Chapter VII

It was a regular business now for three or four of the boys of Bleaburn to go up to the brow every morning to bring down the stores from O——, which were daily left there under the care of the watch. Mr. Kirby had great influence already with the boys of Bleaburn. He found plenty for them to do, and, when they were very hungry with running about, he gave them wholesome food to satisfy their healthy appetite. He said, he and Mrs. Kirby and the doctor worked hard, and they could not let anybody be idle but those who were ill: and, now that the regular work and wages of the place were suspended, he arranged matters after his own sense of the needs of the people. The boys who survived and were in health, formed a sort of regiment under his orders, and they certainly never liked work so well before. Every little fellow felt his own consequence, and was aware of his own responsibility. A certain number, as has been said, went up to the brow to bring down the stores. A certain number were to succeed each other at the doctor’s door, from hour to hour, to carry medicines, that the sick might neither be kept waiting, nor be liable to be served with the wrong medicine, from too many sorts being carried in a basket together. Others attended upon Warrender, with pail and brush, and helped him with his lime-washing. At first it was difficult, as has been said, to induce the lads to volunteer for this service, and Mr. Kirby directed much argument and persuasion towards their supposed fear of entering the cottages where people were lying sick. This was not the reason, however, as Warrender explained, with downcast eyes, when Mr. Kirby wondered what ailed the lads, that they ran all sorts of dangers all day long, and shirked this one.

“’Tis not the danger, I fancy, Sir,” said Warrender; “they are not so much afraid of the fever as of going with me, I’m sorry to say.”

“Afraid of you!” said Mr. Kirby, laughing. “What harm could you do them?”

“’Tis my temper, Sir, I’m afraid.”

“What is the matter with your temper? I see nothing amiss with it.”

“And I hope you never may, Sir: but I can’t answer for myself, though at this moment I know the folly of such passion as these lads have seen in me. Sir, it has been my way to be violent with them; and I don’t wonder they slink away from me. But—”

“I am really quite surprised,” said Mr. Kirby. “This is all news to me. I should have said you were a remarkably staid, quiet, persevering man; and, I am sure, very kind hearted.”

“You have seen us all at such a time, you know, Sir! It is not only the misfortunes of the time that sober us, but when there is so much to do for one’s neighbours, one’s mind does not want to be in a passion—so to speak.”

“Very true. The best part of us is roused, and puts down the worse. I quite agree with you, Warrender.”

The boys were not long in learning that there was nothing now to fear from Warrender. No one was sent staggering from a box on the ear. No hair was ever pulled; nor was any boy ever shaken in his jacket. Instead of doing such things, Warrender made companions of his young assistants, taught them to do well whatever they put their hands to, and made them willing and happy. While two or three thus waited on him, others carried home the clean linen that his daughter and a neighbour or two were frequently ready to send out: and they daily changed the water in the tubs where the foul linen was deposited. Others, again, swept and washed down the long steep street, making it look almost as clean as if it belonged to a Dutch village. After the autumn pig-killing, there were few or no more pigs. The poor sufferers could not attend to them; could not afford, indeed, to buy them; and had scarcely any food to give them. Though this was a token of poverty, it was hardly to be lamented in itself, under the circumstances; for there is no foulness whatever, no nastiness that is to be found among the abodes of men, so dangerous to health as that of pig-styes. There is mismanagement in this. People take for granted that the pig is a dirty animal, and give him no chance of being clean; whereas, if they would try the experiment of keeping his house swept, and putting his food always in one place, and washing him with soap and water once a week, they would find that he knows how to keep his pavement clean, and that he runs grunting to meet his washing with a satisfaction not to be mistaken. Such was the conclusion of the boys who undertook the purification of the two or three pigs that remained in Bleaburn. As for the empty styes, they were cleaner than many of the cottages. After a conversation with Mr. Kirby, Farmer Neale bought all the dirt-heaps for manure; and in a few days they were all trundled away in barrows—even to the stable-manure from the Plough and Harrow—and heaped together at the farm, and well shut down with a casing of earth, beat firm with spades. Boys really like such work as this, when they are put upon it in the right way. They were less dirty than they would have been with tumbling about and quarrelling and cuffing in the filthy street; in a finer glow of exercise; with a more wholesome appetite; and far more satisfaction in eating, because they had earned their food. Moreover, they began to feel themselves little friends of the grown people—of Mr. and Mrs. Kirby, and the Doctor, and the Warrenders—instead of a sort of reptiles, or other plague; and Mr. Kirby astonished them so by a bit of amusement now and then, when he had time, that they would have called him a conjuror, if he had not been a clergyman. He made a star—any star they pleased—as large as the comet, just by making them look at it through a tube; and he showed them how he took a drop of foul water from a stinking pool, and put it between glasses in a hole in his window-shutter; and how the drop became like a pond, and was found to be swarming with loathsome live creatures, swimming about, and trying to swallow each other. After these exhibitions, it is true the comet seemed much less wonderful and terrible than before; but then the drop of water was infinitely more so. The lads studied Mr. Kirby’s cistern—so carefully covered, and so regularly cleaned out; and they learned how the water he drank at dinner was filtered; and then they went and scoured out the few water-tubs there were in the village, and consulted their neighbours as to how the public of Bleaburn could be persuaded not to throw filth and refuse into the stream at the upper part, defiling it for those who lived lower down.

