We met after the arrival of the mail diligence from Cetinje about half-past six or seven o'clock in the evening. Proceedings usually commenced with a heated argument as to the time, the last comer being accused of unpunctuality. It was always an unsatisfactory argument, for no member ever had the same time as another. A sort of go-as-you-please time was kept in the town, but as either your watch invariably gained ten minutes in the day—according to the town clock it did—or lost a quarter of an hour, no one had any confidence in the official time, and each swore to the regularity of his own timepiece. One great advantage of this discrepancy of time was that try as one would, one was never late for an appointment. Somebody was sure to be present to back up an indignant protest, that you were five minutes early.
One evening was particularly memorable, it was in Petri's garden, then, that we had met as usual. P. was in a pensive and sentimental mood, usually caused by the magnificent sunsets. From our table we commanded a splendid view of those crimson-tinted peaks in the far distance, and the mysterious purple gloom which, like a rich robe, covered the intervening hills. By some strange coincidence the subject of music came up, and P. bitterly lamented the absence of that gentle muse from such grand surroundings. I don't believe there is a piano in the country except at the girls' school at Cetinje. The Scotchman had suggested the gusla as a substitute, and had been met with derisive laughter, for he had made the suggestion in all good faith. He was one of the most unmusical men I have ever met. The professor had followed this up with a learned discourse on the gusla, and the lesson to be learnt from it in the origin and development of modern music, when suddenly the sounds of a violin, being tuned in the room behind us, arrested his flow of speech. In another few moments the unseen musician began to play, and a deep silence fell upon us, for he was playing our music and recalling memories of bygone days. Snatches from Italian opera, and old well-known songs followed each other as we sat in the twilight and listened, conjuring up pictures of opera-house and concert-hall in this far-away land. Then the music ceased, and the tinkling of coins on a plate proclaimed the status of our serenader. In a few minutes a ragged, fair-haired boy stood before us, wearily holding a plate in his hand. As we dived into our pockets the doctor asked him in Serb, who he was and whence he came. He gazed blankly in answer, and P. said to me, "He looks quite English." A joyful smile lit up his tired face as he answered—
"I am English, sir. I will fetch father; he will be so pleased."
His father came out, a battered violin under his arm, and we were all struck with his miserable half-starved and ragged appearance. He played to us, he did not even play well, poor fellow, but still we listened appreciatively, and then some of us took him home, fed him, and we all contributed to his wardrobe. We were all of different sizes and build, and the result was sadly comical. Before he left us he told his story. It was not new or even interesting, but intensely pathetic; one of a large family, fair education, and finally a clerk at £80 a year. A pretty typewriter, marriage, and no help from his father. First the girl wife was dismissed, and then the boy husband. The child was born, and the mother died from lack of proper nourishment and comfort. For a few years the father earned a few coppers by playing before public-houses in the East End, and then took to the road. Somehow or other he found himself on the Continent, and after many years he had turned up here. It was all very vague and incoherent. Often starving, homeless, and speaking no language but his own, is it to be wondered that the man had lost count of days, years, and time? Now he had a desire to journey to Greece, why, he knew not, but he clung to it with all a weak man's obstinacy. We could never let him trudge through Albania, and so the Scotchman procured him a free passage to Corfu by steamer. He left us one morning, leading his son by the hand, and over his shoulder a sack containing his worldly possessions, a sorrowful, ludicrous, and pitiful picture.
Many weeks afterwards—P. and I had been on an expedition in the meantime—we sat again in Petri's garden at just such a sunset. We remembered the musician, and one of us jokingly remarked that his music would not be so appreciated in Greece as by us music-starved exiles. Then the Austrian told us the sequel. He had heard it from a murderous Albanian friend of his, who sometimes brought him specimens. The wanderer had not used his ticket, and had walked from Antivari to Dulcigno, from thence he had attempted his original plan of crossing Albania on foot. He knew nothing of geography or nationality, and doubtless imagined that he could earn his way as in a civilised country. On the way to Scutari a band of Albanians stopped him, and he played to them. The instrument pleased them, and they took it from him. Then they took the boy—though why they did so is not clear, for they do not kidnap children—and the father, in a fit of wild despair, sprang at the nearest Albanian. The Albanians are always glad of an excuse to kill; the wanderer found his death in perhaps the only moment of heroism that he had displayed throughout his wretched life. Such, though, was the story our informant had gleaned, and it took the edge off our evening's amusement.
But other evenings we were merry, and many were the wonderful stories of adventure told over bottled beer and an extraordinary salad which old Gugga mixed before us—to make an appetite, as he said.
We got to love Podgorica in the end, and left its streets, full of gaudy-coloured humanity, the old shot-riddled town across the river, and the glorious mountain panorama, with sorrow. There was always something to talk about, from a threatened raid of the Albanians to the abduction of a Turkish maiden. Death is always very near in that unknown border town.
The day of our final departure from Podgorica, we drove to the famous Crna Zemlja, or Black Earth.
The object of our visit was chiefly to call on a young Albanian, who had repeatedly invited us. Though an Albanian, he is a Montenegrin subject and a corporal in the standing army.
As a matter of fact, he is a fugitive from his clan, the Klementi, where his life is forfeited in a blood feud. The Prince wisely uses such men as a kind of extra border guard, giving them land and houses on the actual frontier line, knowing that they will keep a doubly sharp watch to preserve their own lives.