Chapter III: Part 3

Each brought back his own gain—Mr. Lorne was able to speak Icelandic tolerably well, and Jon was quite proficient in English. The former had made the trip to Iceland especially to collect old historical legends and acquire new information concerning them. To his great surprise, he found Jon so familiar with the subject, that, during the journey, he conceived the idea of taking him to Scotland for a year, as an assistant in his studies; but he said nothing of this until after their return. Then, first, he proposed the plan to Magnus and Jon’s mother, and prudently gave them time to consider it. It was hard for both to consent, but the advantages were too evident to be rejected. To Jon, when he heard it, it seemed simply impossible; yet the preparations went on,—his mother and Gudrid wept as they helped, Uncle Magnus looked grave,—and at last the morning came when he had to say farewell.

The yacht had favorable winds at first. They ran along the southern shore to Ingolf’s Head, saw the high, inaccessible summits of the Skaptar Jökull fade behind them, and then Iceland dropped below the sea. A misty gale began to blow from the southwest, forcing them to pass the Faroe Islands on the east, and afterward the Shetland Isles; but, after nearly coming in sight of Norway, the wind changed to the opposite quarter, and the yacht spread her sails directly for Leith. One night, when Jon awoke in his berth, he missed the usual sound of waves against the vessel’s side and the cries of the sailors on deck—everything seemed strangely quiet; but he was too good a sleeper to puzzle his head about it, so merely turned over on his pillow. When he arose the quiet was still there. He dressed in haste and went on deck. The yacht lay at anchor in front of buildings larger than a hundred Rejkiaviks put together.

“This is Leith,” said Mr. Lorne, coming up to him.

“Leith?” Jon exclaimed; “it seems like Rome or Jerusalem! Those must be the King’s palaces.”

“No, my boy,” Mr. Lorne answered, “they are only warehouses.”

“But what are those queer green hills behind the houses? They are so steep and round that I don’t see how anybody could climb up.”

“Hills?” exclaimed Mr. Lorne. “Oh, I see now! Why, Jon, those are trees.”

Jon was silent. He dared not doubt his friend’s word, but he could not yet wholly believe it. When they had landed, and he saw the great trunks, the spreading boughs, and the millions of green leaves, such a feeling of awe and admiration came over him that he began to tremble. A wind was blowing, and the long, flexible boughs of the elms swayed up and down.

“Oh, Mr. Lorne!” he cried. “See! they are praying! Let us wait a while; they are saying something—I hear their voices. Is it English?—can you understand it?”

“The halt on the journey”
]

Mr. Lorne took him by the hand and said: “It is praise, not prayer. They speak the same language all over the world, but no one can understand all they say.”

There is one rough little cart in Rejkiavik, and this is the only vehicle in Iceland. What then, must have been Jon’s feelings when he saw hundreds of elegant carriages dashing to and fro, and great wagons drawn by giant horses? When they got into a cab, it seemed to him like sitting on a moving throne. He had read and heard of all these things, and thought he had a clear idea of what they were; but he was not prepared for the reality. He was so excited, as they drove up the street to Edinburgh, that Mr. Lorne, sitting beside him, could feel the beating of his heart. The new wonders never ceased: there was an apple tree with fruit; rose bushes in bloom; whole beds of geraniums in the little gardens; windows filled with fruit or brilliant silks or silver-ware; towers that seemed to touch the clouds, and endless multitudes of people! As they reached the hotel, all he could say, in a faltering voice, was, “Poor old Iceland!”

The next day they took the train for Lanark, in the neighborhood of which Mr. Lorne had an estate. When Jon saw the bare, heather-covered mountains, and the swift brooks that came leaping down their glens, he laughed and said:

“Oh, you have a little of Iceland even here! If there were trees along the Thiörvǎ, it would look like yonder valley.”

“I have some moorland of my own,” Mr. Lorne remarked; “and if you ever get to be homesick, I’ll send you out upon it to recover.”

But when Jon reached the house, and was so cordially welcomed by Mrs. Lorne, and saw the park and gardens where he hoped to become familiar with trees and flowers, he thought there would be as much likelihood of being homesick in heaven as in such a place.

Everything he saw tempted him to visit and examine it. During the first few days he could scarcely sit still in the library and take part in Mr. Lorne’s studies. But his strong sense of duty, his long habits of patience and self-denial soon made the task easy, and even enabled him to take a few more hours daily for his own improvement. His delight in all strange and beautiful natural objects was greatly prolonged by this course. He enjoyed everything far more than if he had rapidly exhausted its novelty. Mr. Lorne saw this quality of Jon’s nature with great satisfaction, and was very ready to give advice and information which he knew would be earnestly heeded.

