The Vintage. E. F. Benson
A certain change had come over Mitsos since the events of the night recorded in the last chapter. He suddenly seemed to have awoke to a sense of his budding manhood, and his cat, much to that sedately minded creature's satisfaction, was allowed to shape her soft-padded basking life as she pleased. He used to go out in the dewiness of dawn, while it was still scarce light, to try for a shot at the hares which came down from the hills at night to feed in the vineyards, and at evening again he would lie in wait near a spring below Mount Elias to shoot the roe when they came to water. But during the day there was no mark for his gun, for the game went high away among the hills to avoid the broiling heat of the plains, or stayed in cover of the pine woods upon the mountain-sides, where the growth was too thick for shooting, and where some cracking twig would ever advertise a footstep, however stealthy.
But the sudden and violent winds of the summer months had set in, and sailing gave him day-long occupation. He made it his business to know the birth-hour of the land-breeze, the length of the dead calm that follows, and the hour when the sea-breeze again winnows the windless heaven; to read the signs of the thread-like streamers in the upper air, which mean a strong breeze; the vibration on the sea's horizon, like the trembling of a steel spring, which means heat and calm, and the soft-feathered clouds, with dim, blurred outlines that tell of moisture in the air, which will fall the hour after sunset in fine, warm, needle-pointed rain. His boat might often be seen scudding across the bay and into the water of the gulf outside, skirting round the promontories, running up into the creeks and inlets until, as Nicholas had told him he should do, he got to know the shape of the land as he knew the shape of his own head. Above all, he would practise beating out to sea in the teeth of the sea-breeze, running out to a given point in as few tacks as possible, and then, when the sea-breeze died away, he would put into some inlet, fish for a little, and sleep curled up in the bottom of the boat, awake with the awakening of the land breeze, and run back again, close hauled, past Nauplia, and up to the side of the bay, where he beached his boat. In these long hours alone on the sea he would sit in the stern, when the boat was steady on some two-mile tack, thinking intently of the new life for which he was preparing himself. Though Nicholas's stories, and the tales of oppression and outrage with which all mouths were full, made personal to him the longing for vengeance on that bestial breed, it was Nicholas himself who was the inspirer, and his indignation was scarce more than an image in a mirror of Nicholas. His uncle had long been acquiring that domination a man can have for a boy, and the main desire and resolve of his mind was to obey Nicholas, whatever order he might lay on him, and this resolve to obey was rapidly becoming an instinct over-mastering and unique. His father, far from making objections to his spending his time in sailing and shooting, encouraged him thereto, for Nicholas had bade him hire labor whenever he wanted a lad in Mitsos' place, saying that the club at Athens had authorized him to make payments for such things. Mitsos, in fact, had definitely entered into the service of his country, and it was only right that his father should be compensated for the loss of a hand.
But during these months there was little or no farm-work to be done. Early in July Constantine had put up a little reed-built shed to overlook his vineyard, and there he spent most of the day scaring away the birds that came to eat the grapes, and playing with his string of polished beads, which he passed to and fro between his hands, every now and then stopping to sling a pebble at a bird he saw settling in the vines. The sparrows were the greatest enemies, for they would fly over in flocks of eighty or a hundred and settle in different parts of the vineyard, and when he cleared one quarter and turned to clear another, the first covey would be back and renewing their depredations on the grapes. He had an almost exaggerated repugnance in taking the funds of the club unless it was absolutely necessary to hire an extra hand, and until the last week before the harvest he managed alone; but then—for the grapes were tight-skinned and juicy, and a single bird holding on to a bunch with its claws and feeding indiscriminately from this grape and that would spoil the hundredfold of what it ate—he hired a boy from Nauplia, and erected another shed some fifty yards off. There they would sit from sunrise to sunset, and at sunset Mitsos returned brown and fresh, with a song from the sea, with his black hair drying back into its crisp curls after his evening bathe, and an enormous appetite. He and Constantine sat together till about nine, and then Mitsos would go off to the cafés, following Nicholas's instructions, and play cards or draughts, ever pricking an attentive ear when comments on the Turks were on the board. Nicholas's directions, however, that there should be no talking of the great matter, was being obeyed too implicitly for Mitsos to pick up much; but he acquired great skill at the game of draughts, even being able to play three games at a time.
One evening, just before the vintage began, he returned earlier than usual with a frown on his face. His father was sitting on the veranda, not expecting him yet.
"Have you heard," said Mitsos, "what these Turks have in hand about the vintage?"
"About the vintage? No."
"Instead of paying one-tenth to the tax-collector, we are to pay one-seventh; and instead of paying in grapes, we pay in wine."
"One-seventh? It is impossible!"
"It is true."
"Where did you hear it?"
"In the last hour at the café in the square. They are all clacking and swearing right and left, and the soldiers are patrolling the streets."
Constantine got up.
"I must go, then," he said. "This is just what Nicholas did not want to happen. Have there been blows between the soldiers and the Greeks?"
"Yanko knocked a Turkish soldier down with such a bang for calling him a dog that the man will never have front teeth again. They took him and clapped him in prison."
"The fat lout shall eat stick from me when he comes out. I suppose, as usual, he was neither drunk nor sober," said Constantine. "As if knocking a soldier down took away the tax. Is Father Andréa there?"
"I passed him just now on the road," said Mitsos, "going to the town."
Constantine got up.
"Stop here, Mitsos," he said; "I will catch Father Andréa up, and make him tell them to be quiet. He can do what he pleases with that tongue of his."
"But mayn't I come?" said Mitsos, scenting an entrancing row.
"And get your black head broken? No, that will keep for a worthier cause."
Constantine hurried off and caught Father Andréa up before he entered the town.
"Father," he said, "you can stop this, for they will listen to you. Remember what Nicholas said."
Father Andréa nodded.
"I heard there were loud talk and blows in the town, and I am on the road for that reason. Nicholas is right. We must pay the extra tax, and for every pint of wine we pay we will exact a gallon of blood. Ah, God, how I have fasted and prayed one prayer—to wash my hands in the blood of the Turks."
"Softly," said Constantine, "here is the guard."
The guard at the gate was unwilling at first to let them pass, but Andréa, without a moment's hesitation, said that he was a priest going to visit a dying man who wished to make a confession, with Constantine as witness, and they were admitted.
"God will forgive me that lie," he said, as they passed on. "It is for His cause that I lied."
Since Mitsos' departure the disturbance had increased. There were some forty or fifty Greeks collected in the centre of the square, and Turkish soldiers were coming out one by one from the barracks and mingling with the crowd. The Greeks, according to their custom, all carried knives, but were otherwise unarmed; the Turks had guns and pistols. There was a low, angry murmur going up from the people, which boded mischief. Just as they came up Father Andréa turned to Constantine.
"Stop outside the crowd," he said, "do not mix yourself up in this. They will not touch me, for I am a priest."
Then elbowing his way among the people, he shouted: "A priest—a priest of God! Let me pass."
The Greeks in the crowd parted, making way