CHAPTER II

THE RUSSIAN STUNDISTS

THREE weeks later Michael set out on his return home in a vessel sailing from Glasgow to Odessa. Sandy Gordon, his uncle, accompanied him to Glasgow, loath to part with the boy who had become very dear to his Scotch kindred. They urged him to stay with them, but he could not bear the thought of it. His home-sickness had greatly increased since his mother's death, and he had an intense longing to be once more in his own country, to cross the limitless steppes, and taste again the spring breezes full of the scent of flowers. He pined for the familiar sound of his own language, and the songs in which his people delighted. And underneath this natural love of his own country lay a boy's desire to share with his father and sister any perils which might be hanging over them.

"No, Uncle Sandy," he said, with his arms round Sandy Gordon's neck, and his brown head resting on his uncle's grizzled hair, "no! I'm a Russian, and I ought to live in my own country, and help my own people."

"And if they send your father to Siberia, my laddie," said Sandy Gordon, "as they did his cousin Paul Rodenko, what will you and Velia do then?"

"We'll do what father says," answered Michael; "if he goes, I shall want to go too. But there is little Velia! Father must settle for us. She's a tender little thing is Velia."

"My lad," said Sandy earnestly, "remember there's always a home for you and Velia here with us. For Catherine's sake—and your own sake, Michael—you'll be welcome. And there's one of your own kin in Odessa, a well-to-do man, dealing in corn, John Gordon by name. In any trouble think of him, my boy; and he'll help you, for he has the means and the will."

Sandy Gordon gave Michael a letter addressed to his kinsman in Odessa, to be delivered between leaving the port and reaching the railway station of the line which was to carry him to about fifty miles from Knishi, the village where his home had been since his early childhood, and where his father was to meet him. It seemed to him an almost intolerable interruption to stay some hours in Odessa, but the elderly merchant was pleased with the boy, and with the news he brought from Scotland. He promised to be ready with any help he could give, if the troubles anticipated by Alexis Ivanoff should break out.

The short spring-tide of Russia was in its fullest beauty when Michael reached the railway station, where his father was to meet him with a telega, and the old mare whom he had so often fed. The past winter with its bitter winds was already forgotten, and the scorching heat of summer lurked still in the future. The boy's heart was torn with conflicting emotions. His mother's death still filled it with profound grief, but the joy of coming home again to his father and Velia was as strong as his sorrow. He had felt no fatigue from his long and tedious journey, and though his heart leaped at the sound of the Russian tongue spoken by all about him, he had sat almost speechless, and absorbed in memories, during the many hours since he had left Odessa.

His father was standing by the telega, outside the barrier, a tall, strong, middle-aged man, with a grave and handsome face, and a dignified carriage, very unlike the uncouth and rough aspect of most Russian farmers. He had the look of a leader among men. Michael recognised it for the first time, and he felt a new sensation of pride in him. When he left home a year before, he did not understand all his father was as a man. But in Scotland, having his mind filled with stories of the unconquerable courage of the Covenanters, who defied the power of king and soldiers when they sought to interfere with freedom of conscience, he discovered that his father was such a man as they had been. Now he saw it with his eyes.

He threw himself into his father's arms, and felt his kisses mingled with hot tears falling from his father's eyes. The thought of the lost wife and mother, who had been buried so far away from them, was in both of their minds. Silently they got into the telega, and drove away from the noisy crowd gathered about the station.

Everything about him seemed so new, yet so familiar to Michael, that he felt that it must be a dream, one of those many dreams of Russia that had haunted his sleep whilst he had been in Scotland. His father sitting silent beside him, the noisy creaking of the cart-wheels, which might be heard half a mile off, the jolting over the rough road, the slow jog-trot of the old mare—were these real? Or would he awake by and by, and find himself gazing out down the gentle valley under his window at his uncle's farmhouse?

Presently there was nothing to be seen around them but leagues upon leagues of apparently level land, with an unbroken horizon lying low, like the sky-line at sea. Wherever the ground could be cultivated, a brilliant yet delicate green carpeted the rich brown soil, showing the young corn, which would soon be waving under the summer sun. In the untilled portions of the plain, innumerable flowers were in blossom, and butterflies and bees fluttered in clouds above them. The cry of the curlew that loves lonely places followed them mile after mile. Not a barn or a dwelling was visible in all the vast expanse. The father and son drove on in almost unbroken silence, only speaking a word or two now and then. There was so much to say that they knew not where to begin. At length a soft, gentle breeze just touched Michael's cheek, which seemed to him as if his mother had kissed it.

"Father," he said, looking up into the sad yet serene face beside him, "my mother told me to tell you death is beautiful! And her face said it too; it was full of gladness. Yes, until we laid her in the coffin."

"Thank God!" said Alexis Ivanoff, lifting up his eyes to the cloudless sky above them. "I praise Thee, O Lord, that Thou halt taken her away from the troubles to come. She was too tender to bear them. We men, Michael, can bear hardness as soldiers of our Lord Christ, but when we think of our women and children—it is that which breaks our hearts."

