STRONG JUON
Henrietta's married life was not a happy one. Her husband was polite,
complaisant, and conventionally correct in his behaviour towards her,
and that was all. And then she saw so little of him. He was frequently
absent from Hidvár for weeks at a time, and when he returned he
regularly brought in his train a merry company of comrades, in whose
pastimes Henrietta could take no sort of pleasure.
During those long days when she had Hidvár all to herself and was left
entirely to the company of her sad thoughts, she would sometimes walk
about till late in the evening in the shady alleys of the home park,
listening to the songs of the girls working in the fields. At the end of
the park was a church, and in front of it a small clearing fenced around
with stakes and looking like a cabbage garden. It surely belonged to
some poor man or other. It did--and the poor man was the parish-priest.
Henrietta often saw him, a tall, grey-bearded man in a long black
cassock, hastening to his little garden; there the reverend gentleman
would divest himself of his long habit, produce a rake, and work till
late in the evening. Henrietta fancied at first that was merely a
dietetic diversion, but afterwards, when she found him there the next
day and the day after that, and at every hour of the day; when she saw
him wiping the sweat from his brow in the burning afternoons and leaning
wearily at intervals on his rake to rest a while from his labour, then
she was persuaded that this work was not a pastime, but a bitter toil
for daily bread.
Often times she would very much have liked to ask him how this was, but
she was a stranger in these parts and did not understand his language;
at last, however, the priest, perceiving the lady one day, peered at her
through the palings and wished her good-day in the purest Hungarian,
thereby giving her to understand that the language of the gentry was
well known to him.
Henrietta begged the old man to leave his labour and come to her.
"It cannot be, your ladyship; his lordship has forbidden me to appear in
his courts."
"Why?"
"I am always a nuisance."
"How so?"
"Because I am always on some begging errand. At one time the wind
carries off the roof of the church; at another, something is broken in
the belfry. It is a year ago now since the school was burnt down, and
since then the walls have become overgrown with thistles; the
schoolmaster too has gone away, and there is nobody to teach the
children, so that they grow up louts and robbers, to the great hurt and
harm of the gentry."
"But why is not all this put to rights?"
"Because the poor folks are lazy and drunken, and his lordship is
stingy."
Henrietta was astonished at the old man's words.
"Yes, stingy, that's the word," continued the priest. "I do not pick my
words, for I am a priest and used to hunger. And he who is used to
hunger is free from the yoke of servility. I told his lordship that to
his face, and that was why he forbade me the castle."
Henrietta could not continue the conversation, so upset was she at the
idea of Hátszegi's stinginess. What! the man who raked in hundreds of
thousands at a time with the greatest ease, and no doubt scattered them
as recklessly, could shut his door in the face of a poor priest who
begged for the house of God and the education of the people! She hastily
wished the priest good-night and returned to the castle.
The same evening she sought her husband, who had just come home wearied
from the chase, "I have a favour to ask of you," said she. Hátszegi
looked astonished: it was the first favour the wife had ever asked her
husband.
"Command me!" said he. "Whatever you like to ask is as good as granted
already."
"I should like to learn the language of the people in the midst of whom
we dwell. I am like a deaf-mute among them at present."
"That will not be difficult. The Wallachian tongue is easily acquired,
especially by anyone with a knowledge of French or Latin."
Henrietta blushed scarlet. Was there a covert allusion behind these
words? Did Hátszegi know that she understood Latin?
"I should like to have a master who can put me in the way of it. The
parish priest here would be a suitable person."
For an instant Hátszegi's eyebrows contracted.
"You shall have your way," he said at last. "It is true that he is the
one man in the world who insults me to my face with impunity whenever he
meets me, and even presumes to chalk upon the walls of my own castle
denunciations against me from the book of the Prophet Nehemiah, so that
I was obliged to forbid him ever to appear before me under pain of being
thrown headlong out of the window; yet to show you what an obedient
servant I am of yours, madame, I will not baulk you of your desire, or
desire you to choose another master, but will send and invite him to
come up here at once. Everyone shall see that in my house, my wife is
the master." And with that Leonard kissed his wife's hand and withdrew.
