Chapter 21

The place was choke-full, just to excess, and when the curtain was hauled up in came a decent old gentleman in great distress, and implored all the powers of heaven and earth to help him find his runaway daughter that had decamped with some ne'er-do-weel loon of a half-pay captain. Out he went stumping on the other side, determined, he said, to find them, though he should follow them to Johnny Groat's house, or something to that effect. Hardly was his back turned than in came the birkie and the very young lady the old gentleman described, arm-and-arm together, laughing like daft Dog on it! It was a shameless piece of business. As true as death, before all the crowd of folk, he put his arm round her waist and called her his sweetheart, and love, and dearie, and darling, and everything that is fine.

In the middle of their goings on, the sound of a coming foot was heard, and the lassie, taking guilt to her, cried out, "Hide me, hide me, for the sake of goodness, for yonder comes my old father!" No sooner said than done. In he stappit her into a closit, and, after shutting the door on her, he sat down upon a chair, pretending to be asleep in the twinkling of a walking-stick. The old father came bounsing in, shook him up, and gripping him by the cuff of the neck, aske him, in a fierce tone, what he had made of his daughter. Never since I was born did I ever see such brazen-faced impudence! The rascal had the face to say at once that he had not seen the lassie for a month. As a man, as a father, as an elder of our kirk, my corruption was raised, for I aye hated lying as a poor cowardly sin, so I called out, "Dinna believe him, auld gentleman; he's telling a parcel of lees. Never saw her for a month! Just open that press-door, and ye'll see whether I am speaking truth or not!" The old man stared and looked dumfounded; and the young one, instead of running forward with his double nieves to strike me, began a-laughing, as if I had done him a good turn.

But never since I had a being did I ever witness such an uproar and noise as immediately took place. The whole house was so glad that the scoundrel had been exposed that they set up siccan a roar of laughter, and thumped away at siccan a rate with their feet that down fell the place they called the gallery, all the folk in't being hurl'd topsy-turvy among the sawdust on the floor below.

Then followed cries of "Murder," "Hold off me," "My ribs are in," "I'm killed," "I'm speechless." There was a rush to the door, the lights were knocked out, and such tearing, swearing, tumbling, and squealing was never witnessed in the memory of man since the building of Babel. I was carried off my feet, my wind was fairly gone, and a sick qualm came over me, which entirely deprived me of my senses. On opening my eyes in the dark, I found myself leaning with my broadside against the wall on the opposite side of the close, with the tail of my Sunday coat docked by the hainch buttons. So much for plays and play-actors--the first and the last I trust in grace that I shall ever see.

Next morning I had to take my breakfast in bed, a thing very uncommon to me, except on Sunday mornings whiles, when each one according to the bidding of the Fourth Commandment, has a licence to do as he likes. Having a desperate sore head, our wife, poor body, put a thimbleful of brandy into my first cup of tea which had a wonderful virtue in putting all things to rights.

In the afternoon Thomas Burlings, the ruling elder in the kirk, popped into the shop, and, in our two-handed crack, after asking me in a dry, curious way if I had come by no skaith in the business of the play, he said the thing had now spread far and wide, and was making a great noise in the world. I thought the body a wee sharp in his observe, so I pretended to take it quite lightly. Then he began to tell me a wheen stories, each one having to do with drinking.

"It's a wearyfu' thing that whisky," said Thomas. "I wish it could be banished to Botany Bay."

"It is that," said I. "Muckle and nae little sin does it breed and produce in this world."

"I'm glad," quoth Thomas, stroking down his chin in a slee way, "I'm glad the guilty should see the folly o' their ain ways; it's the first step, ye ken, till amendment. And indeed I tell't Maister Wiggie, when he sent me here, that I could almost become guid for your being mair wary of your conduct for the future time to come."

This was a thunder-clap to me, but I said briskly, "So ye're after some session business in this visit, are ye?"

"Ye've just guessed it," answered Thomas, sleeking down his front hair with his fingers in a sober way. "We had a meeting this forenoon, and it was resolved ye should stand a public rebuke in the meeting house next Sunday."

