This, however, was a mere segment of the mischief which was effected by

Mat-o'-the-Mint. Wherever he went he tendered advice; and whenever that

advice was given, rioting ensued. In short, he proved such a nuisance,

that well-affected people would much rather have submitted to a visit

from the cholera. At last he arrived at Peter's patrimony, a place

which was by no means tranquil at the time. Notwithstanding Peter's

boasting, and his perpetual attempt to get his emissaries quartered on

every estate in the country, he was the reverse of popular at home.

He had a very handsome house, which he kept full of friars, monks,

Jesuits, Dominicans, Carthusians, and Grand Inquisitors, fellows who

did little else than eat, drink, sleep, and conspire at the expense of

the working population. This had become so intolerable, that Peter,

though the most tyrannical despot upon earth, found it necessary to

come down a peg or two, and announced his intention of revising the

laws of his household, which, to say the truth, needed mending sorely.

But he did not stop there. He began to intrigue for a restoration of

the whole estates which were formerly in the family of Signor Macaroni,

but which latterly had passed into the hands of other proprietors--for

example, Don Ferdinando; and, at the time I speak of, his village was

filled with every description of cut-throat, robber, and murderer that

could be gathered from the country round, all of them shouting "Long

life to Peter!" and "Hurrah for the independence of Macaroni!" They

were in the very midst of this jubilation, which sounded more like an

echo of Pandemonium than anything else, when Mat-o'-the-Mint drove into

the town; and the moment they heard of his arrival, the very worst of

them--Massaniello, Massaroni, Corpo di Caio Mario, and Vampyrio degli

Assassinacione--congregated under the windows, and whooped and howled,

till Mat, in an access of terror, came out upon the balcony, pressed

a flag, with a death's-head and cross-bones upon it, to his bosom,

and proposed three cheers for the independence of Macaroni! You may

conceive what a taking the poor fellow must have been in before he

ventured to do anything of the sort.

Mat, being thus committed to Macaroni, was a mere baby in the hands of

Peter. They had an interview to discuss the affairs of the neighbouring

Squirearchy, and any other little matters which might occur to either;

which Mat felt as an honour, whilst Peter was feeling his pulse.

Peter, like an aged villain as he was, affected to be extremely

straightforward and open in his remarks, and quite confidential in his

communications; so that, in the course of half an hour, poor Mat was

entirely at his mercy. After they had chatted for a short time, and

cracked a bottle or so of Lachrymæ together, Peter claps me down a map

of the whole country, whereon Squire Bull's farm was marked out with

some twelve or thirteen crosses, before Mat, and asked him whether he

thought it was all correct?

"Undubitably," quoth Mat-o'-the-Mint, who regarded the crosses as

simply indicative of the villages.

"Then there can be no objections to the publication of a map of this

kind upon hierarchical principles?" continued Peter, ogling his victim

at the same time, as a fox makes love to a gander.

"Hier--I beg your pardon"--said Mat-o'-the-Mint, who was not

overburdened with lore at any time, and just then was rather

confuscated. "Hieroglyphical principles, did you say?"

"No--hierarchical principles," insinuated Peter, with a smile intended

to convey the utmost amount of indulgence. "Hiero, you know, was one of

our earliest geographers."

"To be sure he was"--replied Mat-o'-the-Mint--"and an intimate friend

of Leander's--I've read of him in the _Imaginary Conversations_--There

can be no objections, of course. The map's a capital map!"

"I'm very glad to hear you say so," said Peter, sounding a little

silver whistle which dangled from his button-hole, "it is always matter

of satisfaction to me to meet with a plain, intellectual, honourable,

enlightened gentleman, who knows what's what, and is above all manner

of prejudice.--You may take away that map, Hippopotamus"--he continued,

as an individual in purple stockings entered the room. "Mr Matthew is

perfectly satisfied as to its correctness, and you may mention that

when you write to your friends at home."

Hippopotamus swept up the plan and retired; but long after he closed

the door, you might have heard a sniggering in the lobby.

"And now, my very dear friend," quoth Peter, "let's have a fresh

bottle of Lachrymæ, and a little conversation about those affairs of

Patrick's."

It matters very little what passed upon that score, for the job was

already settled; but Peter probably thought it safest to make this

appear the principal topic of their conversation. They sate up a long

time together; and Mat-o'-the-Mint found it no easy matter to get home

to his hotel, or to ring up the porter when he arrived there.

So far Peter thought that he was carrying everything his own way; but

he was labouring all the while under a confounded mistake. Massaniello,

Massaroni, and the rest, were glad enough to get into the village, and

to throw up their caps for Peter and Macaroni, so long as they received

free quarters, but not a moment longer. They had now time given them to

peer into the churches and shops, and to reckon what might be turned to

account; and they had made up their minds that if they could only get

rid of Peter, there was plunder enough to be had out of his patrimony

to maintain themselves in comfort for the remaining portion of their

lives. Once having ascertained this, they lost no time in carrying

their plans into execution. They broke out into actual revolt, stabbed

one of Peter's servants on the stairs, shut up the old firebrand

himself in his drawing-room, and discharged pistols into the windows,

until they succeeded in frightening him out of his seven senses, and

drove him out of the village in the disguise of an ordinary cabman.

Then they began, as a matter of course, to help themselves to every

man's property, and to share upon principles of equality. You have no

idea what a row all this made. Even Ferdinando was furious, for though

he had no great cause to regard Peter, he liked still less the rascally

ruffians who had turned him out of house and home, and he proposed

straightway to march a _posse comitatus_ against them. But young Nap,

now styled Administrator of the Baboonery, was before him. He had

more idle fellows on hand than he knew what to do with, so he sent a

whole gang of them off to clear Peter's patrimony of the rioters, and

mayhap, if convenient, to bring back the old Jesuit in person. Terrible

were the execrations of Massaniello and his friends when they were

summoned to surrender by young Nap's people! They said--what was true

enough--that if the others were entitled to eject Philip Baboon, they

were entitled to turn Peter about his business; and they protested that

the people of each estate should be allowed to manage their own matters

without interference. But interference was the order of the day.

Everybody was interfering; so Nap's men gave them to understand that

they did not intend to be exceptions to the general rule. In short,

Massaniello and his friends must evacuate or--take the consequences.

And, accordingly, evacuate they did, though not without a good deal of

burning of gunpowder, levying of subsidies, abduction of church-plate,

&c.; and, in due course of time, old Peter was brought back, amidst a

discharge of Roman candles, squibs, crackers, and Catherine wheels; and

with him returned the whole host of Jesuits, monks, and inquisitors,

singing _Quare fremuerunt gentes?_ and ten times more ready for any

kind of mischief than before.

And where all this while, you may ask, was Mat-o'-the-Mint? Snug at

home. Some of the upper servants in the household of Squire Bull had

got an inkling of the business he was after, and put questions, which

were neither easy to answer nor agreeable to evade. The Squire himself

began to grumble. Protocol could not help perceiving that he had got

into a scrape by sending out such an envoy; and even the Juggler did

not care to have the matter publicly mentioned, but was willing that it

should fall into oblivion. It is, however, easier to open a negotiation

with Peter, than to get out of one. The difficulty is not to catch

the lobster, but to force him to leave go after he has fastened on

you with his claws; and you shall presently hear what took place in

Bullockshatch, not long after the time when Peter was reinstated in his

patrimony.

HUNGARIAN MILITARY SKETCHES.[19]

The brief but brilliant struggle which was terminated, on the 13th

August 1849, by the surrender of Vilagos, is unquestionably one of the

most remarkable episodes in contemporary history; and numerous as are

the writers, both in Germany and England, who have applied themselves

to exhibit and comment on its circumstances, it yet is not wonderful

that the interest of the subject is far from exhausted. A Schlesinger,

a Pulsky, and a Klapka, graphic and striking as are their delineations

of the singular contest in which they all more or less participated,

have still left much for their successors to tell. The volume before

us--a German collective translation of tales and sketches by several

Hungarian authors--is of a different class from the works of the

above-named writers. It does not aspire to the dignity of historical

memoirs, nor is the form it affects--namely, the romantic--one that we

usually much admire when applied to such recent and important events as

those of which Hungary has been the theatre; events, too, of themselves

so striking and fascinating as to render fictitious colouring

superfluous. Nevertheless, these sketches must be admitted to have

considerable merit. They are vivid and characteristic illustrations of

a remarkable country, a heroic people, and an extraordinary period; and

the amount of fiction interwoven is, in most instances, little more

than is necessary to string together historical facts. Some few of

them have little to do with the late war, but all throw more or less

light upon the state and character of Hungary and its inhabitants.

