The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence by E. F. Benson
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THE VINTAGE
_A Romance of the Greek War ofIndependence. By_ E. F. BENSON_Author of "Limitations" "Dodo""The Judgment Books" etc._
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
"And the wine-press was trodden without thecity, and blood came out of the wine-press"
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1898
"'COME AND SIT DOWN'"]
THIS ROMANCE
DEALING WITH THE REGENERATION OF HER PEOPLE
IS DEDICATED BY PERMISSION
TO
HER MAJESTY
OLGA
QUEEN OF THE HELLENES
CONTENTS
PART I
THE VINEYARD
I. The House on the Road To Nauplia II. The Coming of Nicholas Vidalis III. The Story of a Brigand IV. The Midnight Ordeal V. Mitsos Picks Cherries for Maria VI. The Song from the Darkness VII. The Port Dues of Corinth VIII. The Mending of the Monastery Roof IX. The Singer from the Darkness
PART II
THE EVE OF THE GATHERING
I. Mitsos Meets His Cousins II. Mitsos and Yanni find a Horse III. Mitsos Has the Hysterics IV. Yanni Pays a Visit to the Turk V. The Vision at Bassae VI. Three Little Men Fall Off their Horses VII. Mitsos Disarranges a House-roof VIII. The Message of Fire
PART III
THE TREADING OF THE GRAPES
I. Te Deum Laudamus II. Two Silver Candlesticks III. The Adventure of the Fire-ship IV. The Training of the Troops V. The Hornets' Nest at Valtetzi VI. The Entry of Germanos VII. The Rule of the Senate VIII. The Song from Tripoli IX. Private Nicholas Vidalis X. The Fall of Tripoli XI. Father and Daughter XII. The Search for Suleima XIII. Nicholas Goes Home XIV. The House on the Road to Nauplia
ILLUSTRATIONS
"'COME AND SIT DOWN'""'I AM FATHER ANDREA,' HE SHOUTED""HALF CARELESSLY SHE THREW INTO THE BOAT THE ROSES SHE HAD PICKED""SHE KISSED HIM LIGHTLY ON THE FOREHEAD""MITSOS SURVEYED HIM WITH EASY INDIFFERENCE""YANNI WAS STRUGGLING IN THE GRASP OF TWO MEN, THE GREEK AND THE TURK""KATSI AND A FINE SELECTION OF COUSINS ACCOMPANIED THE TWO""AFTER SUPPER MITSOS EXPOUNDED""IN THE CENTRE OF THE GREAT CHAMBER STOOD ONE WHOM IT DAZZLED HIS EYES TO LOOK UPON""'AH, BUT IT IS GOOD TO BE WITH YOU AGAIN'""MITSOS TORE UP GREAT HANDFULS OF UNDERGROWTH AND THREW THEM ON""MIXED WITH THE NOISE OF THE SINGING, ROSE ONE GREAT SOB OF A THANKFUL PEOPLE BORN AGAIN""BOTH THE BOYS, SEIZING THEIR OARS, ROWED FOR LIFE""CASTING HIMSELF DOWN THERE, IN AN AGONY BITTER SWEET, HE PRAYED""MITSOS, FLYING AT HIM LIKE A WILD-CAT""BORNE IN A CHAIR ON THE SHOULDERS OF FOUR MONKS""HE HAD CLAMBERED UP AND DROPPED DOWN ON THE OTHER SIDE""UNBUCKLING HIS SWORD, HE LAID IT ON THE TABLE""YANNI WAS BY HIM WITH A BRILLIANT SMILE ON HIS FACE""'WOULD YOU SLAY ME, FATHER?' SHE CRIED AGAIN""BY AN EFFORT HE RAISED HIMSELF ON HIS ELBOW""'SULEIMA!' CRIED MITSOS"
THE VINTAGE
Part I
THE VINEYARD
CHAPTER I
THE HOUSE OF THE ROAD TO NAUPLIA
Nauplia, huddled together on the edge of its glittering bay, andgrilled beneath the hot stress of the midsummer noon, stood silent as acity of the dead. Down the middle of the main street, leading up fromthe quay to the square, lay a scorching ribbon of sunshine, and thenarrow strips of shadow, sharp cut and blue, spoke of the South.
