R. D. Blackmore

“ You know why I am going, Miss Cranleigh."
"Mr. Stoneman! How should I know? I have not the very smallest idea!" Oh, what a dreadful story, Grace! And did you make it better or worse, by a blush, and quick palpitation of the guilty breast that harboured it?
"Then I am going for this cause. There is somebody in this country who has got me entirely underfoot, and tramples on me every day. There is no cure for it, but to run away. I have no spirit left. My eyes are always on the ground." ”

“ Sadly was I perpending this, slower and slower at every step, while the shadows of the trees grew longer, and the voice of birds was lower, and the babble of the brook began to sink into the lisping of a cradled child, as the draught of the valley hushed it; and falling into harmony with all these signs, my breath was beginning to abate me, when along a trough of sliding mist like a trysting track for the dusk, appeared the form of my friend Kuban. Courage at once arose within me, and spirit of true patronage. To men and women I may be nought, but to him I am a hero. ”

“ Before I had time to pick more than fifty holes in the stockbroker's taste as compared with our own, in came the man himself, full of high spirits, and alive with that vigour which the sparkling metal gives. Any man must be a cur who can snarl at a good friend, for enjoying the marrow-bone, which has dropped betwixt his paws. Jackson Stoneman was not without his faults; but it would have been mean to make them greater than they were, just because he was able to pay for them.
"Just the man I wanted—the very man," he said, as if I was worth all the Stock Exchange; "what luck I have had all day! ”

“ So bad was the season, and the ways so roundabout and rugged, that not until the 3d of May did we enter the deep defile which leads to the foot of the crag of Karthlos. We threaded the narrow pass, and looked up at the fearful heights, from which those playful children fell, when frisking on their little legs among the treacherous snow-drift. And then we saw the rocky elbow of the dark ravine where Imar's father Dadian fell to the stealthy shot of Rakhan. The lonely gorge, where a man felt half afraid to provoke an echo, seemed to be formed by nature for the darkest deeds her sons can do. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ George the farmer would have small chance then of swinging his gun, and singing psalms with the angelic Dariel! How I scorn and hate soft women! And they love me not. All love and liking hath gone to the meek and milky Lesghian 'Hafer;' as thou hast chosen to call him. Therefore, to the Russian hell with him! But of one thing I would warn thee, much admired and beloved mother. When we have torn the red cross down, and cast it beneath the white sheepskin, and filled our belts with the gold of Imar, not long will I tarry in these dens of rock fit only for the hermit and the huntsman. ”

“ Then I thought of the sneaking shot from the gun of Rakhan which had killed Sûr Dadian, when he was returning full of joy to his ancestral castle; and the thing became almost as plain to me as if the sunlight had been poured on it. Captain Strogue would never have done it; a bravo he might be, but not a Thug—if there is any meaning in any man's eyes. But the tall dark fellow, that son of Rakhan who would not come up to look at me, Hafer, who was come to fetch Sûr Imar, he was the miscreant who tried to shoot me. ”

“ You want to save him; so do I. And more than that, to blow to pieces the plans of this vile Hafer. He has treated me infamously; I will not bother you with that now. He little knows what Bat Strogue is. I might have starved, but for Jemmy Nickols. Just for the present I am in cash; but money never sticks to me. If the sinews of war fail, I shall not scruple to ask your help, though I know that you are not a millionaire, George Cranleigh. But I am a man of honour, sir. Though not a swell, I am no sponge. ”

“ Dariel loved me! Who was I, to be rapt by such a miracle? And who of mankind should take it from me, as long as the heavens continued?
"Let us kneel, and thank the Lord," my darling said, with coy reproach of my impetuous transport; "here where first you saw me, George. If He has meant us for one another, He will be vexed if we do not thank Him." ”

“ It made me bless the Lord at heart for casting my lines in a quiet land, where a man beholds no craggy menace, black rush of blind tempests, bottomless gulfs, unfathomed forests, and peaks that would freeze him into stone. For the people that live there must be in a wild condition always; to tremble at Nature's fury, or to shudder at her majesty, or look around on all that wraps them up, with desolate indifference.
I glanced at Stoneman walking briskly with his gun upon his shoulder, and death to at least a dozen woodcocks in the keen flash of his eyes ”

“ To sit on a rock, just out of shot—as many a dauntless Avar told me—with glacier water for his drink, and nothing but mast on his tattered lap, and to see a hundred fat round fellows, who had come into his land quite lean, laughing and joking at his own door, with the milk of his best cow at their lips, and the kids of his flock coming up to them in sniffs from the fires where they were roasting, this he assured me—and I could quite believe him—turned his empty digestion into bile, and the love of his native land into a hollow ache. ”

“ How much worse, when his own judgment owns that things look rather black, and memory quotes against his wishes more than one such disappointment. If it were so, if those who had made so deep an impression on me were skulking rogues and stealthy felons, no wonder they had not cared to ask what became of the stranger, who by remarkable presence of mind had saved the life of their valued warder, and then with a modesty no less rare, had vanished before they could thank him, if they ever had the grace to intend it. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Dariel came, and I knew nothing, except that here was Dariel. I feared to look direct, or even glance as if I meant it, being now little more than a lump of patches, with gingery tufts among them; and fool enough in my heart to think that love would be ashamed of me. I cannot say another word to teach any one who does not know, or do good to one who does. ”

