Dariel: A Romance of Surrey

How far we might have prolonged our snores, we never grew wide enough awake to say. But the soft folds of darkness fell around us still, and we closed our eyes beneath them, as a child submits to the kisses of his mother. Then a mighty bellow, and a cackle, and a stamping, and a shovelful of cold slush thrown into our faces made all of us jump up, and stare about, and splutter, and every one swear, except, as I heartily hope, myself.

It was the old village Starchina, or Starost, or whatever his dignity may have been, in a state of mind so furious that it was true bliss to be no linguist. Strogue made out some of his compound curses, but was too wise to interpret them, or even to accept his own version; until that most venerable and profane of men saw little advantage in cursing himself. He flung down the shutter that served as a window, and poured about a sackful of snow down our necks.

This might be the manner of the country; but we resented it all the more for that, and spoke harshly of the place, and of all born near it, until Strogue sat up on his very hard board, and stared, with his eyes as close as burning glasses, at the old silver watch, "which a man could work a ship by," and exclaimed – "By Jove, he is done for now, George! We ought to have been at Karthlos by this time. However he is safe to go to Heaven, according to your account of him."

Even cowardice is sometimes less contemptible than flippancy. But I made no answer. My rage with myself was too deep to fly off into sparks against others. What could it matter to Strogue, or Starost, or even to Stepan himself, compared with me, with me, the snorer? If the noble man who had treated me as his equal – clumsy clodhopper as I was – and his daughter (the model of all love and grace) were butchered by savages to-morrow, upon whose head would their blood lie?

Upon mine – for my accursed laziness, self-indulgence, wicked gladness to believe the thing that I desired.

Then I went out, and looked for the sky which had been so blue, and the earth which had been so green, wherever it was not brown rockiness. Behold – there was nothing to behold – as Usi the Svân might have said of it – but grey thickness, fleecy softness, multitudinous whirl above, and vast whiteness, promiscuous glare, and slur of dazzle around us and below. Not what the puzzled world is wont to call a blizzard, and fly shuddering – for that only comes with a bitter blast, and is a mass of pointed particles – but a genuine downright heavy snowfall (such as we get in March sometimes, when we are sowing the pea-drill), big flakes, thick flakes, like a shower of daisies, flinging their tufts in feathery piles, and smothering one another. "It can't go on very long like this," says a man who has lost in half-a-minute the pattern of his coat and trousers.

Certainly it could not in Surrey or in Kent; but here in the Caucasus it proved that it could go on, long enough at any rate to bury all the trackways, and turn jagged rocks into treacherous white rollers. If we began (in our credulous greed for rest) with failing to know the time of day, we went on with losing the way; and what was worse, if possible, we lost the better part of our strength, through sprains, and strains, and stumbles in the drift. Mishaps of the like sort had befallen the party recruited by Stepan, although they had not overslept themselves as we did; and instead of prompt muster to start together at noon from the foot of Karthlos, we found that it was almost four o'clock before every one was ready.

"To do any good, we must travel all night," said Stepan, as he swung his heavy pack upon his rifle. "To travel all night on a turnpike road is all very well," Strogue answered; "but who could do it here, my friend? And sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If the snow stops us, it will stop the other fellows."

I had indulged in this hope too; but the Lesghian's words were against it. "No man can say, till his eyes give proof. But the storm came from the east, and they seldom travel far in the summer-time. Like enough there was not a flake on the western side of the Russian road. Ha! Kobaduk, art thou coming too? Thy old limbs will tire, we shall have to leave thee, even though thou hast that colt."

We had not climbed the steep to the tower, because time was so short, and the old steward could not be of any service to us. Therefore it was a great surprise when he slipped among us from a snowy corner, leading a rough unsaddled colt, with a strap buckled over his loins to which a sword was attached on one side, and a rusty old musket on the other. An English crowd would have gibed, I fear, at the menacing aspect of this feeble ancient, and even Strogue made no attempt to hide a grin; but the Lesghians glanced at him kindly, and made room for him among them, and he plodded on resolutely without a word, like a fatalist come to look fate in the face.