The boy's whole frame thrilled with delight as his father uttered the words, "We men." Then he was no longer to be considered a child; this was a summons to enter the ranks of manhood. He was ready to obey the call, and eager to endure hardships. Yet, as if he were already a man, the moment of delight was quickly followed by a sharp sense of dread piercing him, as he recollected Velia, his little sister, who must share whatever sorrows and perils befell them. How was it he had never experienced this vague terror before? Was it because he was almost a man?

"But could not God save us?" he asked after a while.

"What do you mean by being saved?" inquired his father.

Michael did not answer immediately. He meant that God should give them the freedom of conscience, and liberty to worship as they believed best, for which the Scotch Covenanters had fought so long and so stubbornly. But he knew the tenets of the Stundists forbade all resistance by force, and taught simple submission to authority in everything, except coercion in religious matters. Moreover, he had seen too much of life in Scotland to be able to convince himself that the Scotch, as a people, were saved. Had he not seen drunkenness there as bad as in Russia? Were there not lying and dishonesty and quarrelling, and all the long list of sins which he ran through in his mind?

"I cannot tell what I mean," he said at last.

"Christ came to save us from our sins," answered his father, "not from sorrow. 'In the world ye shall have tribulation,' He said; and the history of His people has been the same through all generations, and in all countries. The Church has always been built on the graves of the martyrs. As we beat out the grain from the straw with our flails, stroke after stroke, so will the world smite us. But God will gather His corn into His granary; not one grain lost, only the chaff left. The flail is the world, my son, but God's hand holds it."

"Are they beginning the persecution, father?" asked Michael.

"It has never ceased," answered Alexis, "but now it is growing hotter. Okhrim has been made Starosta in Savely's room, and there is not a harder or more cruel man in all Knishi. Father Cyril can do little to control him. He is a saint and a Christian, our Batoushka, but Okhrim is his enemy. Khariton Kondraty was taken to Kovylsk, and thrown into prison there last week. I expect to be the next. But he leaves me alone, because I pay every fine he imposes; and the farm is not mine, I only pay rent for it. It belongs to Paul Rodenko, who was exiled years ago. Old Karpo will take care it is not confiscated, because it will go to his daughter, Paul's wife, if he dies first. Still, the hour must come for me at last."

Silence fell upon them again. Michael had a vivid idea of what persecution meant in Knishi. Instead of the fairy tales and ballads which other children heard from their elders, he had listened all through his childhood to stories of martyrs—martyrs in Scotland, and martyrs in his own country. Even the dear home in which they dwelt had been the scene of martyrdom; and the bench on which they sat beside the stove had been the deathbed of Paul Rodenko's mother. But hitherto he had thought of persecution as a thing of the past, or far-off in other villages; now it stood face to face with him.

Yet life was very pleasant for the time being. He drew in deep breaths of the sweet, fresh air of the spring, and looked up into the clear blue of the sky, and gazed across the vast, sea-like plain. His heart beat high with the mere joy of living. Courage and hope and an unquestioning faith in his father filled his mind. Whatever troubles might be coming, surely he could bear them as his forefathers among the heathery mountains of Scotland had borne theirs. When he came to think of it, only a small number of the Covenanters had actually perished; most of them won through, and secured freedom for themselves, and their children after them. It would be the same with the Stundists in Holy Russia.

They were five days travelling homewards; for Alexis seized this opportunity for visiting the scattered bands of Stundists, already becoming terrified and disorganised by the increasing severity of the persecution. Alexis was not only the deacon of the little church at Knishi; he was also the presbyter of a wide district containing a number of churches. He was in constant communication with the Stundist exiles and prisoners, and managed the funds by which they were helped and the most distressed members of the sect were maintained. He had therefore much business to transact, and much comfort and information to give. Compared with most of the other presbyters and deacons, he was both a rich and educated man; for he had travelled in other lands, and his wife had possessed a small income, safely invested in Scotland.

In every village they met with terror and sorrow. Spies abounded, and it had become impossible to hold regular meetings. Alexis dared not address the assembled congregations, as he had been wont to do. In two or three places tales so terrible were told him that he would not let Michael hear them. But everywhere he preached non-resistance, not only from policy, but from obedience to the direction of our Lord—"But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil." If they could not conquer by obeying the commands of Jesus Christ, they must perish.

In some villages, he found that the more timid among the Stundists were going back to the Orthodox Church, and these were more to be dreaded than the spies. But in all the little bands, there were some who were ready to go into exile, or even, if need be, to die for conscience' sake. These were all poor working men and women, like the carpenters and fishermen who were our Lord's earliest disciples. Alexis saw them in secret, and encouraged them. To suffer for Christ was to reign with Him. There were light afflictions but for a moment on one hand; a more exceeding and eternal weight of glory on the other!