"Hang me if I do!" answered I. "Not for all the ministers and elders that were ever cleckit. I was born a free man, I live in a free country, I am the subject of a free king and constitution, and I'll be shot before I submit to such rank diabolical papistry."

"Hooly and fairly, Mansie," quoth Thomas. "They'll maybe no be sae hard as they threaten. But ye ken, my friend, I'm speaking to you as a brither; it was an unco'-like business for an elder, not only to gang till a play, which is ane of the deevil's rendevouses, but to gan there in a state of liquor, making yourself a world's wonder, and you an elder of our kirk! I put the question to yourself soberly."

His threatening I could despise; but ah, his calm, brotherly, flattering way I could not thole with. So I said till him, "Weel, weel, Thomas, I ken I have done wrong, and I am sorry for't; they'll never find me in siccan a scrape again."

Thomas Burlings, in a friendly way, shook hands with me; telling that he would go back and plead with the session in my behalf. To do him justice he was not worse than his word, for I have aye attended the kirk as usual, standing, when it came to my rotation, at the plate, and nobody, gentle or simple, ever spoke to me on the subject of the playhouse, or minted the matter of the rebuke from that day to this.

_V.--Benjie a Barber_

When wee Benjie came to his thirteenth year, many and long were the debates between his fond mother and me what trade we would bring him up to. His mother thought that he had just the physog of an admiral, and when the matter was put to himsell, Benjie said quite briskly he would like to be a gentleman. At which I broke through my rule never to lift my fist to the bairn, and gave him such a yerk in the cheek with the loof of my hand, as made, I am sure, his lugs ring, and sent him dozing to the door like a peerie.

We discussed, among other trades and professions, a lawyer's advocatt, a preaching minister, a doctor, a sweep, a rowley-powley man, a penny-pie-man, a man-cook, that easiest of all lives, a gentleman's gentleman; but in the end Nanse, when I suggested a barber, gave a mournful look and said in a state of Christian resignation, "Tak' your ain way, gudeman."

And so Benjie was apprenticed to be a barber, for, as I made the observe, "Commend me to a safe employment, and a profitable. They may give others the nick, and draw blood, but catch them hurting themselves. The foundations of the hair-cutting and the shaving line are as sure as that of the everlasting rocks; beards being likely to roughen, and heads to require polling as long as wood grows and water runs."

Benjie is now principal shop-man in a Wallflower Hair-Powder and Genuine Macassar Oil Warehouse, kept by three Frenchmen, called Moosies Peroukey, in the West End of London. But, though our natural enemies, he writes me that he has found them agreeable and shatty masters, full of good manners and pleasant discourse, and, except in their language, almost Christians.

I aye thought Benjie was a genius, and he is beginning to show himself his father's son, being in thoughts of taking out a patent for making a hair-oil from rancid butter. If he succeeds it will make the callant's fortune. But he must not marry Madamoselle Peroukey without my special consent, as Nance says that her having a French woman for a daughter-in-law would be the death of her.

As for myself, I have now retired from business with my guid wife Nanse to our ain cottage at Lugton, with a large garden and henhouse attached, there to spend the evening of our days. I have enjoyed a pleasant run of good health through life, reading my Bible more in hope than fear; our salvation, and not our destruction, being, I should suppose, its purpose. And I trust that the overflowing of a grateful heart will not be reckoned against me for unrighteousness.

* * * * *

JAMES MORIER

The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan

"Hajji Baba" stands by itself among the innumerable books written of the East by Europeans. For these inimitable concessions of a Persian rogue are intended to give a picture of Oriental life as seen by Oriental and not by Western eyes---to present the country and people of Persia from a strictly Persian standpoint. This daring attempt to look at the East from the inside, as it were, is acknowledged to be successful; all Europeans familiar with Persia testify to the truth, often very caustic truth, of James Morier's portraiture. The author of "The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan" was born about 1780, and spent most of his days as a diplomatic representative of Great Britain in the East. He first visited Persia in 1808-09, as private secretary to the mission mentioned in the closing pages of "Hajji Baba." He returned to Persia in 1811-12, and again in 1814, and wrote two books about the country. But the thoroughness and candour of his intimacy with the Persian character were not fully revealed until the publication of "Hajji Baba" in 1824. So popular was the work that Morier wrote an amusing sequel to it entitled "Hajji Baba in England." He died on March 23, 1849.

