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ILLUSTRATIONS
OF
POLITICAL ECONOMY.

BY

HARRIET MARTINEAU.

THE CHARMED SEA.

BERKELEY THE BANKER—Part I.

BERKELEY THE BANKER—Part II.

IN NINE VOLUMES.——VOL. V.

ROUTLEDGE, WARNES, & ROUTLEDGE,

FARRINGDON STREET;

NEW YORK: 56, WALKER STREET.

1859.

CONTENTS.

THE CHARMED SEA.

Chapter I.
SONG IN A STRANGE LAND.

“These[“These], then, are the mountains,” said a Russian officer to one of a band of armed Siberian peasants, appointed to guard a company of exiles who were on their way, some to the mines of Nertchinsk, and others to be attached to the soil as serfs, wheresoever the governor of Irkutsk should please. “These, then, are the mountains, and here they cross the frontier, to give work to the Emperor’s enemies, in digging out their gold and silver.”

“Yes, those are the mountains, and within them lies the Charmed Sea,” replied the peasant, who, however, did not trouble himself so much as even to look up towards the peaks, now beginning to wax dim in the long northern twilight. This man lived in the next hamlet, and traversed this road almost every day, as did his companions; for, though the Russian officer had accompanied the exiles all the way from Poland, the peasant guard was changed from village to village.

“Call the prisoners forward, and make way,” ordered the officer office, and[office, and] the peasants, who had not felt it necessary to trouble themselves much about their charge in a region where escape was next to impossible, now began to look how far off the prisoners might be, and ran to urge the men on foot to greater speed, and to lash the tired horse of the kibitka in which the women were seated.

At the first glance the men looked all alike, their heads being shaved, and their dress uniform in its sordidness. It required a little observation to discover that some were old and others young; which of them bore the wrinkles of care, and which of years also. A still closer observation was necessary to distinguish the respective rank and quality of those who externally so nearly resembled each other. No Siberian serfs looked so toil-worn and poverty-stricken; but neither did any husbandmen in all the Emperor’s dominions display such countenances as those of some of the company appeared, when they could be viewed without reference to the disfigurement of the rest of their persons.

The women in the kibitka appeared alarmed at the signal to make speed; of the men, some ran on, under an impulse of curiosity, as fast as the weight they carried would permit; the rest preserved the slow and steady pace at which they had been walking since they came in sight. Every other man shouldered an iron bar, with a short chain at each end, and all were, at present, marching in silence.

“Make haste!” cried the Russian, shaking his lance impatiently. “You march as if you had still a thousand miles to go; but there, among those mountains, is Nertchinsk, and we are close by the lake, where we are to halt for the governor’s orders about some of you.”

“You will not cross the testy sea to-night,” observed one of the peasants. “The spirits let no boat get back safe after dark.”

“That depends on who crosses it,” observed another of the escort. “If some call it the testy sea, others call it the charmed sea. Sometimes it foams and gathers its waters into a heap when not a breath is stirring; but, just as often, it is as smooth as glass while the pines are stooping and shivering on all the hills around. Learn who it is that the spirits favour, and who it is that they hate, and then you will know whether a boat will go straight across, like an eagle flying home, or whether it will turn over and over in the water, like an eider duck shot under the wing.”

“Hold your tongues, slaves,” cried the officer. “Here, you other slaves; let me hear you thank the Emperor for sending you here, where grass grows under your feet, instead of ordering you into Kamtchatka.”

In answer, the exiles uplifted one of the patriotic chaunts, of which the loyal ears of their guard had long been weary:—

“Our Poland mourns,—

She shall not die!

Her watch-fire burns,

And help is nigh.

Her ruffled eagle speeds from shore to shore,

Till nations rise to bid her weep no more.”

“Wretches!” cried the Russian, “how dare you abuse the Emperor’s clemency? Will your treason never be silent?”

“Never,” replied a young Pole, “to judge by the look of the place we are coming to. There must be echoes enough among these rocks to tell the tale from eve to morning, and from morning to eve again. In the steppe we have passed, our voices were stifled in space; but among these mountains the plaint of Poland shall never die.”

“I will silence it,” growled the officer.

“Not by threats,” replied Ernest. “The Emperor has wrought his will upon us; we have no more to fear from singing our country’s songs, and we will sing them.”

“You carry your bar on your shoulder,” said the Russian. “You shall all be chained to it by the wrists as before, unless you cease to blaspheme the Emperor.”

Ernest, the young Pole, cast a glance behind him, and seeing the exhaustion of his friend Taddeus, who had been lately crippled, and the fatigue of Owzin, the father of Taddeus, and of old Alexander, the feeblest of the party, he had compassion on them, and refrained from answering the tyrant who had it as much in his will as his power to fetter them, though no chance of escape afforded him a pretence for doing so. In order to remind them of their present position in relation to himself, the officer addressed them by the new titles which he had never yet been able to get them to recognize.

“Three! you will sink in the marsh presently, if you do not keep the line. Halt, there, Seven! If you get on so fast I will shoot you. Two! no shifting your bar yet. You have not had your fair share of it.”

His words were wasted. Owzin still straggled from the line. Ernest strode on as fast as ever, and Taddeus persisted in resigning his load to his stronger companion, Paul, who walked by his side. A volley of oaths from the Russian, or rather one indecent oath repeated a dozen times, seemed likely to be succeeded by blows from the attendant peasants, when a woman’s voice was heard above the creaking of the kibitka.

“Husband, do try to remember your number, that I and your children may not see you murdered before our faces. Taddeus, my son, if you can bear your load no farther, say so. Is it manly to bring new sufferings on us all by irritating those whom we cannot resist? Ask for relief, since you want it.”

Taddeus could not bring himself to do this; but he cast a submissive look towards his mother, and took his burden again from Paul, who was not sorry, being eager to run forwards to see as much as Ernest of the pass they were approaching.

Lenore silently descended from the kibitka, charged herself with the load of her crippled son, who was too weak and weary to resist, and sent him to occupy her place beside his sister. The Russian looked on surprised, but did not interfere with the arrangement.

Of all this miserable group, none, probably,—not even their parents,—were so wretched as the brother and sister, who now sat side by side for the first time since they had left Poland. During the whole of the journey they had avoided each other, though, till of late, no two members of one family had mutually loved more tenderly. But, henceforth, Sophia had a quarrel with her brother, which could, she believed, never be reconciled; and the spirit of Taddeus was grieved as much by his sister’s injustice as by his own remorse. Sophia had long been betrothed to Cyprian, a friend of both her brothers; and there had been hope that the marriage might shortly take place in peace, as Cyprian had borne little share in the troubles of the times, and had the character, in his provincial residence, of being a quiet citizen. But this scheme of happiness was unconsciously broken up by Taddeus.’ In accordance with the Russian Emperor’s new rule, that every family, where there were two sons, should spare one to his majesty’s armies, Taddeus, described as an active young rebel, had been drafted into one of the condemned regiments which was to guard the frontiers of Siberia. His brother, Frederick, was a theological student in the university at Wilna, fit for something so much better than being a private soldier, under the severest discipline, in a desert country, that Taddeus generously acquiesced in the lot having fallen on himself, and prepared to go into ignominious exile,—with whatever heart-burnings,—with an appearance of submission. But when, not long after, tidings came that Frederick had passed the frontiers, and was safe in France, the resolution of Taddeus was at once changed. Now that he was sure of not endangering his brother, he felt that it would be easier to him to die than to enter the armies of the ravager of his country; and he did,—what was then no uncommon act,—he crippled himself so as to be unfit for military service. In consideration to his parents, he left it to his enemies to take his life, if they should so choose. He was willing to have it spared as long as that of his father. But it required all his resolution to refrain from laying violent hands on himself when he discovered the result of his manœuvre. The commissioners whom he had cheated, found it necessary to make up, as rapidly as possible, the 20,000 recruits that were to be brought from Poland, and also to allow no instance of evasion to escape punishment; and, in order to accomplish both these objects at once, and as Frederick was beyond their reach, they seized upon Cyprian, as one who was almost a member of the family. Before the fact could be made known at Warsaw, or, consequently, any measure of prevention or remonstrance could be taken, Cyprian was marching far away in the interior of Russia, and confidence was broken down between the brother and sister for ever. It would have been difficult to say which was the most altered by this event. Sophia, who had always been gay and amiable, and of late made hopeful amidst the woes of her country by the faith which happy love cherishes in the heart, seemed to have suddenly lost the capacity of loving. She hated, or was indifferent. Her indifference was towards her parents, and most who crossed her daily path: her hatred was not only towards the enemies of her country, but towards an individual here and there who could not be conceived to have given her any cause of offence, or to have obtained any great hold on her mind. The passion appeared as capricious as it was vehement. No one could declare that it extended to her brother, for towards him alone her conduct was cautious. Her one object, as far as he was concerned, seemed to be avoidance; and he did not cross her in it, for he felt that he had much reason to be hurt at her conduct, as well as grieved at the consequences of his own. The only point in which they now seemed to agree was in shunning mutual glances and speech. This had been easy from the day when the doom of banishment fell on the whole family, for supposed political offences. During all the days of their weary journey of four thousand miles, they had been able to keep apart; Sophia preferring to walk when she saw that her brother must soon ask a place in the kibitka; and it being the custom of her mother, herself, and a little girl who was under their charge, a daughter of one of the exiles, to appropriate a corner of the post-house where they stopped for the night, apart from the rest of the band of travellers.

Now that they were at length side by side, they proceeded in perfect silence. Taddeus folded his arms, and Sophia looked another way. It was some relief that little Clara was present, and that she talked without ceasing. She was allowed to go on unanswered, till she observed that mamma (for so she called Lenore) must be very tired with having carried the iron bar so long.

“What are you talking about, child? Paul is carrying the one Taddeus had.”

When Clara explained that Lenore had carried it till that moment, Sophia cast a look of indignant contempt upon her brother, who was equally surprised, supposing that his mother had only taken his burden from him to hand it to some one else.

“Have patience, Sophia,” he said, as he let himself down from the carriage. “You will none of you have to bear my burdens long.”

