CHAPTER XVII

FATHER CYRIL'S LETTER

MICHAEL lingered about the prison behind whose walls his father was confined, until the carts came in carrying his neighbours and their scanty possessions; for the free exiles were limited in the quantity of baggage they might take. They were to be lodged for the night in the city hospital, as the prison was already overcrowded. This would make it quite easy to restore little Clava to her mother at once; and when Tatiania cast an anxious glance at him, he nodded back with a smile. The weary, worn-out women, exhausted with emotion, alighted from the springless carts, which had jolted heavily and slowly along the muddy, ill-made roads. Sergius came up to him, and clasped his hands warmly; and Michael felt a paper pressed into his own. As soon as the party had entered the hospital, he hurried back to Markovin's house, where he was to pass the night. He was too much afraid of spies to venture to open it before. It was a letter from Father Cyril.

"MY SONS, MICHAEL AND SERGIUS,"—it ran—"I saw you last night taking away little Clava, but my heart forbade me to prevent it. I prayed to my God and your God, my Father and your Father, to bless you! For whosoever is to blame, it is not you. You put your parents before the priests; and this is the law both of nature and of God. Love your parents: honour, obey, and cherish them. God gave them to you, and you to them; and no man can break that bond. You are about to face an army of difficulties and sorrows, but remember! You can never go where God is not! I give you two verses to think of daily, 'If I go down into hell, Thou art there,' and, 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me: Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.' Death and hell are filled with the presence of God. Tell your father again, Michael, that Velia shall be as my own daughter. Kiss little Clava for me—the dear child!

"I feel myself, though you acknowledge it not, your father in Christ."

Michael kissed this letter. And resting his forehead on the hands that enfolded it, he thought with love and gratitude of Father Cyril. Oh, if all Batoushkas had only been like him! Then his father and the Stundist brethren would never have been driven to leave the Orthodox Church. The boy did not yet know how deeply rooted were the principles which separated his people from a State religion. He was, however, keenly awake to the danger there would be to Father Cyril if such a letter was found in his handwriting. He set himself to learn it by heart; and when he was satisfied that he knew and would remember every word of it, he lit a match, and held the burning paper in his fingers till they were almost scorched, taking care that no vestige of the writing should remain.

Markovin looked on with nods of understanding and approval. "A wise lad! A prudent lad!" he murmured. "His head is screwed on right. I'd trust him with a secret."

The next two days Michael drove alone along the route he and his father had traversed on his return from Scotland. He was to join the band of convicts and free exiles at the same station; and in the meanwhile he was charged by his father with the commission to deliver up the funds of the churches in his district to the man who had been elected presbyter in the place of Alexis Ivanoff.

Michael had besides to carry sundry messages from the Stundists in Kovylsk to the little congregations dwelling in scattered villages. It was considered safer to employ a boy than a man; and every precaution was necessary not to arouse suspicion. He reached the station where he was to join the convict party about an hour before the train was due; for the first few stages were to be taken in an ordinary train, though in special carting.

Michael lingered about the station-yard, anxiously looking out for the first indication of the approach oft the prisoners. The stationmaster was raging about the unpunctuality of the prison-convoy. In a siding stood a small number of comfortless carriages, little better than cattle trucks, but with benches and a roof. These were set apart for the exiles.

At last a confused sound was heard in the distance, which by and by came more clearly to the ear as the clanking of chains, the harsh creaking of cart-wheels, the tramp of horses' hoofs, and the cracking of whips. It was a sound to which Michael was to grow familiar, but now it seemed to jar through all his being. Both mind and body were shocked by it; and to the last day of his march with the prisoners the ominous discord made him shiver.

For the last few miles the prisoners had been made to march at a rapid rate, as the convoy feared to be too late for the train. They were driven like cattle into the yard, with oaths and blows, almost running, notwithstanding their heavy leg-chains. They were chained two and two together, which added greatly to the difficulty of marching, and even the strongest among them came in breathless and exhausted. Those prisoners who had been confined for some months in narrow cells were half fainting.

There were nearly two hundred convicts, all dressed alike in long grey overcoats. Their heads were closely shaved on one side, looking bare and blue; whilst on the other side the hair, grown long in prison, fell in a tangled mass over the ear. Michael could not for some time recognise his father, whom he had not seen since last autumn. At last he saw a gaunt, haggard man, in a filthy shirt, and trousers of coarse grey linen, limping painfully beside a vicious and brutal-looking criminal. This man smiled at him with a noble serenity in his eyes, and with a sharp cry of agony, Michael pushed his way through the jostling crowd, and flung his arms round his father's neck.

"Father!" he cried. "Father!"

But before his father could speak, the convict to whom Alexis was chained pulled him forward with a jerk and an oath. The waggons set apart for the exiles were rapidly filling up, and he, an old criminal, knew they must make haste if they wished to secure a seat for the night.

Khariton Kondraty was close behind, with his wife and children marching beside him; all of them worn-out and footsore, for they had walked twenty miles since morning, and for the last hour they had been almost running. But there was no time to linger, the waggons were being crammed with women and children and their bundles, amid calls and cries and an uproar of voices. Sergius was anxious to prevent his mother and sisters being separated from himself.

Michael soon found his hands full in helping his old neighbours from Knishi, lifting the young children into the different compartments, and looking after their baggage. Some of the strangers who were accompanying their convict husbands into exile were willing enough to lose their children for the night, which was rapidly closing in. The waggon was so overcrowded that many of the children sat on the floor; and there was no room for Michael and Sergius except standing against the doors, which were now locked and guarded by the soldiers of the convoy-guard.

Tatiania was in a corner beside the boys, with little Clava on her lap, and Marfa squeezed closely to her side.

Before the long dark night was over, Michael thanked God fervently that Velia was not there. For all night long, as the train sped through the level plains, there was mingled with the rumbling of the wheels, and the throbbing of the engine, the wailing of children and the loud hysterical sobbing of women, rising now and then to despairing shrieks.

Tatiania, who was always an emotional woman, broke down completely, and wept till she was quite exhausted. Marfa took little Clava on to her lap, and sang soothing songs to her. But they could do nothing for Tatiania, only Sergius looked down on his mother with unutterable pity for her in his heart.

But it was not the dark night only, it was the long day that followed, and succeeding days and nights, night and day. They had some hundreds of miles to travel before they could reach the nearest station on the Volga, where they would exchange the convict-train for the convict-barge. The ceaseless motion of the rumbling train became a positive torture to the cramped bodies, which had no space for moving. They escaped the torment of extreme heat or excessive cold, for it was the pleasant spring-tide, and on every side the sweet wind blew in upon them, carrying away the foul air, which must have collected in closed carriages. Twice a day the train was stopped for necessary refreshment, when they could stretch their stiffened and weary limbs. But the families could hold no intercourse with the convicts, who were carefully guarded by the convoy to prevent any attempts at escape.