Along one side of the square ran the barracks of the Turkish garrisonof occupation, two-storied buildings of brown stone, solid but airless,and faced with a line of arcade. These contained the three companies ofmen who were stationed in the town itself, less fortunate in this ovenof heat than the main part of the garrison who held the airier fortressof Palamede behind, overlooking the plain from a height of fivehundred feet. Down the west side stood the quarters of the officers,and opposite, the prison, full as usual to overflowing of the nativeGreeks, cast there for default of payment to the Turkish usurers ofan interest of forty or fifty per cent. on some small loan; for thesenew Turkish laws of 1820 with regard to debt had made the prisons morepopulous than ever. A row of shops and a couple of cafes along thenorth struck a more domestic note.
A narrow street led out of the square eastwards, and passing the lengthof the town, burrowed through the wall of Venetian fortification inthe manner of a tunnel. On the right the outline of the gray fortresshill, precipitously pitched towards the town in a jagged edge likeforked lightning, rose steep and craggy, weathered by the wind inplaces to a tawny red, and peppered over with sun-dried tufts of grass.Along the base of this the road ran, cobbled unevenly in the Turkishfashion, and after passing two or three villas which stood white andsegregate among their gardens of flowering pomegranate and serge-cladcypress, struck out into the plain. Vineyards and rattling maize fieldsbordered it on one hand; on the other, beds of rushes and clumps ofking-thistles, which peopled the little swamp between it and the bay.The spring had been very rainless, and these early days of June saw thecountry already yellow and sere. The clumps of succulent leaves roundthe base of the asphodels were dried and brown; only the virile stemswith their seeding sprouts remained green and vigorous.
The blinding whiteness of the forenoon gave place before one of the dayto a veiled but unabated heat, and sirocco began to blow up from thesouth. Furnace-mouthed, it raised mad little whirlwinds, which spunacross the road and over the hot, reaped fields in petulant eddies,and powdered all they passed with fine white dust. Two or three hawks,in despair of spying their dinner through this palpable air, and beingcontinually blown downwind in the attempt to poise, were followingthe example of the rest of the world, and seeking their craggy homeson the sides of Palamede till the tempest should be overpast. A fewcicalas in a line of white poplars by the wayside alone maintainedtheir alacrity, and clicked and whirred as if sirocco was of all airsthe most invigorating. The hills of Argolis to the north were alreadygetting dim and veiled, and losing themselves in an ague of heat.
By the roadside, a mile from the town, stood a small wine-shop, infront of which projected a rough wooden portico open to the air onthree sides, and roofed with boughs of oleander, plucked leaf andflower together. A couple of rough stools and a rickety table stoodin the shade in order to invite passers-by to rest, and so to drink,and the owner himself was lying on a bench under the house wall inwide-mouthed sleep. A surly-looking dog, shaggy and sturdy, guarded hisslumbers in the intervals of its own, and snapped ineffectually at theflies.
Directly opposite the wine-shop stood a whitewashed house, built ina rather more pretentious style than the dwellings of most Greekpeasants, and fronted by a garden, to which a row of white poplarsgave a specious and private air. A veranda ran around two sides ofit, floored with planks, and up the wooden pillars, by which it wassupported, streamed long shoots of flowering roses. A low woodensettee, cushioned with two Greek saddle-bags, stood in the shade of theveranda, and on it were sitting two men, one of whom was dressed in thelong black cassock of a priest--both silent.
Then for the first time a human note overscored the thundering ofthe hot wind, and a small gray cat scuffled round the corner of theveranda, pursued by a great long-limbed boy, laughing to himself. Hewas dressed in a white linen tunic and tight-fitting linen trousers;he had no shoes, no socks, and no hat. He almost fell over the setteebefore he saw the two men, and then paused, laughing and panting.