He looked so desperate, that the apprehension crossed Sophia’s mind that he meant to rid himself of his life and his miseries altogether, perhaps by means of the very iron bar which was the subject of dispute. Whatever might have been his intention, however, he was prevented from executing it, for he fell in a swoon as soon as he left hold of the carriage, and was replaced in it, as his marching any farther was out of the question that day. As his mother sat, wiping the moisture from his forehead while he rested his head against her knees,—as she looked on her children, and saw that their misfortunes were further embittered by the absence of mutual confidence,—it required all the fortitude of the woman to bear up against the anguish of the mother.

It was a relief to all when they at length arrived at their halting-place, on the banks of that extraordinary lake on which no stranger can look without being awed or charmed. As the procession emerged from a rocky pass, upon the very brink of the waters, the peasants carelessly took off their caps, and immediately resumed them, being too much accustomed to the prospect before them to be much affected by it, except when their terrors were excited by storms, or by any other of the phenomena of the charmed sea which they were wont to ascribe to the presence of spirits. Now, this vast lake, extending to the length of 360 miles, and more than 40 miles broad, lay dark in the bosom of the surrounding mountains, except where a gleam of grey light fell here and there from their openings upon its motionless surface. Not a movement was seen through the whole circuit of the vast panorama, and not a sound was heard. If there were bears in the stunted pine woods on the mountain side, or aquatic birds on the opposite margin, or eagles among the piled rocks that jutted into the waves, they were now hidden and still. If there were ever boats plying on the lake, they were now withdrawn into the coves and creeks of the shore. If there were human beings whose superstition was not too strong to permit them to live beside the very haunt of the invisible powers, their courage upheld them only while the sun was above the horizon. As soon as the shadows of twilight began to settle down, they hastened homewards, and avoided looking abroad till they heard the inferior animals moving, in sign, as it was supposed, of the spirits having retired. Neither man, woman, nor child was to be seen, therefore, at this moment, and it was difficult to imagine any, so perfect a solitude did the place appear. As soon as the peasants perceived this, they began to quake, and gathered round the Russian, with whispered entreaties to be allowed to return homewards instantly. This being angrily refused till a shelter should have been found for the whole party, the poor creatures, divided between their fear of an officer of the Emperor and of invisible spirits, prepared themselves for a somewhat unusual method of march. They took off their caps again, crossed themselves every moment, and walked with their backs to the lake, carefully shunning any appearance of a glance over either shoulder. Their consternation was at its height when their prisoners broke the silence by singing, as before,—

“Our Poland mourns,—

She shall not die!

Her watch-fire burns,

And help is nigh.

Her ruffled eagle speeds from shore to shore

Till nations rise to bid her weep no more.”

Before the last echo had died away, a gurgling, rushing sound came from a distance, and those who gazed upon the expanse of waters saw a prodigious swell approaching from the north-east, and rolling majestically towards them, slowly enough to afford the strange spectacle of half the lake in a state of storm, and the other half as smooth as glass. Presently, the whole was surging, tossing, foaming, roaring, while not a breath of air was at first felt by those on the shore. Next followed a flapping of wings overhead, for the eagles were roused; and a prodigious cackling and hurry-scurry in the marshes on either hand, for the wild-fowl were alarmed; and a crashing of boughs among the firs in the background, whether by a rising wind, or by wild beasts, could not be known. Then the clouds were parted, and the stars seemed to scud behind them; the fogs were swept away in puffs, and the opposite shores appeared to advance or recede, according to the comparative clearness of the medium through which they were seen. By this time the peasant guards were muttering their prayers with their hands before their eyes, the officer, astounded, sat motionless in his saddle, and the Poles burst into a shout, as if they had partaken of the superstition of the country. Louder than ever arose

“Our Poland mourns,—

She shall not die!”

And it was not till the commotion had subsided, nearly as rapidly as it had arisen, that either threats or persuasions could induce them to stir a step from the station they had taken up on the brink. They all wished that it might be the lot of their whole party to remain near this mighty waste of waters. Those who were destined for the mines of Nertchinsk, that is, Owzin and his family, and Andreas, the father of little Clara, were within easy reach of the Baïkal lake: but where the others, Ernest, Paul, and old Alexander, might be located as serfs, no one could guess, till the will of the governor of Irkutsk should be revealed.

Nothing was heard or seen of the invisible powers through the thick darkness which surrounded their halting-place during the whole night. How different was the face of things when that darkness fled away! By sun-rise, the officer having received his directions from Irkutsk, the whole party were on the lake in boats managed by the neighbouring fishermen, who had come forth from hidden dwellings here and there among the rocks. The snowy peaks, on the western side, looked of a glittering whiteness in the morning light, while the fir-clad mountains opposite seemed of a deeper blackness from the contrast. The waters were of all hues of green, in proportion as their depth varied from twenty to more than two hundred fathoms. In the shallower parts it might be seen that their bed was a rocky basin, with no mud, and scarcely any sand to injure the transparency of the waters, even after the most searching storm. Pillars of granite shoot up from this rocky foundation, and in sunshine show like points of light amidst the emerald waves. The only circumstance which the boatmen could find it difficult to account for was, why fish were permitted to exist in this lake; neither did it live in the memory of man when permission was given to mortals to catch them: but some pretty traditionary stories were current respecting the last question; and as to the former, perhaps it might be an amusement to the lake-spirits to chase a finny prey among the pillars and recesses of their green-roofed sea-halls, as it is to kindred beings to follow the wild-ass among the hills, or the roebuck over the plain.

Chapter II.
TO EACH HEART ITS OWN BITTERNESS.

It happened to be the pleasure of the governor of Irkutsk that the two divisions of the band of exiles should settle near each other. This was more than either had expected. A sentence to work in the mines is usually equivalent to one of complete separation from countrymen as well as country; for, as only a limited number of miners can be employed, in comparison with serfs and soldiers, the exiles condemned to the mines run a risk of isolation proportioned to the smallness of their numbers. In the present case, the risk was lessened by the station being one from which escape was out of the question. The miners of Ekaterinburgh may dream of getting away, even though they must cross the Uralian chain, and the whole of the interior of Russia, before they can see a friendly face, or set foot in a neutral country; and therefore they are watched, and not allowed to associate with such as speak a friendly language. But in the depths of eastern Siberia, 2000 miles further into the wilds than even the last-mentioned station, what hope of deliverance can exist? It is found the least troublesome and expensive way to leave the exiles alone, as long as they do their work and keep quiet; and there is no objection to letting them communicate, unless it should be found profitable or convenient to send on some of them a thousand miles or so, or into Kamtchatka. The governor had received intelligence from Petersburgh that a party would soon be sent through his district to Kamtchatka, and hesitated for a short time whether he should not send on this procession, and keep the next that might arrive within his jurisdiction; but, as the officer could prove by documents which he carried that Owzin and his son and Andreas were to be miners, it seemed best to trust to another arrival for Kamtchatka, and to locate the present party where work was waiting for them.

A silver mine, near the western extremity of the Daourian range, and within hearing of the waters of the Baïkal[Baïkal] when its storms were fiercest, was the appointed station of Owzin and his little band of companions; while plots of ground, within sight of the lake, were marked out for the three who were to become crown peasants.

The whole procession was permitted to stop for a while at the future abodes of the latter, before proceeding to the almost equally forlorn dwellings of the convict miners. They had little comfort to offer each other: but the new homes might be made somewhat less desolate by being entered in company.

They were miserable places. Log-huts, consisting of one room, were thought good enough dwellings for serfs. The holes between the rough-hewn logs were stuffed with moss, which hung out in shreds, leaving spaces for the biting wind to whistle through. A bench at one end, intended to be covered with a hide, and thus to constitute a bed, and a space built round with bricks, which was to be an oven, were all the preparations for warmth in one of the severest climates in the world. An earthen pan, to cook food in, was the sole utensil provided; but Ernest was told that he might make himself a wooden platter, bowl and spoon, when he had provided a plough and harrow, the first necessaries of all, as the season was getting on. All these were to be made of wood; the harrow being a mere hurdle, with the twigs bent downward to serve as teeth, and the plough being a wooden hook, pointed with iron, and with two sticks tied on the back as tillers. Where was the necessary wood to be obtained? asked one and another; for none was to be seen but fir and pine, and a few dwarf shrubs. The oak, hazel, plane, lime, and ash had disappeared long ago, and it was some weeks since they had seen elms and poplars. The officer only knew that other peasants had these utensils, and so the material must be within reach. It struck him that the best thing Ernest and his companions could do would be to take each a wife from among the women who would soon be sent to them for their choice. These native women could put them in the way of knowing and doing what they wanted; and it must be the best plan for their comfort, since the emperor’s own clemency had suggested it.

Ernest ground his teeth in speechless fury at this proposal; but his friend Paul, who was not so apt to take things to heart, begged to know how they were to maintain their wives?

“The best fields we have passed, within some hundred miles,” said he, “bear only a little winter-rye, and a few straggling oats. The potatoes are no larger than gooseberries, and not a single fruit,—not even the sour crab we have all heard of, will grow in this region. When we have a plough and harrow, will they give us food?”

“Leave it to the women to find that out,” replied the officer. “You see people do live here, and so may you, if you choose to do as others do—marry, and sit down peaceably to praise the Emperor’s mercy in sending you here, when he might have taken your lives.”

Some one now asked if they were not to be provided with rifles, powder, and ball, as their subsistence must mainly depend on the chase. When they could purchase them, was the reply; these things were always to be had at Irkutsk.

It was well that the governor had more humanity, and understood better the necessities of the case, than the Russian escort. With the promised assortment of native women, he sent the most needful articles for which the exiles had inquired; and Ernest’s first pleasurable thought this day was of going alone into the woods with his gun, when the rest of the party should be gone, to relieve his bursting heart where none might witness his anguish. A disgusting scene, however, had to be gone through first.

On coming in from a survey of his miserable plot of ground, he found Paul amusing himself with making acquaintance with new comers, who had arrived in company with the rifles and fowling-pieces, to be examined and selected after somewhat the same manner as they. The gray-haired Alexander gazed with a grave countenance of philosophical curiosity. Sophia looked more terrified than it might have been supposed she could now ever feel; and her mother, who sat retired with her and the wondering Clara, was pale, and evidently appalled at the new society she seemed likely to be placed in. She looked eagerly for her husband and son, who were not in the hut. As soon as they appeared, she said, in a low voice,—

“Husband, this is worse than all.”

“It would have been so to me, Lenore, if you had not come with me; and Sophia, too. Taddeus will not have anything to do with these people while his mother and sister are with him.”