It was a very happy year; but I do not believe that it was the happiest of Jon’s life. Having learned to overcome the restlessness and impatience which are natural to boyhood, he laid the basis for greater content in life as a man. When he returned to Rejkiavik, in his twentieth year, with a hundred pounds in his pocket and a rich store of knowledge in his head, all other tasks seemed easy. It was a great triumph for his mother, and especially for Gudrid, now a bright, blooming maiden of sixteen. Uncle Magnus brought up another dusty bottle to welcome him, although there were only six more left; and all the neighbors came around in the evening. Even the Governor stopped and shook hands, the next day, when Jon met him in the street. His mother, who was with him, said, after the Governor had passed: “I hope thy father sees thee now.” The same thought was in Jon’s heart.

And now, as he is no longer a boy, we must say good-bye to him. We have no fears for his future life; he will always be brave and manly and truthful. But, if some of my readers are still curious to know more of him, I may add that he is a very successful teacher in the school at Rejkiavik; that he hopes to visit Mr. Lorne, in Scotland, very soon; and I should not be in the least surprised if he were to join good old Dr. Hjaltalin, and pay a visit to the United States.

IV
The Two Herd-Boys

When I was in Germany, several years ago, I spent a few weeks of the summer-time in a small town among the Thuringian Mountains. This is a range on the borders of Saxony, something like our Green Mountains in height and form, but much darker in color, on account of the thick forests of fir which cover them. I had visited this region several times before, and knew not only the roads but most of the footpaths, and had made some acquaintance with the people; so I felt quite at home among them, and was fond of taking long walks up to the ruins of castles on the peaks, or down into the wild, rocky dells between them.

The people are mostly poor, and very laborious; yet all their labor barely produces enough to keep them from want. There is not much farming land, as you may suppose. The men cut wood, the women spin flax and bleach linen, and the children gather berries, tend cattle on the high mountain pastures, or act as guides to the summer travellers. A great many find employment in the manufacture of toys, of which there are several establishments in this region, producing annually many thousands of crying and speaking dolls, bleating lambs, barking dogs, and roaring lions.

Behind the town where I lived, there was a spur of the mountains, crowned by the walls of a castle built by one of the dukes who ruled over that part of Saxony eight or nine hundred years ago. Beyond this ruin, the mountain rose more gradually, until it reached the highest ridge, about three miles distant. In many places the forest had been cut away, leaving open tracts where the sweet mountain grass grew thick and strong, and where there were always masses of heather, harebells, foxgloves, and wild pinks. Every morning all the cattle of the town were driven up to these pastures, each animal with a bell hanging to its neck, and the sound of so many hundred bells tinkling all at once made a chime which could be heard at a long distance.

One of my favorite walks was to mount to the ruined castle, and pass beyond it to the flowery pasture-slopes, from which I had a wide view of the level country to the north and the mountain-ridges on both sides. Here it was very pleasant to sit on a rock, in the sunny afternoon, and listen to the continual sound of bells which filled the air. Sometimes one of the herd-boys would sing, or shout to the others across the intervening glens, while the village girls, with baskets of bark, hunted for berries along the edges of the forests. Although so high on the mountain, the landscape was never lonely.

One day, during my ramble, I came upon two smaller herds of cattle, each tended by a single boy. They were near each other, but not on the same pasture, for there was a deep hollow, or dell, between. Nevertheless they could plainly see each other, and even talk whenever they liked, by shouting a little. As I came out of a thicket upon the clearing, on one side of the hollow, the herd-boy tending the cattle nearest to me was sitting among the grass, and singing with all his might the German song commencing,

“Tra, ri, ro!
The summer’s here I know!”

His back was towards me, but I noticed that his elbows were moving very rapidly. Curious to learn what he was doing, I slipped quietly around some bushes to a point where I could see him distinctly, and found that he was knitting a woollen stocking. Presently he lifted his head, looked across to the opposite pasture and cried out, “Hans! the cows!”

I looked also, and saw another boy of about the same age start up and run after his cattle, the last one of which was entering the forests. Then the boy near me gave a glance at his own cattle, which were quietly grazing on the slope, a little below him, and went on with his knitting. As I approached, he heard my steps and turned towards me, a little startled at first; but he was probably accustomed to seeing strangers, for I soon prevailed upon him to tell me his name and age. He was called Otto, and was twelve years old; his father was a wood-cutter, and his mother spun and bleached linen.

“And how much”, I asked him, “do you get for taking care of the cattle?”

“I am to have five thalers” (about four dollars), he answered, “for the whole summer; but it doesn’t go to me—it’s for father. But then I make a good many groschen by knitting, and _that’s_ for my winter clothes. Last year I could buy a coat, and this year I want to get enough for trousers and new shoes. Since the cattle know me so well, I have only to talk and they mind me; and that, you see, gives me plenty of time to knit.”

“I see,” I said; “it’s a very good arrangement. I suppose the cattle over on the other pasture don’t know their boy? He has not got them all out of the woods yet.”

“Yes, they know him,” said Otto, “and that’s the reason they slip away. But the cattle mind some persons better than others; I’ve seen that much.”

Here he stopped talking, and commenced knitting again. I watched him awhile, as he rapidly and evenly rattled off the stitches. He evidently wanted to make the most of his time. Then I again looked across the hollow, where Hans—the other boy—had at last collected his cows. He stood on the top of a rock, flinging stones down the steep slope. When he had no more, he stuck his hands in his pockets and whistled loudly, to draw Otto’s attention; but the latter pretended not to hear. Then I left them; for the shadow of the mountain behind me was beginning to creep up the other side of the valley.