Their success in that country, the German preface assures us, and we

can readily believe, has been very great. Some of them read like prose

translations of poems; and with the exception of three or four, which

are terse and matter-of-fact enough, their style has often a wild and

metaphorical vagueness, recalling the semi-oriental character of the

country whence they proceed. Those which take for their foundation the

cruelties perpetrated by the Serbs upon the Magyars, and the fearful

retaliation thereby provoked, are too horrible--not for truth, but to

be pleasant reading; others border on the humorous, whilst some combine

the tragic with the gay. Of this last class is the opening sketch by

Sajó, entitled _A Ball_. It is a letter from a young lady to a friend,

describing her and her mother's terror at the anticipated arrival

of a Hungarian division, after English Guyon's glorious victory at

Branisko; and relating how the old woman hid herself in cupboards and

clock-cases, and urged her daughter to stain her face black, in order

to diminish her personal attractions--advice which the daughter, not

exactly comprehending its motive, most indignantly rejects. Presently

she is astonished by the arrival of a couple of handsome hussar

officers, instead of the leather-clad Calmuck-visaged barbarians,

seven feet high, and with beards to their waists, which her mamma has

predicted; and still more is she surprised when, instead of breaking

open doors and ill-treating women, the newcomers organise a ball for

that very night--a ball which she attends, and where she is greatly

smitten with an elegant captain of Honveds. He has just led her out to

dance, when the ball-room windows rattle to the sound of cannon, and

a splashed hussar announces an attack upon the outposts. The officers

buckle on their sabres and hurry to the fight, begging the ladies

to await their return. In little more than an hour they reappear in

the ball-room. They have repulsed the enemy, and return flushed and

laughing to the dance. But the handsome Honved is not amongst them. The

interrupted quadrille is reformed, but Laura still awaits her partner.

A tall dry-mannered major, of valiant reputation, approaches her.

"Fair lady," he says, "your partner begs a thousand pardons for his

absence. With the best will in the world, he cannot have the pleasure

of dancing with you, for his leg has been shot away and amputated above

the knee." This is the whole of the story--little enough, and owing

everything to the manner of telling. The second tale, _Claudia_, by

Szilagyi, is striking and powerful rather than agreeable. We pass on to

_The Chapel at Tarczal_. All who have read Max Schlesinger's admirable

narrative of the _War in Hungary_, will assuredly remember his account

of the Hungarian hussar, "the embodiment of Magyarism, born and reared

upon the heath," loving his country before all things, and, next to

his country, his horse. "There are no soldiers in the Austrian army,"

says Schlesinger, "who can compare with him in chivalrous daring,

dexterity, precision in manoeuvres, strict subordination, cleanliness,

and fidelity."[20] Mr Sajó loves to exalt the virtues, and exemplify

the eccentricities, of this fine race of cavalry soldiers. In several

of his tales he introduces the heroic hussar, cheerfully suffering and

sacrificing himself for Hungary's good and the honour of his corps. The

opening scene of _The Chapel at Tarczal_ is an amusing sketch of one of

these veterans, thoroughly persuaded of the immeasurable superiority

of the Magyar over all other men, and of the hussar over every other

soldier.

"The Austrians had won the battle; the Hungarians had lost it. The

Austrian general was taking his ease in his quarters, with his staff

around him; an officer entered, and reported the capture of a hussar.

"Bring him in," said the General, who was in excellent humour. He

himself wore the uniform of the hussar regiment he had formerly

commanded, and had unbuckled his sabre and made himself comfortable;

whilst his officers stood around buttoned to the chin, and strictly

according to regulation.

The hussar entered--a bare-headed veteran with gray mustaches. His face

was still black with the smoke of Schwechat's battle; his stiffly-waxed

mustaches stuck out fiercely right and left. He glanced gloomily around

him, evidently ill-pleased with his company, until his eye fell upon

the General. Then a gleam came over his features, like the sun breaking

through a cloud, and he was near shouting for joy. The general laughed,

and clapped his hands together. He recognised old Miska, his former

orderly, who had served him for five years in Szobossló.

"Do you know me again, old man?" said he good-humouredly.

"At your service, Colonel," replied the hussar, raising his hand to his

brow, as though his schako were still on his head.

"General, not Colonel," interposed one of the officers.

Silently and contemptuously the hussar measured the speaker with his

eyes, wondering that an infantry-man, captain though he might be, dared

intrude upon the conversation of hussars.

"So you have let yourself be taken prisoner, Miska?" said the General,

willing to tease his old servant.

"What could I do, Colonel? There were so many against me. I got into a

crowd of them."

"You knocked over a few, I dare say."

"I did not count them, but _something_ remained upon the ground."

"Right, Miska. Let them give you a dram, and then go to my grooms; if

anybody meddles with you, give him as good as he brings."

The hussar thanked his former colonel, but seemed in small haste to

leave the room. The General noticed him no farther, but turned again

to his officers and resumed the discussion of his plan of campaign.

Suddenly he felt a pull at his pelisse, and turning, beheld Miska, who

had stolen quietly behind him. With an unintelligible gesture, and a

countenance of extraordinary mystery, the hussar pointed to something.

"Colonel! Colonel!" he whispered, redoubling the eagerness of his

gesticulations. The General had no notion of his meaning. "Colonel,

reach me yonder sabre from the corner."

"What the devil do you want with it?"

"Only give it here! In two minutes there shall not be a German in the

room."

Miska thought his colonel was a prisoner.

The General burst into a hearty laugh, and told his officers of the

hussar's kind intentions towards them. The laughter became general. The

officers crowded round the old soldier, clapped him on the shoulder,

and made much of him.

"Well, Miska, you will take service with us, eh?" said the General,

curious to hear his answer.

"There are no hussar regiments here!" replied the old soldier, twisting

his mustaches.

"What matter? You shall be a cuirassier. We'll make a serjeant of you."

"Many thanks. Can't stand it. Should have been serjeant long ago, if I

could write."

"What do you think of doing then? Eat your ration in idleness?"

"Not so--by your honour's favour--but make a run for it."

The honest answer pleased the General. The hussar saw that it did.

"A whole regiment of those gaiter-legged fellows could not keep me," he

added.

One of the officers asked him angrily why he wished to go back. Those

were mistaken, if any, who expected a rude answer from the hussar.

"Yonder is my regiment," he replied, again twirling his mustache. "A

true soldier bides by his colours."

To this nothing could be objected.

"Well, Miska, that you may not desert from us, I let you go free."

"Thanks, Colonel." Once more the hand was raised to the schako's place.

"You can go."

The hussar lingered, rubbed his nose, and frowned.

"Colonel--you surely do not intend me to pass through the whole camp in

hussar uniform, and on foot. I should die of shame. Let them give me

back my horse."

"Your horse? That is the Emperor's property, my son."

"I crave your pardon, Colonel! I reared the horse myself from a colt.

I have ridden it for ten years, and it comes at my whistle. By every

right it belongs to me. I would rather a bullet hit me than lose the

good brute."

"Well, take it."

Even now the hussar did not seem satisfied.

"Colonel! can I go back to my regiment in this scandalous

manner?--without my sabre? I shall have to run the gauntlet; they will

think I have sold it for drink."

"It shall be restored to you." The General made sign to his orderly;

the hussar saluted, and turned to depart. But at the door he once more

paused, and gazed pathetically at his former chief.

"Colonel!" he said, in the most insinuating tone he could command.

"Well?"

"Colonel--come over to us!"

And with a bound he was out of the room, feeling well enough that he

had said something extraordinarily stupid, but which he could not help

saying though it had cost him his head.

When horse and sabre were restored to him, one of the General's grooms,

a mischievous fellow, trod on the hussar's spur, breaking the rowel,

and then sprang aside laughing.

The old hussar shook his clenched fist menacingly.

"Wait a little, Italian!" he cried, "I will find you yet." Then

saluting the General's window with his sabre, he galloped away.

It was thought that a tear glistened in the General's eye, as he turned

to his staff, and said--

"Such soldiers should _we_ have!"

Such were the soldiers with whom Görgey drove before him the best

generals of Austria; with whom he triumphed in that brilliant conflict,

of fourteen days' duration, which terminated in the capture of Pesth,

the relief of Komorn, and the complete retreat of the Imperialists.[21]

These were the men who rode up to the very mouths of the Austrian

cannon at Isazeg,[22] and who followed, in twenty conflicts, the

well-known war-cry of the gigantic Serb, Dámjánics. Of this last-named

general (of whom Schlesinger has given many interesting details,) we

find an interesting and authentic anecdote in Sajó's vigorous military

sketch, entitled _The Two Brides_.

Dámjánics and his troops encamped in the night at two leagues from

Szolnok. In order of battle, and without watch-fires, they there

awaited the signal to advance. The signal was the sound of cannon,

fired beyond the Theiss.

The Hungarian General had already fought many battles, won many

victories, taken many standards. When he began a battle, he stationed

himself in front of his army, looked where the foe was strongest,

shouted "Mir nach!"[23] and rushed forward, overthrowing and crushing

all before him. It was his way.

