrace your consolation, and mine, and that of all

of us. Come to our worship. Let it compose you, and perhaps she may

return and listen. Perhaps she may find in it something——”

“Let it go on,” said Taddeus. “The more wretched we are, the more need

for prayer. My mother, too, listens for her children’s voices, and she

shall not have to mourn for all.”

So saying, the two friends summoned their companions, and there, in a

few moments, might be heard the mingled voices, ringing clear from the

steep through the still midnight air, as they chaunted their prayer:—

God!—Scorched by battle-fires we stand

Before thee on thy throne of snows;

But, Father! in this silent land,

We seek no refuge nor repose:

We ask, and shall not ask in vain,—

“Give us our heritage again!”

Thy winds are ice-bound in the sea;

Thine eagle cowers till storms are past;

Lord! when those moaning winds are free,

When eagles mount upon the blast,

O! breathe upon our icy chain,

And float our Poland’s flag again!

’Twas for thy cause we once were strong;

Thou wilt not doom that cause to death!

O God! our struggle has been long;

Thou wilt not quench our glimmering faith!

Thou hear’st the murmurs of our pain,—

“Give us our heritage again!”

“Who,” said Ernest, emphatically, when the service was ended—“who will

assist me to secure another white eagle?”

All understood at once that a countryman had joined their company. No

further preparation was necessary for the story which Ernest had to

tell; and in a few moments, the hardier men of the party were scaling

the slippery rocks in search of their prey, while Lenore was looking for

the path by which her daughter had descended, that she might join her

and communicate the intelligence.

“Mother!” cried a gentle voice to her, as she was about to go down. She

turned round, and saw Sophia leaning against a tree where she must have

heard all. “Mother,” repeated Sophia, scarcely audibly, “is this true?”

and at the sight of Lenore’s faint but genuine smile, the poor girl laid

her head on the shoulder which was formerly the resting-place of her

troubles, and, once more,—after a long and dreary interval of

estrangement,—wept without control.

Lenore gently led her towards the altar, on which they both leaned.

“My child,” she said, “before we go to him, answer me what I ask. You do

not, you say, believe that yon constellation is guided in its glittering

round. You do not believe that the storm-bird, buffeted in its flight,

is guided to its nest at last. Do you believe that Cyprian has been

guided hither, or is it one of the events in which there is no

seriousness, no import, that you are thus brought together in the heart

of the desert?”

Sophia answered only by sinking down on her knees, and bowing her head

upon the pedestal; but her sobs had ceased. When she looked up, it was

Taddeus that supported her. She did not now start from his touch, but

regarded him with a long gaze, like that with which she had parted from

him when he went out to battle for Poland. It melted him into something

more like self-reproach than all her past conduct had excited.

“You forgive me at last!” he cried. “Say you forgive me, Sophia!”

“Forgive _you_!” she exclaimed. “You who have fought; you who have

suffered; you who have forborne!—And what have I forborne? I have——”

“You have been wounded in spirit. You have suffered more than any of us,

and therefore far be it from us to remember anything against you,

Sophia. Now, your worst suffering is at an end, and you will be a

comfort again to my mother,—to all of us.”

Lenore did not join her children when she saw them hurrying away

together in the direction of Ernest’s dwelling. She followed them with

her eyes as long as she could distinguish them between the trees of the

wood, and then turned, strong in a new trust, to feed the fire, and

await the appearance of her companions. It was not long before the

screaming echoes told her that they had succeeded in their search; and

presently after, the red embers died out upon the steep, and none were

left to heed how the northern aurora silently sported with the night on

the expanse of the Charmed Sea.

CHAPTER VII.

WISDOM FROM THE SIMPLE.

Of all the party of exiles, Andreas was the one whose troubles grew the

fastest as time rolled on. The family of Owzin were consoled by the

return of domestic peace; Sophia becoming more and more like her former

self as Cyprian slowly, very slowly, repaid the cares of his nurses by

his improvement in health. Paul made himself comfortable, as he would

have done in the Barbary desert, if sentenced to transportation thither

the next year. He was not a man to doubt, in the intervals of his sighs

for Poland, that he could find a wife and a home in any corner of the

earth. What was in Ernest’s mind nobody knew; but there was a new

cheerfulness about him which it was difficult to account for, as he

continued to disclaim all definite hope for Poland. He looked and moved

like one who had an object, and yet it was impossible to conceive of any

aim which could interest him through any other principle than his

patriotism. Little Clara would have been the happiest of all, if her

father had but allowed it. She thought less and less of Warsaw as fresh

occupations and interests occurred to her in her new country. The

opening of the spring brought a variety of employment to the industrious

little girl. When the plates of ice with which she had made double

window panes began to lose their clearness, and keep out the light

rather than keep in the warmth,—when she had twisted and netted all the

flax she could procure into fishing-nets,—when even the broadest pattens

she could make or buy would not support the wearer in the melting

snow,—and when, above all, the winter stock of food began to fail, she

prepared herself eagerly for new devices, and watched day by day the

advance of the season. She had not to wait long; and when the south

winds began to blow, the suddenness of the change in the face of things

startled her. As if by magic, a few genial days divided the mountainous

district into two regions, as different in aspect as if tracts had been

brought from the torrid and frigid zones and joined together in one

night. While on the north side of every mountain all was white and

silent as ever, the south was brilliant with alpine vegetation, and the

freed torrents were leaping noisily from rock to rock. The wild apricot

put forth its lilac buds, and the rhododendron its purple flowers, over

many a hill side: the orchis, the blue and white gentian, and the

Siberian iris sprouted from the moss beneath the forest trees; and the

blossoming elder and a variety of water lilies made the most impassable

morasses as gay as the meadows of a milder climate. It was not from any

idea that holiday time was come that Clara enjoyed this change. She knew

that she must work all the year round; but it was much pleasanter to

work in the open air than for eight months together within four walls,

by the light of ice windows, and the close warmth of a brick oven. She

now collected salt from the salt ponds of the steppe as fast as they

melted; shovelled away the remaining snow wherever lilies were

sprouting, that she might dig up the roots for food; and walked along

the shores of the great lake when its tumbling waters once more began to

heave and swell, and watched for whatever treasures they might cast up

upon the beach. She even conceived the ambitious project of digging for

a spring of water, as all that could otherwise be procured was either

salt, muddy, or bitter; but here she was foiled, as she might have known

she would be if she had taken an opinion upon the subject. She dug

successfully to the depth of one foot, and then found the soil frozen

too hard for her to make any impression. She tried again a month later,

and got down another foot; but, as she afterwards learned, the strongest

arm and the best tools can penetrate no deeper than two yards, before

frost comes again and spoils the work.

Her father thought her a good child in respect of industry; but he

acknowledged this with little pleasure, for no industry whatever could

make a man rich in such a place. The longer he lived there, the more

convinced he became of the dreadful truth, and therefore the more

miserable he grew. Yet he was rich in comparison of his companions. He

had hoarded many skins, and had more furniture and clothes than anybody

else. But skins would soon be depreciated in value, he feared, from

their abundance; and where would be his wealth then, unless he could

foresee in time into what form it would be most profitable to transmute

his hoard, while it retained its value as a representative of wealth,

and before it should again become also a commodity? Night after night,

when he came home from work in the mine, he dreaded to hear of an

acquisition of skins. Day after day, did he look with jealous eyes on

the heaps of silver which he must not touch, and long for the security

of a metallic currency; that arrangement of civilized life which he most

regretted. He saw—everybody saw—that some new medium of circulation must

be adopted, if they wished to improve their state by further exchange

with their neighbours; but the suggestion which was at last adopted did

not come from him or from any of the wiser heads. It was Clara who

introduced a new kind of money.

In walking along the muddy verge to which a spring flood had reached,

and where it had deposited various curiosities, she observed, among

little heaps and beds of shells, some very remarkable bones. Though

light to carry, they were so large that she could not imagine what

animal they could have belonged to. She collected all that she could

find within a long space on either side the river, and carried her lap

full to Paul, the friend of all others who, with the advantage of his

wife’s help, could most frequently and readily enlighten her in any

matter of difficulty.

