Pretty Michal

Someone was playing this air on a Hungarian field-trumpet.

This instrument is called the farogato, and very few know how to play it. It is certainly a difficult instrument. Let anyone but a connoisseur attempt to blow it, and he will bring forth a sound not at all unlike the howl of a dog on whose tail someone has trodden. But he who really knows the secret of the field-trumpet can play thereon every imaginable air, in tones which will go to one's very heart. You'll find yourself weeping without exactly knowing why. The good old songs, as they come forth from the instrument, recall to you the lullaby which your mother used to sing at your cradle, and the hymn which was sung at your father's burial. It does you good and makes you sad at the same time. But when a real connoisseur takes up the farogato and blows into it with all his might, then indeed he brings forth notes which excite the martial sentiments of every hearer, notes which can be heard for two miles round. It sounds just as if a host were marching forth to battle and to victory.

It was this instrument which, thirty years later, inspired the rebel troops of Rakóczy in the campaigns. After the insurrection was over, therefore, the peace-abiding government collected together all the farogatos in the land and destroyed them, just as if they had been so many double-mortars. Only a single specimen still remains, which is exhibited as a great curiosity in the Royal Museum at Buda-Pest, and only a single man in the whole land knows how to play it.

We have said this much about the farogato in order to give some idea of the great joy which arose in Michal's heart, when she suddenly heard it playing her favorite song.

Her father had often spoken to her about an out-at-elbow vagrant student, whom the scholars derisively nicknamed Simplex, and who had wrought much mischief there with his music by enticing the sons of the Muses away from their studies thereby. Kalondai, in particular, had to thank this fellow for the corruption of his morals, in fact they were hand and glove. Besides that, Simplex was a low fellow, who had not been ashamed to serve a twelve months' apprenticeship with the civic trumpeter of Zeb, and since then had spent all his time in gadding about the country as an itinerant musician, earning a penny here and a penny there at wedding feasts and such like riotous entertainments. All this the learned professor had told his daughter in high dudgeon; but what a comfort it was to her that she knew it now. From the fact that she heard all her favorite songs played one after the other in the courtyard below, she drew the following conclusion: If Simplex has come hither, it is only because Kalondai sent him. If he is staying here, it is certainly only because he wants to find out something about me. When he discovers what my position is, he will return to his bosom friend and tell him everything.

And the thought consoled her.

For hours and hours she listened in the beautiful moonlight to the well-known melancholy strains, which her serving-maids used to sing when they heard the field-trumpet's blare outside. She, too, had now and again hummed "The Hunter's Song," or "The Polish Lay of the Three Hundred Widows," with its ghostly finale supposed to represent the Dance of Death.

Simplex played these airs very prettily. Michal could have listened to him all night.

Early in the morning Pirka appeared, and brought her the wine posset spiced with cloves, cinnamon, and muscat-nut.

While she was sipping it, Michal angrily asked: "Who is that tiresome man who keeps on blowing his trumpet all night in the courtyard below?"

She was already learning to be sly. It is ever so with women. Treat them with tenderness and affection, and they are as gentle as doves and speak straight out what they think. But just bully, offend, or persecute them, and they become as crafty as serpents. No one teaches them deceit, and yet they are masters in it. Then they think before they speak, and their tongues say one thing and their hearts another.

So that was why Michal complained so angrily about that tiresome man. She knew by instinct that the best way to keep him in the house was to complain of him.

"Oh, my darling!" said Barbara Pirka, "don't say that! He is my trumpeter, quite a superior young man, I assure you."

"And pray when will he take himself off and let people sleep o' nights?" she asked with dissembled bitterness.

"He is not so easily got rid of, darling! If you were to chuck him out of doors with a pitchfork he would come in again through the window. He enjoys himself amazingly with the lads! Would you believe it, they got up a fine dance last night! There was no lack of partners either, for each of the lads brought in a large watch-dog, made it stand on its hind-legs, and danced with it that way. If you had been there you'd have split your sides for laughing. Last of all, everyone made his partner kiss the musician. Ha! ha! ha!"

"The beast!" cried Michal, wiping her mouth in disgust. "And why then does he not run away from a place where they treat him so vilely?"

"I'll tell you, my dear little squirrel! 'tis because he is desperately in love with me."

Then Michal thought how great must be the friendship of these two men, when one of them is willing to live as a guest in the headsman's house, make sport for the headsman's henchmen, endure their brutal jests, nay, even make love to this domestic witch, simply to bring his friend tidings of the woman who has been the cause of all his misery!

All that day Barbara Pirka did not bring Michal the clothes in which she had come, nor did Michal again put on the fine dress which had been given to her. She preferred to feign illness and lie in bed.

But Henry dared not show his face to her all that day.

Neither on that nor yet on the following day did he appear before her. He was waiting till Michal got up.

