CHAPTER XV.
Out of a broad valley, through which lies the chief highway leading to the north-west of Albania, there opens a narrow ravine which seems to end abruptly against the precipitous front of a mountain range. But, turning into this ravine, one is surprised to find that it winds sharply, following a swift stream, and climbing for many miles through the mountain, until it suddenly debouches into a picturesque valley, which affords grazing space for sheep and enough arable land to sustain the peasants who once dwelt there.
A hamlet nestled in this secluded vale. No road led beyond it, and it was approached only by the narrow and tortuous path we have described. A rude mill sentineled a line of three houses. These dwellings, though simple in their construction, were quite commodious. A room of ample dimensions was enclosed with walls of stone and loam, supporting a conical roof of thatch. On three sides of this room and opening into it were smaller chambers, having detached roofs of their own. The central apartment was the common gathering place for quite an extensive community, consisting of a family in three or four generations; for each son upon marrying brought his wife to the paternal homestead, and built a new chamber connecting with the central one. The three houses contained altogether nearly a hundred souls. The last of these dwellings was of ampler proportions than the others, and was occupied by a branch of an ancient family to which the inhabitants of the other houses were all of kin. By reason of its antiquity as well as the comparative wealth of its occupants, it was regarded as the konak, or village mansion; and the senior member of its little community was recognized as the stargeshina, or chief of the village.
It was the latter part of April; the day before that upon which from time immemorial the peasants among these mountains had observed the festival of Saint George, which they devoted to ceremonies commemorative of the awakening summer life of the world.
It was still early in the afternoon, though the high mountain wall on the west had shut out the sun, whose bright rays, however, still burning far overhead, dropped their benediction of roseate shadows into the valley they were not permitted to enter; loading the atmosphere with as many tints as there were in Buddha's bowl when the poor man threw in the bud of genuine charity, and it burst into a thousand flowers.
A group of maidens gathered at the little mill, each holding an earthen bowl to catch the glistening spray drops which danced from the edge of the clumsy water-wheel. When these were filled they cast into the "witching waters" the early spring flowers, anemones and violets and white coral arbutus, which they had picked during the day. It was a pleasing superstition that the water, having been beaten into spray, received life from the flowers which the renewed vitality of the awakening spring spirit had pressed up through the earth; and that, if one should bathe in this on St. George's day, health and happiness would attend him during the year.
"What is it?" cried one as a crackling in the bushes far above their heads on a steep crag was followed in a moment by the beat of a pebble, as it glanced from ledge to ledge almost to their feet.
"The sheep are not up there!" said another.
"Perhaps the Vili!"[47] suggested a third, "for I am sure that I have seen one this very day."
"What was he like?" exclaimed several at once, while all kept their eyes upon the cliff above.
"There! there! Did you see it?" Several avowed that they saw it stealing along the very brow of the hill; but all agreed that it passed so swiftly that they could not tell just what they saw.
"It was just so with the one I saw to-day," said the former speaker. "I was on the ledge by the old eagle's nest, gathering my flowers. A tall being passed below me on the path, dressed so beautifully that I know it was none of us, and had dealings with none of us. It seemed anxious not to be seen; for my little cry of surprise caused it to vanish as if it melted into the foam of the stream as it plunges into the pool."
"That was just like the Vili," interposed one. "They live under the river's bank. They talk in the murmur of the streams. Old Mirko, who used to work much in the mill, learned to understand what they said. Did this one you saw have long hair? The Vili, Mirko said, always did."
"I cannot say," replied the girl, "for its head was hidden in a blossoming laurel bush between it and me."
"It was one," cried another, "for there are no blossoming laurels yet. It was its long white hair waving in the wind, that you saw."
"Let us go down to the pool!" proposed one, "maybe we can see it again."
"No! No!" cried the others, in a chorus of tremulous voices.
"No, indeed," said one of the larger girls, "for it might be they are eating, or they are dancing the Kolo—which they always do as the sun goes down, and if any body sees them then they get angry, and will come to your house and look at you with the evil eye."
Hasting home with their bowls of water crowned with flowers, they told their story to the stargeshina.
The old man laughed at their credulity:—
"Girls always see strange things on the eve of Saint George."
At the evening meal in the great room of the first house, the patriarch, taking his cue from the story the girls belonging to that household had told of their imagined vision, repeated legend after legend about those strange beings that people the unknown caverns in the mountains, and rise from the brooks, leaving the water-spiders to mark the spot where they emerged so that they may find their way back again, and of the wjeshtiges, who throw off their bodies as easily as others lay aside their clothes, flit through the fire, ride upon the sparks as horses, float on the threads of white smoke—all the time watching the persons gathered about the blazing logs, that they may mark the one who is first to die. "This doomed person," the old man said, "they visit when he has gone to sleep, and, with a magic rod, open his breast; utter in mystic words the day of his death; take out his heart and feast upon it. Then they carefully close up the side, and, though the victim lives on, having no heart, no spring of life in him, sickens and droops until the fatal day; as the streams vanish when cut off from the fountains whence they start."
These stories were followed by songs, the music of which was within a narrow range of notes, and sung to the accompaniment of the gusle—a rude sort of guitar with a single string. The subjects of these songs and the ideas they contained were as limited in their range as the notes by which they were rendered; such as the impossible exploits of heroes, and improbable romances of love. The merit of the singing generally consisted in the additions or variations with which the genius of the performer enabled him to adorn the hackneyed music or original narrative.
"Let Constantine take the gusle, and sing us the song about the peasant maid who conquered the heart of the king," said the stargeshina.
"Constantine is not here," replied a clear and sweet, but commanding sort of voice. "He went out as it began to darken, and has not returned."
The speaker rose as she said it, and went toward the large door of the room to look out. She was a young woman of slender, but superb form, which the costume of the country did not altogether conceal. She was tall and straight, but moved with the graceful freedom of a child, for her straightness was not that of an arrow—rather of the unstrung bow, whose beauty is revealed by its flexibility. Her limbs were rounded perfectly to the feminine model, but were evidently possessed of muscular strength developed by daily exercise incident to her mountain life. A glance at her would disprove that western theory which associates the ideal of female beauty only with softness of fleshly texture and lack of sinew. Her face was commanding, brow high, eyes rather deep-set and blue, mouth small—perhaps too straight for the best expression of amiability—chin full, and suggestive of firmness and courage. As she gazed through the doorway into the night a troubled look knit her features—just enough, however, to make one notice rather the strong, steady and heroic purpose which conquered it. When she turned again to the company the firelight revealed only a girlish sweetness and gentleness of face and manner. She took the gusle and sang a pretty song about the dancing of the witches; her merry voice starting a score of other voices in the simple chorus. Then followed a war song, in which the daughter of a murdered chieftain calls upon the clan to avenge her father, and save their land from an insulting foe. It was largely recitative, and rendered with so much of the realistic in her tones and manner as to draw even the old men to their feet, while, with waving hands and marching stamp, they started the company in the refrain.
Milosch set the example of retiring when the evening was well advanced. Though Constantine was still absent, it gave his father no anxiety, for the boy was accustomed to have his own private business with coons in the forest, and the eels in the pool, and, indeed, with the stars too—for often he would lie for hours looking at them, only Morsinia being allowed to interrupt his conference with the bright-eyed watchers above.