There were persons who did not like this way, and who wearied him

with assurances that, to be a renowned general, it is not enough to

win battles; one must also leave permanent evidence of merit, to be

handed down to future generations; one must make speeches, issue

proclamations, and so forth.

So it came to pass, when he marched away from the Banat, that he

addressed to the hostile party in the province a proclamation which has

become celebrated. It was word for word as follows:--

"Ye dogs!

"I depart. But I shall come back again.

"If in the interval you dare to stir, I will extirpate you from the

face of the earth; and then, that the seed of the Serbs may be extinct,

I, the last of them, will shoot myself."

The success of this first attempt so encouraged the General, that,

after much persuasion, he gave a solemn promise to make a speech to his

army when next they went into action.

On the eve of the battle, Dámjánics felt his spirits extraordinarily

low.

"Strange," thought he to himself, "never yet have I trembled at the

approach of a fight, but now I feel as if I had no stomach for it." And

he sought within himself the cause of this unaccustomed mood, but all

in vain.

Presently, however, one of his staff-officers came to remind him that,

before the next day's battle, they expected to hear the speech he had

promised them.

"Devil take it!" cried the General. "_That_ was what made me shake in

my boots. But never fear, it shall be done--I will venture it--the

speech you shall have."

He had drawn out his plan of battle in a quarter of an hour. But

morning dawned whilst he was still hammering at his speech.

The troops stood in order of battle. Dámjánics rode along the front of

the line. Everybody knew he was to make a speech, and what a cruel task

it was to him.

Before the colours of the ninth battalion he halted, raised his hat and

spoke:

"Comrades!"

At that instant the artillery beyond the Theiss boomed out its first

discharge. The General's face glowed, he forgot phrases and oration,

tore his sabre from the scabbard, pressed his schako down upon his

brow, and--

"Yonder is the foe: follow me!" he shouted in a voice of thunder. A

tremendous hurrah was his army's reply, as they followed their leader,

with the speed and impetuosity of a torrent, to the familiar encounter

of the Austrian cannon.

"Why is it," said Dámjánics, as he limped up to the gallows, after

seeing seven of his brave comrades executed before his eyes, on the

morning of the fatal sixth of October 1849--"why is it that I, who

have ever been foremost in the fight, must here be the last?" That

was no empty boast in the dying man's mouth. "To Dámjánics," says

Schlesinger, "after Görgey, belongs the glory of all the battles from

Hatvan to Komorn. From the commencement of the movement, he was the

boldest champion of the national cause." And whatever his staff and his

Austrian executioners may have argued from his oratorical incapacity

and his ignominious death, neither, assuredly, will prevent his name's

preservation on posterity's list of patriot-heroes, even though he

should never obtain the monument which it has been predicted that

Hungary will one day erect to him, upon the spot where he mounted the

scaffold.

Before proceeding to the longest and most remarkable sketch in the

volume, we will extract the beginning and end of a humorous paper,

written in true soldier's style, entitled _From the Memoirs of a

Quartermaster_.

"I never saw such a man as my lieutenant. It is not because he was _my_

lieutenant that I say so, but a merrier fellow was not to be found in

the army. Were I a poet or a scholar, I would make a fine romance out

of his adventures; but as I unfortunately lack the learning, I must

be content to set down a few odd incidents of our joyous camp-life,

just as they occur to my memory. It gives me pleasure to recall these

anecdotes of my late master, who was lieutenant in the volunteers.

Those who knew him will not have forgotten how gay a wooer he was with

women, and how brave a soldier in war.

"They transferred us to a battalion that lay in Siebenburgen, and which

was not yet completely equipped. Our principal wants were muskets and

cartouch-boxes. Nobody had a greatcoat; and, in another respect, the

battalion was quite uniform, for every one went barefoot. My lieutenant

often complained to the captain, who had been a Bohemian forester, and

afterwards a coffee-roaster in Pesth, but who, when his daughter's

husband was promoted to be major of our battalion, was by him appointed

captain--to him, I say, the lieutenant repeatedly complained that

the poor soldiers were frozen, and should at least be supplied with

greatcoats. But all in vain; the superior officers gambled the money

sent them by Government for the equipment of the troops; and all my

lieutenant could obtain from the ex-coffee-roaster was a _bon-mot_

which Napoleon, he said, had addressed to his soldiers when they

complained in Egypt of bad clothing: 'Avec du pain et du fer on peut

aller à Chine.'

"The lieutenant made me write these words on one hundred and fifty

small slips of paper, pinned these upon his men's shoulders, and

said--'There, my lads, are your greatcoats.' Boots were all that

was now wanting. One fine morning we received a hundred and fifty

bran-new--blacking-boxes!

"'_Engem ucse_,' said the lieutenant: ''tis good; instead of boots

they send us blacking.' And next day, when the little gray general

passed a review, our company marched past with their bare feet blacked

and polished, and with spurs drawn in chalk upon their heels. The

general laughed at first, and then reprimanded the major. The major

laughed too, and scolded the captain. Finally, the captain abused my

lieutenant, who abused him in return; but, as the one understood no

Hungarian, and the other no German, the dispute led to nothing.

"At last we got ourselves shod, by gloriously ransacking a Wallachian

village, and thrusting our feet into the red boots the women had left

behind them. Thenceforward our company was known everywhere as 'the

regiment of Red Boots.'

"In our first engagement we had not much to do. The enemy fired at us

from a distance, whilst we stood still and looked at them. Some of

the recruits bobbed their heads aside when they saw the shot coming

through the air. 'Don't shake your head, my man,' the lieutenant would

say; 'you might chance to knock it against a cannon-ball.' In the

second action we took a gun from the enemy. It came up very near us and

unlimbered; but, before it had time to fire a shot, my lieutenant made

the soldiers believe it was one of our own guns; that the enemy were

about to capture it; and could we suffer this? We could not suffer it,

and rushed on: a few shots met us; but before we well knew what we did,

the gun was in our power. The whole was over in less time than I take

to tell it.

"From that day forward nobody made fun of the Red Boots, and soon we

were supplied with muskets. Many of these were hardly fit to fire with;

but bayonet and butt were always there, wherewith to thrust and strike.

* * * * *

"It was in the dog-days. For three months we had received no pay. At

last, to silence my lieutenant's terrible expostulations, they sent us

money--fifteen notes of a hundred florins each.

"The salaries of Government officials were paid in fifteen-kreuzer

pieces; the money we soldiers wanted, for our daily bread, was sent

in hundred-florin notes. Of course, nothing could be easier, in the

Wallach hamlets in which we were cantoned, than to get small change for

fifteen hundred-florin notes.

"Whilst my lieutenant was grumbling over this, and puzzling his head

how to divide these few large notes into many small ones, a courier

arrived and brought him a letter.

"The lieutenant read the letter, and laughed out loud. Then he ordered

a parade. He was the only officer present. Two captains and a major

were constantly rambling about, and seldom saw their battalion, but

left everything to my lieutenant. So he ordered the drums to beat for

muster; and when the men were assembled, he informed them that their

pay had come just in the nick of time. Then he produced the fifteen

hundred florins[24] and a pair of scissors, made the soldiers file

past, and cut off a slip of the notes for each one of them. It was the

only way to divide them.

"This done, he came singing and whistling into his quarters, laughed

and cut jokes, played a thousand pranks, and at last called to me, and

asked if I had a dry cloth at hand, to wipe up something.

"I answered that I had.

"'Go and fetch it, then.' And he continued to laugh and jest, and

seemed in most wonderful good humour. 'Make haste,' he shouted after

me, as I hurried to fetch the cloth. I felt quite sure he was going to

play me some famous trick, he looked so sly and comical when he gave me

the order.

"Whilst I sought for a towel, I heard the report of a firearm in the

next room. Towel in hand, I threw open the door. The room was full of

smoke.

"'What am I to wipe up?' I asked.

"'This blood!' said the lieutenant, who lay upon the ground. The warm

heart's-blood flowed from a wound in his breast; in his hand he held a

pistol and the letter he had that morning received.

"The letter announced the catastrophe of Vilagos. In two minutes he was

dead.

"Thus did my lieutenant make a fool of me, at last.

"Such a merry fellow was my lieutenant."

The various memoirs of the Hungarian war record more than one instance

of self-destruction and insanity, amongst the enthusiastic defenders

of the Magyar cause, consequent upon Görgey's shameful surrender, and

the final downfall of their cherished hopes. As far as the suicide

goes, therefore, there is nothing improbable in the conduct of the

eccentric lieutenant. Passing over several shorter papers, for the

most part clever and spirited, we come to the striking tale, or rather

series of scenes, entitled _George of St Thomas_, which, besides being

the most carefully finished of these sketches, includes several of

the most terrible and romantic historical incidents of that war. Its

construction is favourable to extract, and we propose to translate such

portions of it as our limits will allow, and therewith close our notice

of the _Schlachtfelderblüthen aus Ungarn_. The first chapter is headed--

THE FIEND'S FESTIVAL.