One morning at the beginning of December—on such a morning as was now sadly frequent, drizzly, and far too warm for the season—the lads who went up to the brow saw the same sight that had been visible in the same place one evening in the preceding August. There was a chaise, and an anxious post-boy, and a lady talking with one of the cordon. Mr. Kirby had learned what friends Mary Pickard had in England, and which of them lived nearest, and he had taken the liberty of writing to declare the condition of the Good Lady. His letter brought the friend, Mrs. Henderson, who came charged with affectionate messages to Mary from her young daughters, and a fixed determination not to return without the invalid.

“To think,” as she said to Mary when she appeared by the side of her mattress, “that you should be in England, suffering in this way, and we not have any idea what you were going through!”

Mary smiled, and said she had gone through nothing terrible on her own account. She might have been at Mr. Kirby’s for three weeks past, but that she really preferred being where she was.

“Do not ask her now, Madam, where she likes to be,” said Mr. Kirby, who had been brought down the street by the bustle of a stranger’s arrival. “Do not consult her at all, but take her away, and nurse her well.”

“Yes,” said the Doctor; “lay her in a good air, and let her sleep, and feed her well; and she will soon come round. She is better—even here.”

“Madam,” said Widow Johnson’s feeble but steady voice, “be to her what she has been to us; raise her up to what she was when I first heard her step upon those stairs, and we shall say you deserve to be her friend.”

“You will go, will not you?” whispered Mrs. Kirby to Mary. “You will let us manage it all for you?”

“Do what you please with me,” was the reply. “You know best how to get me well soonest. Only let me tell Aunty that I will come again, as soon as I am able.”

“Better not,” said the prudent Mrs. Kirby. “There is no saying what may be the condition of this place by the spring. And it might keep Mrs. Johnson in a state of expectation not fit for one so feeble. Better not.”

“Very well,” said Mary.

Mrs. Kirby thought of something that her husband had said of Mary; that he had never seen any one with such power of will and command so docile. She merely promised her aunt frequent news of her; agreed with those who doubted whether she could bear the jolting of any kind of carriage on the road up to the brow; admitted that, though she could now stand, she could not walk across the room; allowed herself to be carried on her mattress in a carpet, by four men, up to the chaise; and nodded in reply to a remark made by one little girl to another in the street, and which the doctor wished she had not heard, that she looked “rarely bad.”

The landlady at O—— seemed, by her countenance, to have much the same opinion of Mary’s looks, when she herself brought out the glass of wine, for which Mrs. Henderson stopped her chaise at the door of the Cross Keys. The landlady brought it herself, because none of her people would give as much as a glass of cold water, hand to hand with any one who came from Bleaburn. The landlady stood shaking her head, and saying she had done the best she could; she had warned the young lady in time.

