The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence

Nicholas turned round briskly.

"Why, surely," he said; "when this business is put through there is still but little more to do, but until it is all done Yanni is clapped in his kennel. The moment it is over he is out."

Mitsos sat still a moment longer.

"I will start to-day," he said. "It is only a short day's journey to Nemea. Write your letter, please, Uncle Nicholas, and then I will go."

"I don't know whether it really matters if you go to-day or to-morrow," said Nicholas, seeing that the boy for some reason wished to stop.

"No, no," broke out Mitsos. "You think it is better for me to go to-day. The sooner the business is over the sooner Yanni comes out. You said so."

Nicholas raised his eyebrows at this outburst. He did not understand it in the least.

"I will write, then, at once," he said. "It is true that the sooner Yanni comes out the better."

Mitsos stood with his back to him, looking out of the window, and two great tears rose in his eyes. He was giving up more than any one knew.

Nicholas saw that something was wrong, but as Mitsos did not care to enlighten him, it was none of his business. But he had a great affection for the lad, and as he passed he laid his hand on his shoulder.

"You are a good little Mitsos," he said. "The letters will be ready in an hour. You will have dinner here, will you not, and set out afterwards? You cannot go farther than Nemea to-night."

So after dinner Mitsos set out again, and it seemed to him as he went that the heart within him was being torn up as the weeds in a vineyard are rooted for the burning. And on this journey there was no thought that he would soon come back. He was to return, Nicholas told him, not to Nauplia, but to Panitza, where there would be work for him to do until the time came for him to get Yanni out of Tripoli. By then everything would be ready, the beacons would flare across the Peloponnesus, and simultaneously in the north and at Kalamata the outbreak would begin. The reason for this was twofold. The Greek forces were not yet sufficiently organized to conduct the siege of Tripoli, which was strongly fortified, well watered, and heavily garrisoned. Kalamata, however, was a more pregnable place, the water supply was bad inside the citadel, and the garrison not numerous. Again, it was a port, and by getting possession of the harbor, which was not defended, and separate from the citadel, they would drive those who escaped inland to Tripoli. The movements in the north, too, would have the same effect. Tripoli was the strongest fortress in the Peloponnesus, and by the autumn, when, as Nicholas hoped, the Greeks would be sufficiently organized to undertake the siege, it would be the only refuge left for the Turks who were still in the country. Then it would be that the great blow would be struck which would free the whole Peloponnesus. In the interval the plan was as far as possible to cut the country off from the rest of the world by a fleet which was being organized in the islands, and by means of the fire-ships which should destroy the Turkish vessels seeking to leave it, and prevent others from coming into the ports. For practical purposes there were only four ports – at Corinth, Patras, Nauplia, and Kalamata. The first two would be the care of the leaders of the revolution in the north; for Kalamata and Nauplia, Nicholas and Petrobey had arrangements in hand.

That night Mitsos slept at Nemea, and all next day travelled across the great inland plain where lie the lakes. Through the length and breadth of that delectable country the spirit of spring was abroad – crocuses and the early anemones burned in the thickets, and the dim purple iris cradled bees in a chalice of gold. Brimming streams crossed the path, and the sunlight lay on their pebbly beds in a diaper of amber and stencilled shadow, and Mitsos' pony at the mid-day halt ate his fill of the young, juicy grass. But in the lad's heart the spring woke no echo; he went heavily, and the glorious adventure to which he had sacrificed his new-found manhood, fully indeed and without a murmur, seemed to him a thing of little profit. And if he had known what hard days were waiting for him, and the blank agonies and bitterness through which he was to fulfil his destiny, he would, it is to be feared, have turned his pony's head round and said that an impossible thing was asked of him. But he knew nothing beyond this two-week task now set him, and to this he was committed, not only by his promise to Nicholas – and, to do him justice, his own self-respect – but by the oath of the clan, which rather than fail in he would have sooner died.