Taddeus turned from the group at the door with no less disgust than Ernest; but it was not to meet his sister’s eye. This family had no further wish to stay. They chose their implements and arms, put them into the kibitka, and begged to proceed without delay. Their companion, Andreas, allowed them to guide his movements as they would. He had a ruling passion, which he could not at present gratify; and, till he could, he remained perfectly passive.

When the adieus were spoken, amid many hopes of soon meeting again, and before the creaking kibitka was out of sight, Ernest ran and shut himself into Paul’s neighbouring hut, since he could not get undisturbed possession of his own. He closed the ricketty door of deal-boards, set his back against it, rested his forehead on the butt-end of the fowling-piece he carried, and struggled in body as he had long struggled in spirit. A driving rack of thoughts swept through his brain, like the storm-clouds that he was destined to see deform many a wintry sky. Providence,—whether there be one or not, or where now hidden?—an instant recall of the doubt; Man,—why doomed to connexion with, to subservience to, man? Life,—what it is, from pole to pole—from nothing to eternity? His own life,—at his mother’s knee, in college halls, in the field,—and all for this! His home, with its civilization and its luxuries;—his beloved Warsaw, with its streets thronged as in former days, and not, as now, resounding with the voice of weeping;—the gallant army filing from its gates, and his own brave regiment, first going forth in the solemnity of its heroism, then sadly falling away when hope was over;—his own words, little thought of at the time—“My poor fellows, it is over! leave me, and save yourselves;”—all these, and a thousand other images, came in turbulent succession, almost as rapidly as the pictures of a whole life flit before the very eyes of a drowning man; and from each was breathed, as it passed, the same thought—“and all for this!” Then came efforts to endure,—to reconcile himself to be the bondsman of an enemy; and though in a desert, watched from afar with eyes of malicious triumph! As if actually at this moment beheld in his retreat from the throne of Petersburgh, Ernest drew himself up, and commanded his emotion. But again the remembrance of his country, more potent than any considerations for himself, unnerved him, and again his head sank upon his breast, and the conflict was renewed. He was roused from it by a voice at the opening which was meant to serve for a window.

“Come, Colonel, make the best of it, and take a wife while one is to be had, as I have done.”

“I am going to make the best of it,” replied Ernest, starting from his position, and examining the lock of his piece; “but I am not going to take a wife.”[wife.”]

“Well, come among us, at any rate, instead of staying in this cursed cold place: the women have got us a fire already. But, bless me! you have found the secret of warming yourself,” he continued, as Ernest came out, the perspiration yet standing on his forehead. “I beg your pardon, from the bottom of my soul, Colonel, if I have gone too far about taking a wife; if I have touched upon——”

“You have not, indeed, Paul. I was no more likely to take a wife in Warsaw than here.”

“Well, I am glad of it; but I shall always need a forbearance I cannot practise. There does not seem much temptation to joke in Siberia; but see if I do not joke my friends away from me, even here, before five years are over.”

“Joke away, friend, and we shall all thank you if you can keep it up for five years. But, Paul, this marrying——it is no joke. You will not, surely, give into any of the Emperor’s schemes; you will not bring among us——”

“I will not be chilled, and starved, and solitary, while I can get anybody to take care of me, and keep me company,” replied Paul; “and let me tell you, a Mongolian wife has accomplishments which are not to be despised by a man in my condition,—as you might see presently, if you would condescend to give a little attention to them.”

Ernest looked impatient, and was turning his steps towards the woods, when Paul laid a finger on his arm, saying,

“I do not mean their white teeth and black hair, though some of them braid it very prettily; nor yet, altogether, that they can handle the plough while one goes out shooting; but you have no conception what use they make of eye and ear, and smell and touch. They can tell in the darkest night when one comes within twenty miles of a hamlet, by the smell of smoke; and, when there is no fog, they will distinguish the tread of a bear, or the neighing of a horse, or detect the tiniest white mouse stealing to its hole, at distances that you would not dream of. Think what a help in sporting!”

“No matter,” replied Ernest; “I thought you had too much disgust at being a slave yourself to wish to have one of your own.”

“But, Colonel, did you ever know me use anybody ill?”

“Never, except yourself: seriously, I mean. I will not say what you have done in jest.”

“The jesting happens very well in the present case; for a merrier and more sociable set than these girls I never saw. But I really mean to be very kind to my wife; and you will soon see how fond she will grow of me, and what I shall make of her.”

“And when we go back to Warsaw—what then?”

“My dear fellow! you do not expect that, surely?”

“I do! And at your peril say a single word against it,” said Ernest, vehemently, to his astonished companion. “Do you think I will live here? Here! hedged in with forests! buried in snow! petrified in ice! while the tyrant watches me struggling in his snares, and laughs! No! I shall go back to Warsaw!”

“But how?—tell me how?”

“How? Step by step, if I live; in one long flight, if I die. Oh! if it should please Providence that I should die in these wastes, I will wring from Him that which I have not hitherto obtained. I will open a volcano in these wilds that shall melt all the snows between yonder lake and our own river. I will make a causeway in one night through all the steppes, and in the morning every Pole shall be marching to Petersburgh to drag the dastard——”

“Come, come,” said Paul, “no more of this. I must take care of you for once, Ernest, and bid you be reasonable. You will take me for Nicholas next, and shoot me as you would him, or his likeness—a hyæna.”

“Have patience with me,” replied Ernest, resuming his calmness, “and leave me my own way of making the best of things, as you say. My way is to dream of going home, in the body or in the spirit.”

“Aye; but we shall be afraid to let you go out shooting alone, lest you should see the towers of Warsaw at the bottom of the Baïkal, or be persuaded that a pull of your trigger will take you to them.”

“No fear, Paul. I am most religious when alone; and I shall best recover my faith where man is not present to drown the whispers of Providence, or mar the signs He holds out in the skies and on the mountain tops. Even these heavens are measured out with the golden compasses; and the same sun which shines on the graves of our heroes fires the pines on yonder mountain steep, and unlocks its torrents in spring.”

“How much further will your faith carry you? To forgive Nicholas?”

Ernest drew a long breath between his teeth, but calmly replied—

“Perhaps even so far. Philosophy alone might lead me to this, if it could so enable me to enter into the constitution of a tyrant’s mind as to conceive the forces under which it acts.”

“But, once allowing that it is acted upon by forces, known or unknown, you cannot withhold forgiveness? Your faith refers all forces to one master impulse, does it not?”

“It does; and therefore my faith, when perfected, will impel me to forgive,—even Nicholas. But no more of him now. Shall I bring you some water-fowl? Can your fair Mongolian tell you how much longer they will stay with us? Their flight must be very near.”

And without waiting for an answer, the badged Siberian serf strode into the pine-woods with a step very like that of a free man.

Chapter III.
A WOUNDED SPIRIT.

If Owzin and his family had been offered a choice whether to be attached to the soil as serfs, or to work in the silver mine by the mouth of which they were located, they would have found it difficult to make their decision. Amidst the manifold woes of both positions, each had some advantages over the other. The regular amount of labour required of the miners,—labour in which there was room for the exercise of intelligence,—was a relief rather than a burden to overwrought minds and sinking hearts; while they might not have had resolution to appoint for themselves, and execute, a daily task on plots of land for whose improvement they were responsible only at the end of the season. On the other hand, they were exposed to the control of Russian task-masters; and it was all a chance whether they would be tyrannical, or whether they would appreciate and reward skill and industry. Again, the dwellings of the miners were somewhat less wretched than those of the cultivators, and were situated, high and dry, among picturesque rocks, instead of standing alone in the midst of a marsh, or on the borders of dreary fir-woods. On the other hand, again, the cultivators could supply themselves with necessaries from their own resources, while the miners suffered much for some time from the want of all but the commonest necessaries, and seemed likely to be always exposed to the inconveniences attending the rudest state of barter. Those who had been long settled had agreed upon plans of mutual accommodation as to providing furniture, clothing, and food; but it was difficult for new comers to obtain a share of the compact; both because an increased demand is rather a trouble than an advantage, in a very rude system of barter, and because it must be some time before they could have any thing to change away which their neighbours would be willing to take. Of all the silver which passed through their hands, not one grain was to become their property; nor, if it had, would it have been of any use to them: for no coin was circulated in this wild region, and metal in its native state is neither fit for ornament nor for a medium of exchange. The neighbouring peasantry cared nothing for silver, further than as something which was valued by great people at a distance, and gave consequence to the region they inhabited, and brought new settlers into it. They knew nothing of the use of money; and merely exchanged with one another so much rye every year for so much cloth, coarsely woven from wool that came from the south in exchange for skins. In like manner, rough-hewn deal benches went for game or bear’s flesh; and no one article was fixed upon which might maintain a tolerably steady value, and change away for all other things. Such a plan would have simplified their commerce considerably, and have admitted strangers to share it; but they did not wish to have their commerce simplified, and strangers must shift for themselves as they best might.

The little company of Poles were some time in learning to do this cleverly; and they endured more hardship than they need have done. If they had been voluntary settlers, seeking their fortunes, they would have found the elements of prosperity even here; but they were perpetually suffering under a sense of injury; and there was a spirit of listlessness, if not unwillingness, in them about improving their state, which protracted their inconveniences in a way that one or two of the more buoyant-minded of the party did not scruple to call very foolish. Paul, in the one settlement, and Andreas, in the other, were the first who rallied, and began to stimulate their companions to ingenuity and forethought; and they had efficient helpers,—the one in his native wife, and the other in his little daughter Clara. Ernest cared for nothing but solitude; and of Owzin’s family, the only one who seemed fit for a state of adversity—of this kind of adversity, at least,—was Lenore. Each morning before it was necessary to be stirring,—hours before the day began to break,—Owzin rose from his bed of disturbed sleep; disturbed, not by the hardness of the planks, or the ill-odour of the hide on which he slept, or by the suffocating smoke with which it was necessary to fill the hut to keep out the cold; not by these, for Owzin had been a soldier, and had learned to sleep in any temperature, and on the bare battle-field; but by cruel thoughts, which came back all the more vividly at night, for being driven off amidst the toils of the day. Lighting his torch of pine-wood, he went forth before the night-fogs were dispersed, or while the stars glittered like steel through the biting air, and was always the first to arrive at the shaft, and to bury himself in the dark chambers of the mine. Taddeus soon followed to the smelting-house, which was the province of his labours. There, amidst heat and toil, the father and son could lose in part the sense of their misfortunes for hours together; for nothing is so beguiling as labour: at least, when that of the head must aid that of the hands, which is the case in most mining operations.