“But you were quite out in your warning,” said Mary. “You were sure I should have the fever: but I have not.”

“You have not!”

“I have had no disease—no complaint whatever. I am only weak from fatigue.”

“It is quite true,” said Mrs. Henderson, as the hostess turned to her for confirmation. “Good wine like this, the fresh air of our moors, and the easy sleep that comes to Good Ladies like her, are the only medicines she wants.”

The landlady curtsied low—said the payment made should supply a glass of wine to somebody at Bleaburn, and bade the driver proceed. After a mile or two, he turned his head, touched his hat, and directed the ladies’ attention to a bottle of wine, with loosened cork, and a cup which the hostess had contrived to smuggle into the pocket of the chaise. She was sure the young lady would want some wine before they stopped.

“How kind every body is!” said Mary, with swimming eyes. Mrs. Henderson cleared her throat, and looked out of the window on her side.

YOUNG RUSSIA.

Certain social theorists have, of late years, proclaimed themselves to the puzzled public under the name and signification of ‘Young.’ Young France, Young Germany, and Young England have had their day, and having now grown older, and by consequence wiser, are comparatively mute. In accordance with what seems a natural law, it is only when a fashion is being forgotten where it originated—in the west—that it reaches Russia, which rigidly keeps a century or so behind the rest of the Continent. It is only recently, therefore, that we hear of ‘Young Russia.’

The main principles of all these national youths are alike. They are pleasingly picturesque—simperingly amiable; with a pretty and piquant dash of paradox. What they propose is not new birth, or dashing out into new systems, and taking advantage of new ideas; but reverting to old systems, and furbishing them up so as to look as good as new. Re-juvenescence is their aim; the middle ages their motto. Young England, to wit, desires to replace things as they were in the days of the pack-horse, the thumb-screw, the monastery, the ducking-stool, the knight errant, trial by battle, and the donjon-keep. To these he wishes to apply all possible modern improvements, to adapt them to present ideas, and to present events. Though he would have no objection to his mailed knight travelling per first-class railway, he would abolish luggage-trains to encourage intestine trade and the breed of that noble animal the pack-horse. He has indeed done something in the monastic line; but his efforts for the dissemination of superstition, and his denunciations of a certain sort of witchcraft, have signally failed. In truth, the task he has set himself—that of re-constructing society anew out of old materials—though highly archæological, historical, and poetic, has the fatal disadvantage of being simply impossible. It is telling the people of the nineteenth century to carry their minds, habits, and sentiments back, so as to become people of the thirteenth century; it is trying to make new muslin out of mummy cloth, or razors out of rusty nails.

‘Young Russia’ is an equal absurdity, but from a precisely opposite cause; for, indeed, this sort of youth out of age is a series of paradoxes. The Russian of the present day _is_ the Russian of past ages. He exists by rule—the rule of despotism—which is as old as the Medes and Persians; and which forces him into an iron mould that shapes his appearance, his mind, and his actions, to one pattern, from one generation to another. Hence everything that lives and breathes in Russia being antique, there is no appreciable antiquity. The new school, therefore—even if amateur politics were allowable in Russia, which they are not, as a large population of exiles in Siberia can testify—has no materials to work upon. Stagnation is the political law, and Young Russia dies in its babyhood for want of sustenance. What goes by the name of civilisation, is no advance in wealth, morals, or social happiness. It is merely a tinsel coating over the rottenness and rust with which Russian life is ‘sicklied o’er.’ It has nothing to do with a single soul below the rank of a noble; and with him it means champagne, bad pictures, Parisian tailors, operas, gaming, and other expences and elegancies imported from the West. Hundreds of provincial noblemen are ruined every year in St. Petersburg, in undergoing this process of civilisation. The fortunes thus wasted are enormous; yet there is only one railroad now in operation throughout the whole empire, and that belongs to the Emperor, and leads to one of his palaces a few miles from the Capital. Such is Russian civilisation. What then is Young Russia to do? Ask one of its youngest apostles, Ivan Vassilievitsch.