A few days afterwards I went up to the pasture again, and came, by chance, to the head of the little dell dividing the two herds. I had been wandering in the fir-forest, and reached the place unexpectedly. There was a pleasant view from the spot, and I seated myself in the shade, to rest and enjoy it. The first object which attracted my attention was Otto, knitting as usual, beside his herd of cows. Then I turned to the other side to discover what Hans was doing. His cattle, this time, were not straying; but neither did he appear to be minding them in the least. He was walking backwards and forwards on the mountainside, with his eyes fixed upon the ground. Sometimes, where the top of a rock projected from the soil, he would lean over it, and look along it from one end to the other, as if he were trying to measure its size; then he would walk on, pull a blue flower, and then a yellow one, look at them sharply, and throw them away. “What is he after?” I said to myself. “Has he lost something, and is he trying to find it? or are his thoughts so busy with something else that he doesn’t really know what he is about?”

I watched him for nearly half an hour, at the end of which time he seemed to get tired, for he gave up looking about and sat down in the grass. The cattle were no doubt acquainted with his ways—(It is astonishing how much intelligence they have!)—and they immediately began to move towards the forest, and would soon have wandered away, if I had not headed them off and driven them back. Then I followed them, much to the surprise of Hans, who had been aroused by the noise of their bells as they ran from me.

“You don’t keep a very good watch, my boy!” I said.

As he made no answer, I asked, “Have you lost anything?”

“No,” he then said.

“What have you been hunting so long?”

He looked confused, turned away his head, and muttered, “Nothing.”

This made me sure he had been hunting something, and I felt a little curiosity to know what it was. But although I asked him again, and offered to help him hunt it, he would tell me nothing. He had a restless and rather unhappy look, quite different from the bright, cheerful eyes and pleasant countenance of Otto.

His father, he said, worked in a mill below the town, and got good wages; so he was allowed half the pay for tending the cattle during the summer.

“What will you do with the money?” I asked.

“Oh, I’ll soon spend it,” he said. “I could spend a hundred times that much, if I had it.”

“Indeed!” I exclaimed. “No doubt it’s all the better that you haven’t it.”

He did not seem to like this remark, and was afterwards disinclined to talk; so I left him and went over to Otto, who was as busy and cheerful as ever.

“Otto,” said I, “do you know what Hans is hunting all over the pasture? Has he lost anything?”

“No,” Otto answered; “he has not lost anything, and I don’t believe he will find anything, either. Because, even if it is all true, they say you never come across it when you look for it, but it just shows itself all at once, when you’re not expecting.”

“What is it, then?” I asked.

Otto looked at me a moment, and seemed to hesitate. He appeared also to be a little surprised; but probably he reflected that I was a stranger, and could not be expected to know everything, for he finally asked, “Don’t you know, sir, what the shepherd found, somewhere about here, a great many hundred years ago?”

“No,” I answered.

“Not the key-flower?”

Then I _did_ know what he meant, and understood the whole matter in a moment. But I wanted to know what Otto had heard of the story, and therefore said to him, “I wish you would tell me.”

“Well,” he began, “some say it was true, and some that it wasn’t. At any rate, it was a long, long while ago, and there’s no telling how much to believe. My grandmother told _me_; but then she didn’t know the man; she only heard about him from her grandmother. He was a shepherd, and used to tend his sheep on the mountain,—or maybe it was cows, I’m not sure,—in some place where there were a great many kobolds and fairies. And so it went on from year to year. He was a poor man, but very cheerful, and always singing and making merry; but sometimes he would wish to have a little more money, so that he need not be obliged to go up to the pastures in the cold foggy weather. That wasn’t much wonder, sir, for it’s cold enough up here, some days.

“It was in summer, and the flowers were all in blossom, and he was walking along after his sheep, when all at once he saw a wonderful sky-blue flower of a kind he had never seen before in all his life. Some people say it was sky-blue, and some that it was golden-yellow; I don’t know which is right. Well, however it was, there was the wonderful flower, as large as your hand, growing in the grass. The shepherd stooped down and broke the stem; but just as he was lifting up the flower to examine it, he saw that there was a door in the side of the mountain. Now he had been over the ground a hundred times before, and had never seen anything of the kind. Yet it was a real door, and it was open, and there was a passage into the earth. He looked into it for a long time, and at last plucked up heart and in he went. After forty or fifty steps, he found himself in a large hall, full of chests of gold and diamonds. There was an old kobold, with a white beard, sitting in a chair beside a large table in the middle of the hall. The shepherd was at first frightened, but the kobold looked at him with a friendly face, and said, ‘Take what you want, and don’t forget the best!’