The second evening a little before sunset he saw Goura close before him, standing free and roomily on a breezy hill-side, and ringed with vineyards. Behind lay the great giants of the mountain range – Helmos cowled in snow, and Cyllene all sunset-flushed. Yanko's house proved to be at the top of the village, and there he found Maria with a face all smiles for his welcoming. Yanko was still in the fields, and Mitsos and Maria talked themselves up to date with each other till he came home.

Oh yes, he was a good husband, said Maria, and he earned a fine wage. He was as strong as a horse, and when he let the wine-shop alone he did the work of two men. "And I am strong too," said she, "and when he doesn't come home by ten in the evening it will be no rare thing for me to bring him back with a clout over the head for his foolishness. And why are you here, Mitsos?"

"Business," he said; "business for Nicholas. It is Yanko who can do it for us. I may tell you about it, Maria, for so Nicholas said. He is wanted to take a message to the monastery. Four days' horse-hire, if he wishes, will be paid, and he will be doing a good work for many."

"On business against the Turk?" asked Maria.

"Surely."

Maria shook her head doubtfully.

"Yanko is a good man," she said, "but he is a man of the belly. So long as there is food in plenty, and plenty of wine, he does not care. But he will not be long; you shall ask him. It is so good to see you again, Mitsos. Do you remember our treading the grapes together in the autumn? How you have grown since then! Your height is two of Yanko, but then Yanko is very fat."

Maria looked at him approvingly with her head on one side; she distinctly felt a little sentimental. Mitsos reminded her of Nauplia, and of the days when she was so proud of being engaged to Yanko while still only seventeen, and of having Mitsos, whom she had always thought wonderfully good-looking and pleasant, if not at her feet, at any rate interested in her. She had been more than half disposed, as far as her personal inclination had gone, to put Yanko off for a bit and try her chance with the other; but she was safe with Yanko, and he did quite well. But it both hurt her and pleased her to see Mitsos again – he was better looking than ever, and he had a wonderful way with him, an air of breeding – Maria did not analyze closely, but this is what she meant – to which the estimable Yanko was quite a stranger. And this brave adventure of his, of which he told her the main outlines; his kinship to, and rapturous adoption by, the great Mavromichales' clan, lent him a new and powerful attraction. And when Yanko's heavy step was heard outside Maria turned away with a sigh and thought he seemed earlier and fatter than usual.

Yanko, always sleek, had grown rather gross, and his red, shiny face and small, boiled-looking eyes presented a strong contrast to Mitsos' thin, bronzed cheeks and clear iris. But the husband seemed glad to see him, and agreed that Mitsos' errand had best wait till after supper.

So after supper Mitsos expounded, and Yanko shifted from one foot to the other, and seemed uncomfortable. "And," said Mitsos, in conclusion, "I can give you horse-hire for four days."

Yanko sat silent for a while, then abruptly told his wife to draw another jug of wine. Maria had a sharp tongue when her views were dissentient from his, and he would speak more easily if she were not there. Maria, who had listened to Mitsos with wide, eager eyes and a heightened color, went off quickly and returned in equal haste, anxious not to lose anything.

"It's like this," Yanko was saying. "What with this and that I've a lot of farm work on my hands, and, to tell the truth, but little wish to mix myself up in the affair; and as for four days' horse-hire, it will pay my way, but where's my profit?"

Mitsos frowned.

"You won't go?" he said, half rising; "then I mustn't wait, but find some one else."

At this Maria burst out:

"Shame, Yanko!" she said. "I have a mule-man for a husband. It is that you think of nothing but piastres, and are afraid of taking on yourself for two days such work as Mitsos spends his months in. Am I to sit here and see you drinking and eating and sleeping, and never lift a hand for the sake of any but yourself? Ah, if I was a man I would not have chosen a wife with as little spirit as my husband has."

