Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1880-08-02
The Russian Brutus.

common, so uniform and yet so varied
in their simple beauty; broad stream,
its rippled surface glittering in the sill
very rays; sleepy willows bathing their
overhanging boughs in the water; the
endless, undulating steppe, yelled in
dreamy mist, extending on the left bank
of the river, on the right of which the
ground rose in a steep slope, covered
with fruit trees resplendent with the
white blossoms of spring. On the crest
of the slope, where the trees clustered
the thickest, high wooden roof was
visible, shining in the moonlight, and
from behind the foliage the ruddy light
of a lamp-lit window cast a slanting ray
into the silvery night.
This ray of light was the only trace
of human life. Not sound came to
disturb it, except those voices of the
night which, in themselves, seem to form
part of silence-the chirping of the
crickets, the frogs choir chanting their
evening song in the reeds below, the
sleepy bark of dog in the distance. A
peaceful repose seemed to have spread
over the earth. bidding rest to all
troubled, aching hearts, peace to all
hatred and strife.
And yet the man who paced up and
down the gravel walk in front Of the
house hardly felt the influence of the
peaceful scene. His step was troubled
and unsteady, and though his deport-
ment, evidently through long habit, was
Sas stiff and rigid as that of soldier
pacing the parade ground, yet the head,
covered with snowy white hair, bowed
low on his breast. The fingers of his
elasped hands worked nervously, and oc-
casionally suppressed exclamation or
heavy, half-subdued sigh issued from be-
tween the frmly-set lips, with the thick,
bushy white moustache overshadowing
them.
The martial figure of this old man
was we'll known throughout the whole
province of Goltava, and whenever Gen
eral Savelieff, or "the old General" as
he was familiarly called, appeared he
was gladly and respectfully greeted by
every one without distinction of age, of
class, of position. Peasant or noble,
young or old, all felt an instructive re-
spect for him, all came under the infu-
ence of that peculiar atmosphere with
which an honest life, a straightforward
nature surround old age, winning the
hearts of the honest and awning knaves
into respect. After resigning his posi-
tion in the army at the close of the
Crimean var, General Savelief retired
on his small estate as poor a man as
when he entered the Government service
and resolutely refused to accept any
other Office. 81 am too old for these
times" he used to answer. "My EN-
peror is dead Che meant the Emperor
Nicholas), and do not understand all
your new ways and reforms"
Military discipline and the will of
the Gar, which he considered as being
an emanation of the will of God on
earth, had been the only guiding princi-
Piles of his whole life. Benevolent tow
ards all, indulgent for all faults and
shortcomings, on these two points he
was unhinchingly severe. ga foe of
the Czar is foe of God," he was wont
to say. When in 1849 he had to super
intend the execution of so-called DO
litical criminal child nineteen years
old-he prepared himself for the task
as for holy sacrifice and went to the
communion on the eve of the bloody
day. On the other hand, this rigid,
fanatical loyalty did not in the least
impair his naturally honest, straight
forward, benevolent disposition. The
poor of his parish venerated him and
even his enemies could not help re-
specting the character of man whom
they hated as the ready tool of brutal
tyranny.
He had married young the woman he
had loved when yet schoolboy. Eight
years their union remained childless
When at length in 1847 child, boy
was born, the fathers joy knew nc
bounds, but was of short duration, fol
few weeks after the event the mother
died. Since then all that there was oi
gentleness and love in the heart of the
lonely, rigid soldier was shed on tha
one boy, the little Andrusha (diminu
tive for Andre). And yet he rarely
gave vent to his feeling and his son haC
scarcely any occasion to become awar,
of it. Strict obedience was the Gener
ais rule in education as well as in poll
tics; the hierarchy of sacred power cul
minating in the Gar began for him il
the father. Thus this strange man livec
, on, proud and honest, without fear o
reproach, one of the last true knight
l of a decaying and corrupted autocracy
From the solitude of his modest countr,
r seat the old General neither saw no
cared to know how the ideal, the deit