Then he tottered to the corner of the steps, and spread his hand over his brows, where the sunset struck through the glare of snow, and he leaned on the ramrod which he had picked up, and gazed, with his wrinkled eyes casting forth a bushy sparkle, down the lonely passage from the road below. "Take it easy, old chap," shouted Strogue; and he answered, "I am too old to take it easy."
Thereupon his long beard fell lower on his breast, and his lips, which were far out of sight behind it, mumbled some sadness which we could not understand, and he shuffled his feet to be sure that they were there, and made off for the kitchen-door, without another sign to us.
"Hospitable I call that," said Strogue; "the poor old beggar doesn't know what he is about. But we must put up here, willy, nilly, for the night. We will make him rout up a bit of grub, and stir the dregs of his ancient brain."
CHAPTER XLV AMONG THE GEMS
The Cossacks had discharged their duty now, after seeing us into friendly hands, and in the morning they rode off to rejoin the detachment at Tiflis. We sent a letter of thanks by them to the Russian Prince, for although we had not been molested, we owed our exemption in all probability to the presence of the uniform. We had passed through a district especially delightful, even among their many happy hunting-grounds, to the heart of the only men among these mountains [unless it be the foreign gunsmiths, and a few of the timber-dealers] who have a profession and practise it with any decent diligence—I mean the gallant brigands. But they must not be quoted as a real exception to the rule of sovereign indolence; because they are not true Caucasians, otherwise they could never get through half of the robberies they accomplish.
The rest of us spent a whole day and two nights at the poor deserted tower, partly to refresh our horses, which were sent to the post-house down below, and partly to consider our plans, after receiving from the ancient steward the feeble light he could contribute. Although he had recognised Strogue so suddenly and with such affection, he forgot him entirely, and with equal speed, until we began to talk in English, and then he broke forth with the declaration that our language was sweeter to his ears than the murmur of a hive of bees breathing their last among their honey, or the first music of the waterfall that has broken the chains of winter.
When Strogue translated this to me, I felt some gratifying surprise; for our language is not so wonderfully mellifluous, or melodious; though our voices are not such a cackle as theirs. But the old gentleman soon revoked his claim upon my gratitude by explaining, as interpreted by Strogue, that the words indeed were strange and hideous, like the sound of a saw on a flinty rock; nevertheless, he loved them always, because they brought to his mind the years that had unrolled day after day, as bright as the rising of the sun, and as smooth as a lake at the foot of the mountains, where no wind comes blowing.