Early next day the pastor arrived. Margari informed him of her
ladyship's desire to learn the Roumanian language, and the words almost
stuck in his throat when he added that his Reverence would receive a
hundred florins every month for it. Fancy! a hundred florins a month for
teaching a lingo only spoken by bumpkins.
Todor Rubán--that was the priest's name--was at once conducted to her
ladyship. He was an elderly man, of an open, cheerful countenance; his
fine, long white hair fell in thick locks on his simple black cassock,
which showed considerable signs of wear.
Henrietta was not in time to prevent the old pastor from kissing her
hand.
"This is no slavish obsequiousness towards a great lady," said he, "but
the respect of a poor pastor for an angel whom Heaven by a peculiar act
of grace has sent down to us. This is no empty compliment, your
ladyship. I am not very lavish of such things myself, but I feel bound
to address you thus because I am well aware that it is not merely to
learn our poor language that you pay me so well for so little trouble.
No, I recognize herein the good will which would do what it can to raise
and help a poor neglected population: for I certainly shall not exchange
my simple maize-bread for better, but will employ your ladyship's gift
in the service of God and of our poorer brethren."
From that day Henrietta believed that a call from on high had summoned
her to Hidvár to be the guardian angel, the visible providence of a
poor, forsaken people, and her most pleasant occupation was now to go
from village to village,--often in the company of the priest, and at
other times accompanied by a single groom or quite alone. Thus she
visited one after the other all the surrounding parishes like any
archdeacon, enquiring after and helping their necessities, distributing
money for school-buildings and service books, collecting all manner of
stray orphans and bringing them home with her to be fed and instructed;
nay she erected a regular foundling hospital at Hidvár for the benefit
of the sprouting urchins of the district, and had the liveliest debates
with the priest as to the best method of managing it. Her benevolent
enthusiasm cost Hátszegi a pretty penny.
"She is a child; let her play!" he would only say when Margari and
Clementina represented to him that Henrietta had pawned her jewels at
Fehervár in order to teach some more little Roumanian rag-a-muffins how
to go about with gloves on like their betters. Nay the baron secretly
instructed the tradesmen with whom Henrietta had pawned her jewels to
advance her four times as much as they were worth, _he_ would make it
good again, he said--and then he would buy his wife fresh jewels. An
admirable husband, truly!
One day, Henrietta had ridden out to the neighbouring Ravacsel in order
to visit a poor Wallachian peasant woman, to whom she had sent some
medicine a few days before. The woman, naturally, never drank the
medicine, but instead of that got a village quack to rub her stomach
with some wonder-working salve so vigorously that the poor patient died
in consequence; in fact she was already at the last gasp when Henrietta
arrived. Henrietta was beside herself with grief and anger. She felt
like a doctor whose prescriptions have been interfered with by a
competitor. She could not indeed help the woman, who expired soon after
her arrival, but she had at least the satisfaction of making
arrangements for a decent funeral. In the meantime it had grown so late
that when she turned back toward Hidvár the moon was already pretty high
in the heavens.
She was alone on horseback, for it was only a two hours' journey between
the two places, and she had therefore not thought it worth while to
bring an escort with her. Besides, whom had she to fear? Since she had
lived in these parts, all the bad men had disappeared, and whoever she
might meet in the roads or lanes would be ready to kiss her hand.
So she turned homewards again alone. The road wound in and out among the
valleys and was therefore much longer than if it had gone in a straight
direction across the mountains. She had, however, often heard from the
peasants that there was a shorter way to Hidvár from Ravacsel on which
mules and ponies could go, and she thought it better to look for this
road lest night should surprise her among the mountains. But a road that
is good enough for mules and ponies may not suit a thoroughbred English
steed which does not care about putting its hoofs into the tracks of
other beasts; and besides, a hundred paces on level ground is much
shorter than twenty-five up hill. Henrietta vividly experienced the
truth of this when she reached the summit of the hill, for her horse was
sweating from every pore and trembling from the violent exertion. Such
horses should not be used in hilly country: a shaggy, sturdy little pony
would have treated the whole thing as a joke and not said a word about
it.