Emilia explained that these were the bones of a monster which had been

made by the spirits of the Charmed Sea to carry them high and dry on its

back through the deep waters: and that having once displeased them by

diving in the deepest part, they had, as a punishment, chained it down

at the bottom of the neighbouring river, whence its bones were cast up

as often as the spring floods overspread the country. Clara wondered at

the spirits for not swimming or flying over at once, instead of taking

so much trouble to create and then destroy a monster; and she liked

Paul’s account of the matter better than his wife’s. Paul was not aware

that spirits had anything to do with mammoths elsewhere, and did not

believe that they had here, or that the mammoth ought to be called a

monster. He simply called the mammoth a huge animal, such as is not seen

in these days, and any traces of which, therefore, are a curiosity. He

advised Clara not to throw away these curious bones.

“Papa will not let me keep them,” she replied. “He will sell them, if he

can find anybody to buy.”

“I do not know who should do that, my dear. We have no cabinets of

curiosities in such a place as this.”

“I do think,” said Clara, after a moment’s thought, “that these bones

would make very good money. You see, we could easily find out exactly

how many may be had, and it can never happen, as it does with the skins,

that we shall have twice as many one day as the day before.”

“It may happen, my dear, that a second flood or storm may throw up more

bones. It is not likely, to be sure, that such a thing should come to

pass twice in one season; but it is possible.”

“And if it does,” said Clara, “could not we agree that some one person

should take care of them; or that whatever bones are found should belong

to us all, and be put in one particular place, to lie till we want more

money? We cannot do this with skins, because they are useful in other

ways, and it would be very hard to prevent anybody from getting as many

as he could; but nobody would think it hard that he might not keep

mammoth bones, because they would be of no use to him except for money.”

“But would they not be slily kept for money, Clara? Would every one

bring in the mammoth bones he might find to the treasury?”

“If they would trust me,” said the little girl, “I would go out after a

storm or a flood, and bring in any that might be lying about. But think

how very seldom this would happen; and how very often we get a fresh

supply of skins!”

“Very true, Clara; and I, for one, would trust you to bring home all you

might find. But there is more to be considered than you are aware of

before we change our currency; and I very much doubt whether your

father, among others, would agree to it.”

“You would give him as much of our new money as is worth the skins he

has laid by,” said Clara, “or he would not hear of the change; and

indeed it would not be at all fair. O yes; everybody must be paid equal

to what he has at present; and if that is properly done, I should think

they will all like the plan, as it will be less easy than ever to cheat

or make mistakes. You see so few of these bones are like one another

that, when once different values are put upon them, one may tell at a

glance what they stand for, as easily as one may tell a ruble from a

ducat. And then, again, there can be no cheating. If we were to clip and

break off for ever, one could not make several pieces of bone into a

whole bone, as one may with skins, or with gold and silver.”

“But these bones will wear out in time, Clara; and some will crumble to

pieces sooner than others.”

“Not faster than from year to year,” argued Clara. “And next spring,

when perhaps we can get more, it will be very easy to give out new ones,

and take in the old, and break them up entirely before everybody’s eyes.

O, I think this is the best sort of money we have thought of yet.”

Paul agreed with her, and promised to call the little company together

to consult about the matter.

The first thing that struck everybody was that these bones would be

without some of the most important qualities which recommend coined

money as a medium of exchange.

“What are we to say to their value?” asked Taddeus. “There is no cost of

production, except the little trouble and time Clara will spend in

picking them up.”

“It is plain that they will have no value in themselves,” observed Paul,

“but only such as we shall put upon them by common agreement.”

“That is,” said Ernest, “they will be a sign of value only, and not a

commodity. Will a mere sign of value serve our purpose as a standard of

value? That is the question. For the thing we most want is a standard of

value. It was in this respect that our skins failed us.”

“The bones will serve our own little party as a standard of value, well

enough,” replied Paul. “The difficulty will be when we come to deal with

our neighbours, who not only use a different currency, but to whom

mammoth bones are absolutely worthless. When we used skins, it was

difficult to impress upon traders the full value at which we estimated

our money; but it had some real value with them from its being a

commodity as well as a sign.”

“Then we have to choose between the two inconveniences,” observed

Ernest; “whether to fix a standard which none will agree to but

ourselves, but which will serve our purpose well; or whether to use a

medium of exchange whose value is acknowledged by the neighbouring

traders, but which is, in fact, no standard to us, as it varies with the

success or failure of every shooting expedition.”

“What a pity it seems,” observed Paul, “that all the world cannot agree

upon some standard of value! What a prodigious deal of trouble it would

save!”

“And where,” asked Ernest, “would you find a commodity which is held in

equal esteem in all countries, and by ail classes? Even gold and silver,

the most probable of any, would never do. There are parts of the world

where lumps of them are tossed about as toys: where they are had without

cost of production; while here, you see what an expensive apparatus is

required to work out any portion of them;—an expense of capital and of

human machinery——”

Paul, dreading this part of the subject, interrupted him with,—

“Well, but why have any commodity at all? If we cannot find any existing

thing which all would agree to value alike, why not have an imaginary

thing? Instead of saying that my bow is worth a pound of cinnamon, and a

pound of cinnamon worth three pairs of scissors, why not say that the

bow and the pound of cinnamon are worth nine units, and each pair of

scissors worth three units? What could be easier than to measure

commodities against one another thus?”

“Commodities whose value is already known, I grant you, Paul: but what

would you do with new ones whose value is unknown? It is to measure

these that we most want a standard.”

“We must estimate the cost of production of the new article, and compare

it with——”

“Aye; with what? With some other commodity, and not with an ideal

standard. You see it fails you at the very moment you want it. When we

measure our lances against one another, we can express their comparative

length by saying that one measures three and the other four spaces,—a

space being merely an imaginary measure; but if we want to ascertain the

length of a pine stem which has fallen across our path, we must reduce

this imaginary measure to a real one. Nothing can be used as a standard

which has not properties in common with the thing to be estimated. That

which has length can alone measure length; and that which has value can

alone measure value.”

“How then can an ideal standard of value be used at all?”

“Because an ideal value alone is referred to it. But that abstract value

is obtained through the reality which is ascertained by the comparison

of commodities. When this abstraction is arrived at, an abstract

standard may serve to express it; but new commodities must be measured

by a standard which is itself a commodity or a tangible sign which is,

by general agreement established in its place.”

“Then, after all, we must come round to the point that coined metals are

the best kind of money, admitting, as they do, an ineffaceable stamp of

value, and thus uniting the requisites of a sign and a commodity.”

“The best, at all events, up to a certain point in the progress of

society, and, in general, till all societies which make mutual exchanges

have reached that point. Neither we, nor the travelling merchants of

Siberia, nor the cultivators with whom we deal, have yet reached this

point; and there is no doubt that it would be greatly for our advantage

to be possessed of coined metals as a medium of exchange. As we cannot

have them, these mammoth bones must answer our purposes. They promise to

do so better than any device we have yet made trial of.”

Some one suggested that a metal medium might be procured by a little

trouble and expense, if it should be thought worth while. Most of the

Mongolian women they saw had small weights of virgin gold or silver

fastened to their braids of hair, and might be easily prevailed on to

part with them; and some persons in the present company had chanced to

pick up morsels of silver in the beds of streams, and among the

fragments of rock on the mountain side. Where would be the difficulty of

impressing marks upon these, and thus instituting a sort of rude

coinage? It was, however, agreed that the temptation of clipping pieces

of precious metal of an irregular form would be too strong to be safely

ventured; to say nothing of the cost of production, which must be

disproportionately heavy in the case of a small society which had no

apparatus for facilitating the work of coining.

It would be difficult, Ernest observed, to have any coin of a low

denomination, as the cost of production would confer a high value on the

smallest fragments of gold or silver; and, as for lead, it was too

plentiful, and too easily melted and marked, to be made money of in

their district. It appeared to Taddeus that there was no objection to

their society having a new commodity of considerable arbitrary value in

its possession, if it was once settled by what party the expense of its

preparation should be defrayed. Some authority would of course be

instituted by which the work of coining would be undertaken. Would the

labour be bestowed freely by that party? If not, by whom?