“So the shepherd laid the flower on the table, and went to work and filled his pockets with the gold and diamonds. When he had as much as he could carry, the kobold said again, ‘Don’t forget the best!’ ‘That I won’t,’ the shepherd thought to himself, and took more gold and the biggest diamonds he could find, and filled his hat, so that he could scarcely stagger under the load. He was leaving the hall, when the kobold cried out, ‘Don’t forget the best!’ But he couldn’t carry any more, and went on, never minding. When he reached the door in the mountainside, he heard the voice again, for the last time, ‘Don’t forget the best!’

“The next minute he was out on the pasture. When he looked around, the door had disappeared: his pockets and hat grew light all at once, and instead of gold and diamonds he found nothing but dry leaves and pebbles. He was as poor as ever, and all because he had forgotten the best. Now, sir, do you know what the best was? Why, it was the flower, which he had left on the table in the kobold’s hall. _That_ was the key-flower. When you find it and pull it, the door is opened to all the treasures under ground. If the shepherd had kept it, the gold and diamonds would have stayed so; and, besides, the door would have been always opened to him, and he could then help himself whenever he wanted.”

Otto had told the story very correctly, just as I had heard it told by some of the people before. “Did you ever look for the key-flower?” I asked him.

He grew a little red in the face, then laughed, and answered: “Oh, that was the first summer I tended the cattle, and I soon got tired of it. But I guess the flower doesn’t grow any more, now.”

“How long has Hans been looking for it?”

“He looks every day,” said Otto, “when he gets tired doing nothing. But I shouldn’t wonder if he was thinking about it all the time, or he’d look after his cattle better than he does.”

As I walked down the mountain that afternoon I thought a great deal about these two herd-boys and the story of the key-flower. Up to this time the story had only seemed to me to be a curious and beautiful fairy-tale; but now I began to think it might mean something more. Here was Hans, neglecting his cows, and making himself restless and unhappy, in the hope of some day finding the key-flower; while Otto, who remembered that it can’t be found by hunting for it, was attentive to his task, always earning a little, and always contented.

Therefore, the next time I walked up to the pastures, I went straight to Hans. “Have you found the key-flower yet?” I asked.

There was a curious expression upon his face. He appeared to be partly ashamed of what he must now and then have suspected to be a folly, and partly anxious to know if I could tell him where the flower grew.

“See here, Hans,” said I, seating myself upon a rock. “Don’t you know that those who hunt for it never find it. Of course you have not found it, and you never will, in this way. But even if you should, you are so anxious for the gold and diamonds that you would be sure to forget the best, just as the shepherd did, and would find nothing but leaves and pebbles in your pockets.”

“Oh, no!” he exclaimed; “that’s just what I wouldn’t do.”

“Why, don’t you forget your work every day?” I asked. “You are forgetting the best all the time,—I mean the best that you have at present. Now, I believe there is a key-flower growing on these very mountains; and, what is more, Otto has found it!”

He looked at me in astonishment.

“Don’t you see,” I continued, “how happy and contented he is all the day long? He does not work as hard at his knitting as you do in hunting for the flower; and although you get half your summer’s wages, and he nothing, he will be richer than you in the fall. He will have a small piece of gold, and it won’t change into a leaf. Besides, when a boy is contented and happy he has gold and diamonds. Would you rather be rich and miserable, or poor and happy?”

This was a subject upon which Hans had evidently not reflected. He looked puzzled. He was so accustomed to think that money embraced everything else that was desirable, that he could not imagine it possible for a rich man to be miserable. But I told him of some rich men whom I knew, and of others of whom I had heard, and at last bade him think of the prosperous brewer in the town below, who had so much trouble in his family, and who walked the streets with his head hanging down.

I saw that Hans was not a bad boy; he was simply restless, impatient, and perhaps a little inclined to envy those in better circumstances. This lonely life on the mountains was not good for a boy of his nature, and I knew it would be difficult for him to change his habits of thinking and wishing. But, after a long talk, he promised me he would try, and that was as much as I expected.

Now, you may want to know whether he _did_ try; and I am sorry that I cannot tell you. I left the place soon afterwards, and have never been there since. Let us all hope, however, that he found the real key-flower.

V
The Young Serf

I

It was towards the close of a September day. Old Gregor and his grandson Sasha were returning home through the forest with their bundles of wood, the old man stooping low under the weight of the heavier sticks he carried, while the boy dragged his great bunch of twigs and splints by a rope drawn over his shoulder. Where the trees grew thick, the air was already quite gloomy, but in the open spaces they could see the sky and tell how near it was to sunset.

Both were silent, for they were tired, and it is not easy to talk and carry a heavy load at the same time. But presently something gray appeared through the trees, at the foot of a low hill; it was the rock where they always rested on the way home. Old Gregor laid down his bundle there, and wiped his face on the sleeve of his brown jacket, but Sasha sprang upon the rock and began to balance himself upon one foot, as was his habit whenever he tried to think about anything.

“Grandfather,” he said, at last, “why should all the forest belong to the Baron, and none of it to you?”

Gregor looked at him sharply for a moment before he answered.

“It was his father’s and his grandfather’s; it has been the property of the family for many a hundred years, and we have never had any.”

