CHAPTER XI

A HARD WINTER

FATHER CYRIL'S report to the archbishop did no good. The Starosta Okhrim, mad with rage, went to Kovylsk, and had a personal interview with Father Paissy, at the consistory. This priest had a special interest in the suppression of Stundism at Knishi. Some few years before he had been present at an outbreak of popular prejudice, excited by himself, which had resulted in the death of a Stundist woman named Ooliana Rodenko. Her son Paul, and Paraska's husband Demyan, had been exiled to Siberia, with other prominent men among the Stundists. If these sharp measures failed to root out heresy, they appeared almost like crimes. Father Paissy was resolved to attain his object. The end justified the means. But what if the end was not achieved? This time he determined to stamp out Stundism, once for all, in Knishi. If Father Cyril failed to win the heretics back to the Orthodox Church, they must be exterminated.

All the men of the Stundist households, nine in number, were arrested, and carried off to the prison in Kovylsk. The women were left without their natural protectors, and without breadwinners in their desolated homes. No one was left to do the necessary winter work except themselves, and the children between ten and fifteen years of age. Alexis Ivanoff gone, Michael was left with all the toil and care of the farm upon his shoulders, shared only by Paraska, who, under this new calamity, shook off the lethargy of her despair, and showed herself full of energy and resource. Tatiania, too, roused herself from the melancholy that had possessed her since the loss of little Clava, and she went from house to house comforting and encouraging the other women in the trouble still new to them. It was an old trouble to her, for it was nearly twelve months since her husband, Khariton Kondraty, had been imprisoned.

The Starosta, Okhrim, and his grandson paraded the village street with insolent triumph, but Father Cyril kept the day of arrest as a day of fasting and prayer in the solitude of the church vestry.

Winter had already set in, making the whole wide landscape white. The houses and barns stood out against the sky like huge heaps of snow. Every morning the street was trackless under the fresh falls that fell each night; and every evening the white surface was marked with countless footprints and furrows. All the cattle and sheep were under cover, and needed to be fed and watered every day. Michael was kept busily occupied, and Sergius came to help him as soon as his own work was done at home.

The village was cut off from all intercourse with the outer world until the snow was frozen hard enough to bear the sledges. There were only two sledges in Knishi, one belonging to Okhrim and the other to the innkeeper. There was no chance of hearing news of the prisoners in Kovylsk.

Father Cyril no longer checked the visits of Michael and Sergius to their little sisters in the church-house. On the contrary, he encouraged them; and the boys went often, on one pretext or another. Velia's childish heart was full of vague dreads and sharp sorrow for her father in prison, but little Clava was as gay and happy as a child can be. The Matoushka treated them exactly the same as her own children; whilst Father Cyril was, if possible, more tender and indulgent to them than to his own. He could not look at them without a feeling of the deepest pity.

As a loyal servant of his Church, he did his best to place its tenets in a clear manner before Michael and Sergius, feeling persuaded they did not know or understand them. The boys listened to him attentively and respectfully.

"Father Cyril," said Michael one day, "if a strong man came to your house, and dragged your sister from you, and carried your father off to a dreadful prison, could you think he was God's servant?"

"No," answered Father Cyril, almost smiling.

"That is what the archbishop has done," continued Michael; "he has done it both to Serge and me. You think he stands higher up in God's service than you do. We don't think so. We could never, never believe he is really serving God, for God is love."

Father Cyril gave no answer. He could not tell them the archbishop was ignorant—the excuse he always made for the peasants. He looked at the two earnest, sturdy lads before him with compassionate eyes.

"Be good, my boys!" he said. "Be good, and your conscience will tell you when you are disobeying God."

Michael and Sergius were much together. Sergius had only one cow and a few sheep to tend, whilst Michael had many cattle and horses and a numerous flock. The boys went to and fro daily between their homes, always avoiding the village street, infested as it was by foes, and making their way along by-paths, through deep drifts of snow. The active life and frequent exposure to extreme cold hardened their bodies.

"As hard as nails," Sergius declared.

On the contrary, Marfa and her mother Tatiania grew pallid and weakly with prolonged confinement to the house, and continual fretting about Khariton and little Clava. Only on Sunday morning Tatiania, with her hungry mother's heart, made her way along the white street, and stole within the church door during mass, that she might at least see with her own eyes her little girl sitting with the Batoushka's children.