But the real difficulties of the road only began during the descent,
which was equally dangerous for horse and rider. The track, a mere
channel washed out of the soft sandstone by the mountain torrents,
descended abruptly, the stones giving way beneath the horse's hoofs and
plunging after it. Frequently they had to cross very awkward places, and
Henrietta could see from the way in which her horse pricked up his ears,
snorted and shook his head, that he was as frightened as his mistress.
At last they came to a very bad spot indeed, where on one side of the
road there was a sheer abyss, while the rocky mountain side rose
perpendicularly on the other. The narrow path here ran so close to the
rock that the rider had to bend her head aside so as not to knock it,
and the horse could only go forward one foot at a time.
For an instant the horse stood still, as if weighing his chances on that
narrow path; but, as there was no turning back now, he was obliged at
last to go on.
Henrietta looked shudderingly down into the chasm below her, over which
she seemed to hang suspended; and she thought to herself, with something
very like a sob: what if we should stumble now!
The thought was scarcely in her mind when one of the horse's hind legs
tripped, and the same instant horse and rider were precipitated into the
abyss.
Henrietta never lost her head during the fall. She noticed everything
that happened during the brief plunge, how the horse struggling
desperately clattered down the mountain-side, how the saddle girth burst
beneath the strain, how for a mere second some bush or shrub arrested
the descent, and how the next instant the weight of the horse tore it
down along with him. Finally, falling still lower and turning right
round on its back the horse got wedged in between two rocks from which
position he was fortunately unable to disengage himself, for had he
fallen any further he would have been dashed to pieces.
Henrietta was quite conscious the whole time. Holding on with both hands
to the roots of a bush with her left leg still in the stirrup (for
saddle and stirrup also remained hanging in the bush) it occurred to her
in this painful situation that she still had time to commend her soul to
God and then face death more calmly. As to help, there was no hope of
it, for the place was far away from all human dwellings; night would
soon fall and the bush would presently yield beneath her
feet--destruction was certain.
But while the lady neglected to call for assistance, the wedged-in horse
did so all the more loudly. Supine and unable to free himself from his
uncomfortable position, he repeatedly uttered that terrified scream
which one never hears from this noble and reticent beast except in dire
extremity. Whoever has heard such a cry will readily admit that it is
far more terrible than any merely human appeal for assistance.
After a few moments it seemed to Henrietta as if a halloo were
resounding from the depths below; looking down she perceived by the
light of the moon a black shape leaping from rock to rock like a
chamois, and gradually approaching the dangerous point where she hung.
Any efforts on this man's part seemed to her impossible. There was not a
single visible gap or crevice in the face of the steep rock by means of
which he could scramble up to her; and how could he help her, how could
he liberate her, if he did manage to get at her?
Nevertheless the man drew nearer and nearer. She could by this time make
out his goatskin cloak, his high broad cap, the clean shaved face
peculiar to the mountain goatherds. His dexterity was as astonishing as
the physical strength, with which he often raised himself on the tips of
his toes in order to reach a cleft in the rocks, scarcely visible high
above his head; often he could scarce hold on by the tips of his
fingers, yet the next moment he would swing himself up with half a hand
and, setting his foot in the cleft, look about for a fresh foothold.
About a yard below Henrietta was a projecting piece of rock just large
enough for a man's foot to stand upon. The next moment Henrietta saw the
herdsman mount to this place. He himself was a good fathom in height and
his head reached up as far as Henrietta's hips. He looked up at her with
a friendly smile, as if he had merely come there to help her down from
her horse. Then he said to her in Roumanian: "_Noroc bun Domna!_" which
means "Good luck to you, my lady!" So even in this perilous situation it
occurred to him to say something pleasant.
"The horse took a false step, my lady," said he, "but all's well that
ends well. Prithee, mount upon my shoulder, this bush will not hold fast
much longer, it is only a juniper, its roots are weak." Henrietta's
heart failed her. This man surely does not imagine that he will be able
to carry her down on his shoulders.
"Come, my lady, don't be afraid, I can easily carry you down. Why I
often roam about like this after my kids when they fall into the
precipice; and you are no heavier than a young kid, I'm sure."
