In half an hour I was out of the snow on to the black road, and presently I came to the first village on the north side. The inhabitants all gathered round me and stared, and asked where I had come from and congratulated me. One old man in particular shook hands with me, effusively calling me molodetse, “fine fellow,” and everyone seemed to combine to smile upon me. I was happy. One thing, however, was wanting—food. The village could only supply me with cold copatchka and salt.
CHAPTER XXVI
ARRESTED
I HAD been tramping almost three weeks when I crossed the snow of Mamison. I was therefore full of longing for the comforts of the town and calculated that in three days I should clear the remaining hundred miles and be resting in snug quarters. I was, in fact, full of such thoughts as I reached the village of Lisri, but, as Leonid Andrief says, “Man shall never know the next step for which he raises his tender foot.” At Lisri I was arrested.
The village is a straggling one, built out of grey stone and put together from the remains of ancient ruins. In the barrenest of pasture land, and having no more than three months’ summer, it is strange that anyone should have chosen to live there. Yet there is a large population of Ossetines. What they do beyond shooting bears and wild oxen by day and listening to the wolves at night it would be difficult to say. This day, however, there was unusual animation in the place. The priest had summoned all his parishioners and laid before them a proposal to build a new church and enlarge the school. It was a festive occasion, and probably more spirits were drunk that was conducive to my safety. In Ossetia there is little wine, but all the natives drink Araka, a home-brewed spirit suggesting gin in appearance but possessing the odour of stale whisky. It is made from fermented maize.
The man who arrested me was a primed villain. He reported me to the Ataman as a spy, and said I pretended to be ignorant of the Georgian language, but that he had trapped me into using some words of that tongue. He did not say he had offered to release me for ten shillings, and that he had proposed to discuss the bargain at a lonely point of the road two miles outside the village, and wished to accompany me thither. I had a very likely fear that he would have cut my throat and pushed me over the cliff into the snowy Ardon valley. He reminded me forcibly of some words a Russian had said to me: “The Ossetines have a tariff now—to lay a man out, one rouble; to murder him, three roubles.”
I argued, coaxed, threatened, bluffed, all without avail: my captor was merciless. I must say I mistrusted him dreadfully, and I would not have paid the bribe had I had the money ten times over. I went back to the village and he followed me. I tried to inveigle him into conversation with a group of villagers. I appealed to them and told my story in Russian; they favoured me, and told the fellow to let me go. With their moral support I attempted an escape, and I should have got clear away, but for the fact that at that moment a party of horsemen were coming down into the village and I was cut off by them. My captor was not angry; his only concern was to get me by myself. My care was to start a big dispute with each newcomer. At length I demanded to be taken to the Ataman, and in this I was successful. The man who arrested me wanted me to come home with him, but I outwitted him.
I was brought to the village schoolroom, where the priest was holding his meeting. Fifty men seemed to be all shouting at once. The business in hand was interesting; the clergyman had called them together to do work, provide material and offer money for the construction of the new buildings, and also to discuss the plans. A church in an Ossetine valley costs little; it is made of stone and pine without windows or seats; the whole village is idle and ready to build a house of God for themselves just as they would build a new cottage. The question of wages is not heard. Ruskin himself could not have wished for a more complete absence of the principles of the “dismal science.”
From the moment I entered I saw that the priest would be my friend. I was feeling desperately tired after climbing Mamison. I had used all my wits to get clear of the Ossetine, and now I fell back in exhaustion. I answered or failed to answer the questions of the inquisitive for hours. The Ataman came and questioned me lazily; in his heart he cursed his lieutenant for arresting me. He said to the people, in the Ossetine language, that if I escaped none was to hinder me. Several signalled to me to bolt, for everyone looked very kindly. But my captor hung on; there was no escaping him. He got me alone again, and tried to bully me with words into paying him the ten shillings. This was in the now empty schoolroom. I insisted on marching up and down, for it was cold, and for a quarter of an hour I listened to the man swearing at me.
Then the priest sent for me, and I was glad to get into better company. He was still surrounded by a crowd of villagers, but he saved me from my captor, taking me by a side door, and handing me over to his womenfolk to feed. I felt the brotherhood of educated men all over the world as he said to me sotto voce, “I am sorry to see you, a cultured man, in such a plight.” His wife was very kind to me and brought me minced mutton and scones and araka and tea. I felt myself in a quiet haven out of the storm.