It still wanted several weeks of Christmas, and so I hastened off to
Pesth and tried to acquire some little knowledge of Hungarian, and some
acquaintance with the habits and ways of Hungarian life. I am not sure
that I made much progress in anything but the _csardas_--the national
dance,--in which I soon became a proficient. Its stately solemnity
suddenly changing for a lively movement; its warlike gestures and
attitudes; its haughty tramp and defiant tone; and, last of all, its
whirlwind impetuosity and passion,--all emblems of the people who
practise it,--possessed a strange fascination for me; and I never missed
a night of those public balls where it was danced.
Towards the middle of December, however, I bethought me of my mission,
and set out for Gross Wardein, which lay a long distance off, near the
Transylvanian frontier. I had provided myself with one of the wicker
carriages of the country, and travelled post, usually having three
horses harnessed abreast; or, where there was much uphill, a team of
five.
I mention this, for I own that the exhilaration of speeding along at the
stretching gallop of these splendid _juckers_, tossing their wild names
madly, and ringing out their myriads of bells, was an ecstasy of delight
almost maddening. Over and over, as the excited driver would urge his
beasts to greater speed by a wild shrill cry, have I yelled out in
concert with him, carried away by an intense excitement I could not
master.
On the second day of the journey we left the region of roads, and
usually directed our course by some church spire or tower in the
distance, or followed the bank of a river, when not too devious. This
headlong swoop across fields and prairies, dashing madly on in what
seemed utter recklessness, was glorious fun; and when we came to cross
the small bridges which span the streams, without rail or parapet at
either side, and where the deviation of a few inches would have sent us
headlong into the torrent beneath, I felt a degree of blended terror and
delight such as one experiences in the mad excitement of a fox-hunt.
On the third morning I discovered, on awaking, that a heavy fall of snow
had occurred during the night, and we were forced to take off our wheels
and place the carriage on sledge-slides. This alone was wanting to make
the enjoyment perfect, and our pace from this hour became positively
steeple-chasing. Lying back in my ample fur mantle, and my hands
enclosed in a fur muff, I accepted the salutations of the villagers
as we swept along, or blandly raised my hand to my cap as some wearied
guard would hurriedly turn out to present arms to a supposed “magnate;”
for we were long out of the beat of usual travel, and rarely any but
some high official of the State was seen to come “extra post,” as it is
called, through these wild regions.
Up to Izarous the country had been a plain, slightly, but very slightly,
undulating. Here, however, we got amongst the mountains, and the charm
of scenery was now added to the delight of the pace. On the fifth day
I learned, and not without sincere regret, that we were within seven
German miles--something over thirty of ours--from Gross Wardein, from
which the Hunyadi Schloss only lay about fifty miles.
Up to this I had been, to myself at least, a _grand seigneur_ travelling
for his pleasure, careless of cost, and denying himself nothing;
splendid generosity, transmitted from each postilion to his successor,
secured me the utmost speed his beasts could master, and the impetuous
dash with which we spun into the arched doorways of the inns, routed the
whole household, and not unfrequently summoned the guests themselves to
witness the illustrious arrival. A few hours more and the grand
illusion would dissolve! No more the wild stretching gallop, cutting the
snowdrift; no more the clear bells, ringing through the frosty air; no
more the eager landlord bustling to the carriage-side with his flagon of
heated wine; no more that burning delight imparted by speed, a sense of
power that actually intoxicates. Not one of these! A few hours more and
I should be Herr Owen, travelling for the house of Hodnig and Oppovich,
banished to the company of bagmen, and reduced to a status where
whatever life has of picturesque or graceful is made matter for vulgar
sarcasm and ridicule. I know well, ye gentlemen who hold a station fixed
and unassailable will scarcely sympathize with me in all this; but
the castle-builders of this world--and, happily, they are a large
class--will lend me all their pity, well aware that so long as
imagination honors the drafts upon her, the poor man is never bankrupt,
and that it is only as illusions dissolve he sees his insolvency.
I reached Gross Wardein to dinner, and passed the night there, essaying,
but with no remarkable success, to learn something of Count Hunyadi,
his habits, age, temper, and general demeanor. As my informants were
his countrymen, I could only gather that his qualities were such as
Hungarians held in esteem. He was proud, brave, costly in his mode of
life, splendidly hospitable, and a thorough spoilsman. As to what he
might prove in matters of business, if he would even stoop to entertain
such at all, none could say; the very thought seemed to provoke a laugh.
“I once attempted a deal with him,” said an old farmerlike man at the
fireside. “I wanted to buy a team of _juchera_ he drove into the yard
here, and was rash enough to offer five hundred florins for what he
asked eight. He did not even vouchsafe me an answer, and almost drove
over me the next day as I stood at the side of the gate there.”
“That was like Tassilo,” said a Hungarian, with flashing eyes.
“He served you right,” cried another. “None but a German would have
offered him such a rudeness.”
“Not but he's too ready with his heavy whip,” muttered an old
soldier-like fellow. “He might chance to strike where no words would
efface the welt.”
Stories of Hunyadi's extravagance and eccentricity now poured in on all
sides. How he had sold an estate to pay the cost of an imperial visit
that lasted a week; how he had driven a team of four across the Danube
on the second day of the frost, when a heavy man could have smashed the
ice by a stamp of his foot; how he had killed a boar in single combat,
though it cost him three fingers of his left hand, and an awful flesh
wound in the side; and numberless other feats of daring and recklessness
were recorded by admiring narrators, who finished by a loud _Elyen_ to
his health.
I am not sure that I went away to my bed feeling much encouraged at the
success of my mission, or very hopeful of what I should do with this
magnate of Hungary.
By daybreak I was again on the road. The journey led through a wild
mountain pass, and was eminently interesting and picturesque; but I was
no longer so open to enjoyment as before, and serious thoughts of my
mission now oppressed me, and I grew more nervous and afraid of failure.
If this haughty Graf were the man they represented him, it was just
as likely he would refuse to listen to me at all; nor was the fact a
cheering one that my client was a Jew, since nowhere is the race less
held in honor than in Hungary.
As day began to decline, we issued forth upon a vast plain into which
a mountain spur projected like a bold promontory beside the sea. At the
very extremity of this, a large mass, which might be rock, seemed
to stand out against the sky. “There,--yonder,” said the postilion,
pointing towards it with his whip; “that is Schloss Hunyadi. There's
three hours' good gallop yet before us.”
A cold snowdrift borne on a wind that at times brought us to a
standstill, or even drove us to seek shelter by the wayside, now set in,
and I was fain to roll myself in my furs and lie snugly down on the hay
in the _wagen_, where I soon fell asleep; and though we had a change of
horses, and I must have managed somehow to settle with the postilion and
hand him his _trink-geld_, I was conscious of nothing till awakened by
the clanking sound of a great bell, when I started up and saw we had
driven into a spacious courtyard in which, at an immense fire, a
number of people were seated, while others bustled about, harnessing or
unharnessing horses. “Here we are, Herr Graf!” cried my postilion,
who called me Count in recognition of the handsome way in which I had
treated his predecessor. “This is Schloss Hunyadi.”