The women were far more unhappily circumstanced. Though they wanted almost every thing, there was little for them to do, from the absence of materials. They looked around them upon a scene of discomfort which they could not remedy, and felt themselves as helpless as ladies of their rank often are in much happier circumstances. When Taddeus had been attended to the smelting-house by his anxious mother, who always went with him to carry his food and ease his painful steps, and when Sophia had meanwhile ventilated the hut and removed the sleeping-skins, little employment remained, but to collect more wood to burn, more moss to stop up crevices, and to see how nearly their stock of food was consumed. Their clothes began to drop to pieces; but they had neither spinning-wheel, distaff, nor wool. The draught under the door seemed to cut off their feet at the ancles, and the floor was damp, although the oven was always kept heated; but carpets were a luxury unheard of, and not a yard of matting was to be seen nearer than Irkutsk. There was one little person, however, who did not see why these things need be; and that was Clara. She had the advantage of childhood in being able to accommodate herself to a new set of circumstances, and she had learned from her father how to make the most of whatever came to hand,—though their object was different enough; her’s being the pleasure of enterprise, and his pure avarice.

The case of Andreas was, in his own opinion, a desperately hard one; and he secretly advanced as nearly as he dared towards cursing Providence for it. He cared no more than the babe of six months, who ruled over Poland, and what character its government bore; and during many months, while the struggle was pending, he preserved, and with ease, a strict neutrality. At last, however, an army contract, which he had peculiar means of supplying with profit to himself, was offered by the patriots. This appeal to his ruling passion overcame him. He was one of the first of the inhabitants of Warsaw that the Russians laid hold of; and he who had never had a patriotic thought in his life, who would have prayed for the Emperor or the Diet as mammon pointed to the one or the other, was punished in the same degree with those who were really guilty of loving their country. It was very hard thus to lose all the gains and scrapings of nearly twenty years, and to be deprived of the prospect of making any more. It was very hard that his property, of all men’s, should be confiscated, when, of all men, he cared most for the property and least for the cause. From his feeling his misfortune so acutely, and being absorbed in it during the journey, his daughter felt it little. For many weeks, he never once reproached her with wasting anything, or being idle, and she was therefore happier than usual during the long journey; for she minded cold and fatigue little in comparison with her father’s watchfulness. Nor did her spirits sink when arrived at her future home, for it was less dull than the one at Warsaw. There she was closely mewed up, to be kept out of mischief; and from the day that she had lost her dear mamma, she had never known what companionship was. Here, she had liberty at first to do what she pleased; and when some degree of restraint followed, from her father resuming certain of his old feelings and ways, it was compensated for by an increase of consequence. She began by wandering abroad to watch the field mice to their holes, and pulling rushes to weave baskets in play. Her father, seeing the capabilities of both these amusements, employed her in stripping the nests of these mice of their winter store of onions and other roots, in collecting rushes enough to cover the floor when dried, and even in attempts to weave them into a sort of matting. When Clara thus found her sports turned into work, she consoled herself with being proud of it, and thought she had good reason to be so when she saw even the wise and grave Lenore adopting her little plans, and trying to make matting too. Sophia also began to follow her when she went into the woods to pull moss at the foot of the trees, or climbed rocks to see how the wild birds built, that she might know where to look for eggs in spring. Sophia was sometimes moody and sometimes kind, but the little girl had always been used to moodiness in her father, and to kindness no one was more sensible; so that, on the whole, she would rather have Sophia’s companionship than not.

As for Sophia, anything like enjoyment was out of the question for one whose mind was so embittered as hers. Unable to be soothed by her mother’s tenderness, yet obliged to regard her with high respect, she felt relieved to be out of her presence; and yet the solitude of these wildernesses was oppressive to her restless spirit; so that the society of a child was welcome as a refuge from something more irksome still, and the child’s pursuits beguiled her of more minutes and hours than anything else could have done. She too began to look for a mouse’s nest, now and then, and to learn to distinguish the traces of game and wild animals. Her mother perceived this with pleasure, and hoped that she discerned in it a means of interesting her unhappy son and daughter in one object, and of bringing them into something like their former state of intercourse. If she could but once secure their remaining together, without witnesses, for a few hours, so as to be tempted to free communication, she thought it impossible but that they must understand one another, and mutually forgive.

It was a thing agreed upon that Owzin, Taddeus, and Andreas should go out in turn in pursuit of game, for the common good, before or after the hours of work at the mine. On holidays, which were not very rare occasions, they were at liberty to unite their forces for a hunt on a larger scale; but, in the common way, it was thought better for one only to go, as the fatigue of their daily labour was quite enough for the strength of those who were new to the occupation. Owzin preferred making excursions quite alone; and as he could have no four-footed helper, chose to have none at all. Andreas presently found that the attendance of his little daughter would be very convenient to him, and he therefore speedily trained her to perform the part, not only of gamekeeper, but of spaniel. She not only carried the powder, and bagged the game, but plunged among the reeds to disturb the fowl, and waded in the shallow water to bring out those that had fallen wounded or dead. Few fathers would have thought of exposing a child thus to cold and wet; but Andreas had a great idea of making Clara hardy, as well as of shortening his own work as much as possible, and he therefore wrapt her in skins which could be changed with little trouble when she had been in the water, and obliged her, on emerging, to start a hare, or take some such exercise to warm her. Though it was by no means desirable that Sophia should undergo discipline of this kind, it was that poor Taddeus, lame and fatigued, should have a companion and helper: and when his mother had accompanied him once or twice, it was naturally Sophia’s turn. She looked astonished and indignant at being asked, and replied that she had rather he should take Clara.

“Clara had her share yesterday,” said Lenore; “and I must see that our little hand-maiden is not wearied out among us all. Besides, Taddeus wants more help than she has strength to give. He should be relieved of his gun, and wants a shoulder to lean upon in difficult places.”[places.”]

“If my father would but have taught me to load and fire,” exclaimed Sophia, “I might have gone alone; for there is such a quantity of game that very little sporting skill is required.”

“Ask your brother to give you a lesson to-day,” replied Lenore, “and then you and Clara[Clara] may save our harder workers the toil they undergo, partly for our sakes. But I shall hardly like your going alone till, by some means or other, better guns are to be had.”

“Papa says that his misses fire three times out of four,” observed Clara.

“I do not like the idea of a bear-hunt while this is the case,” said Lenore. “It is a fearful thing to miss fire when within reach of the gripe of a bear.”

“As Poland has found,” said Sophia gloomily. “It is an ugly hug that the monster gives; but some manage to get a knife into its heart while it is at the closest.”

“My child,” said her mother, mournfully, “why are your thoughts for ever set upon revenge? Why——”

“Revenge!” cried Sophia, clenching her small fingers, and looking upon them with contempt. “No, mother; it is folly for us to think of revenge. If I had been a soldier,—if I had made the false promise to serve the Emperor for twenty-five years,—if I had taken the false oath of allegiance forced upon these loyal new soldiers, I might have thought of revenge: I might have stolen through forests, crept across the steppes, waded, dived,—made my way like Satan into Eden, to dog the Emperor’s heels, and get within reach of his heart’s-blood. But a woman in eastern Siberia cannot do all this, and must not think of revenge. But hatred is left, mother;—women and slaves can hate!”

“I cannot,” replied Lenore.

“I am sorry for you, mother. There is a pleasure in it; and, God knows, we have few pleasures left.”

“What pleasure, Sophia?”

“The pleasure of changing everything about one to one’s own mood; of staining these snows, and blasting these pine woods, and dimming the sun and stars.”

“The pleasure of a child that beats the floor, of an idiot that grinds his teeth: the pleasure of spite. My poor child! is this your best pleasure?”

“Mother, all is changed in the same way, and at once, so that there is no struggle, like the child’s or the idiot’s. I never was so calm in my life as I have been since we left Warsaw.”

“Because you hate all. You say there is no struggle.”

“I hate all that has to do with the Emperor. This waste of snow, and these woods are his.”

“And the sun and stars?”

“The sun and stars of Siberia, mother; and every thing that moves on his territory.”

“Yes, my dear: I see it all. You hate Andreas.”

“Who would not? The mean-souled, cringing wretch!”

“And Taddeus?-you hate Taddeus, Sophia.”

Sophia was some time before she answered; but, as Lenore continued to look steadily in her face, she at length said, in a low voice,

“Mother, I loathe him. When he is away, I can turn my thoughts from it: but when I am with him,—that limp of his,—his voice,—they make my heart sick.”

“Grief made your heart sick, my child; and you cannot separate that grief from the sight of your brother’s lameness, or from the voice which told you the tidings. These things are not Taddeus: though, alas! he suffers from your hatred as if they were. But, Sophia, how is this wounded spirit of yours to be healed?”

“O! let nobody think of healing it, mother. I am happier as it is. I am happier than you. You rise with swollen eyes when I have been sleeping. Your countenance falls when you hear me laugh; and you are altered, mother, very much altered of late. It would be better for you to be as calm as I am.”

“And for your father? Would it be better for all if each grew indifferent? The easiest way then would be to live each in a cave alone, like wild beasts.”

“Much the easiest,” exclaimed Sophia, drawing a long breath, as if impatient of confinement beneath a roof. “I am so tired of the whole domestic apparatus,—the watching and waiting upon one another, and coaxing and comforting, when we all know there can be no comfort; the——”

“I know no such thing. There is comfort, and I feel it. But I will not speak to you of it now, my dear, because I know you cannot enter into it.”

“Not now, nor ever, mother.”

“Yes, Sophia; hereafter. You cannot suppose that your present feelings are to last through your existence?”

An internal shudder was here visible which gave the lie to what the sufferer had said of the enviableness of her calm state of feeling. Her mother continued,—

“Just tell me what you are to do with such a spirit as yours in the next world?”

