CHAPTER XIII

DENYING THE FAITH

FOR the next two days, Michael was busy delivering messages his father had sent by him to the brethren living in Kovylsk. He told no one how he had received these messages, for fear of betraying the warder, and thus closing the channel of communication between the prisoners and their friends outside. He could not help suspecting that someone made it worth while to Pafnutitch, though it was against the tenets and the customs of the Stundists to give bribes. Pafnutitch himself declared he ran the risks solely for love.

Now and then Michael met Sergius in the streets, but the boys took no notice of one another, thinking it safer not to appear acquainted. They imagined they saw a spy in every man and woman who happened to be walking in the same direction; and Markovin deepened this impression by his gloomy forebodings. He had no suspicion that Michael had been smuggled into the prison. The mere thought would have killed him. He was exceedingly glad when Michael bade him farewell, though he had shown him every kindness in his power. The old man kissed the boy on the forehead, with a profound sigh, and prayed that God's blessing might rest upon them both, "Me as well as him, O Lord!" he said in a trembling voice.

Michael and Sergius had much to say to one another as they drove homewards. Sergius had less to tell, for though he had been pitied and sympathised with as the son of Khariton Kondraty, who had been so long in prison for his faith, his father was not a well-known and beloved presbyter, as Alexis Ivanoff was. His arrest had been a blow to a score or more of little Stundist churches. Then there was Michael's adventure in the jail, and his stolen interview with his father, a secret which he confided to Sergius under a solemn vow of inviolable secrecy. There must not be a hint or a whisper of such an event, for fear of getting Pafnutitch into disgrace or danger, if he was found out.

They left their old sledge among the reeds growing along the margin of the river, and led their tired horse at nightfall by a narrow by-path to Ostron. Paraska hailed their arrival with a gladness the boys had never before seen on her joyless face. The news of their return soon spread, and before midnight, one woman after another stole in to ask if there was any news of their husbands, and any hope of their liberation. The wife of Nicolas Pavilovitch came amongst them, but Michael did not say a word to her that it was rumoured her husband was about to recant, and bear witness against the other Stundists. It seemed too shameful and too treacherous a thing for him to put into words.

It was not many weeks, however, before Nicolas himself arrived in a police-sledge. Every man and woman in Knishi ran into the frost-bound street to watch its progress. The sledge was driven straight to Father Cyril's house. Nicolas had been ordered to make his submission to his parish priest. When he entered the house under the eye of the policeman, he bowed profoundly to the icon, and with a tremulous voice asked for the priest's blessing, and humbly kissed his hand.

"Nicolas Pavilovitch, you desire to come back to the Orthodox Church?" said Father Cyril, after reading the order from the consistory.

"I do," answered Nicolas.

"Is this from conviction before God?" he asked. "Or from fear of man?"

Father Cyril's voice was stern, and his gaze penetrating. The miserable-looking man only bowed his head, he could not utter a word.

"You will have your children restored to you," continued Father Cyril; "and I am to see that they are carefully brought up in the sacred rites and doctrines of our holy religion. I am also to report to the consistory how frequently you and your wife come to mass and to confession. Go home now. To-morrow I will come and bless your house."

The driver of the sledge had already spread the news. And when Nicolas left the church-house he found he had to pass through groups of unsympathetic neighbours, most of whom jeered at him or hailed him with mock applause. Pale and haggard, enfeebled by long confinement and prison fare, he could not hurry homewards out of their way, but crawled along with bowed-down head and eyes almost blinded with tears. Was it for this he had belied his conscience and turned renegade and traitor? The veriest drunkard did not believe in his conversion. What were those words repeated again and again in his brain? "Seeing he has crucified to himself 'the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame.'" Oh, terrible words!

His house was the peasant's hut next to Khariton Kondraty's, and Sergius, seeing his arrival, rushed in, after giving him a few minutes to greet his wife and children, to ask how it was he had been released. Surely his father would be set free too, and perhaps Alexis himself, though as presbyter he was least likely to escape exile.

Nicolas had thrown himself breathless and exhausted on the bench beside the stove, and his wife was standing before him speechless and bewildered.

"Is my father coming?" cried Sergius. "Are the others let off? Oh, Nicolas Pavilovitch, tell me quickly!"

"They could all come home if they'd do as I've done," answered Nicolas in a muffled voice.

"He has denied the faith," sobbed his wife. "He was a miserable drunkard before he joined the brethren, and now he is a lost soul."

"But you'll do as I do," said Nicolas.

"Never!" she cried. "Never! I'll throw myself into the river first!"

Sergius stole away quickly and silently. If that was the price to pay for liberty, he knew well his father would not give it. No, not to gain the whole world.

The recantation of Nicolas was a great shock to the little community of Stundists in Knishi, consisting now only of a few desolate women and their children. Father Cyril ordered the children of Nicolas to be sent home, notwithstanding his wife's persistent refusal to join her husband in abjuring her faith. The three little ones, all under ten years of age, were very dear to her, and to hold them again in her arms, or to work from dawn to dark for them, was a great consolation, but nothing would induce her to go to mass with them and their father. When she heard that her husband had given evidence, mostly false, against his fellow-prisoners, she refused to quit the house, or to hold any intercourse with her old friends and neighbours. Her tribulation was greater than that of the other women.

The winter wore slowly away; and the women's hearts grew heavier as they heard nothing of the liberation of their husbands. They were wanted sorely at home. As soon as the thaw came, the numerous labours on a farm, so necessary in the spring, must be done. They had patiently borne many hardships through the winter, but if their breadwinners did not come home soon, starvation would stare them in the face. Okhrim, the Starosta, exacted the taxes as if the men were at their usual work; and already some of the stock had been sold at low prices to meet his demands.

The snow melted away, and the fine blades of corn sown in the autumn began to push upwards through the rich, moist soil. Michael and Serge toiled from the first streak of dawn to the last gleam of light in the western sky, scarcely snatching time enough for food. But what could two boys do unaided? Besides, there were houses where there was not one child big enough for heavy work; and the women could not do it all. Even if they had possessed the means to hire labourers, they could not have done so; for it had been made illegal for a Stundist to have an Orthodox servant in any capacity.