“Why should we expect,” asked Ernest, “that any one should undertake so

troublesome an office without reward? I know it is expected of

governments, and I think unreasonably, that they should issue money from

the mint without charge for coining it; unreasonably, because, supposing

the supply to be restricted, it is exposing the state to too great

hazard of a deficiency, and the government to the danger of an incessant

drain, to make, by arbitrary means, the exchangeable value of coin equal

with that of bullion; and because, supposing the supply to be left

unrestricted, not only is this danger much increased, but great

partiality would be shown to the holders of the precious metals by

conferring gratis an additional value on their commodity. Those who, by

having their metals coined by the government, are saved the trouble and

expense of weighing and assaying them in the shape of bullion, may as

reasonably be made to pay for this advantage as those who give a piece

of broad-cloth into the hands of the tailor to receive it back in the

shape of a coat. Among ourselves, therefore, the fair way would be, if

we adopt a metal medium, first to establish a little mint in some corner

of the smelting-house, and then to issue our money, if the quantity was

restricted, at a higher value than the unformed metal would bear in the

market if unrestricted, under the condition that a certain portion

should be clipped off each bit before it was stamped, in order to defray

the expenses; or that every one who brought metal should bring payment

for the advantage of having it made into money.”

“We cannot afford this yet,” observed Paul. “Let us begin picking up

gold and silver whenever we meet with it, in order to such an

arrangement hereafter; but, meanwhile, let us be satisfied with our

mammoth bones.”

Andreas, who liked none of these speculations on the effect of change,

because he did not like change, protested vehemently against the

substitution of bones for skins, or metals for either. Nothing, he

declared, could be so disastrous to all trading societies as alterations

in the currency. They invaded the security of property, altering the

respective values of almost all exchangeable articles, rendering every

man in the community, except him who has nothing, utterly uncertain of

the amount of his property, and arbitrarily reversing the conditions of

the wealthy and the moderately provided. Ernest allowed all this to be

true in the case of a large society, where the machinery of exchanges is

complicated, and contracts subsist which comprise a considerable extent

of time. In small societies, also, he allowed, that such a change is an

inconvenience not to be lightly incurred; but, in the present case,

there was necessarily a choice of evils. Their present currency was

liable to excessive and uncontrollable fluctuations. Would it be better

to continue suffering under these, or to undergo the inconvenience and

trouble at once of valuing the property of each member of the society,

and fixing the denominations of their medium accordingly? As there were

no contracts existing between themselves or with their neighbours, no

stocks of goods laid by whose value could be depreciated or increased,

it seemed to him that the change would be one of pure advantage, and

that the sooner it was made the better.

Every body but Andreas thought so too, and all were willing to

conciliate him by winking at his extraordinary accumulation of skins,

and to buy off his opposition by giving him a noble stock of the new

money in consideration of the loss he must sustain by their being no

longer any thing more in the market than a commodity.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PATRIOT’S MARTYRDOM.

As the summer advanced, and Cyprian seemed recovering completely from

the dreadful state in which the infliction of the knout had left him,

anxious thoughts began to take possession of the whole party. The day

must be approaching when he would be sent for to resume his military

duty; that service which was unutterably loathsome to him in the bare

idea, and which must now be more than ever degrading from his having

undergone an ignominious punishment. The slightest remark on the

improvement in his health, on the advance of the season, or on the

destination of any of his exiled countrymen, threw him into an

agitation; and there was one circumstance which excited his indignant

surprise to a degree which made it difficult to keep his feelings to

himself. This was Ernest’s curiosity concerning all that he had

undergone; a curiosity which seemed to have no consideration for the

pain such recitals must give to one who must again undergo the miseries

he described. It was marvellous that one like Ernest—so generous to the

feelings of others, so sensitive in his own—should be perpetually on the

watch for mention of all the details of tyranny which Cyprian could give

from his own experience, but would fain have withheld.

“Ask me no more,” cried Cyprian, one day, with a look of agony. “I will

tell you anything you please about our black bread and miserable

bedding, and about our night service and day slavery; but ask me no more

about our officers’ treatment of us, for I cannot bear to think of it.”

“You must tell me more,” replied Ernest, fixing his eyes upon him with

an indescribable expression of eagerness. “So he made you all shout that

infernal cry in praise of Nicholas, every night and morning?”

“Aye; and as often besides as he chose to suspect any one of discontent;

be it once a week or ten times a day. In a little while, my heart heaved

sick at the very sound of it, and when my turn came, my tongue clave to

the roof of my mouth, if the day was as cold as Christmas day in

Kamtchatka. I could not make light of it, and wink aside like some of

them. It would have been well if I could, when the worse struggle came;

except that, to be sure, I should not have been here now.”

“So he insisted on more than the shout that day? Tell me about it.”

“I thought I had told you before,” said Cyprian, impatiently, and he

spoke very rapidly as he proceeded. “We made some little difficulty

about stripping the country people of their provisions for our own use,

and just offered to go without our full rations till more were brought

in. He called this mutiny, and began to talk about Poland,—the

blasphemous wretch!—and called upon us to shout, as usual. I waited a

moment to get voice; he marked me, and ordered me, not only to shout,

but to sing a damned chorus about Praga that they boast they sang

when——”

“Well, well, I know which you mean. Go on.”

“I would not, and could not sing it, happen what might; and so I told

him.”

“How should you?” said Ernest, with a grim smile. “You who always said,

when you had no thought of being a soldier, that it revolted you to see

men made machines of; as soldiers are under the best management. How

should you bear to be made something so much worse than a machine,—a

slave with the soul of a free man,—a mocking-stock while you were full

of gloomy wrath? No! helpless you must be; but you could at least make

your slavery passive,—one degree above the lowest.”

“Passive enough I made it,” said Cyprian, covering his face with his

hands. “They could make nothing of me,—except the one thing they did not

choose to make me—a corpse! I hoped to die under it,—I meant it,—and I

supposed they meant I should; for I have known many an one killed under

the knout for a less offence; but they let me live, just to go through

it again; for that hellish chorus will I never sing;—or never, at least,

at that man’s bidding.”

“Never; you never shall!” cried Ernest, fervently.

Cyprian looked at him surprised, and said,

“Do you know, Ernest, I would not have borne from any other man such

questioning about all these matters as I have taken patiently from you.”

“Patiently!” repeated Ernest, with a sad smile.

“Yes, Sir, patiently, as you may agree with me, if you happen to suppose

that I can feel like you. You stalk off into the woods, or look as if

you were going to curse the universe, the moment any one touches you

about Poland; and you expect me to sit still and be questioned about my

own degradation and torture, when you know that every tale I tell you is

a picture of what is to come.”

“Well, well, forgive me. You know my interest in you——”

“Many thanks for it, Ernest! A very considerate interest indeed! Why,

your never catechizing me before Sophia shows that you remember that it

is not the pleasantest subject in the world; but you do not give me the

benefit of it.”

“You shall question me as much as you like when I have like tales to

tell.”

“And when will that be? I have told you a hundred times that your life

of a serf is beatitude in comparison with that of a private in the

condemned regiments; especially if he happens to have been a patriot.”

And Cyprian went on to draw the comparison, to which Ernest listened

with the same grave smile. It was pardonable in Cyprian to take this for

a smile of self-gratulation, and therefore to feel something as like

contempt as any one had ever dared to feel for Ernest.

“We will compare notes hereafter, when we have both had our experience,”

observed Ernest, quietly.

“Aye, in the next world, where I shall soon be waiting for you; for I

consider that, in going to the frontiers of two countries. I am going to

the frontiers of two worlds. If they do not knout me to death, my heart

will certainly burst one of these days. And then Sophia,—you must——But

no; she will not take a word or a kind office from any one when I am

away, they say. Well, I shall have my story ready for you when you

follow me past those frontiers we were speaking of; for I shall not mind

telling it there, nor will you perhaps care to hear it;—in a passionless

state——”

“Passionless!” cried Ernest. “A passionless state hereafter! I tell you,

Cyprian, if our Polish eagle does not soar to me with tidings which

shall feed my passion of patriotism, I will come down and vent it, as if

I were still a mortal man.”

“Hush, hush! how do we know——”

“Full as well as you when you talk of a passionless state.”

“I wish this were so,” muttered Cyprian.

“Do not wish that, Cyprian. There are passions which may work out their

natural and holy issues even in these wilds. Let us not repudiate them;

for they become more necessary to the life of our being in proportion as

others are violently stifled or slowly starved out. The next time you

see yon star rising between those two peaks, remember that I told you

this.”

Cyprian inwardly groaned at the thought that before the time of that

rising should have arrived, he might be far out of sight of the two

peaks; and he began already to hate that particular star.

When it next appeared, some nights after, he again inwardly groaned; but

it was with shame, and a different kind of grief from that with which he

had anticipated misery to himself and Sophia. Ernest had slipped away in

the night to meet the summons which was on the way for Cyprian, and was

now journeying towards the frontier,—in what direction no one knew; so

that he could not be overtaken and remonstrated with. There would have

been little use in such a measure, if it had been practicable; for

Ernest was not one to change his purposes.