“How do we know that there is another world?” cried Sophia, impatiently. “I know you told me so when I was a child, and that you think so still. But I see nothing to make one believe it; but the contrary. What is worn out, drops to pieces and is done with. Whatever is weary goes to sleep and is conscious of nothing[nothing], and so it will be with us and the world about us. We shall soon be weary enough, and it is folly to pretend that we shall therefore go somewhere to be more lively and active than ever. The world is wearing out very fast: so everybody hopes, unless it be the Emperor. Let it fall to pieces then, and be done with, and the sooner the better.”

“It will outlast your unbelief, my child.”

“No, mother; mine is not a fickle,—it is a progressive mind. A year ago, if we had been coming here, I should have expected to see some such sights as Clara apprehends, when she looks fearfully round her. I should have watched for flitting spirits among the rocks, and have sung hymns in the woods, and fancied they were heard and answered, because there are echoes about us. I am wiser now, and shall not go back into the old state. I see things as they are, bleak and bare, and soulless. You will not find me among the worshippers of the Charmed Sea. I leave such worship to the peasants.”

“And another kind of worship to us to whom all things are not bleak and bare. But, Sophia, how far is your mind to be progressive, and why, if there is so soon to be an end of it?”

Sophia was not prepared with a very clear answer to this. She denied that, by progression, she meant anything proceeding regularly, according to a plan. All that she meant was that she once believed a great many things that she did not know, and now she only believed what her senses taught her.

“And do you believe what actually passes before your eyes?” inquired her mother.

“Why, one would think,” said Sophia, half laughing, “that you knew what passed within one. Do you know, mother, all the things that I see are often so like shadows or dreams, that I am obliged to touch and grasp them before I am sure that I am awake.”

“I knew it, my dear. Your life is like the adventure of a sleep-walker: but are not you aware how sure sleep-walkers sometimes are that they know better what they are about than those who are awake? I do not ask you to take my word on any matters of faith. I only ask you to believe the word of one who has never deceived you, that there is calmness to be had without hating, and comfort without superstition.”

“If you mean to tell me so from your own experience, mother, I must believe you: but if you are going to tell me that Ernest is calm and Paul comfortable, that is a different thing.”

“I can tell you of myself, my child. I am not happy, and it would be mocking Providence to pretend to be so; but I am not without comfort. You speak of swollen eyes; but tears flow from other causes than grief. Night is the time for devotion, and there are some who can seldom look up into the starry heavens without the homage of emotion. You say my countenance falls when you laugh; and I dare say it is true, for your laugh now gives me more pain than any sound I hear. But even this is not a hopeless pain. I believe that everything proceeds according to a plan,—the progression of your mind, as well as of yonder morning star towards its setting,—the working out of your suffering, and of Cyprian’s punishment——”

At the mention of the name, Sophia flinched as if pierced through the marrow. The next moment, she gazed fiercely at her mother, who met her eye with a mild look of compassion.

“I have done wrong, my child, in avoiding all mention of this name so long. Nay; hear me. We each know that he is perpetually in our thoughts: that every foot-fall is taken for his, every deep tone felt to thrill us like his; every——”

“Stop, mother, stop. Nobody can—nobody dares—he is mine; and if any one——”

“No one shall speak his name lightly, my love; but you cannot prevent our remembering him. You would not wish it.”

“Yes, I would have him forgotten,—utterly.”

“No, Sophia, that cannot be. It was on my shoulder that you first wept your confession that you loved him; it was to me that you both came, when your love was not too engrossing for sympathy; and by me, therefore, shall your love never be forgotten. If it were forgotten, how could I trust for forgiveness for you? You will ask me why I should either hope or pray for you. It is because I have faith; and I have faith because I have not, like you, been tried beyond my strength. I have your father left me, and my deprivations are therefore nothing to yours; nothing to make my heart sick, if yours were less so.”

Sophia grieved her mother by coldly entreating that she might not add to her sorrows in any way. She was so far from being tried beyond her strength, that at present she did not feel herself tried at all. Nobody could have less occasion for effort, for strength. That was all over long ago. She must beg that she might occasion no uneasiness. Nothing could be further from her wish.

“I take you at your word,” said Lenore, with a calmness which was the result of strong effort, for she saw that the moment for indulging tenderness was not yet come. “I take you at your word. If you wish to save me uneasiness, go with Taddeus to-day.”

“O, certainly. It will be a very creditable day to begin, too: a fine day for sport, if we can but get out before the fogs come on. Those fogs are so choking, and this smoke too! Between the two, one can scarcely breathe anywhere. What is there wanting to be done before I go? Is there nothing that I can do to save you trouble?”

Lenore shook her head, and said no more.

“One thing besides,” said Sophia, returning from the door; “I go with Taddeus because you wish it: but if he dares to whisper so much as——”

“He will not.”

“You are sure?”

“Quite sure. I advised him not, and I have his promise.”

“Why was I not assured of this before? It might have saved you much pain.”

“Who could venture, my dear?”

“You have ventured, you see, and where is the harm?” asked Sophia, with a stiff smile. As she turned away again, she thought within herself,——

“If I could feel in any way as I used to do, I should be full of remorse for treating my mother so coldly. But it cannot hurt her, as I am also different towards every body else. No; it cannot hurt her: and so——it does not signify. Nothing signifies.”

Yet at this very moment Sophia felt her flesh creep at the sound of Taddeus’s limping tread approaching.

“I am going with you, Taddeus,” said she, lightly, “and you are to teach me to load and fire;” and she talked on till out of her mother’s hearing, when she became suddenly silent.

She was not the less obsequious to her brother, watching every motion, and offering attentions which were painful to him from being over-strained. Presently they saw their little friend Clara in an odd situation, which afforded some relief to their formality. She was doing battle with a large bird, the Russian turkey, which had been caught in a snare laid by Andreas. Clara had been walking round and round at a safe distance, pondering how best to attack the creature, whose flapping wings and threatening countenance might well seem alarming to a little girl.

“Stand aside, my dear, and I will dispatch him,” said Taddeus, and the turkey forthwith ceased its clamour.

“I will carry him home; he is too heavy for you,” said Sophia, “and you will go with Taddeus. You know so much better——”

“I can’t go to-day,” replied the child. “I went yesterday, and there is a great deal indeed to do at home.” And the little house-keeper gave a very sage account of the domestic duties that lay before her.

Sophia would not listen to some, and promised to discharge others; but, seeing that the child looked distressed, Taddeus declared that she should go where she liked, slung the big bird over her shoulders, and sent her tripping homewards.

In the midst of the next wood they saw somebody moving among the firs at a distance. Sophia changed colour, as she always did on distinguishing a human figure in unfrequented places. Another soon appeared, whose aspect left no doubt as to who the first was. They were Paul and his wife.

“Well met!” cried Sophia, disengaging herself from her brother, and running on to meet them. “You three will take care of one another admirably; and, Paul, your wife will carry Taddeus’s gun when he is tired, and you will see him safe on the way home; and the game may lie any where that he chooses to put it till the evening, and I will go for it. And O, Paul, we want some more money sadly, and you must give us some, for our guns are not to be trusted to shoot it. You see we cannot get more money without better guns, nor yet better guns without more money.”

And Sophia took flight without any resistance from her brother, who could not indeed very reasonably require her to be the companion of Paul’s wife in a sporting expedition.

Chapter IV.
A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS.

It does not follow that Sophia had lost her senses because she talked of shooting money,—of replenishing the funds of the little company by means of rifle and powder. It only follows that their money was not made of gold and silver.

“I think, Paul,” said Taddeus, “you change your arms as often as a court-lady varies her dress. The last time we met, you were carrying a lance twice as long as yourself, and to-day you have a bundle of arrows.”

“According to our game should be our arms. When we begin to hunger for bear’s flesh, I carry a lance, and bring old Alexander with me to teach the creature to squat on its hind legs, convenient for a thrust. I tell him he will be qualified to lead one about the streets of Warsaw by the time we get back. To-day, I come out for skins,—sables if I can get them; and am my wife’s pupil for the occasion. She made these arrows,—blunt, you see, so as not to injure the skins, and she is to bring down the first we see. She carries my rifle, however, that we may not lose the chance of other game by the way.”

“Are your sable-skins for sale or exchange?”

“O, for sale, to be sure. Our money system must extend very much before we shall want so valuable a medium. The inhabitants of a poor hamlet can get on a long time with copper and silver before they begin to want gold: and mouse, ounce, and hare skins may serve us at present as well as sables could do. But how do your neighbours take to your plan of exchange by a medium? Do they see that it is more convenient than barter?”

“Many do; and this is the reason why we are in want of more skins, as Sophia told you. The man who was vexed with us for not taking a whole sheep, when we really did not want to have more than a quarter of one, and had nothing so valuable as a whole one to give in return, was more angry than ever when we first offered him a hare-skin for a quarter of his mutton, and told him that you would give him a wicker seat and basket for the same hare-skin. And his wife thought us fools for offering to take three or four ounce-skins in exchange for two of Clara’s mats. But now they begin to find it convenient for those who have little merchandise to barter away, to make some one article a sort of rough measure of the value of the rest.”

“The women like the plan, I will answer for it,” said Paul. “Instead of having to carry the carcase of a whole sheep about with them, with a bench and a bundle of clothing, perhaps, in addition, with the chance of having to convey them all home again, because nobody may happen to want just these things at this very time, and in these very quantities, they have now only to tie up their package of skins, and go out bargaining, trusting that those who want mutton will come in like manner to them. O, yes; the burden-bearers must find their account in there being, at last, a medium of exchange.”

“But how is it that they had had none before?” said Taddeus. “One would have thought that the burden-bearers, at least, would have been driven to such a device long ago.”

“Burden-bearers have more bright ideas than their lords allow them to make use of,” observed Paul. “I will ask my good lady whether she ever thought of such a thing, while she roved about in the south at her mother’s heels.”

And Paul beckoned to his wife, Emilia, (for so he had called her,) and by means of gesticulations and gibberish, of which Taddeus could make nothing, learned from her that the men of the southern tribes valued their possessions at so many horses, or so many sheep, and that they had no other measure.

“As clumsy folks as the patriarchs themselves,” pronounced Paul, “though the world is so many ages older. Only conceive what a method for rovers to carry their purses! Instead of a pocket-book, or a money-bag, or even a package of skins, to have to transport herds of horses, and droves of sheep spreading half a mile square. Why, a rich man must keep a dozen salaried purse-bearers, instead of having his wealth in his pocket, or under lock and key.”

