CHAPTER XVI.
LENGTH OF DAY IN RUSSIA AND FINLAND.
THE autumn had come, and with it bad weather; storms and rain had come too; but Alice and Beatrice found the days pass always happily.
They were rarely prevented going out, at least for a short time, every day; for the broad terrace of the sunny garden was always dry; and there they played with their favourite dog and kitten, and ran up and down with them.
Wolf and Mouser had become good friends, and played together. When Wolf pretended to go to sleep, Mouser would creep up softly and slyly to him, and, putting out a soft paw, would lift one of the dog’s ears; whereupon Wolf suddenly awoke, shaking his ears with a friendly bark; then Mouser scampered away and hid behind a bush till Wolf passed, then she rushed out and leaped upon the dog’s back, to Beatrice’s great delight.
Wolf seemed fond of the playful kitten, and let her play with him, and even eat from the same plate.
Alice and Beatrice still ran races with their hoops up and down the broad gravel walk, down the sloping paths, and round the garden, and up again to the wide terrace.
Grandmamma was either walking in the garden or sitting at one of the windows overlooking it.
Indoors their pretty parrot was a never-failing source of pleasure to both the children.
The love-birds they did not care for much, and left them to their grandmamma.
The parrot now answered them when they spoke, and repeated all that the children had taught him. He imitated every sound he heard: he barked like Wolf, he mewed like the cat, he called ‘cuckoo’ like the clock; for in the dining-room there was a pretty German clock carved in black wood, where a little cuckoo came out of a little door in the clock, and called ‘cuckoo’ as many times as the hour. One day he startled Beatrice by coughing like grandmamma, for she could not find out for a long time who it was that had coughed. Mary told her how frightened she had been one morning, on going into the dining-room, in the dark, to hear ‘Who is there?’ whispered so low, but so like some one speaking, that she was at first quite afraid. Sometimes the parrot tried to whistle a tune, which he had heard on board ship, no doubt, and he really did it very well.
The parrot liked the little girls to come and talk to him, and was very tame to them. He always greeted them when they came down to breakfast with a loud ‘Good morning;’ and he waited patiently for a piece of biscuit or sugar, which Beatrice never forgot to give him.
Whilst Alice attended to his food and cleaned out the cage, Beatrice opened the cage door, and the parrot came out, and hopped outside, and let Beatrice smooth down his pretty grey feathers, and he put his beak against her hand, but he never bit her little fingers.
‘Grandmamma,’ said Alice, ‘you told me once that the days in Russia were so very long in summer and so very short in winter. How much longer and shorter are they than our days here?’
‘The longest day here in England, which is June the 21st, is reckoned to be sixteen hours and thirty-four minutes long. Now, can you reckon how much remains out of twenty-four hours for the night?’
‘Oh, grandmamma, that is very difficult.’
‘Well, then, I will tell you, seven hours and twenty-six minutes. Now in Russia, or I should better say in that part of Russia where I lived, the longest day was about nineteen or twenty hours long; and as there is a long twilight, which comes before the rising of the sun, and follows its setting, there is scarcely any darkness, and everybody can go to bed without a candle.’
‘What is twilight, grandmamma?’
‘Twilight is an uncertain second light, or a light that is something between sunlight and night.
‘The peasants, or poor people, who work in the fields, rise with the sun in summer, and go to bed with it; but as the night is too short to rest them enough after their many hours of labour, they divide the day into three parts for their work, making a long rest from eight till ten for their breakfast, and from one to four or five in the afternoon for their dinner, and then work till quite late at night. They sleep generally once in the day, which is very necessary for them.
‘One beautiful summer day, in the month of June, I crossed the Gulf of Finland, from Helsingfors to Revel, in a steamboat belonging to the Crown, which was much slower than a common passenger steamer, as all things belonging to the Russian Crown are very ill managed.
‘Look at the map, my Alice, and you will see that Helsingfors lies more to the north of Revel; and thus the days there in summer are longer still, and the days in winter shorter, for the more north we go, the longer are the days in summer and shorter in winter.
‘Helsingfors is a strange town, with narrow arms of the sea running into it and partly round it, so that the largest ships can come close to the quay or landing-place and to the streets. It is nothing but rock, not cliffs like ours here, but immense rounded lumps of granite, piled like monster stones one upon the other. No grass—nothing, in short, but moss can grow in the crevices; but the people are very industrious, and they have brought earth in their little boats, and have made gardens on the rocks, and planted flowers and shrubs. The spring is very late there, the winter very long; for the autumn comes early, so that the summer is very short. No corn can grow on that rocky coast; but stunted fir-trees manage to spring up in sheltered cracks and crevices, and force their roots between the rocks.
‘Farther inland there is more earth and less rock: but little corn is grown in this cold country, and most of the corn for bread is brought over the sea to Finland, and in exchange the Finns sell salted fish and wood from the forests in the interior of the country; and splendid blocks and pillars of granite are sent to St. Petersburg from Finland.
‘You would be amused if you could see the loaves of bread the Finns make during the summer for the whole year. These loaves are large flat rings, which are baked as hard as ships’ biscuit. They are strung on poles, and in summer hang up outside the house in the sun, and in winter across the ceiling in the kitchen, and are used as they want them.’
‘But how do the people eat this hard bread?’
‘These rings are broken into small pieces, with a hammer, I believe, and are soaked in the soup or milk that they have.
‘But I have forgotten that I was telling you about my crossing the gulf. Well, we left Helsingfors about six o’clock in the evening, and instead of reaching Revel at ten, we did not arrive there till between one and two in the morning. All the passengers remained sitting on deck the whole time; it was not dark any part of the time, but there was a strange soft light in the sky, which was delightful. As we approached Revel, which looks beautiful from the sea, and stands high, above a fine bay, the sun rose, which made it still more beautiful. There were but few passengers on board; and when we had landed, they dispersed quickly to their different homes near the harbour. I alone had to cross the whole length of the little old town to reach my home on the high hill or cliff which forms part of the town, and overlooks the sea.
‘A young Russian sailor shouldered my bag: my box was left at the custom-house to be examined, for no one beside the guard was awake there; and, followed by this man, I walked through the deserted silent streets, where cats and jackdaws and pigeons were enjoying their freedom undisturbed.
‘It was a strange walk at that early hour of the morning, and pleased me much. I could not help thinking how little real care was taken of the sleeping town—not that it seemed necessary, spite of all the orders of its jealous, suspicious Emperor; for, only when I reached the square at the end of my long walk, I found two sentinels pacing up and down in front of the governor’s house, and they were the first and only sign of that strict Russian care which the Emperor thinks he enforces throughout his large empire.
‘How easily could any enemy have entered the sleeping town! and any one could have opened the unfastened doors and shutterless windows of each silent house; but there is one comfort in that part of the country, robberies and housebreaking are not known, and my doors and windows were never fastened even in the long dark nights.’
‘But there are no robbers here?’ asked Alice, anxiously.
‘No, my dear child; in beautiful Devonshire, at least in this part of it, we are as safe as in the Baltic provinces, where Revel lies.’