“ However, we fetched him nearer date, by speaking of the Princess Marva.
Then the old man trembled, and turned his head away; and his fingers (which looked like empty bean-pods) fiddled at the cartridge loops which hung, like the smocking of a Surrey parish-clerk, on the quivering of his sunken breast.
"For the sake of God, who made us all," he mumbled; and although he had been feeding well, his wife offered him some brown bits in vain. "Let him be," said Strogue, "perhaps he'll have more pluck to-morrow." ”

“ Moreover, the foremost of my father's men who had spurred along the defile, made oath that he saw a white globe whirl away where the crags broke apart in the distance, and he put his jaded horse to the utmost speed, all in vain among darkness and precipices. Now every one knows that no Russian soldier, and the Ossets alone in our part of the range can be found with that hideous head-gear flapping, a sheep-skin puffed out into a ball at the top, like a great white onion at the end of a stick. ”

“ But as years go on, and diverse [Pg 465] 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. ”

“ Let any one despise me as he likes, with reason on his tongue and humanity in his eyes. For the world at large it might be better to have such a woman stretched beneath the turf; but a man with his heart in the right place—which the muzzle of her musket knew too well—could not help feeling for her grandeur.
However, it was not for me to lay down the law, or even to stand up for it against this crew of savages. To keep out of their way was my one desire, and at first there seemed to be some chance of it, with their leader a corpse, and superstition frowning at them from the dungeon-gate. ”

“ But a man who has just escaped foul murder by a hair's breadth, and may meet the like to-morrow with the turn of the hair against him, must—unless he is weary of his life—take some thought of his actions. And I felt by no means weary of my life, but kindly and warmly in love with it, when certain glances made it sparkle, like a dewdrop in the morning. Not a word must I say to any one about that dastardly attempt, unless it were to the faithful Stepan, who might cast some light upon it. ”

“ Jackson Stoneman, sitting bolt-upright with a cigar in his mouth, and flourishing a long tandem-whip, while a couple of glittering chestnuts whirled him along the smooth road, and a groom in white buckskins and top-boots accordingly sat behind, and folded his arms in contempt of the world. Grace like a child, though she was dignity itself when any stranger looked at her, used to run to the window and exclaim, "Oh, what loves of horses! How everything shines, and how well he drives!" ”

“ Who could imagine such a crime overlooked by the Power that rules the world? A loyal confidence possessed me for a while, that Heaven would protect its noblest produce, the few who ever think of looking up to it, from the venom of its abject spawn.
"It will never do to take it in that light," said Strogue, though he always attributed his own escapes, which had been manifold as well as narrow, to celestial perception of his merits; "no, you must never trust to that cock's fighting. Sometimes it will, and sometimes it won't. And where are you then without your revolver? ”

“ That Saturday evening the sun went down (so far as we could get a straight look at him through such ins and outs) , genial, bountiful, a great globe of good will, squandering gold upon a maiden world of snow, which it blushed to accept, and yet spread upon its breast.
"The weather at any rate is on our side," was my cheerful remark to Captain Strogue; "if we can only find those fellows, we shall be all right." ”

“ Of Selina I am already weary, and soon as my heart is weary both of Dariel and Lura—since the ancient law allows us twain, which is less than the wisdom of the Moslem—I shall leave thee to command this savage race, and take their tributes for me. Yearly will I come to see thee, and my two devoted wives, when the harvest-time is on, and cities are too hot to dwell in. But London and Paris, Paris and London, will be the delight of Hisar. ”

“ But another was there—thank the Lord in heaven—I caught the flame of Hisar's eyes on mine, as his blade went straight for Imar's breast, and dashed it into splinters with my toorak. Then he hurled the stump at me, drew his kinjal, and sprang, as if he were made of wings, at my breast. I stepped aside quicker than I ever moved at cricket, and as he passed me he ran against so hearty a whack upon his wicked temples, that no more sin was concocted there. ”

“ Feeling how small are the minds of mankind, even the best of them, when they listen to the police, and knowing that I could not sleep as yet, I went once more to the gate at the top of the yard, and gazed over the wheat which was to lie low on the morrow. Although I had just received proof of friendship, from two very nice fellows better than myself, which should have encouraged me to think the best, sadness came into my heart, and a sombre view of life depressed me. There are two things only that can save a man from deep dejection occasionally. ”

“ Thou hast done thy best from my birth to make me what thou art not—a woman. Hisar is more to thee than I am, though he is but a stranger. But he shall never be Lord of Lura; for I know that she hates him, and he would grind her into dust. For her sake, I will do this thing; loathsome as it is to me, since it must be done by somebody. But remember one thing, if I am forced to this—never more will I call thee mother."
"Poor fool! Does he think he will have the chance?" ”

“ For when we were in Jackson Stoneman's little crib, such as any man of nous, with a big roof over his head, is fain to keep for his own better moments, there was something which no magnificence can bring home into the simple human breast. Who is the most delightful writer of our race, since Heaven took Shakespeare away in hot haste, when his hand was too close on the Tree of Life? ”