“Do not forget the advantage,” replied Taddeus,—“no small one in the deserts of Asia,—of being able to eat one’s money when one is hungry, which is not the case with gold and silver, nor even with our skins.”

“True; but still they might easily have other denominations of money for common use on small occasions.”

“Even as we may, if necessary. At present, our money serves either for use or exchange. We can either make mittens of our mouse-skins, and leggings of our hare-skins, or give them in return for fish and rye-bread; and hereafter——”

“Hereafter,” interrupted Paul, “the Siberians may grow civilized enough to have money that is fit for nothing but to be money, like the paper-medium of our merchants; but it will hardly be in our time. There is gold and silver money still in every country in Europe, and gold and silver are used for ornaments and dinner-services as well as for coinage. But my good woman has something more to tell us. Do look at her now, and say whether you ever saw a European wife wait so prettily for leave to speak.”

Taddeus had no pleasure in witnessing the slavish delight testified by Emilia when her lord seemed disposed to attend to her. He turned away from seeing her loaded with caresses with nearly as much disgust as if they had been stripes; and his thoughts glanced proudly and painfully towards the daughters and sisters of the heroes of Poland. He was in a reverie when Paul called him to look at a little ornament of virgin silver which Emilia carried at the end of each of the thick braids of hair which hung down on either side her head.

“She says,” continued Paul, “that the women carried on exchanges among themselves which their lords had nothing to do with. These bits of silver, with a very few of gold, are liked the best; then come bright pebbles, and lastly, flakes of something which I take to be the semi-transparent mica that we were talking of making windows of.”

“Their lords might, for once, have condescended to receive a lesson from them,” observed Taddeus. “The ladies used the more convenient media, in my opinion.”

“I think we might take the hint,” said Paul. “I question whether we shall not soon find ourselves in difficulties, not only as to the quantity but the quality of our money. Our skins get sadly worn by passing from hand to hand; and our neighbours will refuse to take them when the hair is all off, and they look like nothing better than bits of old leather.”

“Besides,” observed Taddeus, “there are no means of keeping those of the same denomination of equal value. One mouse’s skin may be as good as another, at first; but it depends on how much each circulates, and on what care is taken of both, whether they are equally fit to be made mittens of at the close of the season. There will be endless trouble whenever our neighbours begin to look sharp, choose which mouse’s skins they will take in exchange, and which not.”

“There is another danger,” responded Paul, “though a distant one. The seasons here do not affect all animals alike, and a winter that may freeze our poor little mice in their holes, may do no harm to the ounces or hares. Now, if it should happen that we could for a whole year get no mice, and double the number of hares, our whole commerce will become perplexed. No one will know whether he is rich or not, if the value of his money is totally changed; and little Clara may find that she can buy more with a single mouse’s skin than her father with the twenty hare-skins he will have been hoarding for years!”

“It is very difficult to devise a kind of money that is steady in its value,” replied Taddeus.[Taddeus.] “Metals will always prove the best, I should think.”

“Yes; because they may be divided into very small portions; and they are little subject to wear and tear; and they carry great value in small bulk, so as to be convenient in removal.”

“So far so good. All this is true of such chance bits as are dangling at your wife’s shoulders; bits found near our smelting-house, or in the beds of rivers. But to make them as useful as they may be made, they must be coined. Without this, they cannot be marked out into denominations, nor, if they could, would their value remain steady. We could only determine the denomination of jagged, misshapen pieces of silver like those by perpetual weighing; and there would be many gradations between the weights required. And the circumstance of a thief running away with a handful, or of some lucky person picking up a dozen pieces in a day, would change the value, both of each denomination, and of all together, in a way which can scarcely take place where the process of coining has to be gone through, before the metals can be used as money.”

Paul thought that beauty was a quality which should be taken into consideration in the choice of all things that man meant to possess himself of, from a wife to a pair of mittens. Now, he thought gold and silver by far the prettiest commodities that can pass for any length of time from hand to hand.

“Clara would give it against you there,” replied Taddeus. “She is a great admirer of bright feathers, and would think such bunches of them as the Indians use as pretty a kind of money as need be devised. She had a fine assortment of them in her little cabinet at home. She was wondering, the other day, poor child, whose hands they were in now, and saying how gaily they would dress up the screen that she is weaving, to stand between the door and the oven. She thinks our mouse-skins very soft and pretty, too, and would like of all things to have a snow-white hare for a favourite, that she might cherish its beautiful coat.”

“Look, look!” cried Paul, “there is a Persian duck among the reeds. If I can get it for Clara, she need not wish for a prettier bunch of feathers than it will make. Shall I use powder, or try my arrows? I give you warning that we shall have a terrible din if I fire, whether I hit my [missing lines][[missing lines]]

The arrow whizzed from Paul’s inexperienced hand over the back of the beautiful bird, just touching the tuft on its head. It set up a scream, which caused a plashing in all the marshes for a mile round, and roused innumerable woodcocks from their nests among the reeds. Emilia, out of patience that such a hubbub had ensued upon the failure of an arrow made by her, snatched the bow, and shot without more ado, while the wings of the bird were yet spread. The duck sprang convulsively out of the water, plumped in again, and sank; but the lady was already up to the middle in the water. She, too, dived, and presently reappeared with the prey between her teeth, seized upon two more unfortunate birds which happened to be within reach, strangled them, shook the water from their oily plumage, and laid them down at her husband’s feet. Then she returned for the arrow which had been first shot, found, and presented it, and retired behind the sportsmen, wringing her hair and garment, and being ready for further orders. Paul could not restrain his admiration at all this. Unlike the Indian who awaits such performances from his squaw in profound gravity, and takes no notice when they are done, he clapped, shouted, looked as if he was going to jump in after her, and rewarded her, wet as she was, with a kiss and a hearty shake of the hand, when the adventure was over.

Taddeus seemed to admire the duck more than the lady.

“What a splendid creature!” said he. “What size! What proportions!”

“Aye, has she not? And such an eye, too!”[too!”]

“Brilliant, indeed.”

“So you can get over the slant up from the nose. I think nothing of it; but, Alexander—”

“Beak, I should rather say. How jet black that beak is! And the crest that rose and fell in its terror. And the plumage! Clara had not a finer rose colour in all her cabinet.”

“O, you are talking of the duck! I thought you meant Emilia; and I am sure there is the most to admire in her of the two. But you have not seen half her accomplishments yet. There was no room for her to swim in that pond. She swims beautifully. You shall see her in some broad reach of the Selinga some day, when she goes to watch the beavers. She might help them to build. On my honour, she can stay in the water for hours together, and keep under to frighten me, till I expect never to see her again. O, you have no idea yet what she can do.”

“She can see in the dark like an owl, you say, and track game like a pointer, and fetch it like a spaniel, and hearken like a deer, and run like an ostrich. Now, tell me what she can do like a woman.”

“Cook my dinner, and keep my house warm, and wait upon me.”

“So this is to be a woman, is it?”

“Yes; and a few other things. To scrape lint and nurse the wounded was proper woman’s employment down in Poland yonder. As for the other things you value so much,—the power of thinking, and reasoning, and all that,—where is the Polish woman that would not now be better without it?”

“In the same way, I suppose, as their husbands and brothers would be better without either thoughts or feelings. Polish men would be happier now as savages than as enslaved heroes, and, in like manner, women would be better as mere animals than as rational beings; therefore, patriotism is to be eschewed by the one sex, and rationality by the other. This is your reasoning, is it not?”[not?”]

“Let us have no reasoning, pray. All I mean is, that I am sorry to see your mother look so wasted, and your sister so haggard; and that I wish they could be as happy as my little woman. There! she has started a sable.”

And Paul, who had talked more gravity this day than any day since the loss of the last battle in which he fought, bounded off to his sport. He was not recoverable, for five minutes together, till near nightfall, going hither and thither, faster than Taddeus could follow him, and having not a word to spare while taking aim, or beating about for a new prey. He was very careful of his friend, however, making signs to Emilia that she was to attend upon and aid him to the utmost. At first, Taddeus would rather have been left to himself, and found it difficult to receive the lady’s kind offices thankfully; but they really were offices of kindness, and so modestly and gently urged, that his repugnance gave way, and he soon submitted to have his infirmity relieved by one who was certainly a far better help in guiding, walking, and preparing for sport, than either his mother or sister could have been.

To his own surprise, he was not the first to think of returning home, though he had presently obtained all the game he wanted. While he was still moving onwards, and Paul was roving, nobody knew where, Emilia began to look about her, and up into the sky, with a countenance of some anxiety, and a gesture implying that she either felt very cold, or expected soon to feel so. It had not been one of the most trying days Taddeus had known. The sun, very low in the sky, had shone with a dim, hazy light, in which, however, there was some warmth. There had been little wind, and that little had not told of frost. The heavens were grey, and there was a very dark line to windward; but this was so usual, as was the moaning among the firs which now began to make itself heard, that Taddeus would have taken no particular notice of it if Emilia had not appeared to do so. Communication by language not having yet been established between him and his supporter, he could not make out the extent of her fears, till she at length slipped from under the arm which leaned on her shoulder, climbed a neighbouring pine like the nimblest of the squirrels that harboured near, and uttered a peculiar call, which could be heard to a vast distance, from its unlikeness to any of the deep and grave sounds of a northern wilderness. She came down, and pointed the way back; refusing, by signs, to wait for Paul, and seeming confident that he would immediately follow. He did not appear, however, and again she climbed, and again she called, more loudly and hastily, as volumes of black clouds unrolled themselves before the wind, and seemed to sink as well as spread. Taddeus saw that she apprehended snow, but was not fully aware how very soon the atmosphere, in its now approaching state, becomes incapable of transmitting sound to any distance; and that if Paul was to be warned homewards by the cry, it must be immediately. It was not long before he came, considerably out of humour at finding that both his companions were safe and well. He had concluded that some accident had caused such repeated alarms, and was vexed to have been called off from a very tempting chase.