The only person whom he saw before his departure was Clara; and that was

for the purpose of leaving a message, as there were no writing materials

within reach, and also of accomplishing the change of dress which was

necessary to his passing for Cyprian. He called her up, and employed her

to get possession of Cyprian’s uniform, on some pretence which should

keep him out of suspicion of being concerned; and when he had put it on,

he gave his own clothes into her charge.

“Give him these, my dear, when he wakes, and tell him that I leave him

my hut and land too; and my name,—Number Seven. Sophia will show him the

way to our altar, and she will help him to find out whether what I said

was true, when we were looking at yonder star over the mountain top. Be

sure you tell him this.”

“But will not you be back to tell him yourself?”

“No. We have planned when and where to speak about this again; as he

will remember.—And now go to bed, Clara, and thank you for helping me.

Have you any thing more to say, my dear?” he continued, in answer to an

uncertain, beseeching look she cast upon him. “If you have any troubles,

tell me them; but be quick.”

“I do not know what to do,” replied Clara, sinking into tears. “I wish I

knew whether I ought to tell. My father, ... he is getting so very rich;

and I had rather he should not, unless other people do; but he would be

so angry if I showed any body.”

“Why should you show your father’s hoards, my dear? Who has any business

with them but himself?”

“No, no; it is not a hoard. It is not any thing he has saved.”

“Then it is something that he has found. He has lighted upon a treasure,

I suppose. That is the reason why he has grown so fond of strolling

towards the Baïkal lately. The peasants thought they were making a

believer of him; but we could not understand it; though, to be sure, we

might have guessed how it was that money had become so plentiful lately.

He has found a fossil-bed, no doubt. Do you know where it is?”

Clara nodded, and whispered that it was she who had discovered it.

“Indeed! Well; you have done all you can do, and now you may leave it to

chance to discover the matter. Meanwhile, take this basketfull of

bones,—all the money I have,—and divide them equally among every body

but your father. It will make his share worth less, you know, to give

every body else more, and this will help to set matters straight till

the secret comes out, which it will do, some day soon.”

“I wish it may,” said Clara, “and yet I dread it. Paul’s wife peeps and

prys about every where; and as often as she goes towards the lake, my

father frowns at me and says—‘You have told Emilia.’ But how ashamed I

shall be when it comes out!—What will you do without your money when you

come back? Had not I better lay it by for you, where nobody can touch it

till you come to take it away yourself? In one of the caves——”

“If you do,” said Ernest, smiling, “some learned traveller will find it

some hundreds of years hence, and write a book, perhaps, to describe an

unaccountable deposit of fossil remains. No, Clara. When Cyprian and I

have the conversation we have planned, we shall want no money; and he

and the rest had better make the most of it in the meanwhile. You are a

good little daughter, and I need not tell you to do what you can for

your father,—whatever he desires you that you do not feel to be wrong.”

“Pumping and all,” sighed Clara.

“Pumping! I did not know we had such a grand thing as a pump among us.”

“It is in the mine,” said Clara, sadly. “The water drains in to the

gallery where my father works, and he thinks I can earn something by

pumping; and he says I shall be very safe beside him.”

“What can he mean?” cried Ernest. “Such a pursuit of wealth is

absolutely insane. What can he ever do with it in a place like this?”

“He thinks that we may get leave to go to Tobolsk when he has enough to

begin to trade with. He asks me how I should like to be one of the

richest people in Tobolsk when he is dead. I had much rather stay here;

and I am sure I do not care whether we have twenty or a hundred bones

laid by, when we have once got all that we want to eat, and dress and

warm ourselves with. I wish he would not talk of going to Tobolsk.”

“If we can get back to Poland——”

“O! you are going there!” cried Clara, with sparkling eyes.

Ernest shook his head mournfully, kissed the little girl’s forehead, and

departed, leaving her looking after him till he disappeared in the

silvery night haze. Ernest passed himself for Cyprian at his new

destination; and the officer who was expecting him was agreeably

surprised at his proving so much better a soldier than he had been

represented. Unspoiled (strange to say) in body and mind by the knout,

and always prepared with a dumb obedience which was particularly

convenient on such a station, he became a sort of favourite, and was

well reported of. The only thing that ever made him smile was the

periodical assurance of this, for which he was expected to be grateful.

He was wont to receive it with an expression of countenance which, as it

could not be interpreted, afforded no tangible ground of offence; and he

continued to pass for one of the least troublesome of the exiled Poles

who were stationed along the frontier.

CHAPTER IX.

THE PATRIOT’S VOW.

It was a stormy evening when the little company assembled round their

altar to celebrate the marriage of Cyprian and Sophia. The long summer

day was drawing to a close amid an unusual commotion of the elements.

There was no rain, but the wind swept over the waters, and the sheeted

lightning came forth from its hiding place among the clouds on the

mountain top. Little Clara was alone on the steep long before the rest

of the party came. She never forgot that the altar was her charge; and

she was now employed in cleansing the pedestal from the young mosses

which spread rapidly in the crevices, and among the mysterious

characters of the inscription. She could not help being startled by the

lightning, and wishing that the thunder would come at once to mingle

with the dash and roar of the waves below, instead of waiting till the

mass of clouds should grow still more formidable, and overspread the

whole sky. Once or twice she wished herself with her father in the cave,

where she knew he was gone to bring away more mammoth bones; and then

again she felt that the sense of guilt which always beset her in that

place would make it much more terrible in a storm than her present

solitude made the exposed spot on which she stood. She was heartily

glad, however, when Paul and his wife made their appearance.

“You need not have troubled yourself to pile this wood, Clara,” said

Paul. “No fire can be kept in while such a wind as this is blowing.”

“Do you know,” said Clara, “one blow of the north wind as I came up

changed the look of everything it touched. All the pools had a little

crust of ice over them in a minute, all the leaves of the plants in the

open places turned red and yellow, and the blossoms shrivelled up ready

to drop off.”

On hearing this, Emilia looked very grave. The wind that did this while

the sun was high on a summer day, was an ill-boding wind, she whispered;

and was sent to tell that the sea spirits were about to do some

mischief. She could not recover her cheerfulness when the rest of the

exiles came, and rites went forward which made all but herself almost

regardless of the storm.

They waited some time for Andreas; but as his sympathy was of the least

possible consequence, they at length proceeded without him supposing him

too busy after his pelf to bestow any thought on the first marriage

celebration which had, as far as they knew, taken place between Poles in

these depths of the wilderness. It differed from the marriage

celebrations of the people in the neighbourhood only in the addition of

the oath which the parties were now met to take.

They had already been married in the usual manner, with the hearty

good-will of the Russian superintendents, who were glad of all such

symptoms among the exile crown peasants of a willingness to settle down

in quiet, like those of their neighbours who had not been rebels. A

dowry had even been offered with Sophia; but this was rejected. She

could not have taken the oath if she had touched the Emperor’s bounty

with so much as her little finger.

This oath was merely a more solemn form of their common vow never to

consider Siberia as their home, the Emperor as their sovereign, or any

social obligations here entered into as interfering with the primary

claims of their country. They and their children were, in short, never

to acquiesce in the loss of their heritage, even though their banishment

should extend to the thousandth generation. A new clause was added on

the present occasion. The newly-married pair vowed never to rest till

they had procured the release of Ernest from his ignominious lot, and

his restoration to at least the degree of comparative freedom which he

had sacrificed for them. This vow, spoken with a faltering voice,

because in a nearly hopeless spirit, was drowned in the utterance; and

the memory of Ernest was honoured in silence by his companions when they

had once given his name to the rushing winds.

The storm increased so much that it became dangerous to remain on the

heights; and the rest of the observances were hastily gone through, in

increasing darkness and tumult. A tremendous swell of the waters below

caused most who were present to start back involuntarily, as if they

feared to be swept away even from their high position. Sophia alone was

undaunted,—not as she would have been a few months before, but because a

new life, which bore no relation to external troubles and terrors, was

now animating her heart and mind.

“Let us stay somewhere near till this has blown over,” said she, leading

the way to a little cave below, where they might be sheltered from the

wind. “I should like, if it were only for Emilia’s sake, that we should

see these waters calm again before we go home. There is no harm in

humouring her superstition, even supposing that none of us share it.”

