By Far Euphrates A Tale 6

By Far Euphrates A Tale 6

He was longing to go away somewhere by himself, and feast his eyes on

his father's handwriting, and on the printed words he loved so well.

But, as he was going, a thought came to him that made him turn again.

Things which he had heard Kevork say as he began to get better, and

which at the time he had scarcely noticed, came to his mind with a

sudden inspiration.

 

"Father Hohannes," he said, "Kevork, your grandson, longs sore to go to

Aintab, to the great school the Americans have set up there for your

people. Kevork loves learning very much. May he not take some of this

gold and go?"

 

Again Hohannes shook his head. "Kevork is a foolish boy," he said. "The

cock that dreamed of grain fell from his perch trying to scratch for it.

Let him stay at home, and mind the cattle; or take to the weaving, if it

like him better." Jack was sorry for Kevork, but the possession of the

precious books drove everything else out of his head. He flew upon the

spoil; nor was it with a passing joy alone, since during the time that

followed the chief sustenance of his life, that which made it worth

living, came from these books.

 

He was himself again, but only a childish, weak, discouraged self--a

different being from the strong, active-minded, energetic lad who had

come with his father to Biridjik. His illness and its consequences had

thrown him back in his development of body, of mind, and still more of

character, for at least a couple of years. He was quite unable at

present to look his life in the face, or to take the initiative in any

way.

 

Nor was there any one about him who could give him effectual help. How

to go to England was a problem no one in Biridjik seemed able to solve.

Even a letter was a difficult and doubtful undertaking. It is true the

town possessed a Turkish post-office, but this, at all events for

foreign letters, was a perfect "tomb." In answer to his questions, his

friends told him of a certain "Cousin Muggurditch," a kinsman of

Hohannes, who lived at "Yeatessa," but was a great traveller, going

sometimes even as far as Constantinople;--he could send a letter safely

to England. Jack thought Yeatessa was the place his father wanted to go

to, and which was mentioned in his note-book as Edessa, the city of the

legendary King Agbar. His friends assured him it was; that they knew all

about it, and that the story of King Agbar was quite true, for his tomb

was still to be seen just outside the city, which the Franks called

Urfa, and which was only two days' journey from Biridjik.

 

"I shall go there some time," Jack said; but he said no more about it,

and it seemed as if for the time all thought of change had passed out of

his mind. He slipped into the life and the ways of those about him. Even

his European clothes were out-worn or out-grown, and he adopted the

striped zeboun, the gay jacket and the crimson fez of the Armenians.

Mariam Hanum (Mrs. Mary) took care of his wardrobe, and he might be seen

every Saturday going with the other men and youths to the bath, and

carrying his clean clothes with him tied up in a towel.

 

One day he wanted a kerchief to put under his fez and keep off the sun,

and he went by himself to the shop to buy it. He came back with one of

bright green, which he thought very handsome; but, to his amazement,

Kevork snatched it from his head and Avedis flung it into the fire, with

the approval of all the rest.

 

"Don't you know that green is the Moslem colour?" they said to him.

 

"Then be sure I will never wear it," Jack answered; "I am a Christian."

 

He went with his friends to the Gregorian Church on Sundays and feast

days; often too in the early mornings before sunrise, or in the evenings

at sunset. It is true he did not understand very much of the service;

but the Armenians themselves were scarcely better off, as the ancient

Armenian language is still used in the liturgy of the national Church.

He was shown, in the adjoining graveyard, the resting-place of his

father, marked like all the other graves with a flat stone. Then he

printed carefully, in English capital letters, his father's full name,

and gave it to the best stonecutter in the town, asking him to engrave

it for him, with a cross.

 

"I should like it put upon another stone," he said; "one to stand up, as

we have them in England."

 

The stonecutter explained that he could not have it here. It was

unlawful. Mahometans had their tombstones erect, but a Christian might

only mark the resting-place of his dead with a flat stone. "But," the

man added with a smile, "that will not hinder our rising again at the

last day."

 

Kevork and his brothers continued Jack's greatest friends. Kevork talked

much with him, and told him many things. He said he should like to go to

Yeatessa, or Urfa, because he had a sister there.

 

"A married sister, I suppose?" Jack said, rather wondering he had not

heard of her before.