It was dark night in the town of St Thomas. Not a star was visible.

Well was it that the heavens saw not what then occurred upon earth.

Men who had grown gray together in love and friendship, dwelling in the

same street, under the very same roof, who were bound to each other

by ties of blood and kindred, of gratitude and duty, who were wont to

share each other's joys and griefs, began, upon a sudden, as if frantic

with infernal inspirations, to plot each other's extermination, and to

fill their souls with bloody hatred against those who had never wronged

them.

It was St Eustace' day. The Raitzen[25] assembled in their church, to

worship God, as they said. But no words of God were there, nor solemn

organ-notes; wild voices announced approaching horrors, and the sainted

roof resounded with strains ominous of strife.

The town's-people were tranquil. Those amongst them who noticed that

their neighbours' windows were lighted up, and who saw gloomy faces

hurrying to the church, said to themselves, "To-day the Raitzen hold

high festival;" and thought no more of it, but went their ways to

bed. Towards midnight the alarm-bell sounded, the doors of the temple

opened, and the nocturnal revel began.

With wild howl the excited mob burst into the houses of their sleeping

neighbours. It was as though they had some ancient and inveterate

grudge to avenge, so fierce and bitter was the fury with which they

murdered all whose windows showed no lights--the token the Raitzen had

adopted, lest by error they should assail each other's dwellings.

In two hours the Magyar population of the town was exterminated, with

the exception of a scanty few who escaped in carts and carriages.

These, however, were pursued; and when the uproar in the town, the

sounds of strife and lamentation, and the clang of bells, were hushed,

cries of agony and despair were still heard issuing at intervals from

the adjacent country, as vehicles, stuck fast in the treacherous

swamps, were overtaken, and the luckless fugitives ruthlessly

butchered. At last these heart-rending sounds also ceased. Voices of

complaint were no longer audible, but in their stead, in more than one

quarter of the illuminated town, were heard music, and dancing, and

merriment.

It was long past midnight when a cart drove through the streets of St

Thomas. In it sat a man wrapped in his cloak, marvelling greatly at the

lights in the houses, and the sounds of festivity and joy. At his own

house-door he stopped his horse. To his great surprise, his dwelling

also was lighted up, and within were sounds of music, a hum of voices,

and noise of dancing feet. Astounded and anxious, he stepped silently

to a window, and through it he beheld a crowd of well-known faces. The

company, flushed with wine and excitement, sang and shouted, and drank

out of his glasses, and danced madly round the room. They were all old

acquaintances, and inhabitants of the town.

Ignorant of the events of the night, the man thought he was dreaming.

Presently his attention was attracted by the licentious garb and

demeanour of a woman, who circulated amongst the guests with loud

laugh and libertine gestures, sharing in and stimulating the orgies.

At first, he could not discern who this woman was. Then he recognised

her. It was his own wife.

"Hold!" he shouted, and strode into the room where these saturnalia

were in progress. He knew not what to do or say; it were hard to find a

word which should express the rage that possessed him.

"Hold!" he thundered out, every fibre quivering with fury, "what do ye

here?"

The guests stood aghast at that apparition of wrath. The boldest

started at sight of the man, as he stood amongst them, terrible and

deadly pale. For a while none dared approach him. He went up to his

wife, a dark-haired, black-eyed, red-cheeked wanton, who stood as if

turned to stone. He fixed his eyes upon hers with a deadly gaze.

"On your knees!"

The woman stirred not.

"On your knees, wretch!" vociferated the husband, and struck her in the

face, so that she fell to the ground.

"Hold, dog!" was shouted on all sides. The Raitzen rushed forward, and

the man was seized by twenty hands. He struggled against them, grasped

the throat of one, and relaxed not his clutch, even when thrown down

and trampled under foot, until he had choked his adversary to death.

They bound his hands and thrust him into a corner. The Raitzen formed a

circle about him.

"What would ye of me?" he asked, the blood flowing from his mouth.

"What would we? Look around you. See you not that all here are

Raitzen?" replied a tall dark-browed Serb, scowling scornfully and

cruelly at the sufferer.

"And I a Magyar. What then?"

"Ask thy neighbours. Hast thou not heard that to-day is our festival?

The festival of the extermination of the Magyars. You are one: the last

in the town. All the others are dead. As the last, you shall choose the

manner of your death."

"So you are the executioner, Basil?"

"I? I am the chosen of my people."

With indescribable loathing, the Magyar spat in his face.

"Scoundrel!" yelled the insulted man, "for this you shall weep tears of

blood."

"Weep! I?--who ever saw me weep? You may slay me, you may torture me,

or tear me limb from limb. There are enough of you to do it. But weep

you shall not see me, though you burst for impotent rage."

"Weep thou shalt, and 'tis I will make thee. Know that it is I who

seduced your wife, and for whom she betrayed you."

"That is thy shame, not mine."

"All thy kinsmen are slain."

"Better they should lie dead in the street than breathe the same air

with thee."

"Thy property is annihilated."

"May God destroy those who did it."

"Truly, thou art a cool fellow. But--you had a daughter,--a fair and

innocent child."

George looked at his tormentor, and shuddered.

"Lina, I think, was her name," continued the Serb, drawling out his

words with a refinement of cruelty.

"What--what mean you?" asked the trembling father.

"A comely maiden, by my word. Fair to look upon, is she not?"

"The devil seize thee! What next?"

"So young and delicate, and yet--six husbands. Hard to choose. Your

wife could not decide to which she should belong. I stepped in, and

settled the matter. I married her--to all six----" He burst into

fiendish laughter.

Mute and giddy with horror, the father raised himself from the ground.

"I am sorry," continued the Serb, "that you were not here for the

wedding."

"May God's justice fall upon you!" shrieked the wretched father,

stifling his tears. But the parent's heart overpowered the pride of the

man. He fell with his face upon the ground, and wept--tears of blood.

"Lift him up," said Basil, "that we may see him weep for the first time

in his life. Weep a little, George; and you, sot, tune up your pipes,

that he may have accompaniment to his tears."

And thereupon the drunken band began to dance round their victim with

shouts of laughter and scoffing gestures, striking and kicking him as

they passed. Now, however, he wept no longer. He closed his eyes and

kept silence, enduring their ill-treatment without sign or sound of

complaint.

"Away with him!" cried Basil. "Throw him into the garret, and put a

sentry over him. To-day we have celebrated his daughter's wedding;

to-morrow we will drink at his funeral. Good-night, friend George."

He was dragged up to the garret, and locked in. Where they threw him,

there he lay, motionless upon the floor, as though all sensation had

departed from both body and soul, awaiting the hour of death, and

rejoicing that it was near at hand. For a while the dancing and singing

continued; then the Serbs departed to sleep, and all was still. His

eyes were unvisited by slumber. Yet a little while, he thought to

himself, and eternal repose will be mine.

He lay with his senses thus benumbed, thinking neither of the past nor

the future, when he heard a rustle at the garret window. Through the

darkness he saw a white figure pass through the small opening, and

grope its way towards him. Was it a dream? or a reality? The figure's

steps were noiseless. But presently it spoke--in a scarcely audible

whisper.

"Father! father!" it said.

"Lina!"

He looked up, seeking to discern the features of his visitor. She

hurried to him, kissed him, and cut the ropes that bound his hands.

"My child!" murmured George, and clasped his daughter's tottering

knees. "My dear, my only child!"

"Let us fly!" said the maiden, in faint and suffering tones. "The

ladder is at the window. Quick, father--quick!"

George clasped his panting child in his arms, and bore her through the

opening in the garret roof, and down the ladder, resting her head upon

his shoulder and covering her cold cheek with his kisses. Near the

ladder-foot, he stumbled over something. "What is that? A spade. We

will take it with us."

"For a weapon!" said the father.

"To dig a grave!" said the daughter.

On the other side of the house was heard a heavy monotonous step. It

was a Serb on sentry.

"Stay here! Keep close to the wall," said George to his daughter. He

grasped the spade, and crept noiselessly to the corner of the house.

The steps came nearer and nearer. George raised the spade. The Serb

turned the corner, and--lay the next moment upon the ground, with his

skull split. He had not time for a single cry.

George took the dead man's clothes and weapons, took his daughter

in his arms, and left the town. The morning star glittered in the

brightening sky. Towards daybreak, and without having exchanged a

word, father and daughter reached the nearest village. George had many

acquaintances there, and with one of them, he thought, he could leave

his daughter. He found but a poor reception. Nowhere was he suffered to

cross the threshold. None offered him so much as a crust of bread. All

closed their doors, and implored him to depart, lest he should bring

destruction on their heads. The villagers were neither hard-hearted nor

cowardly; but they feared that if the Serbs of St Thomas heard of their

sheltering a fugitive, they also would be murdered or plundered. With

anguish in his soul, the wretched man again took his child in his arms,

and resumed his journey.