"She was after the fish," he explained, "and I was after her. She shalltaste a slapping."
One of the two men looked up at the boy and smiled.
"You'
Mitsos knelt down, and the priest put his hand on the boy's rumpledblack hair.
"God make you brave and good," he said, "and forgive all your sins!"
"Now sit down, Mitsos," said his father. "Who is going to taste aslapping?"
The boy's face, which had grown grave as he received the priest'sblessing, dimpled into smiles again.
"Why, my cat, Psepseka," he said. "The greedy woman was going down tothe cellar where I put the fish, and I went after her and caught her bythe tail. She spit at me like a little she-devil. Then she scratchedme, and I let go. But soon I will catch her again, and she shall payfor it all twice over, Turkish fashion. See!"
He held out a big brown hand, down which Psepseka had scored three redlines.
"What a fierce woman!" said his father. "But you're overbig to runabout after little cats. You're eighteen now, Mitsos, and your unclecomes here this evening. He'll think you're a boy still."
The boy looked up from his examination of his hand.
"Uncle Nicholas?" he asked.
"Yes. Go and wash your hand, and then lay the table. Put some eggs toboil, and get out some bread and cheese, and pick some cherries."
Mitsos got up.
"Will the father eat with us?"
"Surely; and put your shoes on before you come to dinner."
And without waiting the boy was off into the house.
The priest looked up at Mitsos' father as he disappeared.
"He is full young yet," he said.
"So I think, and so perhaps Nicholas will think. Yet who knows whatNicholas thinks? But he is a good lad, and he can keep a secret. He isstrong too; he walked from here to Corinth last week, and came backnext day, and he grows like the aloe flower."
The priest rose and looked fiercely out over the garden.
"May the God of Justice give the Turks what they have deserved!" hecried. "May He send them bitterness to eat and death to drink! Maytheir children be fatherless and their wives widows! They had no mercy;may they find none! The curse of a priest of God be upon them!"
Mitsos' father sat still watching him. Eleven years ago Father Andreahad been obliged to make a journey to Athens to settle about some plotof land belonging to his wife, who had lately died, and, if possible,to sell it--for under the Turkish taxes land was more often an expensethan a revenue. He had taken with him his only daughter, a girl of fiveor six years of age, pretty even then, and with promise of wonderfulbeauty to come. On his way home, just outside Athens, he had beenattacked by some half dozen Turks, and, after a desperate, hopelessresistance, had been left on the road more dead than alive, and hisdaughter had been carried off, to be trained, no doubt, to the doom ofsome Turkish harem. He must have lain there stunned for some hours,for when he awoke again to an aching consciousness of soul and body,the day was already reddening to its close, and the shadow of thehills of Daphne had stretched itself across the plain to where he lay.Wounded and bleeding as he was, and robbed of the money he had gotfor the land, he had dragged himself back to Athens, and stayed therefor weeks, until his hope of ever finding his Theodora again had fadedand died. For it was scant justice that was given to the Greeks bytheir masters, who treated them as a thoughtless man will scarce treatan animal that annoys him. Rape, cruelty, robbery was their method ofrule, and for the unruly a noose.
Since that time one thought, and one only, possessed his brain, athought which whispered to him all day and shouted to him in sleep--thelust for vengeance; not on one Turk alone, on those who had carriedTheodora off, but on the whole of that race of devils. For eleven yearshe had thought and schemed and worked, at first only with nothing morethan wild words and bloody thoughts, but of late in a soberer beliefthat his day would come; for organized schemes of throwing off theTurkish rule were on foot, and though they were still things only to bewhispered, it was known that agents of the Club of Patriots were doingsure and silent work all over the country.
Father Andrea was a tall, finely made man, and, to judge from hisappearance, the story that he would tell you, how he and his familywere of pure Greek descent, had good warrant. He came from thesouthwest part of Argolis, a rough, mountainous land which the Turkshad never entirely subdued. His father had died five years before, butwhen Andrea went home after the capture of his daughter, the old manhad turned him out of the house and refused to see him again.