“I know that,” said Sasha. “But why did it come so _first_?”

Gregor shook his head. “You might as well ask how the world was made.” Then, seeing that the boy looked troubled, he added in a kinder tone, “What put such a thought in your head?”

“Why, the forest itself!” Sasha cried. “The Baron lets us have the top branches and little twigs, but he always takes the logs and sells them for money. I know all the trees, and he doesn’t; I can find my way in the woods anywhere, and there’s many a tree that would say to me, if it could talk, ‘I’d rather belong to you, Sasha, because I know you.’”

“Aye, and the moon would say the same to you, boy, and the sun and stars, maybe. You might as well want to own them,—and _you_ don’t even belong to yourself.”

Gregor’s words seemed harsh and fierce, but his voice was very sad. Sasha looked at him and knew not what to say, but he felt that his heart was beating violently. All at once he heard a rustling among the dead leaves, and a sound like steps approaching. The old man took hold of his grandson’s arm and made a sign to him to be silent. The sound came nearer, and nearer, and presently they could distinguish some dusky object moving towards them through the trees.

“Is it a robber?” whispered Sasha.

“It is not a man unless he uses his knees for hind feet. I see his head; it is a bear. Keep quiet, boy! make no noise; take this tough stick, but hold it at your side, as I do with mine. Look him in the face, if he comes close; and if I tell you to strike, hit him on the end of the nose!”

It was, indeed a full-grown bear, marching slowly on his great flat feet. He was not more than thirty yards distant, when he saw them, and stopped. Both kept their eyes fixed upon his head, but did not move. Then he came a few paces nearer, and Sasha tried hard not to show that he was trembling inwardly, more from excitement than fear. The bear gazed steadily at them for what seemed a long time: there was an expression of anger, but also of stupid bewilderment, in his eyes. Finally he gave a sniff and a grunt, tossed up his nose, and slowly walked on, stopping once or twice to turn and look back, before he disappeared from view. Sasha lifted his stick and shook it towards him; he felt that he should never again be much afraid of bears.

“Now, boy,” said Gregor, “you have learned how to face danger. I have been as near to a loaded cannon as to that bear, and the wind of the ball threw me on my face; but I was up the next minute, and then the gunner went down! Our colonel saw it, and I remember what he said—ay, every word! He would have kept his promise, but we carried him from the field the next day, and that was the end of the matter. It was in France.”

“Grandfather,” Sasha suddenly asked, “are there forests in France?—and do they belong to the barons?”

“Pick up your fagot, boy, and come along! It will be dark before we get to the village and the potatoes are cooked by this time.”

The mention of the potatoes revived all Sasha’s forgotten hunger, and he obeyed in silence. After walking for a mile as rapidly as their loads would permit, they issued from the forest, and saw the wooden houses of the village on a green knoll, in the last gleams of sunset. The church, with its three little copper-covered domes, stood on the highest point; next to it the priest’s house and garden; then began the broad street, lined with square log-cabins and adjoining stables, sloping down to a large pond, at the foot of which was a mill. Beyond the water there was a great stretch of grazing meadow, then long, rolling fields of rye and barley, extending to the woods which bounded the view in every direction. The village was situated within a few miles of the great main highway running from Warsaw to Moscow, and the waters of the pond fed the stream which flowed into one of the branches of the river Dnieper.

The whole region including the village and nearly all the people in it, belonged to the estate of Baron Popoff, the roofs of whose residence were just visible to the southward, on a hill overlooking the road to Moscow. The former castle had been entirely destroyed during the retreat of Napoleon’s army, and the Baron’s grandfather suffered so many losses at the time that he was only able to build a large and very plain modern house; but the people always called it “the Castle,” or “the Palace,” just as before. Although the Baron sold every year great quantities of timber, grain, hemp, and wool from his estates, he always seemed to be in want of money. The servants who went with him every winter to St. Petersburg were very discreet, and said little about their master’s habits of life; but the people understood, somehow, that he often lost large sums by gambling. This gave them a good deal of uneasiness, for if he should be obliged to part with the estate, they would all be transferred with it to a new owner—and this might be one who had other estates in other parts of Russia, to which he could send them if he were so minded.

At the time of which I am writing, twenty-two millions of the Russian people were _serfs_. Their labor, even their property, belonged to the owner of the land upon which they lived. The latter had not the power to sell them to another, as was formerly the case with slaves in the South, but he could remove them from one estate to another if he had several. Baron Popoff was a haughty and indifferent master, but not a cruel one; the people of the village had belonged to his family for several generations, and were accustomed to their condition. At least, they saw no way of changing it, except by a change of masters, which was more likely to be a misfortune than a benefit.