Even in a small lot such as we were, and consisting chiefly of hardy fellows, there must be – according to the varicose vein which runs through all humanity – three or four at least of softer pith, or eruptions that arise to the occasion, or some thing or other that goes amiss. And not having one leg too many among us, or I might say less than half the legs we wanted, our hard fortune was that the briskest shank among us – which was not my own, though I did my best, and in Surrey would have challenged any of them – was obliged to stick fast, when it got too far ahead, and disguise its own gratitude for a thrill of rest, by turning on its heel disdainfully. In a word, nearly all our most excellent men, brave and zealous, and brought up from childhood to a good stroke of speed after other people's cattle, had lost the best part of their training, by compulsion – under Russian tyranny – to attend to their own flocks and herds, instead of lifting their neighbour's.

Thus it was that we came at last to an elbow of the great Russian road, which is a noble work, but not by any means such as we should make, if we had the opportunity; and there we found a sample of what human nature is. Having surmounted, by wonderful endurance and perpetual rivalry with one another, obstacles that seemed insuperable, surely we should have gone on with double spirit, when we came upon a Christian highway. Instead of that, every blessed man sat down, and thanked Heaven – or in truer truth thanked himself – for having got along so famously. It was dark, as dark as one could ever wish to see it, down in this gorge of magnificence, with the river roaring sleepy thunder, and the snow-clouds spent, and the stars looking faint. I thought – as an Englishman thinks by instinct – that men of our own race would not have stopped (at any rate if there was money in it) and shut up in this sudden style.

However there was more excuse than help for it; and Stepan and myself, the two who cared most deeply about the issue, tried to cheer each other, so far as our mutual misunderstandings reached.

Then by a lucky chance the gallant miners (whom we should have missed perhaps, if we had gone on at once) came into our camp, with light hearts and merry songs, delighted at the prospect of a lively brush; for so they all regarded it. Jack Nickols himself had been unable to resist the fierce temptation, and gloomy would be the outlook for any foe who crossed his sky-line, though I cannot recollect just now his celebrated score at the "running deer."

It was terrible to me to find these fellows taking things so easily, not through any callous inhumanity or indifference, but simply because their own private interests were not immediately involved. For instance, the way in which Nickols, and Cator, and Strogue discussed the situation was enough to sponge out of my heart a great lump of that affection for the human race without which a man becomes miserable. Weary as they were, they found it needful to hold some little council, while they smoked their pipes after supper, having settled that all should take four hours of sleep if they could get it, and start again when the moon arose. I sat in a corner and listened to them, refraining from all interruption, though a great part of what they said was new to me; for if I had spoken, some heat might have followed my words, and done mischief to all of us.

Strogue. "I have always had the credit of seeing as far into a hayrick as any man that ever sucked a coral. But this fiend of a woman beats me hollow. I can't make out what her little game is."

Nickols. "Well, I can't see any difficulty about it. She wants her brother's property, and to be the lady of the other tribe too, which she would be as Dadian's daughter, if her brother Imar were done away with. She will have him tried for the death of her husband, or get him shot without trial. Then she has discharged her duty according to the rules of the blood-feud, and she steps into poor Imar's shoes. To me it is plainer than a pikestaff."

Cator. "All that looks straight enough, but it won't hold water. You forget the pretty girl. Imar has a lovely daughter, and she would be the head of the tribe, not Marva, when his goose is cooked."

Nickols. "That's true enough. But a woman with such a strong mind wouldn't make much bones of that. Or rather she'd make bones of her in no time. I am very sorry for that pretty girl. She is booked for a share of her father's grave."

Strogue. "Naturally I look deeper into things than you young fellows can. The real difficulty has escaped you both. The woman is bad enough for anything. I know things of her that I won't tell, at any rate for the present.

"But as for making away with her niece, there are two good reasons against it. In the first place, the Russians would be almost certain to punish Madam heavily, though perhaps they would not interfere, if Imar alone were tried and condemned according to the usage of the country. And then again, even if they let it pass, the Lesghians, who are a very loyal race, would never accept Marva's rule, when she had slain their Chief and his daughter. You have got the wrong story altogether, according to my view of it. Her game is not quite so clumsy, though it is a very bold one."

Nickols. "Captain, you are one of those men who get the right tip always. Don't be shy, – that would scarcely become you. But tell us exactly what you think; although it may be hard to square it with the higher moralities."

Strogue. "You speak like a fool, as all boys do. But there is no time to board-school you; and you are getting too old for that rot even. Now listen to what I have to say, though beyond the present range of your intellect. I have not dwelt among this mixed lot of savages; I have simply passed through them in my usual course. You might live among them till your hair grew white, and know less than you did when it was green. Why? You are sharp enough in your way, and if you had started with a humble mind, and kept it open, you might win knowledge. But that is not fine enough for you. You start with your poor wits already ingrained and case-hardened with the grease and suet of self-conceit, and nothing ever sticks to you."