For six days he walked on, over stubble and fallow, through storm and

cold by night and parching heat by day--his child, his beloved child,

on his arm. He asked not what ailed her; and she uttered no complaint.

On the sixth day the maiden died, of hunger, misery, and grief.

The father felt his burthen heavier; the arms that clasped his neck

slackened their hold, and the pale cheek that nestled on his shoulder

was chill and cold!

But the spires of Szegedin now glittered in the distance. George

hurried on, and at last, exhausted by his speed, he reached at noonday

the large and populous city. In front of it, on the vast plain, a great

multitude was assembled: more than twenty thousand souls were gathered

together, listening to the words of a popular orator, exalted upon a

scaffolding in their midst. George made his way into the throng; the

speaker was relating the incredible atrocities of the Raitzen. Several

of his hearers noticed the weary, wild-looking, travel-stained man,

carrying in his arms a pale girl with closed eyes, who stood amongst

them like a fugitive from a mad-house.

"Whence come you?" they asked him.

"From St Thomas."

"Ha! Up! up with him on the scaffold!" cried those who heard his reply.

"A man is here from St Thomas. Up with him, and let him speak to the

people!"

The crowd opened a passage, and George was hurried to the scaffold.

When, from this elevation, his emaciated and ghastly countenance,

furrowed by suffering and despair, his failing limbs, and the faded

and ashy pale features of the child upon his shoulder, became visible

to the assembled multitude, a deep shuddering murmur ran through its

masses, like that the Platten Lake gives forth when tempest nears its

shores. At sight and sound of the heaving throng, a hectic flush flamed

upon George's cheek, an unwonted fire burned in his bosom; he felt the

spirit of revenge descend upon his head like a forked and fiery tongue.

"Magyars!" he exclaimed in loud and manly tones, "I come from St

Thomas, the sole survivor of all who there prayed to God in the Magyar

tongue. My goods are plundered, my kinsmen slain. Have any of you

friends there?--prepare your mourning, for of a surety they are dead.

Of all I possessed I have saved but one treasure--my unhappy child.

Approach! ye that are fathers, think of your virgin daughters, and

behold what they have made of mine!"

As he spoke, he lifted his child from his shoulder; and then only did

he perceive that she was dead. Until that moment, he had thought she

was only faint and silent, as she had constantly been for six days past.

"Dead!" shrieked the despairing man, and clasped the corpse to his

heart. "She is dead!" he repeated. The words died away upon his lips,

and he fell, like one thunderstruck, headlong to the ground.

This tragical incident raised to a climax the excitement of the

multitude.

"Revenge!--a bloody revenge!" thundered a voice; and the tumult that

now arose was like the howling of the storm.

"To arms! To arms! all who are men!" was shouted on every side, and

the people thronged through the streets and lanes of the city. "To

arms!--to arms!" was re-echoed from house to house, and in an hour's

time ten thousand furious men stood armed and equipped, and ready to

set out for St Thomas.

Then there got abroad a sullen apprehension, speedily succeeded by a

fierce resolve. Some one chanced to say:--

"But what if, when we march away, the Raitzen rise up and murder our

children?"

The words passed from mouth to mouth.

"They shall die!" exclaimed many voices. "Let them perish, as our

brothers perished at St Thomas! They must die!"

And with terrible ferocity the people turned against their own city,

and like a mountain torrent, overpowering all restraint, poured into

their neighbours' dwellings, and slew the Raitzen to the very last man.

This occurred on the sixth day after the extermination of the Magyars

at St Thomas.

THE ROBBER-CAPTAIN.

George took his dead child in his arms, carried her into the forest,

dug a grave at the foot of a poplar tree, and laid her in it. He lacked

the courage to throw clods upon her pale and beautiful countenance, but

he plucked leaves and twigs from the bushes, laid them thickly over

her, and then covered all with the black earth. When the grave was

filled in, and whilst he was smoothing the green moss over the mound,

anguish tore his heart; but, instead of soothing tears, the fire of

hell gleamed in his eyes.

Then he took out his knife, to cut his child's name on the bark of the

tree which was to be her living monument. But when the letters were

complete, there stood, graven by his own hand, the name of BASIL. For

he thought no longer of his daughter, but of her murderer. And more

terribly significant than a thousand curses and vows of vengeance, was

that name, graven in that hour and that place.

George rose from the ground, and wandered forth into the forest. He had

walked some distance, when a longing desire came over him once more to

gaze upon his daughter's grave. He turned to seek it, but the trees

were all alike: in vain he sought the one beneath which his child lay

buried, and at last night overtook him in the very heart of the forest.

Still he walked on, whither and wherefore he knew not. The wood grew

thicker, and the night darker; the birds, startled at his footsteps,

flew screaming from their perch. At last he stumbled over a tree-root,

and fell. Why should he get up again? As well there as anywhere. He

let his weary head sink upon the ground, whispered a "good night" to

his child, and fell asleep, and dreamed of burning towns and scenes of

slaughter.

Towards midnight the neighing of a horse roused him from his restless

slumbers. Near at hand he saw a saddle-horse, snorting and pawing the

ground. Behind some bushes he heard a woman's plaintive tone, and the

harsher voice of a man, mingled at intervals with the prattle of a

child.

The man was a short spare figure, with flashing black eyes, long

mustaches hanging down over his mouth, and black hair streaming on

his shoulders. Energy was the characteristic of his features, and the

sinews of his frame were like cords of steel.

In his arms he held a child, three or four years old. The child called

him father, and clasped him affectionately with its little hands. A

woman was also there, sobbing passionately, and wiping the tears from

her eyes.

"Canst thou pray, my son?" said the man, seating the child upon his

knee.

"Surely he can," the woman answered; "morning and evening he repeats

his prayer."

"Grow up a good man, my son--not such a one as thy father. In another

year put him to school, that he may learn something good."

"That will I, though it were to cost me my last florin!"

"And take him far hence! When he is older, never tell him what his

father was. Conceal my name from him; never let him know that he is the

son of Rosa Sandor the robber."[26]

"Ask thy father, child, when he will again visit us."

"I know not, my son. For me the morning never dawns of which I can

say, this day is mine. Here to-day, to-morrow fifty miles off; after

to-morrow, perhaps under the turf."

"Talk not thus! See, tears are in the child's eyes."

"So is it, my son, and not otherwise. The robber has none to whom to

pray, early and late, for protection to his life."

"But you are no murderer, Sandor! You have no man's blood upon your

hands!"

"Seek not to palliate my offence, dear wench! Sooner or later, the

gallows and the ravens will claim me."

Again the woman began to sob; the child cried when it saw its mother

weep; with deep feeling the robber caressed and comforted them.

"Go home, dear ones!" he said, "and be not uneasy. Tell no one that you

have seen me. And His blessing be upon you, whose blessing I dare not

ask!"

The woman and child departed. The robber sprang into the saddle, and,

standing up in the stirrups, listened, as long as they were audible, to

the infantine tones of his child. Suddenly an icy-cold hand was laid

upon his. Startled, but without uttering a sound, he turned his head. A

man stood beside his horse. It was the fugitive from St Thomas.

"Fear nothing from me, Rosa! Handle not your pistols. Mine shall not be

the first blood you shed. Not to that end has your life been preserved

through sixteen years of peril. Your destiny is not that of a common

malefactor."

"You know me, then?"

"By report, as an outlaw, with a price upon your head. I know, too that

you have a beloved wife and a darling child, to see whom once in every

year you risk your life--here, where all know you, and any might betray

you."

"Not a word of that! You are ragged and needy. Doubtless you would

enlist in my band. Here, take this"--he offered him a pistol; "rather

than do that, send a bullet through your head."

The fugitive from St Thomas looked earnestly in Sandor's face. Then he

said quietly, almost carelessly, "Do my bidding, and the name of the

Robber shall no longer be coupled with that of Rosa Sandor."

"Are you mad? Have I not done my utmost? and in every quarter? Let

them pardon my past offences, and they would hear of no new ones. The

traveller need no longer fear me. Have I not offered to compensate to

the utmost of my power all those I have injured, and to build, out of

my ill-gotten gains, a place of worship for that God whose commandments

I have wilfully broken? All I ask is to be suffered to live amongst

my fellowmen, and to earn my daily bread by the labour of my hands.

They would never listen to my offers. There is no atonement I am not

willing to make to the offended laws of God and my country. But they

ever rejected and drove me forth. And thou--what wouldst thou with

me?--betray me? Fly, wretch! Hitherto I have shed no blood."

"Henceforward thou shalt shed it, and thereby redeem thy crimes. Your

country accepts what the law refused. Your country has foes; go, wash

with their blood the stain from your name!"

