They waited some time for Andreas; but as his sympathy was of the least possible consequence, they at length proceeded without him supposing him too busy after his pelf to bestow any thought on the first marriage celebration which had, as far as they knew,[knew,] taken place between Poles in these depths of the wilderness. It differed from the marriage celebrations of the people in the neighbourhood only in the addition of the oath which the parties were now met to take.
They had already been married in the usual manner, with the hearty good-will of the Russian superintendents, who were glad of all such symptoms among the exile crown peasants of a willingness to settle down in quiet, like those of their neighbours who had not been rebels. A dowry had even been offered with Sophia; but this was rejected. She could not have taken the oath if she had touched the Emperor’s bounty with so much as her little finger.
This oath was merely a more solemn form of their common vow never to consider Siberia as their home, the Emperor as their sovereign, or any social obligations here entered into as interfering with the primary claims of their country. They and their children were, in short, never to acquiesce in the loss of their heritage, even though their banishment should extend to the thousandth generation. A new clause was added on the present occasion. The newly-married pair vowed never to rest till they had procured the release of Ernest from his ignominious lot, and his restoration to at least the degree of comparative freedom which he had sacrificed for them. This vow, spoken with a faltering voice, because in a nearly hopeless spirit, was drowned in the utterance; and the memory of Ernest was honoured in silence by his companions when they had once given his name to the rushing winds.
The storm increased so much that it became dangerous to remain on the heights; and the rest of the observances were hastily gone through, in increasing darkness and tumult. A tremendous swell of the waters below caused most who were present to start back involuntarily, as if they feared to be swept away even from their high position. Sophia alone was undaunted,—not as she would have been a few months before, but because a new life, which bore no relation to external troubles and terrors, was now animating her heart and mind.
“Let us stay somewhere near till this has blown over,” said she, leading the way to a little cave below, where they might be sheltered from the wind. “I should like, if it were only for Emilia’s sake, that we should see these waters calm again before we go home. There is no harm in humouring her superstition, even supposing that none of us share it.”
Taddeus and Lenore smiled at one another when they found Sophia the first to think of humouring superstition. They followed her, but, on arriving at the mouth of the cave, could obtain no entrance. It was choked up, the roof having fallen in. Clara apprehended the truth at once. Her father’s zeal to grow rich enough to go to Tobolsk, in order to grow richer still, had prevented his going there at all. In this cave was the fossil treasure he had dishonestly concealed from his companions: and in his eagerness to extract his wealth from the mass in which it lay embedded, he had pulled down a weight upon his head which killed him. The body was afterwards found; but, if it had not been for regard to little Clara’s feelings, it would probably have been left thus naturally buried; for a more appropriate grave could scarcely have been devised than that which he had prepared for himself.
“You shall live with us, Clara, and be our sister,” said Sophia to the horror-stricken little girl. “Cyprian can never know how kind you were to me while he was away; but he shall learn to love you for it.”
“She may go back to Poland, if she wishes it,” observed Taddeus aside to his mother. “There is now nothing to keep her here; and the Emperor does not yet crusade against little girls, though he does against their mothers and brothers.”
“She had better stay where she is,” said Paul, also aside, “and if we all take pains with her, she will turn out a paragon of a wife. Your mother will teach her reasoning and patriotism, and all that, and Emilia will give her all her own accomplishments that it is not too late to begin with. She can never have such an eye and ear, but there is time yet to give her a very clever pair of hands: and then she may settle down as Cyprian and I have done.”
“Cyprian and you!” exclaimed Taddeus. But recollecting that there would be no end of quarrels with Paul on this subject if once begun, he restrained his anger at having Sophia compared with Emilia.