Taddeus and Lenore smiled at one another when they found Sophia the

first to think of humouring superstition. They followed her, but, on

arriving at the mouth of the cave, could obtain no entrance. It was

choked up, the roof having fallen in. Clara apprehended the truth at

once. Her father’s zeal to grow rich enough to go to Tobolsk, in order

to grow richer still, had prevented his going there at all. In this cave

was the fossil treasure he had dishonestly concealed from his

companions: and in his eagerness to extract his wealth from the mass in

which it lay embedded, he had pulled down a weight upon his head which

killed him. The body was afterwards found; but, if it had not been for

regard to little Clara’s feelings, it would probably have been left thus

naturally buried; for a more appropriate grave could scarcely have been

devised than that which he had prepared for himself.

“You shall live with us, Clara, and be our sister,” said Sophia to the

horror-stricken little girl. “Cyprian can never know how kind you were

to me while he was away; but he shall learn to love you for it.”

“She may go back to Poland, if she wishes it,” observed Taddeus aside to

his mother. “There is now nothing to keep her here; and the Emperor does

not yet crusade against little girls, though he does against their

mothers and brothers.”

“She had better stay where she is,” said Paul, also aside, “and if we

all take pains with her, she will turn out a paragon of a wife. Your

mother will teach her reasoning and patriotism, and all that, and Emilia

will give her all her own accomplishments that it is not too late to

begin with. She can never have such an eye and ear, but there is time

yet to give her a very clever pair of hands: and then she may settle

down as Cyprian and I have done.”

“Cyprian and you!” exclaimed Taddeus. But recollecting that there would

be no end of quarrels with Paul on this subject if once begun, he

restrained his anger at having Sophia compared with Emilia.

“You shall live with me, my dear, and be my daughter, as you have long

called yourself,” said Lenore: “and we will comfort one another till we

can get back to Poland, if that day should ever come. There is much more

comfort for some of us than there was, in the midst of all our

misfortunes; and it is a comfort that I do not think we shall lose any

more. Some may die, and others may leave us for some different kind of

servitude; and it may even happen that none of us may see Warsaw again:

but as long as we love one another and are patient, we cannot be quite

miserable.”

Emilia pointed to the west with a look of joy; and presently the clouds

parted slowly, and let out the faint red glow of evening, which spread

itself over the subsiding waters. Having hailed the omen, the party

separated, some returning to their several homes, and some watching till

the long twilight was wholly withdrawn. The spirit of optimism which

lives in the hearts of patriots as in its natural home, was now no

longer checked by the perpetual presence of a despairing sufferer; and

not only this night, but from day to day, did the exiles cheer

themselves with the conviction that tyranny cannot endure for ever; that

their icy chain would at length be breathed upon, and their country’s

flag float once more. Such hope is at this moment sanctifying the shores

of the Charmed Sea.

------------------------------------

SUMMARY

_Of the Principles illustrated in this Volume._

In exchanging commodities for one another directly, i. e. in the way of

barter, much time is lost, and trouble incurred before the respective

wants of the exchanging parties can be supplied.

This trouble and waste may be avoided by the adoption of a medium of

exchange; that is, a commodity generally agreed upon, which, in order to

effect an exchange between two other commodities, is first received in

exchange for the one, and then given in exchange for the other.

This commodity is money.

The great requisites in a medium of exchange are, that it should be—

... what all sellers are willing to receive;

... capable of division into convenient portions;

... portable, from including great value in small bulk;

... indestructible, and little liable to fluctuations of value.

Gold and silver unite these requisites in an unequalled degree, and have

also the desirable quality of beauty. Gold and silver have therefore

formed the principal medium of exchange hitherto adopted: usually

prepared, by an appointed authority, in the form most suitable for the

purposes of exchange, in order to avoid the inconvenience of

ascertaining the value of the medium on every occasion of purchase.

Where the supply of money is left unrestricted, its exchangeable value

will be ultimately determined, like that of all other commodities, by

the cost of production.

Where the supply is restricted, its exchangeable value depends on the

proportion of the demand to the supply.

In the former case, it retains its character of a commodity, serving as

a standard of value in preference to other commodities only in virtue of

its superior natural requisites to that object.

In the latter case, it ceases to be a commodity, and becomes a mere

ticket of transference, or arbitrary sign of value: and then, the

natural requisites above described become of comparatively little

importance.

The quality by which money passes from hand to hand with little injury

enables it to compensate inequalities of supply by the slackened or

accelerated speed of its circulation.

The rate of circulation serves as an index of the state of supply; and

therefore tends, where no restriction exists, to an adjustment of the

supply to the demand.

Where restriction exists, the rate of circulation indicates the degree

of derangement introduced among the elements of exchangeable value, but

has no permanent influence in its rectification.

BERKELEY THE BANKER.

PART I.

PREFACE.

No one can be more sensible than I am myself of the slightness and small

extent of the information conveyed in my Tales: yet I find myself

compelled to ask from many friendly critics and correspondents the

justice,—first, of remembering that my object is less to offer my

opinion on the temporary questions in political economy which are now

occupying the public mind, than, by exhibiting a few plain, permanent

principles, to furnish others with the requisites to an opinion;—and,

secondly, of waiting to see whether I have not something to say on

subjects not yet arrived at, which, bearing a close relation to some

already dismissed, my correspondents appear to suppose I mean to avoid.

I trust, for example, that some of my readers may not look altogether in

vain for guidance from the story of Berkeley the Banker, though it

contains no allusion to the Currency Controversy at Birmingham, and no

decision as to the Renewal of the Bank Charter; and that others will

give me time to show that I do not ascribe all our national distresses

to over-population, but think as ill as they do of certain monopolies

and modes of taxation.

My inability to reply by letter to all who favour me with suggestions

must be my apology for offering this short answer to the two largest

classes of my correspondents.

H. M.

BERKELEY THE BANKER.

PART I.

------------------

CHAPTER I.

THE HALEHAM PEOPLE.

“The affair is decided, I suppose,” said Mrs. Berkeley to her husband,

as he folded up the letter he had been reading aloud. “It is well that

Horace’s opinion is so boldly given, as we agreed to abide by it.”

“Horace knows as much about my private affairs as I do myself, and a

great deal more about the prospects of the banking business,” replied

Mr. Berkeley. “We cannot do better than take his advice. Depend upon it,

the connexion will turn out a fine thing for my family, as Horace says.

It is chiefly for your sakes, my dear girls.”

“May I look again at Horace’s letter?” asked Fanny, as her father paused

to muse. “I did not understand that he thought it could be more than a

safe, and probably advantageous, connexion. Ah! here it is—‘I like the

prospect, as affording you the moderate occupation you seem to want, and

perhaps enabling you to leave something more to my sisters than your

former business yielded for them. Times were never more prosperous for

banking; and you can scarcely lose anything, however little you may

gain, by a share in so small and safe a concern as the D—— bank.’”

Fanny looked at her father as she finished reading this, as much as to

inquire where was the promise of fine things to arise out of the new

partnership.

“Horace is very cautious, you know,” observed Mr. Berkeley: “he always

says less than he means—at least when he has to give advice to any of

the present company; all of whom he considers so sanguine, that, I dare

say, he often congratulates us on having such a son and brother as

himself to take care of us.”

“He yields his office to Melea only,” observed Mrs. Berkeley, looking

towards her younger daughter, who was reading the letter once more

before giving her opinion. “Tell us, Melea, shall your father be a

banker or still an idle gentleman?”

“Has he ever been an idle gentleman?” asked Melea. “Can he really want

something to do when he has to hurry from one committee-room to another

every morning, and to visit the workhouse here and the gaol at D——, and

to serve on juries, and do a hundred things besides, that prevent his

riding with Fanny and me oftener than once a month?”

“These are all very well, my dear,” said her father; “but they are not

enough for a man who was brought up to business, and who has been

accustomed to it all his life. I would not, at sixty five, connect

myself with any concern which involved risk, or much labour; but I

should like to double your little fortunes, when it may be done so

easily, and the attempt can do no harm.”

“I wish,” said Fanny, “you would not make this a reason. Melea and I

shall have enough; and if we had not, we should be sorry to possess more

at the expense of your entering into business again, after yourself

pronouncing that the time had come for retiring from it.”

“Well, but, my dears, this will not be like my former business, now up

and now down; so that one year I expected nothing less than to divide my

plum between you, and the next to go to gaol. There will be none of

these fluctuations in my new business.”

“I am sure I hope not,” said Fanny anxiously.