"Tempt me not!" said the robber mournfully. "Ah, were it indeed granted

me to die a happy and honourable death upon the battle-field!--"

"And if fame, instead of death, awaited you there? And if, on your

return thence, the very men who now chase you from forest to forest,

came forth to meet you with laurel crowns and joyous acclamations;

and if, instead of "robber," hero and patriot were coupled with your

name?--"

"Stop! befool me not! Oh, I could do much! A strong squadron could I

bring into the field, composed of men who a hundred times have looked

death fearlessly in the face; men inured to heat and cold, and to back

a horse for three days and nights without dismounting."

"I will go and intercede for you."

"But what am I to thee? Who art thou? And why wouldst thou serve me?"

"Oh, I have my motives. I am one whom the Raitzen have driven from

house and home, whose wife they have seduced, whose kindred they have

slain. By flight alone did I escape with my life; and here, in this

very forest, have I buried my only child, polluted and murdered. All

these things have the Raitzen done to me. Now, tell me, if you war

against them, you will give no quarter?"

"None."

"Then trust me that I will never rest until I bring your pardon, on the

condition that you take the field against the Raitzen with your whole

band. And may your happiness on earth be measured by the destruction

you bring upon their accursed race."

"Clear me the path to the battle-field, and you shall have a mountain

of your enemies' skulls."

"I _will_ do so. By all that is sacred, I swear. In a fortnight I bring

your pardon. Where shall we meet?"

"We? nowhere. I trust no man. If you be sincere, come to Félegyház.

There, in the tavern, sits each morning a wrinkled old beggar, his grey

hair tied up in two knots. He has but one hand--thereby will you know

him. Show him this pistol, and he will conduct you to me. Seek not to

compel from him the secret of my hiding-place, for no tortures could

wring it from his lips. Be not angry. I must be cautious. For sixteen

years have I been hunted like a beast of prey. And now away, and keep

to your right to find the path. An opposite road is mine."

He set spurs to his horse, and galloped off through the forest.

* * * * *

The fortnight had not expired when George entered the tavern at

Félegyház.

In a dark corner, over a measure of wine, sat the grey-haired,

one-handed beggar.

George showed the pistol. The beggar rose from his seat, drank off

his wine, paid the tavern-keeper, and left the house. Not a syllable

escaped him.

The two men stopped before a wretched hut, at the extremity of the

village. The beggar went in, and brought out two powerful black

saddle-horses. He signed to George to mount one, whilst he himself

sprang upon the other, as actively as though he were a young man and

had both hands.

Once fairly off, the old beggar became talkative. These horses,

he said, were hacks of Rosa Sandor's, good beasts enough; but the

Captain's favourite steed was far finer and better, and would let none

but its master mount it, and would gallop for whole days together

without rest, or food, or drink. It swam the Theiss thrice running, and

watched its master's sleep like the most faithful dog, neighing when

danger approached.

Till late in the evening, they rode on across the endless heath. No

path was there, nor visible landmark; only at intervals a patch of

stunted aspens, and now and then a hut, whence proceeded the hoarse

bark of dogs, or a sheep-pen vacant until nightfall. There were fens

overgrown with reeds and rushes, and swarming with white herons; and

vast tracts of moor, grazed and trampled by every sort of cattle. Now

and then, on the far horizon, the travellers caught sight of a steeple;

or of a dark mass of wood, coaxed by toil and care from the ungrateful

sandy soil.

At last night fell. All around grew grey, and then black; but still the

old horse-herd kept steadily on his way. In the remote distance a red

glimmer was seen: right and left flamed the fires of the shepherds.

"Yonder is Rosa Sandor," said the Betyár, pointing to the distant

light: "there we shall find him."

Another hour brought them to the place. As they drew near, the horses

that stood round the fire neighed aloud, and the figures of three men

were visible. Their attitude was one of watchfulness and determination.

A peculiar whistle from the lips of the old Betyár warned them of the

approach of friends.

One of the three men at the fire was the robber chief, Rosa Sandor.

"What bring you?" asked Rosa.

"Your pardon!" cried George; and, springing from his steaming horse, he

handed a sealed packet to his interrogator. "Read and rejoice!"[27]

The robber turned to the firelight, and unfolded the document, which

quivered in his hand as he read it. One tear and then another fell upon

the paper; slowly he bent his knees, and turned his glistening eyes to

heaven. "My Lord and my God!" he exclaimed, his utterance choked by

sobs, "for sixteen years I have been hunted like a wild beast, but

Thou vouchsafest to me to be once more a man!"

He turned to his companions. "To horse!" he cried; "let the troop

assemble."

They sprang to their horses, and soon upon all sides the signal-whistle

was heard. In ten minutes, a hundred and eighty men, well mounted and

armed, mustered round the fire.

"Friends and comrades," cried Sandor, "that which we have so long

desired has come to pass. We are no longer robbers--our country pardons

us. It is granted us to atone our crimes by an honourable death. Is

there one amongst you who does not repent his past life, and rejoice to

be allowed to end it in honour?"

"Not one!" was the unanimous shout.

"Will you follow me to the battle?"

"Everywhere! To death!"

"Swear it."

The vow was brief. "We joyfully swear to shed our blood for our

fatherland!"

"Add," said George to Rosa, "_and to give no quarter_!"

NOSTALGIA.

The soldier is dying of home-sickness.

On a sudden an epidemic broke out amongst the Hungarian troops

stationed in foreign lands.

A mysterious man wandered from place to place, visiting the wine-houses

frequented by the hussars, and joining in their conversation. The words

he spoke, repeated from mouth to mouth, spread far and wide amongst

the light-hearted soldiers, whose light-heartedness then suddenly left

them. The stranger told them of things which had happened in their

native land; and, when he departed, he left behind him printed verses

and proclamations. These the privates took to their serjeants to have

read to them. When they heard them read they wept and cursed, and

learned by heart both verse and prose, from the first word to the last,

and repeated them from morning till night.

Then many took to their beds, and neither ate nor drank; and when the

doctors asked what ailed them, they pointed to their hearts, and said,

"Home! home!--let us go home!"

Many died, and no one could say what had killed them. The rough

uneducated soldiers were pining away in home-sickness, like flowers

transplanted to a foreign and ungenial soil.

An experiment was tried. Some of the sick men received leave to go

home. The next day--they were well and hearty.

It became known that some one was at work secretly inoculating the

soldier with this strange malady; but it was impossible to detect the

person.

The soldiers!--oh, not one of _them_ would betray him; and all snares

were laid in vain. With the officers he never meddled. The private

soldiers were his men. With them he felt himself secure from treachery.

And the seed he scattered abroad produced an abundant harvest.

The dejection of the troops became daily more striking. The soldiers

grew wild and intractable. No longer, when riding their horses to

water, did they sing, as had been their wont, joyous ditties in praise

of wine and women. Their songs were now sad and strange-sounding;

mournful words to yet more dismal tunes. They sang of their country,

of their dear native land, and of strife and bloodshed, in dirge-like

strains; and the burden of every couplet was "_Eljen Magyar!_" Like the

last accents of a dying man were the tones they uttered, sinking deeper

and deeper, and ending in piteous long-protracted cadences.

Still are such songs to be heard in Hungary's forests, and around her

villages, in the silent night-time. Now, more than ever, do they sound

like funeral dirges, and their long sad notes like wailings from the

grave.

* * * * *

In a small Gallician town was quartered a division of hussars--splendid

fellows, for whom the heart of many a Polish maiden beat quicker than

its wont. The most beautiful woman in all the neighbourhood loved the

best blade amongst the hussars--the Captain.

Countess Anna K--nsky, the lovely Polish widow, had been for six months

betrothed to the bold hussar officer, and the wedding-day was near

at hand. A single night intervened. On the eve of the happy day, the

bridegroom went to visit his bride. He was a tall slender man, with

the bloom of youth still upon his face; but his high forehead was

already bald;--"Sun and moon together," as the Hungarian proverb says.

The bride was a fair and delicate lady, with abundant black locks,

a pale nervous countenance, and blue eyes of that unusual lustre

which one finds only in Polish blue eyes. At sight of her lover, her

alabaster cheek was overspread with the roses of love's spring-time,

and her eyes beamed like the rising sun.

The bridegroom would fain have appeared cheerful; but it is hard to

deceive the gaze of love, which reads the beloved one's trouble in

each fold of the brow, in each absent glance of the eye. Tenderly she

approached him, smoothed his forehead's wrinkles with her hand, and

imprinted a kiss in their place. But again they returned.

"What ails thee, dearest? How is this? Sad on the eve of our

wedding-day?"

"I? Nothing ails me. But I am annoyed at an incident--a casualty--which

I cannot postpone. The court-martial has condemned a man to death. I

have just now signed the sentence. The man is to be shot to-morrow:

just on our bridal-day! I would it were otherwise!"

"The man is doubtless a criminal?"

"According to military law. He has been debauching soldiers from their

duty--exciting them to desert and return home to fight the Serbs. Death

is the penalty of his crime."

"And you have signed the sentence? Are you not a Magyar? Love you not

your native land?"