It was nearly dark when old Gregor and Sasha threw down their loads, and entered the house. Their supper was already waiting, for Sasha’s sister, little Minka, had been up to the church door to see whether they were coming. In one corner of the room a tiny lamp was burning before a picture of the Virgin Mary and Child Jesus, all covered with gilded brass except the hands and faces, which were nearly black, partly from the smoke, and partly because the common Russian people imagine that the Hebrews were a very dark-skinned race. Sasha’s father, Ivan, had also lighted a long pine-splint, and the room looked very cheerful. The boiled potatoes were smoking in a great wooden bowl, beside which stood a dish of salt, another of melted fat, and a loaf of black bread. They had neither plates, knives nor forks; only some coarse wooden spoons, and all ate out of the bowl, after the salt had been sprinkled and the fat poured over the potatoes. For drink there was an earthen pitcher of _quass_, a kind of thin and rather sour beer.

Old Gregor sat on one side of the table, and his son Ivan with Anna, his wife, opposite. There were five children, the oldest being Alexander (whom we know by his nickname “Sasha,” which is the Russian for “Aleck” or “Sandy”), then Minka, Peter, Waska, and Sergius. Sasha was about thirteen years old, rather small for his age, and hardly to be called a handsome boy. Only there was something very pleasant in his large gray eyes, and his long, thick, flaxen hair shone almost like silver when the sun fell upon it. However, he never thought about his looks. When he went to the village bath-house, on a Saturday evening, to take his steam-bath with the rest, the men would sometimes say, after examining his joints and muscles, “You are going to be strong, Sasha!”—and that was as much as he cared to know about himself.

The boy was burning with desire to tell the adventure with the bear, but he did not like to speak before his grandfather, and there was something in the latter’s eye which made him feel that he was watching him. Gregor first lighted his pipe, and then, in the coolest possible manner—as if it were something that happened every day—related the story. “Pity I hadn’t your gun with me, Ivan,” he said at the close; “what with the meat, the fat and the skin, we should have had thirty roubles.”

The children were quite noisy with excitement. Little Peter said: “What for did you let him go, Sasha? _I’d_ have killed him and carried him home!” Then all laughed so heartily that Peter began to cry and was soon packed into a box in the corner, where he slept with Waska and Sergius.

“Take the gun with you to-morrow, father,” said Ivan.

“It’s too much, with my load of wood,” Gregor answered; “the old hunting-knife is all I want. Sasha will stand by me with a club; he’ll not be afraid, the next time.”

Sasha was about to exclaim: “I wasn’t afraid the first time!” but before he spoke, it flashed across his mind that he _did_ tremble a little—just a very little.

By this time it was dark outside. Two pine-splints had burned out, one after the other, and only the little lamp before the shrine enabled them dimly to see each other. The older people went to bed in their narrow rooms, which were hardly better than closets; and Sasha, spreading a coarse sack of straw on the floor, lay down, covered himself with his sheep-skin coat, and in five minutes was so sound asleep that he might have been dragged about by the heels without being awakened.

II

The next day, in the forest, old Gregor worked more rapidly than usual. He spoke very little, in spite of Sasha’s eagerness to talk, and kept the boy so busy that all the wood was gathered together and the bundles made up two or three hours before the usual time.

They were in a partially cleared spot, near the top of some rising ground. The old man looked at the sky, nodded his head, and said with a satisfied air: “We have plenty of time left for ourselves, Sasha; come with me, and I’ll show you something.”

He set out in a direction opposite from home, and the boy, who expected nothing less than the finding of another bear, seized a tough, straight club, and followed him. They went for nearly a mile over rolling ground, through the forest, and then descended into a narrow glen, at the foot of which ran a rapid stream. Very soon, rocks began to appear on either side, and the glen became a chasm where there was barely room to walk. It was a cold, gloomy, strange place; Sasha had never seen anything like it. He felt a singular creeping of the flesh, but not for the world would he have turned back.

The path ceased, and there was a waterfall in front, filling up the whole chasm. Gregor pulled off his boots and stepped into the stream, which reached nearly to his knees: he gave his hand to Sasha, who could hardly have walked alone against the force of the current. They reached the foot of the fall, the spray of which was whirled into their faces. Then Gregor turned suddenly to the left, passed through the thin edge of the falling water, and Sasha, pulled after him, found himself in a low, arched vault of rock, into which the light shone down from another opening. They crawled upwards on hands and feet, and came out into a great, circular hole, like a kettle, through the middle of which ran the stream. There was no other way of getting into it, for the rocks leaned inward as they rose, making the bottom considerably broader than the top.

On one side, under the middle of the rocky arch, stood a square black stone, about five feet high, with a circle of seven smaller stones resembling seats around it. Sasha was dumb with surprise at finding himself in such a wonderful spot.

But old Gregor made the sign of the cross, and muttered something which seemed to be a prayer. Then he went to the black stone, and put his hand upon it.

“Sasha,” he said, “this is one of the places where the old Russian people came, many thousand years ago, before ever the name of Christ was heard of. They were dreadful heathen in those days, and this was what they had in place of a church. A black stone had to be the altar, because they had a black god, who was never satisfied unless they fed him with human blood.”

“Where is he now?” Sasha asked.