"A child is a gift which God has given the father," said he; "it werebetter for him to lose himself than lose God's gift; and now we, whoare of the few who have not mixed with that devil-brood--we are falleneven as others. You have brought disgrace on me, and on our dead, andon our living, and I would sooner have seen you dead yourself than hearthis from your lips!"
"They were six to one," said Andrea, "and they left me for dead. Wouldto God they had killed me!"
"Would to God they had killed you," said his father, "and her too."
"The fault was not mine. Will you not forgive me?"
"Yes, when the fault is wiped out by the death of Theodora."
"Of Theodora? What has she done?"
"She will grow up in shame, and mate with devils. Go!"
Five years passed before they met again. But one day Andrea's father,left lonely in his house, moved by some vague desire which he hardlyunderstood himself, saddled his mule and went to Nauplia, whitherAndrea had gone. He was very old and very feeble in body, and perhapshe felt that death could not be far from him; and to Andrea's cry ofwelcome and wonder--"I have come to you, my son," said the old man,"for otherwise we are both alone, and--and I am very old."
Day by day he used to sit looking up and down the road for Theodora.There was a bend in it some quarter of a mile farther up, andsometimes, when the spring days were warm to his bones, he would hobbleup to the corner and sit waiting for her there, where he could commanda longer stretch of country. But Theodora came not, and one evening,when he came back, he sank into a chair without strength and calledAndrea to him.
"I am dying," he said, "and this is no season to waste idle words. WhenTheodora comes back"--he always clung to the idea that she would comeback--"tell her that I waited for her every day, for I should haveloved to see her again. And if you find it hard, Andrea, to forgiveher, forgive her for my sake, for she was very little and the fault wasnot hers; nor is it yours, and I was hard on you; yet if I had lovedyou not, I should have cared the less. But if, when the day comes,you spare your hand and do not take vengeance on the Turks to theuttermost, then may my ghost tear you limb from limb, and give you tothe vultures and the jackals."
The old man rose from his chair.
"Vengeance!" he cried; "death to man, woman, and child. Smite and sparenot, for you are a priest of God and they are of the devil. Smite,smite, avenge!"
He sank back in his chair again, his head fell over on to his shoulder,and his arms rattled against the woodwork. And with vengeance on hislips, and the desire of vengeance in his heart, he died.
From that day a double portion of his spirit seemed to have descendedon Father Andrea. One hope and one desire ruled his life--to help inwiping out from Greece the whole race of Turks. To him innocent orguilty mattered not; they were of one accursed brood. But though thelonging burned like fire within him, he kept it in, choking it as itwere with fresh fuel. He was willing to wait till all was ready. Fora year or two large organizations had been at work in North Greececollecting funds, and, by means of secret agents, feeding and fanningthe smouldering hate against their brutal masters in the minds of thepeople. Soon would the net be so drawn round them that escape wasimpossible. And then vengeance in the name of God.
Mitsos had encouraged a small charcoal fire to heat the water, and hewent to fetch the eggs. Two minutes of puckered brow were devoted tothe number which he was free to boil. His father usually ate two, thepriest--and he cursed his own good memory--never ate more than one, andhe
Mitsos drew a sigh of satisfaction at this liberal conclusion, and hiseyes began to smile; his mouth followed suit, and showed a row of verywhite teeth.
"It is such a pity that I am always hungry," he said to himself; "butwhen Uncle Nicholas measures me he will see I have grown."
And putting the eight eggs into the pot, he ran off to pick thecherries.