“Fanny remembers the days,” said her mother, smiling, “when you used to

come in to dinner too gloomy to speak while the servants were present,

and with only one set of ideas when they were gone,—that your girls must

make half their allowance do till they could get out as governesses.”

“That was hardly so bad,” observed Fanny, “as being told that we were to

travel abroad next year, and have a town and country-house, and many

fine things besides, that we did not care for half so much as for the

peace and quiet we have had lately. Oh! father, why cannot we go on as

we are?”

“We should not enjoy any more peace and comfort, my dear, if we let slip

such an opportunity as this of my benefiting my family. Another thing,

which almost decided me before Horace’s letter came,” he continued,

addressing his wife, “is, that Dixon’s premises are let at last, and

there is going to be a very fine business set on foot there by a man who

brings a splendid capital, and will, no doubt, bank with us at D——. I

should like to carry such a connexion with me; it would be a creditable

beginning.”

“So those dismal-looking granaries are to be opened again,” said Melea;

“and there will be some stir once more in the timber-yards. The place

has looked very desolate all this year.”

“We will go to the wharf to see the first lighter unloaded,” said Fanny,

laughing. “When I went by lately, there was not so much as a sparrow in

any of the yards. The last pigeon picked up the last grain weeks ago.”

“We may soon have pigeon-pies again as often as we like,” observed Mr.

Berkeley. “Cargoes of grain are on the way; and every little boy in

Haleham will be putting his pigeon-loft in repair when the first lighter

reaches the wharf. The little Cavendishes will keep pigeons too, I dare

say.”

“That is a pretty name,” observed Mrs. Berkeley, who was a Frenchwoman,

and very critical in respect of English names.

“Montague Cavendish, Esq. I hope, my dear, that such a name will dispose

you favourably towards our new neighbour, and his wife, and all that

belongs to him.”

“O yes; if there are not too many of them. I hope it is not one of your

overgrown English families, that spoil the comfort of a dinner-table.”

Mr. Berkeley shook his head, there being, at the least, if what he had

heard was true, half-a-dozen each of Masters and Misses Cavendish;

insomuch that serious doubts had arisen whether the dwelling-house on

Dixon’s premises could be made to accommodate so large a family. The

master of the “Haleham Commercial, French, and Finishing Academy” was

founding great hopes on this circumstance, foreseeing the possibility of

his having four or five Masters Cavendish as boarders in his salubrious,

domestic, and desirable establishment.

The schoolmaster was disappointed in full one-half of his expectations.

Of the six Masters Cavendish, none were old enough to be removed from

under their anxious mother’s eye for more than a few hours in the day.

The four elder ones, therefore, between four and nine years old, became

day-scholars only; bearing with them, however, the promise, that if they

were found duly to improve, their younger brethren would follow as soon

as they became unmanageable by the “treasure” of a governess, Mrs.

Cavendish’s dear friend, Miss Egg, who had so kindly, as a special

favour, left an inestimable situation to make nonpareils of all Mrs.

Cavendish’s tribe.

How these children were to be housed no one could imagine, till a happy

guess was made by the work-people who were employed in throwing three

rooms into one, so as to make a splendid drawing-room. It was supposed

that they were to be laid in rows on the rugs before the two

fire-places, the boys at one end and the girls at the other. This

conjecture was set aside, however, by the carpenters, who were presently

employed in partitioning three little rooms into six tiny ones, with

such admirable economy of light that every partition exactly divided the

one window which each of these rooms contained. It was said that an

opportunity of practising fraternal politeness was thus afforded, the

young gentlemen being able to open and shut their sisters’ window when

they opened and shut their own, so that a drowsy little girl might turn

in her crib, on a bright summer’s morning, and see the sash rise as if

by magic, and have the fresh air come to her without any trouble of her

own in letting it in. It was at length calculated that by Miss Egg

taking three of the babies to sleep beside her, and by putting an

iron-bedstead into the knife-pantry for the servant boy, the household

might be accommodated; though the schoolmaster went on thinking that the

straightforward way would have been to send the elder boys to him, for

the holidays and all; the builder advising an addition of three or four

rooms at the back of the dwelling; and everybody else wondering at the

disproportion of the drawing-room to the rest of the house.

When the total family appeared at Haleham Church, the Sunday after their

arrival, the subject of wonder was changed. Every one now said that the

housing the family was an easy question in comparison with that of

housing their apparel. Where could drawers ever be found large enough

for the full-buckramed fancy dresses of the young gentlemen, and the

ample frocks, flounced trousers, huge muslin bonnets and staring

rosettes of the little ladies, who walked up the aisle hand in hand, two

abreast, tightly laced and pointing their toes prettily? Their father’s

costume had something of the appearance of a fancy dress, though it did

not take up so much room. He was a very little man, with shoes and

pantaloons of an agonizing tightness, and a coat so amply padded and

collared as to convert the figure it belonged to into as strong a

resemblance to the shape of a carrot as if he had been hunchbacked. A

little white hat perched on the summit of a little black head, spoiled

the unity of the design considerably; but in church this blemish

disappeared, the hat being stuck under one arm to answer to the wife on

the other side.

Mr. Berkeley, who was disposed to regard in a favourable light every one

who caused an accession of prosperity to the little town of Haleham,

would not listen to remarks on any disputable qualities of his new

neighbours. He waited in some impatience the opportunity of learning

with what bank this great merchant meant to open an account; and was in

perpetual hopes that on the occasion of his next ride to D——, whither he

went three times a week to attend to his new business, he might be

accompanied by Mr. Cavendish. These hopes were soon at an end.

Mr. Cavendish was going to open a bank at Haleham, to be managed chiefly

by himself, but supported by some very rich people at a distance, who

were glad to be sleeping partners in so fine a concern as this must be,

in a district where a bank was much wanted, and in times when banking

was the best business of any. Such was the report spread in Haleham, to

the surprise of the Berkeleys, and the joy of many of the inhabitants of

their little town. It was confirmed by the preparations soon begun for

converting an empty house in a conspicuous situation into the requisite

set of offices, the erection of the board in front with the words

HALEHAM BANK, and the arrival of a clerk or two with strong boxes, and

other apparatus new to the eyes of the townspeople. Mr. Cavendish

bustled about between his wharf and the bank, feeling himself the most

consequential man in the town; but he contrived to find a few moments

for conversation with Mr. Berkeley, as often as he could catch him

passing his premises on the way to D——. This kind of intercourse had

become rather less agreeable to Mr. Berkeley of late; but as he had

admitted it in the earliest days of their acquaintance, he could not

well decline it now.

“I understand, my dear sir,” said Mr. Cavendish, one day, crossing the

street to walk by his neighbour’s horse, “that you have but lately

entered the D—— bank. It is a thousand pities that the step was taken

before I came; I should have been so happy to have offered you a

partnership. So partial as we both are to the business, we should have

agreed admirably, I have no doubt.”

Mr. Berkeley bowed. His companion went on: “There would have been

nothing to do, you see, but to step down a quarter of a mile, on fine

days, just when you happened to be in the humour for business, instead

of your having to toil backwards and forwards to D—— so often.”

Mr. Berkeley laughed, and said that he never toiled. He went when it

suited him to go, and stayed away when it did not.

“Aye, aye; that is all very well at this time of year; but we must not

judge of how it will be in every season by what it is at Midsummer. When

the days get damp and dark, and the roads miry, it becomes a very

pleasant thing to have one’s offices at hand.”

“And a pleasanter still to stay by one’s own fireside, which I shall do

on damp days,” coolly observed Mr. Berkeley.

“You have such a domestic solace in those sweet daughters of yours!”

observed Mr. Cavendish: “to say nothing of your lady, whose charming

mixture of foreign grace with true English maternity, as Miss Egg was

saying yesterday, (there is no better judge than Miss Egg,) would

constitute her a conspicuous ornament in a far more distinguished

society than we can muster here.”

Again Mr. Berkeley bowed. Again his companion went on.

“Talking of society,—I hope you will think we have an acquisition in our

new rector. Perhaps you are not aware that Longe is a relation of my

wife’s,—a first cousin; and more nearly connected in friendship than in

blood. An excellent fellow is Longe; and I am sure you ought to think

so, for he admires your daughter excessively,—Miss Berkeley I

mean;—though your little syren did beguile us so sweetly that first

evening that Longe met you. He appreciates Miss Melea’s music fully; but

Miss Berkeley was, as I saw directly, the grand attraction.”

