CHAPTER IV

ESTRANGED FRIENDS

MICHAEL was resolved not to let the coldness of his old friends and comrades separate him from them. True, they looked upon him as a heretic, but he had been that before he went to Scotland—that was no new thing. Of course, there was his chief friend, Kondraty's son, Sergio, a heretic like himself, whose friendship was as close and dear as ever. But Michael had been on good terms with all the village boys, and he knew they would listen with delight to the story of his travels, nee, would go into a rapture of joy over the treasures he had brought home. There were at least a dozen pocket knives, which his Uncle Sandy had bought to be given away among the lads of Knishi. He was eager to renew the good understanding and comradeship which had been broken off a year ago.

Then there were the packets of needles for the women, and the dolls for the little girls. Such needles and dolls had never been seen in Knishi; surely they would open every door and every heart to him. There was Marina's little girl, Velia's chief playfellow. He had brought an English doll for her precisely like Velia's. Yarina had been great friends with his mother, and he had a memento to give to her, sent by Catherine herself.

The first morning after his home-coming, he filled his pockets with his presents, and giving one doll to Velia, bade her take the other one in her arms. He started off joyously to Knishi, but as he was turning down the road leading to Yarina's farm, Velia drew him back.

"We must not go there," she said, with a sob.

"Why not?" asked Michael.

"Okhrim is Starosta now," she answered, "and he says I mustn't play with Sofia any more. He is her grandfather, you know. Unless I cross myself, and bow to the icons," she added, looking up to him with eyes full of tears.

"You must not do that," said Michael, his bright boyish face clouding suddenly.

"Oh no!" replied the little girl. "But oh, I miss Sofia so!"

The tears were rolling down her cheeks, but a moment afterwards Velia looked up again with a smile.

"But I shan't mind now," she continued, clasping Michael's hand with all her might; "I have my own big brother now."

"Does nobody play with you, my Velia?" he asked.

"Only the other Stundist children," she said; "and they don't let us go to school now. Father Cyril would let us go, but Father Vasili got an order, just before he died, to say the Stundist children must not go to Orthodox schools if they did not go to church. Father Cyril cannot get it altered."

"I'll go and see Sergius," cried Michael, "and you must give Sofia's doll to little Clava."

"Little Clava will love it," said Velia, "but oh, I am so sorry for Sofia. We must never let her know it was brought all the way from Scotland for her, and given away to another girl."

The house belonging to Khariton Kondraty, the father of Michael's chief friend, Sergius, was much smaller and poorer than the farmhouse where Alexis lived. It lay a little way apart from the village, and near to the steppe, a part of it so thickly carpeted with flowers that not a blade of grass or an inch of soil could be seen. Long rows of beehives lay under a hedge, which sheltered them from the north wind. Khariton Kondraty had taken up the business of Loukyan, an old deacon who had died from ill-usage in prison at the last outbreak of persecution in Knishi. He maintained himself and his family chiefly by the sale of honey and wax, and since he had been imprisoned in Kovylsk, his son Sergius, a boy about the same age as Michael, and his daughter Marfa, a girl of twelve, had proved themselves quite capable of managing the bees, and tilling the small plot of ground belonging to their father.

The whole family welcomed Michael with delighted cries of welcome. Marfa alone could not his speak, but her eyes filled with tears. Sergius clasped his friend in his arms; and little Clava jumped about for joy, with her English doll in her arms. Tatiania, Kondraty's wife, kissed him as fondly as if he had been her own son. No welcome could have been warmer, and Michael's spirits rose again.

"Let us go and look at the hives, Serge," he said.

He wanted to get Sergius alone, to inquire about the school and the exclusion of the Stundist children from all the pursuits and games of the Orthodox children. It was too true. The Orthodox parents forbade their children to have any intercourse with the heretics. They were in fact excommunicated. This had caused bitter, though perhaps short-lived grief in many households in the village; for the friendships of children are often very close and tender. Yarina's little girl, Sofia, had been made quite ill by her separation from Velia and little Clava. But the Stundist children were getting no teaching except what their parents could give in their very few leisure moments.

"Then I will keep school myself for our own children," said Michael.

He soon found out that the boys of the village were more than willing to listen to his traveller's tales, and accept his presents, if they could do so in secret. But this Alexis would not allow. Michael himself saw the risk and the folly of any clandestine intercourse; for Okhrim, the Starosta, was on the lookout keenly for some pretext for fresh fines and oppressions.