 

"_No_," said Kevork, lowering his voice mysteriously. "My grandfather

had to send her away to our cousins, because the Kamaikan who was here

before this one wanted to marry her; and we never talk of her, not even

before Gabriel and Hagop, lest any word might slip out about where she

is, and the Turks might overhear. But I had rather go to Aintab than

even to Urfa, to learn English and Greek and Latin, and grammar and

geography, and all kinds of science."

 

"And what then?" Jack asked with a smile.

 

"Then I would go, if I could, to America or to England, learn still

more, and become at last a famous professor in some grand college in a

Christian land."

 

Kevork had already learned from a friendly priest, Der Garabed, to read

and write Armenian, and to read Turkish in the Arabic character. For the

Turks, and it is a significant fact, have never reduced their own

language to writing; their books are printed either in the Arabic or in

the Armenian character. He was in raptures when Jack offered to teach

him English, which he promptly began to do, using as a text-book his

father's Bible, the only book he had, with the exception of a Tauchnitz

"Westward Ho," which happened to be in his pocket when he came to

Biridjik. In return, Kevork taught him to read and write Armenian, and

these lessons were shared by Gabriel and Hagop. Gabriel was a remarkably

quick, intelligent boy, all life and fire; Hagop was quiet and rather

dull, more at home at his father's loom than at his brother's book. Both

used to listen delightedly to Jack, when, chiefly as an exercise for

himself, he would translate some simple Bible story aloud in Armenian.

 

Not that such were the only uses Jack made of his father's Bible.

Outwardly his character still continued unformed, boyish, passive;

inwardly it had begun silently to grow and to deepen. He did not act,

but he thought a great deal. His mind was like a stream flowing

underground, gathering volume as it flowed, and sure to emerge again to

the light of the upper world. Its sources were fed by observation,

memory, faith, and hope, and most of all by that matchless fount, not

only of spiritual but of intellectual inspiration, the English Bible.

 

 

 

 

Chapter V

 

BARON MUGGURDITCH THOMASSIAN

 

"Warbling still amidst the others,

Wandering with them where they roam,

And yet hallowing remembrance,

With low gushes about home."

 

 

No doubt some subtle form of nervous weakness, the relic of his long and

terrible illness, still held young John Grayson in its grasp. Moreover

the loss of his father, so intensely loved, had entered like iron into

his soul. His mother's death was still, when he left home, a recent

bereavement, and he was an only child. He had no near relatives except

in his uncle's family, and even amongst them there was only one he cared

for much, his father's godson, a cousin five years his senior, whose fag

he had been at school.

 

What had he, after all, to go back to in England? He excused his torpor

with thoughts like these, whenever it occurred to him to ask himself if

he meant to spend his life tending vines, teaching English, and

studying Armenian, in a little out-of-the-way town on the banks of the

Euphrates.

 

He spent many months there without taking much note of time. The

Meneshians were his family; the whole Armenian community his friends. He

entered more and more into their life, shared more and more their

interests. He was especially interested in the culture of the vineyard,

wanting to know the how and the why of everything. Once--but this was in

early days--he proposed taking Kevork and a couple of other lads with

him, and going to stay there long before the regular vintage time. "We

could guard it a great deal better," he said, "than that lazy Turk, who

does nothing but lie all day on his perch smoking cigarettes, and is

always wanting backsheesh."[1]

 

"You could not do it at all," answered Boghos, the eldest son of

Hohannes, and the husband of Mariam Hanum, "just because you are not a

Turk. Backsheesh is very well spent in setting the Turk to watch the

Kourd, instead of both of them preying upon us. Do you not know that

yet, Yon Effendi?"

 

They all continued to give him that name, which he had taught in the

first instance to Kevork and his brothers. To them all he was a cross

between a pet and plaything to be taken care of, and a superior person

to be honoured. In both capacities he had every attention, and all his

wants were liberally supplied. But he insisted that Hohannes should

expend for that purpose some of his father's gold, and should give from

time to time a small sum by way of compensation to Boghos and Mariam

Hanum, with whom he lived. Money was so scarce in that region that a

very small sum sufficed.

 

At last one day the whole Meneshian family, and indeed the whole

Armenian quarter of Biridjik, was thrown into excitement by the news

that Baron Muggurditch Thomassian (in English, Mr. Baptist Thomson), was

about to honour them with a visit. He was travelling from Urfa to

Aintab, and proposed staying a day or two on his way with his kinsfolk, the Meneshians.