The Vagrant Duke | Page 2

are
children--your children, their hearts still full of reverence for the Grand
Duke Peter Nicholaevitch in whom runs the same blood as that which
ran in the sacred being of the Little Father -but their brains! They are
drunk with the poison poured into their minds by the Committeemen
from Moscow."

"Ah," eagerly, "they returned?"
"Last night," replied the old man wagging his head. "And your people
forgot all that you had said to them--all that they owe to you. They are
mad," he finished despairingly, "mad!"
The Grand Duke had folded his arms and was staring out of the
window toward the white dome of the church now dyed red like a
globule of blood in the sunset.
The old man watched him for a moment, all the fealty of his many
years of service in his gaze and attitude.
"I do not like the look of things, Highness. What does it matter how
good their hearts are if their brains are bad?"
"I must go and talk with them, Vasili," said the Grand Duke quietly.
The old man took a step forward.
"If I might make so free--"
"Speak--"
"Not to-night, Master--"
"Why not?"
"It will be dangerous. Last night their voices were raised even against
you."
"Me! Why? Have I not done everything I could to help them? I am their
friend--because I believe in their cause: and they will get their rights
too but not by burning and looting--"
"And murder, Master. Two of Prince Galitzin's foresters were killed."
The Grand Duke turned. "That's bad. Murder in Zukovo!" He flicked
his extinguished cigarette out of the window and made a gesture with

his hand.
"Go, Vasili. I want to think. I will ring if I need you."
"You will not go to Zukovo to-night?"
"I don't know."
And with another gesture he waved the servant away.
When Vasili had gone, the Grand Duke sat, his legs across the chair by
the window, his arms folded along its back while his dark eyes peered
out, beyond the hills and forests, beyond the reddened dome of the
village church into the past where his magnificent father Nicholas
Petrovitch held feudal sway over all the land within his vision and his
father's fathers from the time of his own great namesake held all Russia
in the hollow of their hands.
The Grand Duke's eyes were hard and bright above the slightly
prominent cheek bones, the vestiges of his Oriental origin, but there
was something of his English mother too in the contours of his chin and
lips, which tempered then hardness of his expression. The lines at his
brows were not the savage marks of anger, or the vengefulness that had
characterized the pitiless blood which ran in his veins, but rather were
they lines of disappointment, of perplexity at the problem that
confronted him, and pity for his people who did not know where to turn
for guidance. He still believed them to be his people, a heritage from;
his lordly parent, his children, who were responsible to him and to
whom he was responsible. It was a habit of thought, inalienable, the
product of the ages. But it was the calm philosophy of his English
mother that had first given him his real sense of obligation to them, her
teachings, even before the war began, that had shown him how terrible
were the problems that confronted his future.
His service in the Army had opened his eyes still wider and when
Russia had deserted her allies he had returned to Zukovo to begin the
work of reconstruction in the ways his awakened conscience had
dictated. He had visited their homes, offered them counsel, given them

such money as he could spare, and had, he thought, become their friend
as well as their hereditary guardian. All had gone well at first. They had
listened to him, accepted his advice and his money and renewed their
fealty under the new order of things, vowing that whatever happened
elsewhere in Russia, blood and agony and starvation should not visit
Zukovo.
But the news that Vasili brought was disquieting. It meant that the
minds of his people were again disturbed. And the fact that Prince
Galitzin had always been hated made the problems the Grand Duke
faced none the less difficult. For his people had burned, pillaged and
killed. They had betrayed him. And he had learned in the Army what
fire and the smell of blood could do...
With a quick nod of resolution he rose. He would go to them. He knew
their leaders. They would listen to him. They must listen....
He closed the piano carefully, putting away the loose sheets of music,
picked up his cap and heavy riding crop from the divan, on his way to
the door, pausing,