_I.--The Turcomans_

My father, Kerbelai Hassan, was one of the most celebrated barbers of Ispahan. I was the son of his second wife, and as I was born when my father and mother were on a pilgrimage to the tomb of Hosein, in Kerbelah, I was called Hajji, or the pilgrim, a name which has procured for me a great deal of unmerited respect, because that honoured title is seldom conferred on any but those who have made the great pilgrimage to the tomb of the blessed Prophet of Mecca.

I was taught to read and write by a mollah, or priest, who kept a school in a mosque near at hand; when not in school I attended the shop, and by the time I was sixteen it would be difficult to say whether I was most accomplished as a barber or a scholar. My father's shop, being situated near the largest caravanserai in the city, was the common resort of the foreign merchants; and one of them, Osman Aga, of Bagdad, took a great fancy to me, and so excited me by describing the different cities he had visited, that I soon felt a strong desire to travel. He was then in want of someone to keep his accounts, and as I associated the two qualifications of barber and scribe, he made me such advantageous offers that I agreed to follow him.

His purpose was to journey to Meshed with the object of purchasing the lambskins of Bokhara. Our caravan proceeded without impediment to Tehran; but the dangerous part of the journey was yet to come, as a tribe of Turcomans were known to infest the road.

We advanced by slow marches over a parched and dreary country, and our conversation chiefly turned upon the Turcomans. Everyone vaunted his own courage; my master above the rest, his teeth actually chattering with apprehension, boasted of what he would do in case we were attacked. But when we in reality perceived a body of Turcomans coming down upon us, the scene instantly changed. Some ran away; others, and among them my master, yielded to intense fear, and began to exclaim: "O Allah! O Imams! O Mohammed the Prophet, we are gone! We are dying! We are dead!" A shower of arrows, which the enemy discharged as they came in, achieved their conquest, and we soon became their prey. The Turcomans having completed their plunder, placed each of us behind a horseman, and we passed through wild tracts of mountainous country to a large plain, covered with the black tents and the flocks and herds of our enemies.

My master was set to tend camels in the hills; but when the Turcomans discovered my abilities as a barber and a surgeon, I became a general favourite, and gained the confidence of the chief of the tribe himself. Finally, he determined to permit me to accompany him on a predatory excursion into Persia--a permission which I hoped would lead to my escaping. I was the more ready to do so, in that I secretly possessed fifty ducats. These had been concealed by my master, Osman Aga, in his turban at the outset of his journey. The turban had been taken from him and carried to the women's quarters, whence I had recovered it. I had some argument with myself as to whether I ought to restore the ducats to him; but I persuaded myself that the money was now mine rather than his. "Had it not been for me," I said, "the money was lost for ever; who, therefore, has a better claim to it than myself?"

We carried off much property on the raid, but as our only prisoners were a court poet, a carpet-spreader, and a penniless cadi, we had little to hope for in the way of ransom. On our return journey we perceived a large body of men, too compact for a caravan--plainly some great personage and his escort. The Turcomans retired hastily, but I lagged behind, seeing in this eventuality a means of escape. I was soon overtaken and seized, plundered of my fifty ducats and everything else, and dragged before the chief personage of the party--a son of the Shah, on his way to become governor of Khorassan.

Kissing the ground before him, I related my story, and petitioned for the return of my fifty ducats. The rogues who had taken the money were brought before the prince, who ordered them to be bastinadoed until they produced it. After a few blows they confessed, and gave up the ducats, which were carried to the prince. He counted the money, put it under the cushion on which he was reclining, and said loudly to me, "You are dismissed."

"My money, where is it?" I exclaimed.