"I am a soldier before everything. I respect the laws."

"Impossible! You, who love so well, cannot be devoid of that most

ennobling kind of love--patriotism."

"I can love, but I cannot dream. Of the maxims and principles of

revolutionists, I understand not a word; but thus much I know,

revolutions never end well. Much blood, little honour, eternal remorse."

"Say not eternal remorse, but eternal hope. Hope that a time _must_

come, which will compensate all sufferings and sacrifices."

The fair enthusiast quitted her bridegroom's side, seated herself at

the piano, and played with feverish energy the well-known song,

"Noch ist Polen nicht verloren!"

her eyes flashing through tears. Her lover approached her, removed her

hand, which trembled with emotion, from the keys of the instrument, and

kissed it.

"Poor Poland! Well may thy daughters weep over thy fate; but alas! in

vain. I was lately in Pesth. Passing along a street where a large house

was building, I noticed amongst the labourers a woman, carrying stones

to and fro upon her head, for the use of the masons. Twice--thrice--I

passed before her. The sweat streamed from her face; her limbs could

scarcely support her. She was no longer young, and the toil was severe.

This woman once possessed a palace in Warsaw--far, far more magnificent

than the house she was then helping to build. Its portals were

surmounted by a prince's coronet; and many are the joyous hours I have

spent beneath its hospitable roof.... When, at the sound of the noonday

bell, she seated herself at her wretched meal, I accosted her. For a

long time she would not recognise me; then she turned away her head and

wept. The other women only laughed at her. I offered her money; she

thanked me, and took very little. She, once the mistress of millions,

besought me to send the remainder to her little daughter, whom she

had left a dependant on a rich family in a distant town. I promised

to seek out her daughter. When I had last seen her she was a lovely

child, six years of age. Eight years had elapsed, bringing her to the

verge of womanhood. I reached the house. In answer to my inquiries, a

girl appeared--not that fair and delicate being whose sweet countenance

still dwelt in my memory, but a rude creature, with hard coarse

features and wild eyes. She did not recognise me, often though she had

seen me. I spoke to her in Polish; she understood not a word. I asked

after her mother; she stared vacantly in my face.... Truly, the fate

of Poland is a terrible example of what a nation may expect from its

neighbours when it engages in a struggle with one more powerful than

itself; and woe to the Magyar if he does not profit by the warning!"

"Ah! it is no Magyar who can talk thus!"

"Anna! thy first husband fell in battle on the morrow of thy wedding

day. Wouldst thou lose thy second bridegroom on its eve?"

"I? With contrition I avow my culpable weakness; I love you more than

my country, more than liberty. Until to-day, no man ever heard these

words from a Polish woman. _I_ wish you to sacrifice yourself? Did you

seek to do so, I should surely hold you back--which no Polish wife ever

yet did to her husband. All I crave of you is to leave that man his

life, whose patriotism was stronger than your own. On our bridal eve, I

ask you for a man's life as a wedding-gift."

"And a soldier's honour!"

"Punish him otherwise."

"There is but one alternative. The man has instigated mutiny and

desertion; the law has doomed him to death. I must execute the

sentence, or fly with him to Hungary. And thence, I well know, I

should never return. In a case like this, the judge punishes, or is an

accomplice of the criminal. In one hand I have the sword of justice, in

the other the banner of insurrection. Choose! which shall I raise?"

* * * * *

The sky was scarcely reddened by the dawn when the prisoner was led

forth to execution. Silently, without other sound than that of their

horses' hoofs, marched the square of hussars. In the centre, on an open

cart, was the chaplain, a crucifix in his hand; and beside him, in a

white shirt, bare-headed and with fettered hands, the culprit, George

of St Thomas.

The sun rose as they reached the appointed place. The plumes of the

hussars and the grey locks of the condemned man fluttered in the

morning breeze. They took him from the cart: six hussars dismounted and

unslung their carbines; the remainder formed up. The adjutant unfolded

a paper and read, in a stern and merciless voice, the sentence of death

passed upon George of St Thomas. According to customary form, a soldier

stepped up to the adjutant, presented him with a wand, and thrice

implored mercy for the condemned man. The third time the officer broke

the wand in two, threw it at the criminal's feet, and said in solemn

tones, "God is merciful!"

At these words the doomed man raised his head; his attitude grew more

erect, his features glowed. He gazed around him in the faces of the

assembled soldiers, then upwards at the purple clouds, and spoke in

enthusiastic tones.

"Thank thee, O God!" he said; "and thanks also to you, comrades,

for my death. Life has long been a burthen to me; death is welcome.

I have lost everything--wife and child, house and home; my country

alone remained to me, and her I could not free. I rejoice to die. You,

comrades, bless God, that yonder, beyond the mountains, you have a

mother, a beloved bride, a faithful wife, an infant child, waiting your

return. Yonder beyond the mountains you have your homes, your cottages,

your families. Pray to God that at your last hour you may welcome death

as joyfully as I, who have nothing left upon earth." He paused, and

sank upon his knees, as if power had departed from his limbs.

The soldiers stood motionless as statues. The adjutant waved the paper

in his hand. Gloomily the six hussars raised their carbines.

Once more the adjutant raised the folded paper, when behold! a young

non-commissioned officer dashed out of the ranks, snatched the fatal

document from his hand, tore it, and threw the fragments at the feet of

the firing-party.

Two hundred sabres flashed from their scabbards, and, amidst a cloud of

dust, two hundred chargers scoured across the plain.

* * * * *

The wedding guests were waiting. The bridegroom was there in full

uniform, glittering with gold, and the beauteous bride in her graceful

robe of white lace. Yet a moment, and she would be his wedded wife.

The moment was very long.

The bridegroom awaited his adjutant's return from the execution. Until

then, he would not approach the altar.

What if, at the very instant the solemn Yes! passed his lips, there

reached his ears the rattle of the life-destroying volley, which he,

the thrice happy lover, had commanded?

What if, whilst God's servant implored Heaven's blessing on their

union, the angry spirit of the criminal, invoking vengeance on his

judge's head, appeared at the footstool of the Almighty?

Still no adjutant came.

The bridegroom was uneasy. Yet uneasier grew the bride.

"Perhaps," she whispered, "it were better to postpone the ceremony."

"Or," he replied, "to hasten it."

A foreboding of evil oppressed them both.

And still the adjutant came not. Two, three hours elapsed beyond the

appointed time. Noon approached; each minute seemed an eternity.

At last hoofs clattered in the court. Hasty steps and jingling spurs

were heard upon the stairs. All eyes were fixed upon the door....

It opened, the adjutant appeared, pale, dusty, exhausted, the sweat

streaming over his face.

"Remain without!" cried the bridegroom. "You bring a message of

death--enter not here!"

"No message of death do I bring," replied the officer hoarsely, "but a

hundred times worse. The condemned man has taken the hussars away with

him, all, towards the Hungarian frontier. A couple of leagues off they

released me to make my report!"

"My horse!" shouted the bridegroom, hurrying madly to the door. But he

paused at sight of his bride, paler than ever and with terror in her

glance.

"WAIT BUT A MOMENT, dearest love!" he said, clasped her to his breast,

kissed her, and threw himself on his horse.

The animal reared beneath him and would not leave the court. The rider

struck the spurs sharply into its flanks. Once more he looked back.

There she stood, the beloved one, in her bridal dress upon the balcony,

and waved her kerchief. "You will soon be back," she said.

She never saw him again.

* * * * *

Forward raced the hussars upon their rapid coursers, forward towards

the blue mountains--ever forward.

Through forest wildernesses, over pathless heaths, up hill and

down--ever forwards to the distant mountains.

Right and left steepled cities appeared and vanished; the vesper bells

greeted them as they passed; loudly neighing, their horses swept along,

swift and ever swifter.

Amongst them rode the gray-headed man, guiding them by untrodden paths,

over swamp and moor, through silent groves of pine, forwards to the

mountains.

In the evening twilight they reach the banks of a stream. Here and

there on the distant hills glimmer the shepherds' fires; beyond those

hills lies the Magyar's home, and in their valleys this stream takes

its rise. Here, for the first time, they dismount, to water their

horses in the wave whose source is in their native land.

Whilst the horses sup the cool stream, their riders strike up that gay

and genial song, whose every note brings memories of home,--

"Hei! auch ich bin dort geboren,

Wo der Stern dort strahlt."[28]

Who ever rode so merrily to death?

But the vedettes make sudden sign that some one comes.

In the distance a horseman is seen; his steed vies in swiftness with

the wind, his long plume and laced pelisse stream behind, the gold upon

his schako glitters in the red sun-rays.

"The Captain!" is murmured around.

The hussars mount, draw their sabres, form line, and when their captain

appears in their front, they offer him the customary salute.