And then, with the hand that remained free, he plucked at the remainder
of the damaged bush. Henrietta perceived with astonishment that the
roots which had not snapped asunder beneath his weight were loosened
from the rock by the mere tug of the man's hand. But what was he going
to do with them?
The herdsman bade the lady fear nothing; no further accident could
happen, he said; then, sticking the torn out stump between his legs like
a hobby-horse and pressing it against the rock with one hand, he himself
turned his back to the mountain-side and suddenly, stretching his legs
wide apart, let himself glide down the shelving rock.
Henrietta shrieked aloud, she thought she was lost, but the next moment
the herdsman stood on solid ground and looked up at her with a smile:
"We're all right, you see," he cried. "Oh, I have travelled like this
many a time; it is rare fun,--sledging I call it."
Sledging indeed!--to plunge down a steep mountain side five fathoms deep
with the aid of a juniper bush!
From where they now stood it was an easy matter to convey the lady to
the bottom of the precipice, which was overgrown with bright grass, on
which he deposited her.
"There you are, my lady," said he. "Don't be frightened; I will soon be
back again."
And with that he scrambled up again towards the wedged-in horse.
Henrietta gazed after him in amazement--whatever was he going to do
there?
The fellow, on reaching the wriggling horse, first of all caught firm
hold of its front legs and then tied all four legs tightly together with
the stirrup-straps. Thereupon, he seized the beast by his fettered legs,
pulled them over his shoulders, and with a violent jerk freed the animal
from its uncomfortable position and carried it down into the valley
likewise. There he untied its legs, helped it on to its hoofs again,
and, turning with a smile to Henrietta, said: "A fine horse that; it
would have been a shame to have let it come to grief!"
"And you were able to carry it on your shoulders?" gasped Henrietta.
"That isn't very much. It scarce weighs more than four hundredweight.
The bear not long ago weighed five, and I had to beat it to death before
I could take it home. Surely your ladyship knows that I am the strong
Juon--Juon Tare?" And the goatherd said this with as much self-evident
pride, as if everyone in the wide world had heard that strong Juon dwelt
among these forests. Henrietta's look of surprise apprised him, however,
that she, at least, had never heard of him.
"You do not know then, Domna, who I am? Yet I know who you are. I have
often met the _Dumnye Barbatu_[21] and he knows me well. He is the only
man in the world who is as strong as I am. We have often wrestled
together on this grass-plot for a wager. Neither of us has ever been
able to throw the other. His lordship can throw an axe deeper into a
tree than I can, but I can put a greater weight. His lordship can kill
an ox with a blow from his fist, but I can throttle a bear to death. But
we cannot overcome each other, though we have often stood up
together--only in joke, only in sport, of course, your ladyship. It
would not be well if we encountered each other in our wrath--that would
be terrible."
[Footnote 21: My lord, your husband.]
All the time he spoke Juon was skilfully mending the torn saddle-girths
and the bridle; then he re-saddled the horse, which was still trembling
in every limb, wiped the bloody foam from its mouth, washed its sores
and encouraged the lady to remount. In a quarter of an hour, he said,
they would meet the road again, and in half an hour they would be at
Hidvár.
Then the goatherd, who was well acquainted with all the meanderings of
the valley, took the horse's rein and conducted the lady to the mountain
pass, where the beaten track began again. There he kissed her hand and
parted from her.
"I must now go back," said he, "for they are waiting for me."
"Who?"
"My goats and my wife."
"Then you have a wife? Do you love her?"
"Love her?" cried the herdsman proudly,--and then he added in a lower
voice: "She is as beautiful as your ladyship!--_Buna nopte, Domna_!"[22]
[Footnote 22: Good night, my lady.]
And without waiting for an answer, he plunged back into the forest,
disappearing by leaps and bounds.
When Henrietta got home she said not a word to anyone about what had
taken place, though the condition of the horse and his harness sufficed
to show that an accident had happened. But she could scarce wait for the
morrow to come, bringing along with it Todor Rubán, from whom she meant
to find out everything relating to Juon Tare.[23]
[Footnote 23: From the Roumanian _Taria_, strength, solidity.]