Maria banged the wine-jug down on the table, and cast a scornful look at Yanko. Then she crossed over to Mitsos and took his glass to fill it, filling her own at the same time.

"This to you," she said, clinking her glass at his, "and to the health of all brave men."

Then with another scowl at Yanko:

"Can't you even drink to those who are made different to yourself, if they are of a finer bake?" she said; "or is there not spirit in you for that? I should have been a mile on the way by this time," she said to Mitsos, "if it had pleased the good God to make me a man and send you with such a message to me."

"You, Maria?" said Mitsos, suddenly.

"Yes, and how many days of horse-hire does Yanko think I should have asked for my pains? Nay, I should have lit candles to the Virgin in the joy of having such work given me to do, if I had had to beg my way."

Mitsos remembered Nicholas's directions.

"Will you go?" he said. "You would do it as well as any man. It is just Father Priketes you have to ask for, and give the message."

"Nonsense, Maria," said Yanko; "a woman can't do a thing like that."

Maria's indignant speeches had a touch of the high rhetorical about them, but Yanko's remark just stamped them into earnestness.

"You'll be drawing your own wine for yourself the next few days," she said, "and I shall be over the hills doing what you were afraid of. I'm blithe to go," she said to Mitsos, "and to-morrow daybreak will see me on the way."

Yanko, on the whole, was relieved; it would have been a poor thing to send Mitsos to another house in quest of a sturdier patriot than he, and Maria's offer had obviated this without entailing the journey on himself. Poor Yanko had been born of a meek and quiet spirit, and the possession of the earth in company with like-minded men would have seemed to him a sufficiently beatified prospect. He had no desire for brave and boisterous adventure, new experiences held for him no ecstasy: even in the matter of drinking, which was the chiefest pleasure of his life, he maintained a certain formula of moderation, never passing beyond the stage of a slightly fuddled head; and a wholesome fear of Maria – not acute, but steady – as a rule, drove him home while he was still perfectly capable of getting there. The rule of his life was a certain sordid mean, which has been the subject for praise in the mouth of poets, who have even gone so far as to call it golden, and is strikingly exemplified in the lives of cows and other ruminating animals. He was possessed of certain admirable qualities, a capacity for hard work and a real affection for his eminent wife being among them, but he was surely cast in no heroic mould. He had no fine, heady virtues which carry their own reward in the constant admiration they excite, but of the more inglorious excellences he had an average share.

Mitsos arrived at Corinth next night after a very long day, and found a caique starting in an hour or two for Patras. He had just time to leave Nicholas's message to the mayor of the town, get food, and bargain for a passage to Patras for himself and his pony. The wind was but light and variable through the night, but next day brought a fine singing breeze from the east, and about the time that he landed at Patras Maria saw below her from the top of a pass the roof of the monastery ashine with the evening sun from a squall of rain which had crossed the hills that afternoon.

Her little pinch-eared mule went gayly down through the sweet-smelling pine forest which clothed the upper slope below which the monastery stood, and every now and then she passed one or two of the monks engaged on their work – some burning charcoal; some cleaning out the channels which led from the snow-water stream, all milky and hurrying, after a day of sun, down to the vineyards; others, with their cassocks kilted up for going, piloting timber-laden mules down home, and all gave Maria a "Good-day" and a "Good journey."

Outside the gate a score or so of the elder men were enjoying the last hour of sunlight, sitting on the stone benches by the fountain, smoking and talking together. One of these, tall and white-bearded, let his glance rest on Maria as she rode jauntily down the path; but when, instead of passing by on the road, she turned her mule aside up the terrace in front of the gate, he got up quickly with a kindled eye and spoke to the brother next him.

"Has it come," he said, "even as Nicholas told us it might?" and he went to meet Maria.

"God bless your journey, my daughter!" he said, "and what need you of us?"

Maria glanced round a little nervously.

"I want to speak to Father Priketes, my father," she said.

"You speak to him."

"Have you corn, father?" she said.