For the last year both Constantine, Mitsos' father, and the boy hadworked the little land he owned, like common laborers. Two years beforea Turkish pasha, Abdul Achmet by name, in passing through the countryhad been struck by the Avilion climate of Nauplia, and had built ahouse on the shore of the bay. The land belonged to Constantine, andthe Turk had promised him a fair price for it, feeling that a lessscrupulous man would have taken it off-hand. At the same time heintimated that if he would not take a fair price for it, he wouldget no price at all. The money, of course, was still owing, and onConstantine's old vineyard stood the house, now finished. Abdul Achmet,who was Governor of Argos, took up his quarters here permanently,with his harem; for it was within easy distance of Argos, and on warmevenings the women were often seen in the garden looking over thesea-wall which separated it from the bay, a wall some ten feet high,over which creepers sprawled and flamed. Abdul himself was a fat,middle-aged Turk, slow of movement and sparing of speech. In temper ofmind he was a Gallio, and his neglect to pay Constantine the money heowed him was as much due to negligence as to the usual Turkish methodof dealing with Greeks, which was not to pay at all. His harem, for theyears had long since quenched the ardor of his body, were given a gooddeal of freedom, and were allowed to wander about the garden, which waswalled off from the country road, as they pleased.
Constantine had applied several times for payment, but had alreadygiven up hopes of securing any equivalent for the land seized. He was aGreek of the upper peasant class--that is to say, of the first class ofthe country--who lived on their own land and employed labor. Like hisrace, he was thrifty and industrious; but now, between the loss of hisvineyard and the iniquitous increase in the last year's taxes, whichpromised to grow indefinitely, he found it difficult to do more thanmake a sparing livelihood. He and Mitsos worked all the spring withthe laborers in the harvest-field, and in the autumn, when they hadfinished making the wine from a half-acre of vines still left them, aslaborers in the neighboring vineyards.
Constantine felt the change in his position acutely. Instead of beinga man with men under him, he was himself obliged to work for hisbread, and, what was an added bitterness, it was by gross injustice,and through no fault of his own, that he was thus reduced. Every yearthe taxation became more and more heavy; only six months before he hadbeen obliged to sell his horse, for a new tax was levied on horses, andall that remained were an acre or two of ground, a pony, his house,and his boat. But of late he seemed to have taken up a patient,uncomplaining attitude, which much puzzled the growling Greeks whom hemet at the cafes. While others grumbled and cursed the Turks beneaththeir breath, Constantine would sit with a quiet smile on his lips,looking half amused, half indulgent. Only two nights before a neighborhad said to him, point blank:
"You have suffered more than any of us, except perhaps those who havedaughters. Why do you sit there smiling? Are things so prosperous withyou?"
The question was evidently prearranged, for the two or three mensitting round stopped talking and waited for him to answer.
Constantine knocked the ashes out of his chibouk before replying.
"Things are not prosperous with me," he said; "but I am a man who canhold his tongue. This I may tell you, however: Nicholas Vidalis comeshere in three days."
"And then?"
"Nicholas will advise you to hold your tongues, too. He will certainlytell you that, and it may be he will tell you something besides. I willbe going home. Good-night, friends."
And now, when Father Andrea was cursing the Turks in the name of God,though Constantine crossed himself at that name, he watched him withthe same smile. Then he said:
"Father Andrea, I ask your pardon, but Nicholas does not like too muchtalk. He says that talking never yet mended a matter. You know him--inthese things he is not a man of many words, save where it serves somepurpose."
The priest turned round.
"You are right and wrong," he said; "Nicholas is a man of few words;but I have made a vow that for every time the sun rises, and at everynoonday and every sunset, I will curse the Turk in God's name. That vowI will keep."
Constantine shrugged his shoulders slightly.
"Well, here is Mitsos. Do not curse before the boy. Mitsos, is dinnerready?"
Mitsos wrinkled up his forehead till his eyebrows nearly disappearedunder his curly hair.
"Yes, it is ready; but for me, I can find one shoe only."
"Well, look for the other."
"I have looked for it," said the boy, "but it is not, and I ache foremptiness."
He raised his eyes appealingly to his father, but Constantine was firm.
"You must find it first," he said. "Come, Father, let us go in."
Father Andrea followed him, leaving Mitsos half-shod and disconsolate.