“They say he turned into an evil spirit, and is hiding somewhere in the wilderness; but I don’t know whether it’s true. His name was Perun. Most men do not dare to say it, but I have the courage, because I’ve been a soldier and have an honest conscience. Are you afraid to stand here?”

“Not if you are not, grandfather,” said Sasha.

“If your heart were bad and false, you might well be afraid. Come here to me.”

Sasha obeyed. The old man opened the boy’s coarse shirt and laid his hand upon his heart; then he made him do the same to himself, so that the heart of each beat directly against the hand of the other.

“Now, boy,” he then said, “I am going to trust you, and if you say a word you do not mean, or think otherwise than you speak, I shall feel it in the motion of your heart. Do you know the difference between a serf and a free man? Would you rather live like your father, without anything he can call his own, or like the Baron, with houses and forests that nobody could take away from you—unless it might be the Emperor?”

Sasha’s heart gave a great thump, before he opened his mouth. The old man smiled, and he said to himself: “I was right.” Then he continued: “I should be a free man now, if our colonel had lived. Your father had not wit and courage enough to try, but _you_ can do it, Sasha, if you think of nothing else and work for nothing else. I will help you all I can; but you must begin at once. Will you?”

“Yes! yes!” cried Sasha, eagerly.

“Promise me that you will say nothing to any living soul; that you will obey me and remember all I say to you while I live, and be none the less faithful to the purpose when I am dead!”

Sasha promised everything, at once. After a moment’s silence, Gregor took his hand from the boy’s breast, and said: “Yes, you truly mean it. The old people used to say that if anybody broke a promise made before this stone, the black heathen god would have power over him.”

“Perhaps the bear was the black god,” Sasha suggested.

“Perhaps he was. Look him in the face, as you did yesterday, remember your promise, and he can’t harm you.”

As they walked slowly back through the forest, Gregor began to talk, and the boy kept close beside him, listening eagerly to every word.

“The first thing,” he said, “is to get knowledge. You must learn, somehow, to read and write, and count figures. I must tell you all I know, about everything in the world, but that’s very little; and it’s so mixed up in my head, that I don’t rightly know where to begin. It’s a blessing that I’ve not forgotten much; what I picked up I held on to, and now I see the reason why. There’s nothing you can’t use, if you wait long enough.”

“Tell me about France!” Sasha cried.

“France and Germany, too! I was two or three years, off and on, in those foreign parts, and I could talk smartly in the speech of both—_Allez! Sortez! Donnez-moi du vin!_”

Gregor stopped and straightened his bent back, his eyes flashed, and he laughed long and heartily.

“_Allez! Sortez! Donnez-moi du vin!_” repeated Sasha.

Gregor caught up the boy in his arms, and kissed him. “The very thing!” he cried: “I’ll teach you both tongues,—and all about the strange habits of the people, and their houses and churches, and which way the battle went, and what queer harness they have on their horses, and a talking bird I once saw, and a man that kept a bottle full of lightning in his room——.”

So his tongue ran on. It was a great delight to him to recall his memories of more than thirty years and he was constantly surprised to find how many little things that seemed forgotten came back to his mind. Sasha’s breath came quick, as he listened; his whole body felt warm and nimble, and it suddenly seemed to him possible to learn anything and everything. Before reaching home, he had fixed twenty or thirty French words in his memory. There they were, hard and tight; he knew he should never forget them.

From that day began a new life for both. Old Gregor’s method of instruction would simply have confused a pupil less ignorant and less eager to be taught; but Sasha was so sure that knowledge would in some way help him to become a free man that he seized upon everything he heard. In a few months he knew as much German and French as his grandfather, and when they were alone they always spoke, as much as possible, in one or the other language. But the boy’s greatest desire was to learn how to read. During the following winter he made himself useful to the priest in various ways, and finally succeeded in getting from him the letters of the alphabet and learning how to put them together. Of course, he could not keep secret all that he did; it was enough that no one guessed his object in doing it.

One day, in the spring, just after the Baron had returned with his wife from St. Petersburg, Sasha was sent on an errand to the castle. He was bareheaded and barefooted; his shirt and wide trousers were very coarse, but clean, and his hair floated over his shoulders like a mass of shining silk. When he reached the castle, the Baron and Baroness, with a strange lady, were sitting on the balcony. The latter said, in French, “There’s a nice-looking boy!”

Sasha was so glad to find that he understood, and so delighted with the remark, that he looked up suddenly and blushed.

“I really believe he understands what I said,” the lady exclaimed.

The Baron laughed. “Do you suppose my young serfs are educated like princes?” he asked. “If he were so intelligent as that, how long could I keep him?”

Sasha bent down his head, and kicked the loose pebbles with his feet, to hide his excitement. The blood was humming in his ears; the Baron had said the same thing as his grandfather—to get knowledge was the only way to get freedom!

III

The summer passed away, and the second autumn came. Gregor had told all he knew; told it twice, three times; and Sasha, more eager than ever, began to grow impatient for something more. He had secured a little reading-book, such as is used for children, and studied it until he knew the exact place of every letter in it, but there was none to give the poor boy another volume, or to teach him anything further.