This young gentleman—for an introduction to whom we are indebted to Count Sollogub—was, not long ago, parading the Iverskoy boulevard—one of the thirteen which half encircle Moscow—when he met a neighbour from the province of Kazan. Ivan had lately returned from abroad. He was a perfect specimen of the new school, inside and out. Within, he had imbibed all the ideas of the juvenile or verdant schools of Germany, France, and England. Without, he displayed a London macintosh; his coat and trowsers had been designed and executed by Parisian artists; his hair was cut in the style of the middle ages; and his chin showed the remnants of a Vandyke beard. He also resembled the new school in another respect: he had spent all his money, yet he was separated from home by the distance of a long—a Russian—journey.

To meet with a neighbour—which he did—who travelled in his own carriage, in which he offered a seat, was the height of good fortune. The more so, as Ivan wished to see as much of Russian life on the road as possible, and to note down his _impressions_ in a journal, whose white leaves were as yet unsullied with ink. From the information he intended to collect, he intended to commence helping to reconstruct Russian society after the order of the new Russiaites.

The vehicle in which this great mission was to be performed, was a humble family affair called a _Tarantas_.[1] After a series of adventures—but which did not furnish Ivan a single _impression_ for his note-book—they arrive at Vladimir, the capital of a province or ‘government.’ Here the younger traveller meets with a friend, to whom he confides his intention of visiting all the other Government towns for ‘Young Russia’ purposes. His friend’s reply is dispiriting to the last degree:—

Footnote 1:

For further particulars of this comfortable conveyance, its occupants,
and their adventures, we must refer the reader to Count Sollogub’s
amusing little book, to which he has given the name of ‘The Tarantas.’

“There is no difference between our government towns. See one, and you’ll know them all!”

“Is it possible?”

“It is so, I assure you, Every one has a High-street; one principal shop, where the country gentlemen buy silks for their wives, and champagne for themselves; then there are the Courts of Justice, the assembly-rooms, an apothecary’s shop, a river, a square, a bazaar, two or three street-lamps, sentry-boxes for the watchmen, and the governor’s house.”

“The society, however, in the government towns must be different?”

“On the contrary. The society is still more uniform than the buildings.”

“You astonish me: how is that?”

“Listen. There is, of course, in every government town a governor. These do not always resemble each other; but as soon as any one of them appears, police and secretaries immediately become active, merchants and tradesmen bow, and the gentry draw themselves up, with, however, some little awe. Wherever the governor goes, he is sure to find champagne, the wine so much patronised in the province, and everybody drinks a bumper to the health of the ‘_father of the province_.’ Governors generally are well-bred, and sometimes very proud. They like to give dinner parties, and benevolently condescend to play a game of whist with rich brandy-contractors and landowners.”

“That’s a common thing,” remarked Ivan Vassilievitsch.

“Do not interrupt me. Besides the governor, there is in nearly every government town the governor’s lady. She is rather a peculiar personage. Generally brought up in one of the two capitals, and spoiled with the cringing attentions of her company. On her husband’s first entry into office, she is polite and affable; later, she begins to feel weary of the ordinary provincial intrigues and gossips; she gets accustomed to the slavish attentions she receives, and lays claim to them. At this period she surrounds herself with a parasitical suite; she quarrels with the lady of the vice-governor; she brags of St. Petersburg; speaks with disdain of her provincial circle, and finally draws upon herself the utmost universal ill-feeling, which is kept up till the day of her departure, when all goes into oblivion, everything is pardoned, and everybody bids her farewell with tears.”

“Two persons do not form the whole society of a town,” interrupted again Ivan Vassilievitsch.

