Through Russia Part 48

"These fellows needed to be taught a lesson!"

Almost at the same moment the foreman of the carpenters broke his way clear of the crowd, and, carefully crossing the rivulet by the stepping-stones which we had constructed, squatted down upon his heels by the margin, and with much puffing and blowing fell to rinsing his face, a face which in the murky firelight looked flushed and red.

"I think that someone has given him a blow," hazarded Silantiev sotto voce.

And when the foreman rose to approach us this proved to be the case, for then we saw that dripping from his nose, and meandering over his moustache and soaked white beard, there was a stream of dark blood which had spotted and streaked his s.h.i.+rt-front.

"Peace to this gathering!" he said gravely as, pressing his left hand to his stomach, he bowed.

"And we pray your indulgence," was Silantiev's response, though he did not raise his eyes as he spoke. "Pray be seated."

Small, withered, and, for all but his blood-stained s.h.i.+rt, scrupulously clean, the old man reminded me of certain pictures of old-time hermits, and the more so since either pain or shame or the gleam of the firelight had caused his. .h.i.therto dead eyes to gather life and grow brighter--aye, and sterner. Somehow, as I looked at him, I felt awkward and abashed.

A cough twisted his broad nose. Then he wiped his beard on the palm of his hand, and his hand on his knee; whereafter, as he stretched forth the pair of senile, dark-coloured hands, and held them over the embers, he said:

"How cold the water of the rivulet is! It is absolutely icy."

With a glance from under his brows Silantiev inquired:

"Are you very badly hurt?"

"No. Merely a man caught me a blow on the bridge of the nose, where the blood flows readily. Yet, as G.o.d knows, he will gain nothing by his act, whereas the suffering which he has caused me will go to swell my account with the Holy Spirit."

As the man spoke he glanced across the rivulet. On the opposite bank two men were staggering along, and drunkenly bawling the tipsy refrain:

"In the du-u-uok let me die, In the au-autumn time!"

"Aye, long is it since I received a blow," the old man continued, scanning the two revellers from under his hand. "Twenty years it must be since last I did so. And now the blow was struck for nothing, for no real fault.. You see, I have been allowed no nails for the doing of the work, and have been obliged to make use of wooden clamps for most of it, while battens also have not been forthcoming; and, this being so, it was through no remissness of mine that the work could not be finished by sunset tonight. I suspect, too, that, to eke out its wages, that rabble has been thieving, with the eldest leading the rest. And that, again, is not a thing for which I can be held responsible. True, this is a Government job, and some of those fellows are young, and young, hungry fellows such as they will (may they be forgiven!) steal, since everyone hankers to get something in return for a very little.

But, once more, how is that my fault? Yes, that rabble must be a regular set of rascals! Just now they deprived my eldest son of a saw, of a brand-new saw; and thereafter they spilt my blood, the blood of a greybeard!"

Here his small, grey face contracted into wrinkles, and, closing his eyes, he sobbed a dry, grating sob.

Silantiev fidgeted--then sighed. Presently the old man looked at him, blew his nose, wiped his hand upon his trousers, and said quietly:

"Somewhere, I think, I have seen you before."

"That is so. You saw me one evening when I visited your settlement for the mending of a thresher."

"Yes, yes. That is where I DID see you. It was you, was it not? Well, do you still disagree with me?"

To which the old man added with a nod and a smile:

"See how well I remember your words! You are, I imagine, still of the same opinion?"

"How should I not be?" responded Silantiev dourly.

"Ah, well! Ah, well!"

And the old man stretched his hands over the fire once more, discoloured hands the thumbs of which were curiously bent outwards and splayed, and, seemingly, unable to move in harmony with the fingers.

The ex-soldier shouted across the river:

"The land here is easy to work, and makes the people lazy. Who would care to live in such a region? Who would care to come to it? Much rather would I go and earn a living on difficult land."

The old man paid no heed, but said to Silantiev--said to him with an austere, derisive smile:

"Do you STILL think it necessary to struggle against what has been ordained of G.o.d? Do you STILL think that long-suffering is bad, and resistance good? Young man, your soul is weak indeed: and remember that it is only the soul that can overcome Satan."

In response Silantiev rose to his feet, shook his fist at the old man, and shouted in a rough, angry voice, a voice that was not his own:

"All that I have heard before, and from others besides yourself. The truth is that I hold all you father-confessors in abhorrence.

Moreover," (this last was added with a violent oath) "it is not Satan that needs to be resisted, but such devil's ravens, such devil's vampires, as YOU."

Which said, he kicked a stone away from the fire, thrust his hands into his pockets, and turned slowly on his heel, with his elbows pressed close to his sides. Nevertheless the old man, still smiling, said to me in an undertone:

"He is proud, but that will not last for long."

"Why not?"

"Because I know in advance that--"

Breaking off short, he turned his head upon his shoulder, and sat listening to some shouting that was going on across the river. Everyone in that quarter was drunk, and, in particular, someone could be heard bawling in a tone of challenge:

"Oh? I, you say? A-a-ah! Then take that!"

Silantiev, stepping lightly from stone to stone, crossed the river.

Then he mingled--a conspicuous figure (owing to his apparent handlessness)--with the crowd. Somehow, on his departure, I felt ill at ease.

Twitching his fingers as though performing a conjuring trick, the old man continued to sit with his hands stretched over the embers. By this time his nose had swollen over the bridge, and bruises risen under his eyes which tended to obscure his vision. Indeed, as he sat there, sat mouthing with dark, bestreaked lips under a covering of h.o.a.ry beard and moustache, I found that his bloodstained, disfigured, wrinkled, as it were "antique" face reminded me more than ever of those of great sinners of ancient times who abandoned this world for the forest and the desert.

"I have seen many proud folk," he continued with a shake of his hatless head and its spa.r.s.e hairs. "A fire may burn up quickly, and continue to burn fiercely, yet, like these embers, become turned to ashes, and so lie smouldering till dawn. Young man, there you have something to think of. Nor are they merely my words. They are the words of the Holy Gospel itself."

Ever descending, ever weighing more heavily upon us, the night was as black and hot and stifling as the previous one had been, albeit as kindly as a mother. Still the two fires on the opposite bank of the rivulet were aflame, and sending hot blasts of vapour across a seeming brook of gold.

Folding his arms upon his breast, the old man tucked the palms of his hands into his armpits, and settled himself more comfortably.

Nevertheless, when I made as though to add more twigs and shavings to the embers he exclaimed imperiously:

"There is no need for that."

"Why is there not?"

"Because that would cause the fire to be seen, and bring some of those men over here."

Again, as he kicked away some boughs which I had just broken up, he repeated:

"There is no need for that, I tell you."

Presently, there approached us through the s.h.i.+mmering fire light on the opposite bank two carpenters with boxes on their backs, and axes in their hands.