By the New Year the snow was as hard as the roads were in summer, and much pleasanter to travel over, as it was smoother, and there were no clouds of dust. The sky, too, was clear, and of a deep blue, which contrasted beautifully with the unsullied snow. The road to Kovylsk was traced out plainly by the tradesmen's sledges, which had come to bring supplies to the village shops. But no letters had arrived from the prisoners in Kovylsk; and every heretic soul was longing for some tidings of them.

In Alexis Ivanoff's barn there was a rough sort of sledge, which he had been wont to use for carrying up reeds from the river. Michael and Sergius determined to get over to Kovylsk secretly in this old sledge, taking only Marfa and Paraska into their counsels. This was necessary, as they would have to tend the cattle during their absence. Tatiania they dared not tell, lest she should talk about it to some of their Stundist neighbours.

In the dead of the night the boys dragged the sledge along the silent street, hearing every little jar of the runners as if it had been a shriek loud enough to arouse the neighbourhood. They hid it behind a low hillock where the open steppe began; for luckily they found the gate at the barrier not securely fastened. At sunrise they led the mare, with sacks slung across her, through the street, as if they were going on some errand to Yarina's farm, which lay on that side of the village. Okhrim's grandson saw them, and shouted some words of abuse, but kept at a safe distance. No one else took any notice of them; and before long they were driving over the snowclad steppe.

It was bitterly cold, but they had on their sheepskin coats, and caps of Astrachan fur. In their sacks was food enough for three or four days, which Paraska had provided, besides a present for Markovin, to whose house Michael was bound. The air was stinging but wonderfully exhilarating. The low sun lay like a red ball in the filmy sky. The old mare ran at a much brisker pace than her jog-trot under the sultry sunshine. They were jolted and jerked by the shaking of the rough sledge, but this was part of the pleasure to the hardy lads. They sang and laughed and talked as if there was no sorrow for them in the past, the present, or the future.

The short day was over before they reached Kovylsk, but the night could not be dark on such a snowy plain, and under such brilliant stars. They parted as soon as they reached the town, Sergius going to a cousin who was living there, whilst Michael went to ask help and shelter from Markovin.

The timorous old man looked scared when he saw the boy, the notorious Alexis Ivanoff's son. But he could not find it in his heart to send him away. He felt a superstitious pleasure in the fact that he had never turned a Stundist away from his door, however terrified he was at harbouring them. The fresh outbreak of persecution redoubled his dread, though he had no reason to suppose the authorities suspected him of heresy. But who knew where a spy might be lurking? He diligently attended mass in the cathedral, where he had been for some years a verger; and he crossed himself, and bowed to the icons. When the brethren reproached him with time-serving, he excused himself by citing the example of Naaman the Syrian, who said to Elijah, 'Thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice to other gods, but unto the Lord. In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant, when my master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon . . . the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing.' This history was a great comfort and support to Markovin, and he was generally known among the Stundists by the name of Naaman.

Markovin led Michael into an inner room, where no one could hear or see them, and almost in a whisper told him all he knew about the prisoners. They had been brought several times before a committee of investigation, of which Father Paissy was the chairman, held in the consistory. Every effort had been made to get them to recant; promises and threats had been showered upon them. But all remained firm and faithful to their convictions, except perhaps Nicolas Pavilovitch, who seemed shaken by the rigour of his prison experience, and the promise of reward if he returned to the Orthodox Church.

"Why can't they hold their opinions as I do?" asked old Markovin querulously. "The Scriptures don't say, 'Thou shalt not cross thyself, Thou shalt not bow to the icons'—"

"There you're wrong," interrupted Michael hotly; "did you never see the commandment, 'Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, neither of things in heaven, nor things on earth, nor things under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them'? Not bow down to them, Markovin Petrovitch! Not even bow down to them. And you know they worship them—pray to them."

"The icons are painted, not graven," answered Markovin; "besides, there was Naaman the Syrian—"

But before he could utter another word, a loud knocking at the outer door made his old knees tremble and his hands shake as with palsy.

"Did anybody see you coming in?" he asked in a terrified voice.

"I don't know," answered Michael, "but nobody in Kovylsk knows me."

Markovin threw himself on the bed.

"Go to the door," he murmured, "and tell them I'm ill in bed. Oh, I am ill, true enough!"