"Give him the shoe," said the prince to his master of the ceremonies, who struck me over the mouth with the iron-shod heel of his slipper, saying: "Go in peace, or you'll have your ears cut off."

"You might as well expect a mule to give up a mouthful of fresh grass," said an old muleteer to whom I told my misfortune, "as a prince to give up money that has once been in his hands."

Reaching Meshed in a destitute state, I practised for a time the trade of water-carrier, and then became an itinerant vendor of smoke. I was not very scrupulous about giving my tobacco pure; and when one day the _Mohtesib_, or inspector, came to me, disguised as an old woman, I gave him one of my worst mixtures. Instantly he summoned half a dozen stout fellows; my feet were noosed, and blow after blow was inflicted on them until they were a misshapen mass of flesh and gore. All that I possessed was taken from me, and I crawled home miserably on my hands and knees.

I felt I had entered Meshed in an unlucky hour, and determined to leave it. Dressed as a dervish I joined a caravan for Tehran.

_II.--The Fate of the Lovely_

I at first resolved to follow the career of a dervish, tempted thereto by the confidences of my companion, Dervish Sefer, who befriended me after my unhappy encounter with the Mohtesib.

"With one-fiftieth of your accomplishments, and a common share of effrontery," he told me, "you may command both the purses and the lives of your hearers. By impudence I have been a prophet, by impudence I have wrought miracles--by impudence, in short, I live a life of great ease."

But a chance came to me of stealing a horse, the owner of which confessed he had himself stolen it; and by selling it I hoped to add to the money I had obtained as a dervish, and thereby get into some situation where I might gain my bread honestly. Unfortunately, when I had reached Tehran, the real owner of the horse appeared. I was compelled to refund to the dealer the money I had been paid for the horse, and had some difficulty, when we went before the magistrate at the bazaar, in proving that I was not a thief. I had heard that the court poet, with whom I had formed a friendship during his captivity among the Turcomans, had escaped and returned to Tehran. To him, therefore, I repaired, and through his good offices I secured a post as assistant to Mirza Ahmak, the king's chief physician.

Although the physician was willing to have my services, he was too avaricious to pay me anything for them; and I would not have remained long with him had I not fallen in love. In the heat of summer I made any bed in the open air, in a corner of a terrace that overlooked an inner court where the women's apartments were situated. I came presently to exchanging glances with a beautiful Curdish slave. From glances we came to conversation. At length, when Zeenab--for that was her name--was alone in the women's apartments, she would invite me down from the terrace, and we would spend long hours feasting and singing together.

But our felicity was destined to be interrupted. The Shah was about to depart for his usual summer campaign, and, according to his wont, paid a round of visits to noblemen, thereby reaping for himself a harvest of presents. The physician, being reputed rich, was marked out as prey fit for the royal grasp. The news of the honour to be paid him left him half-elated at the distinction, half-trembling at the ruin that awaited his finances. The Shah came with his full suite, dined gorgeously at my master's expense, and, as is customary, visited the women's apartments. Presently came the news that my master had presented the Shah with Zeenab! She was to be trained as a dancing-girl, and was to dance before the Shah on his return from the campaign.

When Zeenab was thus removed out of my reach, I had no inducement to remain in the physician's service. I therefore sought and secured a post as _nasakchi_, or officer of the chief executioner. I was now a person of authority with the crowd, and used my stick so freely upon their heads and backs that I soon acquired a reputation for courage. Nor did I fail to note the advice given to me by my brother officers as to the making of money by extortion--how an officer inflicts the bastinado fiercely or gently according to the capacity of the sufferer to pay; how bribes may be obtained from villages anxious not to have troops quartered upon them, and so on. I lived in such an atmosphere of violence and cruelty--I heard of nothing but slitting noses, putting out eyes, and chopping men in two--that I am persuaded I could almost have impaled my own father.