Nickols, and Cator, and I, in the corner, with unanimous surprise: "Captain Strogue is the humblest of mankind, and therefore the most omniscient!"

Strogue. "It is true, my friends; a great home-truth, and you shall gather the fruits of it. I have penetrated this lady's scheme, and deeply regret that so fine a woman, one of the handsomest I have ever seen, should not behave with equal beauty. Having sent her brother to a better world, she will bring his daughter to the altar as the bride of her noble son – noble indeed to look at, but unable as yet to say Boh to a goose. He will be the master nominally of all Imar's fair dominions, which are as lovely as any in the world, when the snow allows a sight of them. The real master, of course, will be a certain lady-friend of ours; for you can see that from his cradle upwards she has cowed that uncommonly fine young fellow, so that he dare not call his soul his own. Upon my word I should not be surprised, when she has united these central tribes, if she threw off the yoke of Russia, and proclaimed herself Queen of the Caucasus, like a modern Tamara. All that is clear enough, but the one thing I can't make out for the very life of me is, why the dickens did she send us that scamp, whose real name is Hisar, under the name of Hafer? She would not send the true Hafer of course, lest when he had been away for months, and seen the ways of the polished world, and how absolutely the children rule their parents, he might be seized with emulation, and resolve to be master of his own domains, if not of his own mother – though I am sorry for anybody who tries that. Now tell me, ye who flatter yourselves that you can see further into a milestone than Strogue who has beheld so many, what induced this artful schemer to send Hisar to England in the name of Hafer, when for all that we can see he might just as well have gone in his own name?"

Nickols. "I was never any hand at crooked dealing, though there is plenty of it in our own line of business, but none with tip-toppers like my uncle and me. We have a high character to sustain. Even supposing we would stoop – "

Cator. "Stow that, Jack, we know it all by heart. But I can tell the Captain one good reason why the lady's ambassador should be called Hafer. Sûr Imar was bound to receive his own nephew, when he might have refused to see a stranger. And to take him into their confidence, and let him know their plans, and so on. All of which has enabled them to make fools of his faithful retainers, and prisoners of himself and his daughter."

Strogue. "With half an eye open, I saw every bit of that. But it does not touch the real difficulty. Dariel is to marry the true Hafer. Very well, let her, if she likes. He's a young man of grand appearance; and that reconciles the women to a lot of disadvantages. But if she was meant to belong to him, why let another fellow get the start with her? Though women of decent age know better, a girl is sure to be romantic. She piles wonders of imagination upon the first good-looking young fellow who suggests how lovely, how lofty, how divine she is.

"She keeps him at a blushing distance, and looks as if she had not the least idea where he is, and would turn her head away if he came up. Bless their hearts, I know them all; though I never let them see it. I could have had fifty Mrs. Strogues, – for they love a man who knows the world, – some of them too with cash and houses. But none of that for me, till I want nursing. Half-a-dozen Miss Strogues here and there, some white, some black, and some the colour of an orange, or a good Mocha berry that you can't get now – and they behave all the better to you when they know that you can do without them. Simple truth, gentlemen. I am not romantic."

This was too much for Jack Nickols, who was truly in love with his Rosa. Too much even for Cator, though he had no love as yet to hold him. Young Englishmen know right from wrong, though they do the wrong very often. But they cannot bear to hear it boasted of. But to me, with Dariel in my heart, purifying and ennobling it, bad as the time was for a row, I should have deserved no better time, if I had been afraid of it. So I marched up, and laid my hand upon him.

"Sir," I said, without a sign of anger, – for such stuff was not worth it, – "what you deserve, both of men and women, is to die in a workhouse, with Mrs. Gamp and Betsy Prig to close your eyes. Bad women there must be, as well as bad men; but tell me which has made the other? I know you better than to believe that you really think such wicked nonsense as you talk, for the sake of seeming clever. Bartholomew Strogue is a better man than that."

"I should not be much surprised if he was," the Captain answered pleasantly; "and he can allow for babes and sucklings, who are the happiest people after all. But come, my friends, I hear the sounds of sleep, the grinding of the mill of slumber. How those gallant Lesghians snore! If the Caucasus is the true cradle of our race, sleep must have lost its silence before language was invented."