“You have made Chapman your watchman, I find,” said Mr. Berkeley. “I

hope he will not sleep upon his post from having no sleep at present;

but he is in such a state of delight at his good fortune, that I

question whether he has closed his eyes since you gave him the

appointment.”

“Poor fellow! Poor fellow! It affords me great pleasure, I am sure, to

be able to take him on my list. Yes; the moment he mentioned your

recommendation, down went his name, without a single further question.”

“I did not give him any authority to use my name,” observed Mr.

Berkeley. “He merely came to consult me whether he should apply; and I

advised him to take his chance. Our pauper-labourers have taken his work

from him, and obliged him to live upon his savings for a twelvemonth

past, while, as I have strong reasons for suspecting, he has been more

anxious than ever to accumulate. You have made him a very happy man; but

I must disclaim all share in the deed.”

“Well, well: he took no improper liberty, I assure you. Far from it; but

the mention of your name, you are aware, is quite sufficient in any

case. But, as to sleeping on his post,—perhaps you will be kind enough

to give him a hint. So serious a matter,—such an important charge——”

Mr. Berkeley protested he was only joking when he said that. Chapman

would as soon think of setting the bank on fire as sleeping on watch.

“It is a misfortune to Longe,” thought he, as he rode away from the man

of consequence, “to be connected with these people. He is so far

superior to them! A very intelligent, agreeable man, as it seems to me;

but Fanny will never like him if he is patronized by the Cavendishes, be

his merits what they may. He must be a man of discernment,

distinguishing her as he does already: and if so, he can hardly be in

such close alliance with these people as they pretend. It is only fair

she should be convinced of that.”

And the castle-building father bestowed almost all his thoughts for the

next half-hour on the new rector, and scarcely any on the curate, who

was an acquaintance of longer standing, and an object of much greater

interest in the family.

This curate was at the moment engaged in turning over some new books on

the counter of Enoch Pye, the Haleham bookseller. Mr. Craig was a

privileged visiter in this shop, not only because Enoch could not exist

without religious ministrations, given and received, but because Enoch

was a publisher of no mean consideration in his way, and it was a very

desirable thing to have his own small stock of learning eked out by that

of a clergyman, when he stumbled on any mysterious matters in works

which he was about to issue. He put great faith in the little corps of

humble authors with whom he was connected; but it did now and then

happen that the moral of a story appeared to him not drawn out

explicitly enough; that retribution was not dealt with sufficient force;

and he was sometimes at a loss how to test the accuracy of a quotation.

On this occasion, he would scarcely allow Mr. Craig to look even at the

frontispieces of the new books on the counter, so eager was he for the

curate’s opinion as to what would be the effect of the establishment of

the bank on the morals and condition of the people of Haleham.

“The effect may be decidedly good, if they choose to make it so,”

observed Mr. Craig. “All fair means of improving the temporal condition

are, or ought to be, means for improving the moral state of the people;

and nothing gives such an impulse to the prosperity of a place like this

as the settlement in it of a new trading capitalist.”

“Aye, sir; so we agreed when the brewery was set up, and when Bligh’s

crockery-shop was opened: but a bank, Sir, is to my mind a different

kind of affair. A banker deals not in necessary meats or drinks, or in

the vessels which contain them, but in lucre,—altogether in lucre.”

“By which he helps manufacturers and tradesmen to do their business more

effectually and speedily than they otherwise could. A banker is a dealer

in capital. He comes between the borrower and the lender. He borrows of

one and lends to another——”

“But he takes out a part by the way,” interrupted Enoch, with a knowing

look. “He does not give out entire that which he receives, but abstracts

a part for his own profit.”

“Of course he must have a profit,” replied Mr. Craig, “or he would not

trouble himself to do business. But that his customers find their profit

in it, too, is clear from their making use of him. They pay him each a

little for a prodigious saving of time and trouble to all.”

“Yes, yes,” replied Enoch; “a man cannot have been in such a business as

mine for so many years without knowing that banks are a great help in

times of need; and I am willing to see and acknowledge the advantage

that may accrue to myself from this new bank, when I have payments to

make to a distance, and also from a great ease which, in another

respect, I expect it to bring to my mind.”

“I suppose you pay your distant authors by sending bank-notes by the

post.”

“Yes; and sometimes in bills: especially when there is an odd sum. There

is risk and trouble in this, and some of my fair correspondents do not

know what to do with bills when they have got them. See, here is one

actually sent back to me at the expiration of the three months, with a

request that I will send the money in notes, as the young lady does not

know any body in London whom she could ask to get it cashed for her.”

“Henceforth she will be paid through the bank here and the bank nearest

to her, instead of putting the temptation in your way to throw the bill

into the fire, and escape the payment.”

Enoch replied that he was thankful to say, it was no temptation to him;

and Mr. Craig perceived that he was waiting to be questioned about the

other respect in which the bank was to bring him ease of mind.

“Far be it from me,” replied the bookseller, “to complain of any trouble

which happens to me through the integrity for which it has pleased

Providence to give me some small reputation; but I assure you, Sir, the

sums of money that are left under my care, by commercial travellers,

Sir, and others who go a little circuit, and do not wish to carry much

cash about with them, are a great anxiety to me. They say the rest of

the rich man is broken through care for his wealth. I assure you, Sir,

that, though not a rich man, my rest is often broken through such

care;—and all the more because the wealth is not my own.”

“An honourable kind of trouble, Mr. Pye; and one of which you will be

honourably relieved by the bank, where, of course, you will send your

commercial friends henceforth to deposit their money. There also they

can make their inquiries as to the characters of your trading

neighbours, when they are about to open new accounts. You have often

told me what a delicate matter you feel it to pronounce in such cases.

The bank will discharge this office for you henceforth.”

Enoch replied shortly, that the new banker and his people could not know

so much of the characters of the townsfolks as he who had lived among

them for more than half a century; and Mr. Craig perceived that he did

not wish to turn over to any body an office of whose difficulties he was

often heard to complain.

“Do not you find great inconvenience in the deficiency of change?” asked

the curate. “It seems to me that the time of servants and shopkeepers is

terribly wasted in running about for change.”

“It is, Sir. Sometimes when I want to use small notes, I have none but

large ones; and when I want a 20_l._ note to send by post, I may wait

three or four days before I can get such a thing. I can have what I want

in two minutes now, by sending to the bank. After the fair, or the

market day, too, I shall not be overburdened with silver as I have often

been. They will give me gold or notes for it at the bank, to any

amount.”

“If there were no banks,” observed Mr. Craig, “what a prodigious waste

of time there would be in counting out large sums of money! A draft is

written in the tenth part of the time that is required to hunt up the

means of paying a hundred pounds in guineas, shillings, and pence, or in

such an uncertain supply of notes as we have in a little town like this.

And, then, good and bad coin——”

“Aye, Sir. I reckon that in receiving my payments in the form of drafts

upon a banker, I shall save several pounds a year that I have been

obliged to throw away in bad coin or forged notes.”

“And surely the townspeople generally will find their advantage in this

respect, as well as yourself. But a greater benefit still to them may be

the opportunity of depositing their money, be it much or little, where

they may receive interest for it. Cavendish’s bank allows interest on

small deposits, does it not?”

“On the very smallest,” replied Mr. Pye. “People are full of talk about

his condescension in that matter. He even troubles himself to ask his

work-people,—aye, his very maid-servants,—whether they have not a little

money by them that they would like to have handsome interest for.”

“Indeed!” said Mr. Craig, looking rather surprised. “And do they

trust——do they accept the offer?”

“Accept it! aye, very thankfully. Who would not? There is Chapman that

is appointed watchman: he had a few pounds of his savings left; and he

put them into the bank to bear interest till Rhoda Martin’s earnings

shall come to the same sum; so that they may have something to furnish

with.”

“And where will she put her earnings?”

“Into the bank, of course. You know she has got the place of nursemaid

at the Cavendishes; and she would not be so unhandsome, she says, as to

put her money any where but into the same hands it came out of. So she

began by depositing ten pounds left her as a legacy. It is quite the

fashion now for our work-people to carry what they have, be it ever so

little, to the bank; and Mr. Cavendish is very kind in his way of

speaking to them.”

“Well; you see here is another great advantage in the establishment of a

bank, if it be a sound one. In my country, Scotland, the banks are

particularly sound, so as to make it quite safe for the people to lodge

their small deposits there, and society has the advantage of a quantity

of money being put into circulation which would otherwise lie dead, as

they call it,—that is, useless. Many millions of the money deposited in

the Scotch banks are made up of the savings of labourers; and it would

be a loss to the public, as well as to the owners, if all this lay by as

useless as so many pebbles. I wish, however, that there were some places

of deposit for yet smaller sums than the Scotch bankers will receive[A].