Breathless with fury and speed, at first he cannot speak. Motionless in

front of the line, his sabre quivering in his hand, he is at a loss for

words to express his indignation. Before he can find them, four hussars

quit the ranks; the youngest--the same who tore up the sentence--raises

his hand to his schako, and addresses his chief.

"Welcome, Captain! You come at the right moment to accompany us to

Hungary. Short time is there for deliberation. Decide quickly. We will

seize your horse's bridle, and take you with us by force. Well do we

know that you come willingly; but so will you avoid disgrace, should

defeat be our lot. You must with us--by force. If we succeed, yours the

glory; if we fall, the guilt is ours, since we compel you. Play your

part! Defend yourself! Cut one or two of us from our saddles, the first

who lays hand on your rein--see, I grasp it! Strike, Captain, and with

a will."

He did as he said, and seized the horse's bridle; whilst, on the other

side, an old serjeant laid hand on its mane. The horse stirred not.

The Captain gazed hard at them, each in turn; but he raised not

his sabre to strike. Behind him his forsaken bride, before him the

mountain frontier of his native land. On the one hand, a heaven of

love and happiness; on the other, glory and his country's cause. Two

mighty passions striving against each other with a giant's force. The

fierce conflict went nigh to overpower him; his head sank upon his

breast. Suddenly blared the trumpets in rear of the squadron; at the

martial sound his eager war-horse bounded beneath him. With awakening

enthusiasm the rider raised his head and waved his sabre.

"Forward, then," he cried, "in God's name!"

And forward he sprang into the river, the two hussars by his side; the

cloven waters plashing in pearls around their heads.

Forward, forward to the blue mountains!

In lengthening column, the hussars followed across the stream--the

horses bravely breasting the flood, the bold riders singing their wild

Magyar ditty. But dark and gloomy was their leader's brow, for each

step led him farther from happiness and his bride.

In the midst of the troop rode George of St Thomas, in his hand the

banner of Hungary. His cheek glowed, his eye flashed: each step brought

him nearer to revenge.

The troubled stream is once more stilled, the fir-wood receives the

fugitives, their horses' tramp dies away in the darkness. Here and

there, from the distant mountains, the herdsman's horn resounds; on

their flanks the shepherd's fire gleams like a blood-red star.

Forward, forward!

* * * * *

Back to thy lair, bloodthirsty monster, back and sleep!

Let the forest-grass grow over the ensanguined plain.

How much is destroyed, how much has passed away.

How many good men, who were here, are here no longer; and how many who

remain would grieve but little if they, too, were numbered with the

dead.

The hero of battles is once more a robber and a fugitive. The iron hand

of the law drives him from land's end to land's end.

In the mad-house mopes a captain of hussars, and ever repeats,--"WAIT

BUT A MOMENT!" None there can guess the meaning of his words.

Only George of St Thomas is happy. He sleeps in a welcome grave,

dreaming of sweet renown and deep revenge.

* * * * *

We have suppressed two chapters of this tale, both for want of space,

and because they are unpleasantly full of horrors. They are chiefly

occupied with the vengeance wreaked by George, who is frightfully

mutilated in the course of the war, upon the Serbs, and especially

upon his deadly foe Basil; and include an account of the capture by

assault, and subsequent conflagration, of the town of St Thomas. They

are in no way essential to heighten or complete the interest of those

we have given; and _L'Envoy_ is as appropriately placed at the end of

the third chapter as at the close of the fifth. The plot of the whole

tale, if such it may be called, is quite unimportant; but there is an

originality and a wild vigour in many of the scenes, which justify,

in combination with other German translations from the Magyar that

have lately reached us, an anticipation of yet better things from the

present generation of Hungarian poets and novelists.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] _Schlachtfelderblüthen aus Ungarn. Novellen nach wahren

Kriegs-Scenen._ Leipzig und Pesth, 1850. London: Williams and Norgate.

[20] See Schlesinger's _War in Hungary_, (English version,) vol. ii. p.

18-30, for a most interesting anecdotical account of this _beau ideal_

of light horsemen.

[21] _War in Hungary_, i. 206-7.

[22] Ibid. ii. 20.

[23] "Follow me!"

[24] The notes issued from Kossuth's bank-note press were, of course,

worthless when the revolution was suppressed.

[25] The name of Raitzen is synonymous with Serbs. "Arsenius

Czernojewic, under Leopold I., transplanted a large colony of Serbs

from the ancient Rascia to Hungary. Hence the name Razen, Raczen,

Raitzen.

"The Serbs first aimed the poniard at their German and Magyar

neighbours.... Isolated scenes of murder, perpetrated by the Serbs

against the Magyars and Germans, who inhabit that district, (the

Bacska, or country of Bacs, between the Danube and the Theiss,) led the

way to a series of sanguinary atrocities, such as our age had hoped

never to see repeated. The commencement of hostilities is due to the

Sclavo-Wallachian race; old, long-restrained hate, combined with an

innate thirst for blood, marked the rising of the South Sclavonian

races from the first as one of the bloodiest character, in which murder

was both means and end. No revolution of modern times--the great French

Revolution not excepted--is blackened with such horrible atrocities

as this: the details may be found in the Serbian and Magyar journals;

and one would fain have hoped that the accounts on both sides were

exaggerated. Unhappily, such a hope is illusory; nor can the historian

indulge it without falsifying the truth. Deeds have been perpetrated

which call to mind the Hurons and Makis of the American forests. Like

them, the Serbs were masters in the art of torture and murder; like

them, they made their unhappy victims previously undergo all the

dreadful steps of torment, prolonging the transition from life to death

with a refinement of cruelty; like them, they vaunted the deeds of

horror, and honoured their executioners as heroes.... Such unheard-of

atrocities inevitably called forth retaliation. Magyars and Germans

became savages among savages."--SCHLESINGER, Pulsky's edition, i. 22-24.

[26] Schlesinger describes Rosa Sandor as "a man about thirty-five

years of age not very tall or stout, with fair hair, small mustaches

and whiskers, and with nothing of the bandit in his appearance or

demeanour," but mentions that he had a lieutenant of the popular bandit

type, a broad-shouldered truculent personage with a formidable black

beard, and long hair streaming on his shoulders. "A strange relation,"

he adds, "exists between the two men. The master was anxious, for

reasons easy to conceive, that his person should not be generally

known in the country; whilst the servant, on the contrary, had vanity

enough to take pleasure in passing for the famous Rosa Sander. All the

portraits of the latter which are circulated throughout the country are

faithful likenesses of the lieutenant, and hence the common erroneous

notion of the Captain."

[27] Rosa Sandor was less a highwayman than a cattle-lifter, and

pursued his vocation in the neighbourhood of Szegedin. "He was never

in prison," says Schlesinger, "but repented his misdemeanours of his

own free will, and wrote to the magistrates stating that he would leave

their cattle alone, if they would pardon him for the past and allow him

to pursue the Austrians." The Hungarian Government granted his request,

and he did good service, especially against Jellachich and the Serbs;

and also repeatedly entered Pesth and Komorn with despatches, when

those places were closely invested by the Austrians.--See Schlesinger,

i. 226-8, for other particulars of this Hungarian Robin Hood, who was

at the head of a band of three hundred men, and was further remarkable

by his abstinence from bloodshed.

[28] "Ha! I too was yonder born, where brightly beams the star."

THE MESSAGE OF SETH.

AN ORIENTAL TRADITION.

BY DELTA.

I.

Prostrate upon his couch of yellow leaves,

Slow-breathing lay the Father of Mankind;

And as the rising sun through cloudland weaves

Its gold, the glowing past returned to mind,

Days of delight for ever left behind,

In purity's own robes when garmented,

Under perennial branches intertwined--

Where fruits and flowers hung temptingly o'erhead,

Eden's blue streams he traced, by bliss ecstatic led.

II.

Before him still, in the far distance seen,

Arose its rampart groves impassable;

Stem behind giant stem, a barrier screen,

Whence even at noonday midnight shadows fell;

Vainly his steps had sought to bid farewell

To scenes so tenderly beloved, although

Living in sight of Heaven made Earth a Hell;

For fitful lightnings, on the turf below,

Spake of the guardian sword aye flickering to and fro--

III.

The fiery sword that, high above the trees,

Flashed awful threatenings from the angel's hand,

Who kept the gates and guarded:--nigh to these,

A hopeless exile, Adam loved to stand

Wistful, or roamed, to catch a breeze that fanned

The ambrosial blooms, and wafted perfume thence,

As 'twere sweet tidings from a distant land

No more to be beheld; for Penitence,

However deep it be, brings back not Innocence.

IV.

Thus had it been through weary years, wherein

The primal curse, working its deadly way,

Had reft his vigour, bade his cheek grow thin,

Furrowed his brow, and bleached his locks to grey:

A stricken man, now Adam prostrate lay

With sunken eye, and palpitating breath,

Waning like sunlight from the west away;

While tearfully, beside that bed of death,

Propping his father's head, in tenderness hung Seth.

V.