CHAPTER LIII

A RUTHLESS SCHEME

While these men were arguing thus (failing with all their ingenuity, perhaps, to hit upon the true state of the case) a scene which they would have been glad to behold was taking place some twenty miles away, and not far from the banks of the Ardon. Here that river (on its way to join the Terek below Vladikaukaz) rushes through a rugged and desolate country on the further side of Kazbek, where the fall of the land is towards the north, and the long shadows lie in snowy stripes, even to the suns of midsummer. This was the melancholy spot where Rakhan owned that hunting-lodge, to which the poor Princess Oria had turned for refuge, when the snows of autumn blocked the track. Here it was that Imar (furious at her apparent guilt) found her most unhappily, at the very moment when the faithful steward – whose presence would have proved her innocence – was gone to the nearest hut in search of provisions and help to clear the road. And here it was that she breathed her last, slain by her own hand, according to the ordinance of her ancient race, to expiate the intolerable insult of the man she loved and worshipped.

But now the woman who had caused her death, or led up to it so cleverly by her own malevolence, felt no misgivings about that. Betwixt twins, even of the kindest nature and clinging from their birth to one another, a fungoid growth is apt to spring, as it does in a tree cleft down the centre, but not allowed to part in twain. Either member of the impaired union believes that the other belongs to it; and both are ready to close the grip against all who would divide them. But as years go on, and diverse attractions draw them more and more apart, each begins to form and thicken cuticle against the other; at least if they are of equal strength. And then the stuff that vainly came to close the gap grows venomous.

Jealousy, like a yellow toadstool, sprang up in young Marva's heart, when her brother dared to love another woman better than herself. She had fallen away from the twinship first by giving herself to Rakhan, without a word to her brother, and sacrificing to passion all the tender ties of kindred love. None the more could she endure that her brother should do likewise; and she would not believe, although she knew it, that her lover had murdered her father. Then when her husband made a grievance of Imar's just refusal to pay marriage-portion to that murderer – unless he would come and take the oath – she made a grievance of it too, more and more bitter as Rakhan began to make more and more spite of her poverty. And so it went on, with the crust of sullen temper thickening year by year, and the faith of married life turned sour by her husband's faithlessness, until her brother slew the wretch who had ruined him and outraged her.

Fair fight it was, and if ever one man has the right to stop another from his evil deeds below, and give him chance of mercy ere his black account grows blacker, the one might plead that right, and the other accept the relief with gratitude. But reason is less than a drop in the ocean of a tempestuous woman's heart. Marva's ill-will towards her brother deepened into bitter hatred, and nothing but his exile saved him from her brooding vengeance. And now she had found a chance of wreaking her wrath upon him to heart's content, and with the same blow satisfying her lifelong thirst for wealth and rule.

Therefore now her black device was on its last bound towards success; and we, who rejoice in lawful acts, and tricks that can be justified by solid legal argument, must bear in mind that her scheme was well in accordance with the local law.

To save all risk of being late for the ceremony of the morrow, she had quitted the stronghold where she allowed us the honour of that interview, and crossing the mountains west of Kazbek by the Ardon watercourse, had put up at this hunting-lodge, as the only suitable dwelling near the Valley of Retribution. About seventy armed men of the tribe, and a dozen village elders had been despatched to the Roman jail to keep guard, and prepare the trial; while she had only a few men with her, including the gentle Hafer, and the thoroughly savage Hisar.

But the lady as yet had no suspicion of our rapid counterplot, which we never could have formed without the tidings and the help of Usi the Bear-slayer, whom she had corded to the rock for wolves. And if we could only have foreseen her sojourn at this hunting-lodge, what a dash we might have made with the mining force alone and held our haughty captive as a hostage for her prisoners! But as yet we knew not where she was; and as to what may here be told it is scarcely needful to observe that it came to my knowledge afterwards. And often on our road we doubted, in spite of all we heard of her, whether that any woman in her right mind, and acting with cool intention, would compass a crime almost beyond the conception of a man soever vile. Although it was not for the sake of the horror, but an indispensable part of her scheme, that her brother should be slain by his own, and only son!