“Patience, brother, patience! Certainly there are other persons besides the two I have just spoken of: there is the vice-governor and his lady; several presidents, with their respective ladies, and an innumerable crowd of functionaries serving under their leadership. The ladies are ever quarrelling in words, whilst their husbands do the same thing upon foolscap. The presidents, for the most part, are men of advanced age and business-like habits, with great crosses hanging from their necks, and are during the daytime to be seen out of their courts only on holidays. The government attorney is generally a single man, and an enviable match. The superior officer of the _gens-d’armes_ is a ‘good fellow.’ The nobility-marshal a great sportsman. Besides the government and the local officers, there live in a government town stingy landowners, or those who have squandered away their property; they gamble from evening to morning, nay, from morning to evening too, without getting the least bit tired of their exercise.”

“Now, about the mode of living?” asked Ivan Vassilievitsch.

“The mode of living is a very dull one. An exchange of ceremonious visits. Intrigues, cards—cards, intrigues. Now and then, perchance, you may meet with a kind, hospitable family, but such a case is very rare; you much oftener find a ludicrous affectation to imitate the manners of an imaginary high life. There are no public amusements in a government town. During winter a series of balls are announced to take place at the Assembly-rooms; however, from an absurd primness, these balls are little frequented, because no one wants to be the first in the room. The ‘_bon genre_’ remains at home and plays whist. In general, I have remarked, that on arriving in a government town, it seems as if you were too early or too late for some extraordinary event. You are ever welcomed: ‘What a pity you were not here yesterday!’ or, ‘You should stay here till to-morrow.’”

In process of time Ivan Vassilievitsch and his good-natured fat companion, Vassily Ivanovitsch, reach a borough town, where the Tarantas breaks down. There is a tavern and here is a description of it.

‘The tavern was like any other tavern,—a large wooden hut, with the usual out-buildings. At the entrance stood an empty cart. The staircase was crooked and shaky, and at the top of it, like a moving candelabrum, stood a waiter with a tallow candle in his hand. To the right was the tap-room, painted from time immemorial to imitate a grove. Tumblers, tea-pots, decanters, three silver and a great number of pewter spoons, adorned the shelves of a cupboard; a couple of lads in chintz shirts, with dirty napkins over their shoulders, busied themselves at the bar. Through an open door you saw in the next room a billiard table, and a hen gravely promenading upon it.

‘Our travellers were conducted into the principal room of this elegant establishment, where they found, seated round a boiling tea-urn, three merchants,—one grey-haired, one red-haired, and one dark-haired. Each of these was armed with a steaming tumbler; each of them sipped, smacked his lips, stroked his beard and sipped again the fragrant beverage.

‘The red-haired man was saying:—’

“I made, last summer, a splendid bargain: I had bought from a company of Samara-Tartars, some five hundred bags of prime quality, and had at the same time a similar quantity, which I purchased from a nobleman who was in want of money, but such dreadful stuff it was, that if it had not been for the very low price, I would never have thought of looking at it. What did I do? I mixed these two cargoes, and sold the whole lot to a brandy-contractor at Ribna, for prime quality.”

“It was a clever speculation,” remarked the dark-haired.

“A commercial trick!” added the grey-haired.

‘Whilst this conversation was proceeding, Vassily Ivanovitsch and Ivan Vassilievitsch had taken seats at a separate little table; they had ordered their tea, and were listening to what the three merchants were saying.

‘A poor looking fellow came in and took from his breast-pocket an incredibly dirty sheet of paper, in which were wrapped up bank-notes and some gold, and handed it over to the grey-haired merchant, who, having counted them over, said:’

“Five thousand, two hundred and seventeen roubles. Is it right?”

“Quite right, Sir.”

“It shall be delivered according to your wish.”

‘Ivan asked why the sender had not taken a receipt?

‘The red and dark-haired merchants burst out laughing; the grey-haired got into a passion.’

“A receipt!” he cried out furiously, “a receipt! I would have broken his jaw with his own money had he dared to ask me for a receipt. I have been a merchant now more than fifty years, and I have never yet been insulted by being asked to give a receipt.”