One afternoon, as he was returning alone from a neighboring village by a country road which branched off from the main highway, he saw three men sitting on the bank, under the edge of a thicket. They were strangers, and they seemed to him to be foreigners. Two were of middle age, with harsh, evil faces; the third was young, and had an anxious, frightened look. They were talking earnestly, but before he could distinguish the words, one of them saw him, made a sign to the others, and then he was very sure that they suddenly changed their language; for it was German he now heard.

He felt proud of his own knowledge, and his first thought was to say “Good-day!” in German. Then he remembered his grandfather’s command, “Never show your knowledge until there’s good reason for it!” and gave his greeting in Russian. The young man nodded in return; the others took no notice of him. But in passing he understood these sentences:

“He will bring a great deal of money.... There’s no danger—he will be alone.... Grain and hemp both sold to-day.... It will be already dark.”

“Sasha never afterwards could explain the impulse which led him to
dart under the trees as soon as he was out of sight, to get in the
rear of the thicket, crawl silently nearer on his hands and knees,
and then lie down flat within hearing of the men’s voices.”

Drawing by F. S. Coburn
]

Just beyond the thicket the road made a sharp turn and entered the woods. Sasha never afterwards could explain the impulse which led him to dart under the trees as soon as he was out of sight, to get in the rear of the thicket, crawl silently nearer on his hands and knees, and then lie down flat within hearing of the men’s voices. For a moment, he was overcome with a horrible fear. They were silent, and his heart beat so loudly that he thought they could no more help noticing it than a blacksmith’s hammer.

Presently one of them spoke,—this time in Russian. “There’s a hill from which you can see both roads,” he said; “but he’ll hardly take the highway.”

“Are you sure his groom was not in the town?” asked another.

“It’s all as I say—rely upon that!” was the answer. “For all his title he’s no more than another man, and we are three!”

In talking further, they mentioned the name of the town; it was the place only a few miles distant, where the grain, hemp, and other products of the estate were sold to traders—and this was the day of the sale! The plot of the robbers flashed into Sasha’s mind; and if he had had any remaining doubts they were soon dissipated by his hearing the Baron’s name. The latter was to be waylaid—plundered—killed, if he resisted. Then the oldest of the three men said, as he got up from the bank where they were sitting:

“We must be on our way. Better be too early than too late.”

“But it’s a terrible thing,” the youngest remarked.

“You can’t turn back now!” the other cried.

Sasha waited until he could no longer hear their footsteps. Then he started up, and keeping away from the road they had taken, ran through the woods and thicket in the direction of the town. His only thought was to reach the hill the robbers had mentioned, from which both roads could be seen. He knew it well; there was a bridle-path, shorter than the main highway, and the Baron would probably take it, as he was on horseback. The hill divided the two roads; it was covered with young birch trees, which grew very thickly on the summit and almost choked up the path. But there was a long spur of thicket, he remembered, running out on the ridge, and whoever stood at the end of it could almost look into the town.

Sasha was so excited that he took a track almost as short as a bird flies. He tore through bushes and brambles without thinking of the scratches they gave him; he jumped across gullies and ran at full speed over open fields; he was faint, and bruised, and breathless, but he never paused until the farthest point of the thicket on the hill was reached. It was then about an hour before sunset, and only one or two foot-travellers were to be seen upon the highway. The town was half a mile off, but he could plainly see where the bridle-path issued from a little lane between the houses. Carefully concealing himself under a thick alder-bush, he kept his eyes fixed upon that point.

He was obliged to wait for what seemed a long, long while. The sun was just setting when, finally, a horseman made his appearance, and Sasha knew by the large white horse that it must be the Baron. The rider looked at his watch, and then began to canter along the level towards the hill. There was no time to lose; so, without pausing a moment to think, Sasha sprang out of his hiding-place, and darted down the grassy slope at full speed, crying “Lord Baron! Lord Baron!”

The rider, at first, did not seem to heed. He cantered on, and it required all Sasha’s remaining strength to reach the path in advance of him. Then he dropped upon his knees, lifted up his hands, and cried once more, “Stop, Lord Baron!”

The Baron reined up his horse just in time to avoid trampling on the boy. Sasha sprang to his feet, seized the bridle, and gasped, “The robbers!”

“Who are you?—and what does this mean?” the Baron asked in a stern voice.

But Sasha was too much in earnest to feel afraid of the great lord. “I am Sasha, the son of Ivan, the son of Gregor,” he said; and then related, as rapidly as he could, all that he had seen and heard.

The Baron looked at his pistols. “Ha!” he cried, “the caps are taken off! You may have done me good service, boy. Wait here; it’s not enough to escape the rascals; we must capture them!”

He turned his horse, and galloped back at full speed towards the town. Sasha watched him, thinking only that he was saved at last. It was growing dark, when the boy’s quick ear caught the sound of steps in the opposite direction. He turned and saw the three men approaching rapidly. With a deadly sense of terror he started and ran towards the town.

“Kill the little spy!” shouted, behind him, a voice which he well knew.