“Call, call, call!” he exclaimed; “they came as thick as an English traveller’s calls at an hotel; and all for nothing. I wonder the jade dared to take such a liberty with me. She made my heart turn over; I can tell you that. I thought of nothing less than that a bear had bugged one of you. Before I was frightened, I would not hear her, for you never saw such a beautiful animal as I was at the heels of. A black fox, if you will believe me; but you won’t; nor any body else, for black foxes are oftener seen than caught; and so one is winked at for a tale-telling traveller, if one says what I am saying now. But it was a black fox, as sure as that is a white hare over your shoulder; and I should have had him in another minute, if that jade had not sent a call that went through me when my shot should have gone through him. His coat would have been a fortune to me. My hut would have been a palace presently, in comparison with Ernest’s, to say nothing of the glory of being the first of you to shoot a black fox. And to have been called off just because there is snow in the air! As if snow was as rare here as it is at Timbuctoo!”

And thus the disappointed sportsman went on growling,—not so that his wife could understand him. She only comprehended that, for some unknown cause, her potent lord was displeased with her. This was enough to make her look very penitent. She scarcely glanced at the threatening sky, when Taddeus pointed it out as her excuse, and stood, looking the quintessence of a slave, till motioned to to lead the way.

She led them nearly as straight as the arrow flies;—a mode of proceeding more practicable in that country than in many less wild. The forests were not tangled, like those of a southern region, but composed of multitudes of stems, bare to the height of some feet from the ground. There were few small streams in the plains; and those few were rendered passable by stepping-stones, the precise situation of which Emilia seemed to know by instinct. Though it was now nearly dark, she did not, in one instance, fail to arrive in a straight line with the passage over the stream: nor did she once pause, as if perplexed, when her companions saw nothing out a wilderness of wood around them. There was no hope of star-light guidance this evening. The clouds hung so low that they seemed to rest on the tops of the stunted firs; and they slowly rolled and tumbled, as if they were about to enwreath and carry up those who were moving beneath them. It was time now, Paul perceived, to cease his grumbling, as something more important was on hand than the chase of a black fox. On issuing from a wood, a blinding, suffocating mass of snow was driven in their faces, and compelled them all to turn their backs if they wished to breathe. Not the more for this would Emilia allow them one moment’s pause; and perceiving that the lame Taddeus, who had long had some difficulty in proceeding in the usual manner, was utterly unable to walk backwards, she snatched his handkerchief from his neck, hung it over his face like a veil, seized both his hands, and pulled him on thus blind-folded.

“Surely,” said Taddeus, “we had better climb a tree, and wait till the drift is past.”

“Aye, and have our feet frozen off, to say nothing of noses and ears,” replied Paul. “And supposing we lived till morning, how are we to get home through snow three yards deep, maybe, and not frozen to walking consistence? No, no; our only chance, if we have one, is in getting on as far as the rocks, at any rate. But God knows I can’t keep this up long.”

Paul had more to say; for the last thing he ever thought of was leaving off talking; but his companion could no longer hear him. The snow, falling noiselessly as the light, yet stifled all sounds, and the last words of Paul’s which were heard, came like murmurs from under a pillow. When these had ceased for some little time, Taddeus addressed him, and got no answer. Growing uneasy, he put out his hand to feel for him. Paul was certainly not within some yards. Uttering now her first exclamation of fear, Emilia sprang back upon her footsteps, motioning to Taddeus not to stir, and in two minutes returned with her husband, who had tripped and fallen, and been half buried in snow before he could recover himself. In order that this might not happen again, his wife slipped her girdle, and tied it round his arm, holding the other end herself, and dragging on their lame friend as before.

“This will never do,” said Taddeus, resolutely stopping short. “You two will be lost by lagging with me. I shall go back to the wood, and fare as I best may till the storm is over; and God speed you!”

Paul answered only by pushing him vigorously on, setting his back against Taddeus’s, so that the breadth of only one person was opposed to the drift, and one made a path for all. This was an amendment; but Taddeus was still convinced that the two would get on better without him, and again he stiffened himself against being driven forward.

“I am going back,” said he, very distinctly. “If the plain is passable in the morning, you will come and look for me. If not, never mind. You know I cannot be sorry to get quit so easily of such a life as mine.”

Paul growled impatiently; but, for once, Taddeus was too nimble for them. He had played them the slip, and they groped after him for some minutes in vain.

“It does not much matter,” muttered Paul to himself. “It is only being found a few feet further from one another eight months hence, when the snow melts. Emilia and I will stay together, however; we will keep one another warm as long as we can. ’Tis not so very cold now, though, to my feeling, as it was; and yet I can scarcely tell whether Emilia grasps me or not. ’Tis the sleepiness that is so odd. One might choose a better time for going to sleep, though there is a big, soft, feather-bed about us. But I don’t believe I can keep awake two minutes longer. Holla! there! What’s that? Why! is this Poland again? Aye, home: yes, yes. Why, mother, you have seen me faint before, and you did not scream so then. But it is so dark. Bring lights. Have you no lights? Eh, what? I can’t hear you. My ears;—how they ring? Lights, I say! Eh? Good-night, mother. I’m sleepy. I ... I can’t ... good-night.”

And Paul ceased his muttering, having sunk down in the snow some moments before. Emilia did not cease to scream in his ear, to attempt to raise him, to chafe his limbs, and warm his head in her bosom. He made feeble resistance, as if angry at being disturbed; and in keeping this up lay the only chance. Before he became quite passive, a new hope crossed her. For one moment the drift slackened, ceased; and in that moment came tidings that help was not far off. There was yet neither gleam nor sound; but Emilia detected that there was wood-smoke in the air. She at once gave over her chafing, and shouting into the ears of the dying man, lifted him on her back, and struggled forward in the direction of the fire. It was not so difficult for her to do this as it would have been to Sophia, for she had been accustomed from childhood to bear heavy burdens of skins, and to bring faggots from the woods. Before she was quite exhausted, she not only was encouraged by a scent of turpentine which reached her, but could distinguish a red gleam through the veil of falling snow.

Her appearance was somewhat startling to those who had kindled the fire. They were Siberian merchants,—that is, itinerants, who knew as well as any people in the world how to keep body and soul together in all weathers. The present company consisted of three who were just finishing their yearly circuit, and, having been detained on the road by the great increase in the number of their customers, in consequence of the Emperor’s accession of convict subjects, had found the autumn close upon them while they were yet some way from their several homes. They were now encamped for the night, and seemed to have no other anxiety amidst this terrific wilderness than that the frost should immediately follow the snow, in order that the plains might be passable. They had banked up the snow in a circle round them, and lighted a huge fire within. A bear skin, stuck upon poles, made a sort of tent covering, and one at a time was employed to prevent its becoming too heavily laden by the drift. The others lazily fed the fire, as they lay on hides within the heat of it, and smoked their pipes and drank brandy as calmly as if they had been under the best roof in Tobolsk. The glittering of the white wall in the background, the sparkling of the snow-flakes as they drizzled thick and slanting over the darting blaze, had less of a domestic character than the retreat in which the merchants alternately dozed and gossiped. The place altogether looked very tempting to Emilia as she emerged from the utter darkness, and stood dripping with her load in the presence of the shoveller. The man swore, the dogs leaped up, the dozers roused themselves; and, though vexed at the interruption, they could not refuse a place by their fire to the wanderers.

More than this, however, they would not do. They were impenetrable about poor Taddeus’s fate; and as they would not stir, Emilia was exposed to a sad struggle between duty and inclination. Her husband began to revive almost immediately, and she believed that there was yet time to save his friend, if she could bring herself to leave the further cure of Paul to the merchants.

She did her duty. Pointing out to the smokers the method in which they were to proceed, and in which they were indeed much practised, she seized a handful of brands, some of which might, she hoped, escape being quenched, called the dogs without ceremony, and stalked forth again the way she had come, the brands casting a scanty red light for a few moments only before she disappeared.

The shoveller nearly forgot his duty in looking out and listening, for he was better aware than his mates below what Emilia had to contend with. He began to give her over, and his companions to swear at the probable chance of losing their dogs, before there was any sign of motion near.

“Keep that man quiet, can’t ye?” the watchman cried. “I want to listen.”

“He won’t be still,” they replied. “His pains and twitches are on him. We have warmed him too soon. You should see him floundering like a duck in the water. Listen how he moans.”

“Move him farther from the fire, then, and make him hold his tongue. I could not hear the dogs two yards off with such a screeching coming up from between you.”

As soon as Paul began to collect his ideas, he kept his pain more to himself, and began to listen as eagerly as any body for sounds from afar.

“I see something; but it cannot be the light she carried,—it is so high up in the air,” proclaimed the watchman. “It is coming this way, however. No: it is out. Aye; there it is again. It was a thick wreath that hid it. Now, where is it gone?”

Paul scrambled up on his hands and knees, intending to play the watchman too; but he could not yet stand. His feet were as numb as ever, though his ancles burned with pain. The light was not out, and it came riding in the air, dimly dancing, and then steadily blazing again. It was preceded by one of the dogs, leaping backwards and forwards between the little camp and the party behind. The other dog did not do the same, being otherwise engaged. He was the torch-bearer.

When Emilia had been led by the dogs to the place where Taddeus lay, and had reared him up insensible from under the drift, she found she could not charge herself with both the body and the light, the one of which was nearly as indispensable as the other. She carried Taddeus as she had carried her husband, and made one of the tractable dogs mount to the top of all with a flaming torch in his mouth; and thus they proceeded, the drift sometimes being nearly as thick as ever, and threatening to plunge them in darkness; and sometimes slackening so as to allow gleams and flickerings to point out her former footsteps.

She could think no more of Taddeus when she saw her husband dizzily falling back as often as he attempted to rise, and groaning with his torments. She was in consternation when she had examined his ancles and feet; and seizing a large knife and an earthen bowl that lay near, she disappeared behind the fire. A fearful howl from each of the dogs gave the next tidings of her. The merchants swore that they would cut the animals’ tongues out if this bark brought any more strangers in upon them. They presently saw that their dogs would never howl more. Emilia appeared with a bowl full of reeking blood in one hand, and the carcasses of the two poor animals in the other: and immediately proceeded, as if she saw and heard nothing of the fury of the merchants, to pour the warm blood down the throats of Paul and Taddeus, and to cover up their feet in the bodies which she had slain and ripped up for the purpose. When the enraged owners seized her two braids, and pulled them as if they would have divided her scalp, she quietly lifted the great knife to either side of her head and severed the hair. When they griped her by the shoulders, as if they would have shaken her to pieces, she ducked and disappeared behind the bearskin. When one of them wrenched the knife from her, and made a thrust in his passion, she leaped through the fire, and took up a position, with a flaming pine-splinter in each hand, which they did not choose to brave. As soon as Paul could make himself heard, he offered the value of many dogs, if they would let his wife alone; and, as the animals could not be brought to life again, the owners saw that their best wisdom would be to make as good a bargain as they could.