“You see, Sir,” said the red-haired merchant, “it is only with noblemen that such things as receipts and bills of exchange exist. We commercial people do not make use of them. Our simple word suffices. We have no time to spare for writing. For instance, Sir: here is Sidor Avdeievitsch, who has millions of roubles in his trade, and his whole writing consists of a few scraps of paper, for memory’s sake, Sir.”

“I don’t understand that,” interrupted Ivan Vassilievitsch.

“How could you, Sir? It is mere commercial business, without plan or _façade_. We ourselves learn it from our childhood: first as errand-boys, then as clerks, till we become partners in the business. I confess it is hard work.”

Upon this text Ivan preaches a ‘Young Russia discourse.’

“Allow me a few words,” he said with fervour. “It appears to me that we have in Russia a great number of persons buying and selling, but yet, I must say, we have no systematic commerce. For commerce, science and learning are indispensable; a conflux of civilised men, clever mathematical calculations—but not, as seems to be the case with you, dependence upon mere chance. You earn millions, because you convert the consumer into a victim, against whom every kind of cheat is pardonable, and then you lay by farthing by farthing, refusing yourselves not only all the enjoyments of life, but even the most necessary comforts.... You brag of your threadbare clothes; but surely this extreme parsimony is a thousand times more blameable than the opposite prodigality of those of your comrades who spend their time amongst gipsies, and their money in feasting. You boast of your ignorance, because you do not know what civilisation is. Civilisation, according to your notions, consists in shorter laps of a coat, foreign furniture, bronzes, and champagne—in a word, in outward trifles and silly customs. Trust me, not such is civilisation.... Unite yourselves! Be it your vocation to lay open all the hidden riches of our great country; to diffuse life and vigour into all its veins; to take the whole management of its material interests into your hands. Unite your endeavours in this beautiful deed, and you may be certain of success! Why should Russia be worse than England? Comprehend only your calling; let the beam of civilisation fall upon you, and your love for your fatherland will strengthen such a union; and you will see that not only the whole of Russia, but even the whole world will be in your hands.”

‘At this eloquent conclusion, the red and the dark-haired merchants opened wide their eyes. They, of course, did not understand a single word of Ivan Vassilievitsch’s speech.’

“Alas, for Young Russia,” Ivan dolefully remarks in another place;—

“I thought to study life in the provinces: there is no life in the provinces: every one there is said to be of the same cut. Life in the capitals is not a Russian life, but a weak imitation of the petty perfections and gross vices of modern civilisation. Where am I then to find Russia? In the lower classes, perhaps, in the every-day life of the Russian peasant? But have I not been now for five days chiefly amongst this class? I prick up my ears and listen; I open wide my eyes and look, and do what I may, I find not the least trifle worth noting in my ‘_Impressions_.’ The country is dead; there is nothing but land, land, land; so much land, indeed, that my eyes get tired of looking at it; a dreadful road—waggons of goods, swearing carriers, drunken stage-inspectors; beetles creeping on every wall; soups with the smell of tallow-candles! How is it possible for any respectable person to occupy himself with such nasty stuff? And what is yet more provoking, is the doleful uniformity which tires you so much, and affords you no rest whatever. Nothing new, nothing unexpected! To-morrow what has been to-day; to-day what has been yesterday. Here, a post-stage, there again a post-stage, and further the same post-stage again; here, a village-elder asking for drink-money, and again to infinity village-elders all asking for drink-money. What can I write? I begin to agree with Vassily Ivanovitsch; he is right in saying that we do not travel, and that there is no travelling in Russia. We simply are going to Mordassy. Alas! for my ‘_Impressions_.’”

Whoever wants to know more of this amusing Young Russian, must consult “The _Tarantas_.” We can assure the reader that the book is fraught with a store of amusement—chiefly descriptions of town and country life in Russia—not often compressed into the modest and inexpensive compass of a thin duodecimo.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Renumbered footnotes. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. ● The caret (^) is used to indicate superscript, whether applied to a single character (as in 2^d) or to an entire expression (as in 1^{st}).