"Hafer," she said to this noble-looking youth, who believed himself the only son of her injured husband Rakhan, "at last the time is come for you to vindicate your father. To-morrow his murderer will be condemned by the verdict of the elders of our tribe – the men who were faithful to your father, the great Prince Rakhan of the Ossets. Your father died, as you know too well, in the assertion of your mother's rights. Your uncle Imar, my own brother, was gifted by Heaven with no sense of justice. He was not content with robbing me, your dear mother, of my rightful share in my father Dadian's inheritance; but when your own brave father Rakhan vainly made suit after many years to obtain a small share of my rights, what did your uncle Imar do? You know, you have heard it a thousand times; he slew your father in cold blood, taking mean advantage of superior strength. He left me a widow, a helpless widow, with you my only child almost a babe. Instead of remaining, like a man, to face the consequence of his crime, and trying at least to make compensation, he fled to an island in the west called England, where all malefactors are sheltered and fed. There he lived in luxury for many years, receiving all the revenues which of right were mine. Now he has returned, without a word of sorrow to me, to rob me of the little I have tried to save. You know how hard I have striven against fortune, labouring to keep the scanty relics of my rights, and to take charge of small affairs that have chanced to lose their owner. Even you I have been compelled sometimes to deprive of enjoyments to which your birth entitled you. Is it not the truth, my child?"

"Mother, it is indeed the truth. I have often been ashamed of my desire for more food. And yet it has been a pleasure to me to behold you never famishing."

"A barley-cake has been enough for me. There are some who can so deny themselves. But justice comes to those who wait, and bear their sorrows patiently. The murderer of your father has, even through his own bad designs, fallen into the hands of those to whom he owes so long a debt. We have him beyond all power of escape. To-morrow he will be justly tried by those who know what he has done. The elders of this noble race, the race of the white sheepskin, will have him placed before them. He will be forbidden to poison the air with any lying speeches. His sentence will be death, and you – according to the law of ages – you are the man to execute it."

The young man fixed his large and gentle eyes upon her face, in doubt whether she could mean in earnest to enforce such a cruel task. Even the worst of tyrants threatens a great deal more than he means to do; and when it is a female tyrant, deeds can scarcely equal words, however strong the whole may be. This youth had received enough of both, – the blast of words, the lash of deeds, – and a heart that was both just and tender had confused the brain by pouring vain emotions into it.

The lady met his eyes with more than the every-day contempt in hers. It was not in her nature to make allowance for the result of her own work. Studiously from his infant days she had crushed all free-will out of him; and yet she scorned him for having none. As fine a specimen of manly growth as could be found in all the world was towering over her dark head, tall and stately though she was. She hated him for doing that, and she scorned him for doing it in stature only.

"Am I to speak again?" she asked, with a gaze from which his mild glance recoiled. "I have set your duty before you, Hafer; if you are coward enough to refuse it, another will discharge it for you; and according to the ancient laws you will be imprisoned and starved to death. What will become of Lura then? She will love you, if you are a man. If not, she will turn to Hisar, who is longing to prove himself more worthy, and all her beauty will be his."

"What has Hisar to do with this? He is always seeking to supplant me. You speak as if I were a coward, because it is not my desire to shed blood of man or beast; those who have done no harm to me, why should I do harm to them? Neither do I take heed of words, being brought up with reproaches daily, which it becomes me not to answer. But of Hisar I have no fear. It is the feminine voice that scares me, because it has always held dominion, and is too rapid to contend with. You have never allowed me to obtain any skill in weapons, such as a full-grown man should have; neither have I desired to fight, which is worthy of wolves, and dogs, and hogs. But if Hisar thinks to take my place in the things which he is coveting, Hisar is of ignoble breed, let him come and make trial of me; and let Lura come and see it, if her gentle nature does not shrink."

Hafer tossed his golden curls, and tried to look fierce; but nature had not gifted him with that expression, neither had practice supplied the lack. And then he smiled at his own attempt, having much of his father Imar's vein. No woman, worthy to be called a woman, could have looked at him without admiration, and pity for all that he had suffered to take the bold spirit out of him. But the woman who had crushed his life was enraged at this slight outbreak.

"Something more than vaunt is needful to establish claim to courage. Hisar is brave; the maidens admire him, the fighting men are afraid of him. If thou art too liver-hearted to avenge thy father's wrongs, a braver youth will take thy place, and do thy duty for thee. It will not be worth while to starve thee, Hafer, and to listen to thy craven shrieks. On thy forehead we will brand Coward, and expel thee from a tribe of men. Hisar shall be the Lord of Ossets, with Lura for their Lady."