Paul not only offered this high compensation under immediate apprehension for his wife’s safety, but thankfully confirmed the bargain when she was sitting securely beside him, or helping him to use his stiff limbs, by leading him to and fro in the little space beside the fire. He felt that he should be paying for the restoration of his own feet, and perhaps of Taddeus’s life; for he much doubted whether either limbs or life could have been saved by other means than Emilia had so promptly adopted, and the efficacy of which she, in common with other natives, well knew. The suspicion never crossed him that he might not be able to fulfil his engagement, and that these men were now in possession of the very wealth he had promised them.

The whole party not only lived till morning, but were of better cheer when the day dawned than they had been twelve hours before. The two sportsmen were weak and stiff, and not a little dispirited when they looked out upon the dreary waste around, and pondered how they were to reach home; but the danger and the fearful battling with the elements were over.

The sky was still dark, but the air so serene, that if a solitary snow-flake had found its way from the clouds, it would have sauntered and danced through the air like a light leaf in autumn. There were no such flakes, however, and all the snow that the atmosphere of the globe could be charged with seemed to be collected within view. Snow was heaped on the eastern mountains, and tumbled in huge masses among the stark, black rocks at their base;—snow was spread to a vast depth upon the steppe, as far as a horizon which it made the eyes ache to attain, clearly distinguishable as it was from the leaden sky;—snow was spread, like a cushioned canopy, over the black woods which extended northwards for many miles. Amidst this waste of whiteness, black waters lay here and there in pools, or in wide reaches of rivers; and in other parts there was a rushing of the currents, and a smashing and tumbling of the young ice, which had begun to form, but was already giving way at the touch of light and of more temperate airs. All this was dreary enough; but the smoke of the smelting-house could be seen far off; home was visible, if they could but reach it.

The merchants travelled back with the party, in order to receive the promised compensation for their dogs; and Paul was not a little amused with the accounts they gave of their mode of traffic.

“You must have a troublesome journey of it sometimes, friend,” he observed to the man next him, who had, like all his brethren of the craft, picked up enough of the languages of the various people he dealt with to be able to carry on something like a conversation. “You must have a troublesome journey in such weather as this,” said Paul to him; “but you are free from the danger of being robbed, as people of your trade are in some countries. It is very hard, when they have disposed of their wares, and begin to enjoy the lightness of their load, and the goodly look of the gold and silver they carry in their bosoms, to be stopped in the dark and robbed, or to wake in the morning and find their pouch as empty as their packs. You are never so robbed, I suppose?”

The Siberian indulged his scorn at the idea of gold and silver, and thought that those who carried their wealth in such small compass deserved to lose it. How much better, be urged, was a pack of skins, or a drove of black cattle, or a sledge-load of rye-flour, which no man could hide in his bosom and slip away with! Though Paul thought robbery a bad thing, he did not consider the not being subject to it the very first quality in money. He asked why the merchant mentioned three kinds of money; and whether all his customers did not agree to use the same.

“Oh, no! Some give us all things that they make or grow in return for our tea from China, and the pepper we buy from abroad, and the clothing we bring from Tobolsk. Others give us only skins; others only cattle; others, again, only rye.”

“That is, they use these articles respectively as money.”

“Yes; and what we take as money in one district we sell as merchandise in another.”

“So you use no coin at all.”

“Not here. We travel along a vast line;” and he stretched his arms east and west with a most important look. “In the west, we do as they do in the west,—we pass the Emperor’s coin. In the east, we do as they do in the east,—we make no objection to whatever gain they put in our way.”

“But do they make no objection? It seems to me that there must be perpetual objections. One says, ‘Give me wool for rye.’ ‘I have rye enough,’ says the shepherd. ‘What do you want most?’ asks the cultivator. ‘Fish.’ So the cultivator goes to the fisherman, and says, ‘Give me fish for rye.’ The fisherman wants no rye, but skins; so, even if the hunter happily wants rye, the cultivator has to manage three bargains before he can get his wool. This seems to me a system open to many objections.”

“Yes; the people are as long in exchanging their fish and their furs as in catching and curing them. But what is that to us? We reckon upon spending twice as much time where there is barter as where there is sale; but we make our gain accordingly.”

“Aye, to the injury of your customers: they lose their time in bargaining, and by not dividing their labours; and they also pay you largely for the loss of your time. Truly, they are losers in every way. Why do not you teach them to use money?—then you would finish your traffic, and get home before these storms could overtake you.”

The merchant laughed, and said that some ways were better for some kinds of people, and others for others. The thing that took the most time, after all, was the measuring quantities of different articles against one another, and agreeing upon their value. Every man could tell how much trouble and expense his own article had cost him, and nobody could judge in the same way of his neighbour’s: a third party was necessary to decide between them.

“Oh, aye; and you merchants are the third party, and so have the pronouncing upon the value both of the goods you buy and the goods you sell. It may be very profitable to you to keep exchange in this rude state; but it would be a prodigious convenience and saving to the people to have the value of their produce measured, and made somewhat steady, by a standard which should not vary very much.”

The merchant thought things had better go on as they were. Gold and silver coins were much more valuable among the wise people that lived westwards than among the simple folks to the east.

“As gold and silver, certainly,” said Paul; “for savages have little notion of their being valuable. Even my wife there wore as much gold as a duchess would have been glad of, the first time I saw her, and would have given it all away for as many steaks of horse-flesh as she carried ounces of precious metal. But, as money, some such article would be useful to savages in the same way as to civilized people. It would save their time and labour, and prevent their being cheated by you, Mr. Merchant.”

The merchant still remained an enemy to innovation; like all who profit largely by things as they are. So Paul pursued,

“I assure you I can speak to the want savages have of money. Even in our little company, inhabiting only five huts in all——”

“You are not going to call us savages,” sternly interrupted Taddeus, who had just joined his friend.

“O yes, I am. What would you have more savage than our way of passing last night? or our huts? or our implements? or all about us on this side Irkutsk?”

“That has nothing to do with the matter. You are talking of a social arrangement, and its subjects; and when the subjects are civilized, you cannot show by their example how the arrangement suits a savage state. I suppose you allow that we, as Poles, are civilized.”

“Savage; absolutely savage,” persisted Paul. “Why now, who can look more savage than Ernest when you catch him talking to the spirits of the Charmed Sea, or whoever else it is that sets him raving there? Where was there ever a savage, if it is not Andreas when any one alludes to his iron chest at Warsaw? Or your own sister, for that matter,—ten times a day she looks as savage as——”

“As your wife,” said Taddeus, moved beyond his patience.

“Just so; only my wife is more like a faithful dog, and your sister like a hunted tiger-cat. But, as I was saying, Mr. Merchant, even in our little company, we presently found we could not get on without a medium of exchange.” And he explained their device of skins of three several values. The merchant seemed more amused than he could well account for, and asked if all were so honest that nobody stole this kind of money.

“It is never stolen entire,” replied Paul. “Such a theft would be detected at once in so small a society as ours.”[ours.”]

“Even supposing,” interrupted Taddeus, “that there was a Pole among us who would steal.”

“Take care how much you answer for, friend,” said Paul. “I was going to say, that though no entire skin has been abstracted, some expert fingers have been at work clipping. A curious mouse-skin came into my hands lately, made of cuttings from the jags and edges of other mouse-skins.”

“Indeed! I should not have thought an article of so low a denomination worth the labour.”

“Some people,—you know who I mean,—think no labour too much for gain. Besides, this was probably a first experiment; and if it had succeeded, there would have been a rising up early, and sitting up late, to make patch-work hare-skins or sables,—if we should ever attain to high a denomination of money.”

“Well; but what did you do to the miser; for I conclude you mean him? He is no Pole, remember; he does not like to be considered so, so and we may as well take him at his word.”

“Since I could not threaten him with the ancient punishment of counterfeiters of the current money, namely, pouring it molten down the throat, I came as near to it as I could. I fried a bit of the tail, and made him eat it, on pain of being pilloried at the mouth of the mine. Then I let him burn the rest, and told him he should be watched, and not get off so easily the next time he was caught clipping and manufacturing money. I dare say he cursed our medium for not being metal. You may melt metal, and nobody knows how many clippings a lump is made of; but piece a skin as neatly as you may, and daub over the inside as cleverly as Andreas himself, and the seams still remain visible to the curious eye. The public has the advantage over counterfeiters where leather money is used.”

“And how many advantages knaves have over the public where leather money is used, we may live to see,” observed Taddeus. He was right: it was not necessary for them to be many hours older to ascertain this point.

They were yet at a considerable distance from home when they heard shouts ringing among the rocks before them, and saw one or two dark figures moving among the snow in the plain. The young men answered the shouts, and made signals, the most conspicuous they could devise. The merchants at once became exceedingly inquisitive about the exact situation of Paul’s abode; and having learned it, were suddenly in far too great a hurry to go any farther. As for the promised payment, the sportsmen were welcome to the dogs, unless indeed they would give their arrows and a rifle, and the game they carried, in consideration of the loss. Paul sighed over his valuable new arrows, Taddeus over his only rifle, and both over the skins which they were conveying home to be made money of, and which they had managed to retain with that view through the whole adventure. They could not refuse, however, considering what the martyred dogs had done for them; so they surrendered their goods, and returned from this memorable sporting expedition much poorer than they set out; and the merchants retired precipitately in the opposite direction.

At an abrupt turn of the rock they came upon Sophia, who was alone, busily engaged in tracking the path they had followed after parting from her the preceding day, and sounding in the snow. Sometimes she looked intently into the black stream which flowed sullenly by, and then renewed her sounding, so eagerly, that she did not perceive the approach of the young men and Emilia. Their footsteps could not be heard. She started when they came close up to her, and said, with an indescribable expression of countenance,——

“O, you are safe, are you? We have all been out since dawn to look for you. You will find my mother farther on. They would not spare my father from the mine.——So you are safe, after all!”

“You are disappointed,” said Taddeus, in a low and bitter tone. “You hoped to see me no more. You were praying to find my body in those waters.”[waters.”]

“I do not pray,” said Sophia, pettishly.

“Not to demons?” asked her brother.