They will take no sum under 10_l._”

Footnote A:

Savings-banks were not instituted when this was said: viz., in 1814.

“If one man is kind-hearted enough to take the trouble of receiving such

small sums,” observed Enoch, “I think others might too. I was very wrong

to hint any doubts about Mr. Cavendish’s trading in lucre, when it is so

clear that he thinks only of doing good. I take shame to myself, Mr.

Craig.”

“At the same time, Mr. Pye, one would not be urgent with the people to

trust any one person with all their money. In Scotland, there are a

great many partners in a bank, which makes it very secure.”

Enoch looked perplexed; and while he was still pondering what Mr. Craig

might mean, his attention was engaged by a young woman who entered the

shop, and appeared to have something to show him for which it was

necessary to choose an advantageous light. Mr. Craig heard Enoch’s first

words to her, whispered across the counter,—“How’s thy mother to-day, my

dear?” and then he knew that the young woman must be Hester Parndon, and

began again to look at the new books till Hester’s business should be

finished.

He was presently called to a consultation, as he had been once or twice

before, when Mr. Pye and the young artist he employed to design his

frontispieces could not agree in any matter of taste that might be in

question.

“I wish you would ask Mr. Craig,” observed Hester.

“So I would, my dear; but he does not know the story.”

“The story tells itself in the drawing, I hope,” replied Hester.

“Let me see,” said the curate. “O yes, there is the horse galloping

away, and the thrown young lady lying on the ground. The children who

frightened the horse with their waving boughs are clambering over the

stile, to get out of sight as fast as possible. The lady’s father is

riding up at full speed, and her lover——”

“No, no; no lover,” cried Enoch, in a tone of satisfaction.

“Mr. Pye will not print any stories about lovers,” observed Hester,

sorrowfully.

“It is against my principles, Sir, as in some sort a guardian of the

youthful mind. This is the heroine’s brother, Sir; and I have no fault

to find with him. But the young lady,—she is very much hurt, you know.

It seems to me, now, that she looks too much as if she was thinking

about those children, instead of being resigned. Suppose she was to lie

at full length, instead of being half raised, and to have her hands

clasped, and her eyes cast upwards.”

“But that would be just like the three last I have done,” objected

Hester. “The mother on her death-bed, and the sister when she heard of

the sailor-boy’s being drowned, and the blind beggar-woman,—you would

have them all lying with their hands clasped and their eyes cast up, and

all in black dresses, except the one in bed. Indeed they should not be

all alike.”

So Mr. Craig thought. Moreover, if the young lady was amiable, it seemed

to him to be quite in character that she should be looking after the

frightened children, with concern for them in her countenance. Enoch

waxed obstinate on being opposed. He must have the riding habit changed

for a flowing black robe, and the whole attitude and expression of the

figure altered to the pattern which possessed his imagination.

“What does your mother say to this drawing, Hester?” inquired Mr. Craig,

when he saw the latter becoming desperate.

“She thinks it the best I have done; and she desired me to study variety

above all things; and it is because it is so unlike all the rest that

she likes it best.”

Enoch took the drawing out of her hands at these words, to give the

matter another consideration.

“Do persuade him,” whispered Hester to the curate. “You do not know how

people begin to laugh at his frontispieces for being all alike; all the

ladies with tiny waists, and all the gentlemen with their heads turned

half round on their shoulders. Do not be afraid. He is so deaf he will

not know what we are saying.”

“Indeed! I was not aware of that.”

“No, because he is accustomed to your voice in church. He begins to

say,—for he will not believe that he is deaf,—that you are the only

person in Haleham that knows how to speak distinctly, except the

fishwoman, and the crier, and my mother, who suits her way of speaking

to his liking exactly. But, Sir, the people in London laughed sadly at

the frontispiece to ‘Faults acknowledged and amended.’”

“What people in London?”

“O! the people,—several people,—I know a good deal about the people in

London, and they understand about such things much better than we do.”

“Then I wish that, instead of laughing at you for drawing as you are

bid, they would employ you to design after your own taste. You are fit

for a much higher employment than this, and I wish you had friends in

London to procure it for you.”

Hester blushed, and sparkled, and looked quite ready to communicate

something, but refrained and turned away.

“I like this much better, the more I look at it, my dear,” said Enoch,

relieving himself of his best spectacles, and carefully locking up the

drawing in his desk: “stay; do not go without your money. I shall make

you a present over and above what we agreed upon; for, as your mother

says, it is certainly your best piece. Now, I don’t mean to guess what

you are going to do with this money. There come times when girls have

use for money. But if you should just be going to give it to your mother

to lay by, I could let you have a guinea for that note and shilling.

Guineas are scarce now-a-days; but I have one, and I know your mother is

fond of keeping them. Will you take it for her?”

Hester was not going to put her money into her mother’s hands. Into the

new bank perhaps?—No, she was not going to lay it by at all. And she

blushed more than ever, and left the shop.

Enoch sighed deeply, and then smiled dubiously, while he wondered what

Mrs. Parndon would do when her daughter married away from her to London,

as she was just about to do. It was a sad pinch when her son Philip

settled in London, though he had a fine goldsmith’s business; but Hester

was so much cleverer, so much more like herself, that her removal would

be a greater loss still.

“Why should she not go to London too?” Mr. Craig inquired.

O no, Enoch protested; it was, he believed, he flattered himself, he had

understood,—quite out of the question. He added, confidentially, that it

might be a good thing for the new bank if she would lodge her money

there, for she had a very pretty store of guineas laid by.

“Does she value them as gold,—I mean as being more valuable than

bank-notes,—or as riches?” asked Mr. Craig. “If the one, she will rather

keep them in her own hands. If the other, she will be glad of interest

upon them.”

“She began by being afraid that the war would empty the country of

money; and now that less and less gold is to be seen every day, she

values her guineas more than ever, and would not part with them, I

believe, for any price. As often as she and I get together to talk of

our young days, she complains of the flimsy rags that such men as

Cavendish choose to call money. ‘Put a note in the scale,’ says she,

‘and what does it weigh against a guinea? and if a spark flies upon it

out of the candle, where is it?’—Many’s the argument we have had upon

this. I tell her that there is no real loss when a bank note is burned,

as there is if an idle sailor chucks a guinea into the sea.”

“If a magpie should chance to steal away a five-pound note of yours,”

said the curate, “or if you should chance to let your pocket-book fall

into the fire, you will have Mrs. Parndon coming to comfort you with

assurances that there is no real loss.”

“To me, there would be, Sir. I do not deny that. I mean that no actual

wealth would be destroyed, because the bank note I hold only promises to

pay so much gold, which is safe in somebody’s hands, whether there be a

fire or not. When gold is melted in a fire, it may be worth more or less

(supposing it recovered) than it was worth as coin, according to the

value of gold at the time. If the enemy captures it at sea, it is so

much dead loss to our country, and so much clear gain to the enemy’s. If

a cargo of precious metals goes to the bottom, it is so much dead loss

to everybody. So I tell Mrs. Parndon.”

“As she is not likely to go to sea, I suppose she determines to keep her

guineas, and guard against fire.”

Enoch whispered that some folks said that fire would improve the value

of her guineas very much, if she put them into a melting-pot. Guineas

were now secretly selling for a pound note and four shillings; and there

was no doubt that Philip, the goldsmith, would give his mother as much

for hers: but she hoped they would grow dearer yet, and therefore still

kept them by her.

The curate was amused at Enoch’s tolerant way of speaking of Mrs.

Parndon’s love of lucre, while he was full of scrupulosity as to the

moral lawfulness of Mr. Cavendish’s occupation. The old man

acknowledged, however, by degrees, that it could do the Haleham people

no harm to have their time saved, their convenience and security of

property promoted, their respectability guaranteed, their habits of

economy encouraged, and their dead capital put in motion. All these

important objects being secured by the institution of banking, when it

is properly managed, prudent and honourable bankers are benefactors to

society, no less, as Mr. Pye was brought to admit, than those who deal

directly in what is eaten, drunk, and worn as apparel. The conversation

ended, therefore, with mutual congratulations on the new bank, always

supposing it to be well-managed, and Mr. Cavendish to be prudent and

honourable.