The chief executioner was a tall and bony man, extremely ferocious. "Give me good hard fighting," he was accustomed to declare; "let me have my thrust with the lance, and my cut with the sabre, and I want no more. We all have our weaknesses--these are mine." This terrible man accompanied the Shah in his campaign, and I and the others went along with him, in the army that was to expel the Muscovite infidels from Georgia. Having heard that the Muscovites were posted on the Pembaki river, the chief executioner, with a large body of cavalry and infantry, proceeded to advance upon them.

On reaching the river, we found two Muscovite soldiers on the opposite bank. The chief put on a face of the greatest resolution. "Go, seize, strike, kill!" he exclaimed. "Bring me their heads!"

Several men dashed into the river, but the Russians, firing steadily, killed two of them, whereupon the rest retreated; nor could all the chief's oaths, entreaties, and offers of money persuade anybody to go forward.

While we were thus parleying, a shot hit the chief executioner's stirrup, which awoke his fears to such a degree that he recalled his troops, and himself rode hastily away, exclaiming, "Curses be on their beards! Whoever fought after this fashion? Killing, killing, as if we were so many hogs! They will not run away, do all you can to them. They are worse than brutes! O Allah, Allah, if there was no dying in the case, how the Persians would fight!"

On our return to the camp, a proclamation was issued announcing that an army of 50,000 infidels had been vanquished by the all-victorious armies of the Shah, that 10,000 of the dogs had given up their souls, and that the prisoners were so many that the prices of slaves had diminished a hundred per cent.

When we went back with the Shah to Tehran, a horrid event occurred which plunged me in the greatest misery. I heard that Zeenab was ill, and unable to dance before the Shah; and, knowing the royal methods of treating unsatisfactory slaves, I feared greatly for the consequences. My fears were warranted. I was ordered, with others, to wait below the tower of the royal harem at midnight and bear away a corpse. We saw a woman struggling with two men at the top of the tower. The woman was flung over. We rushed forward. At my feet, in the death-agony, lay my beloved Zeenab. I hung over her in the deepest despair; my feelings could not be concealed from the ruffians around me.

I abandoned everything, and left Tehran next day determined to become a real dervish, and spend the rest of my life in penitence and privations.

_III.--Among the Holy Men_

As I was preparing next night to sleep on the bare ground outside a caravanserai--for I was almost destitute--I saw a horseman ride up whom I recognised. It was one of the nasakchis who had assisted in the burial of Zeenab. I had been betrayed, then; my love for the king's slave had been revealed, and they were pursuing me.

I went into the caravanserai, sought out a friend--the dervish whom I had known at Meshed--and asked his advice. "I can expect no mercy from this man," I said, "particularly as I have not enough money to offer him, for I know his price. Where shall I go?"

The dervish replied, "You must lose not a moment in getting within the sanctuary of the tomb of Fatimeh at Kom. You can reach it before morning, and then you will be safe even from the Shah's power."

"But how shall I live when I am there?" I asked.

"I shall soon overtake you, and then, Inshallah (please God), you will not fare so ill as you imagine."

As the day broke, I could distinguish the gilt cupola of the tomb before me; and as I perceived the horseman at some distance behind, I made all possible speed until I had passed the gateway of the sanctuary. Kissing the threshold of the tomb, I said my prayers with all the fervency of one who has got safe from a tempest into port.

My friend the dervish arrived soon afterwards, and immediately urged upon me the importance of saying my prayers, keeping fasts, and wearing a long and mortified countenance. As he assured me that unless I made a pretence of deep piety I should be starved or stoned to death, I assumed forthwith the character of a rigid Mussulman. I rose at the first call, made my ablutions at the cistern in the strictest forms, and then prayed in the most conspicuous spot I could find.

By the intensity of my devotion I won the goodwill of Mirza Abdul Cossim, the first _mashtehed_ (divine) of Persia, and by his influence I obtained a pardon from the Shah. Now that I was free from the sanctuary, I became anxious to gain some profit by my fame for piety; so I applied to Mirza Abdul Cossim, who straightway sent me to assist the mollah Nadân, one of the principal men of the law in Tehran. My true path of advancement, I believed, was now open. I was on the way to become a mollah.