She, however, would take nothing but broth, so that she might say she was ill and not be obliged to get up.

And night after night she listened at the window to the farogato, and it sometimes seemed to her as if someone was urging the musician to play with all his might.

Meanwhile Henry steadily plied his trade. The better to inure him to it, he was never allowed to be sober for a moment. They gave him heavy beer to drink which muddled his head. They gave him garlic to eat, and the very consciousness that he has eaten garlic is sufficient to make a man regard himself as the enemy of all refinement. The coarse jests which he heard from his father's henchmen, familiarity with dirt and filth, the drunken orgies into which he was plunged, so brutalized him that at last he absolutely did not know how to approach such a tenderly nurtured creature as Michal in a propitiatory manner. So he learnt to sing filthy songs instead, and vied with the headsman's lads themselves in cursing and swearing.

If the reverend professor could have seen his son-in-law now he would have fancied that this was an homunculus whom some alchemist had inflated with another and an inferior soul.

That his wife had driven him out of her bedchamber was not regarded as anything extraordinary. In these days the women of Zeb were so shamefaced and coy that it was considered by no means proper for young married people to begin billing and cooing while the honeymoon was yet young. Nay, it was even requisite that the husband when he stole the first kiss from his bride should bear away the marks of her ten nails in his face, just as if he had been engaged in taming a wild panther; while a woman who at the beginning of the honeymoon was able to pitch her husband twice out of the bridal-chamber could reckon upon reaping a whole harvest of praise.

It was consequently nothing unusual if a modest young spouse, with a good opinion of herself, abstained from eating during the first few days of her honeymoon, or even made as though she had been struck dumb. It showed that she had been piously brought up, that was all. It was only when this self-imposed abstinence lasted long enough to endanger the lady's life that third parties stepped in and put a stop to it.

So Michal had her own way entirely, neither getting up, nor dressing, nor speaking, nor taking any nourishment to speak of.

But on Friday, when Pirka came in to see her, Michal sneezed violently. Now when anybody sneezes on Friday it signifies that his enemies will triumph over him. So, at least, Pirka interpreted it.

Then she observed that the iron window shutters had been left open all night, and she scolded Michal for it.

"It is not good," she said, "to sleep in moonlight, for it draws all the strength out of one's heart." Then she whispered to Michal that to-day the young master was going to accomplish his masterpiece. What that masterpiece was, Michal had little difficulty in guessing.

On such occasions, to each of the headsman's assistants is given a flask of brandy wherewith to strengthen his heart. The master himself partakes of brandy mingled with hartshorn and sunflower dew, which (we have it on the authority of Arnoldus de Villanova) is such an efficacious cordial that so long as a man drinks thereof he will probably never die.

It chanced, moreover, that on this very day Henry was bitten by a strange dog, and as there was no knowing whether the beast might not be mad they made young Catsrider swallow a large pill of very pungent spices as an antidote; and no doubt this too had an inflammatory effect upon his blood.

Add to this that the old master on this particular evening gave a great feast to all his apprentices, at which they first drank heavy old beer and then strong red wine. The apprentices on this occasion mocked Henry unmercifully, and called him a milksop, fit only to be stuck up in a corner and beaten with a spindle by his wife. The wine mounted to his head, and the blood and the gibes did the rest. The feast was no sooner over than Henry went straight to the door of Michal's chamber, set his shoulders against it, and tore it off its hinges.

Next morning, pretty Michal had a blue mark under one eye and a wheal on her forehead, and the precious amulet, the amulet she had received from her father as a bridal gift, was no longer round her neck.

"What's the good of you," cried she, addressing the amulet, "if you cannot defend me? How can you save me from the Black Death when you cannot save me from the hand of man?"

Then she took the dove which she had brought with her from home, and said to it:

"It is all your fault! Why was my heart so soft on your account, why had I not the courage to kill you there and then? If I had wrung your neck, plucked your feathers, stuck you on a spit and carved you, I should not be here now! Fly home! Take back the amulet! I'll tie it round your neck. Take it to my father! May the amulet defend you on the way from vultures and hawks, may it preserve my father from ever feeling such heavy woe as I am feeling here."

With that, she took the amulet and fastened it beneath the dove's wings with the ribbon, in such a way as to show that it had not been unloosed but torn from her neck. Then she opened the window and let the dove go.

The dove cooed, flew into the air, and Michal saw it no more.

And pray what became of the dove? Only this. On the same day it came home to Keszmár and tapped at the window, while the great scholar sat poring over his folios. The learned Professor Fröhlich, much amazed, admitted the winged messenger through the casement, and still greater grew his astonishment when he perceived beneath her wings the precious amulet, tied by a ribbon which had evidently been violently torn. Being a very great and learned mathematician, he naturally concluded therefrom that some great evil must have befallen his daughter; whereupon, without thinking of consulting the heavenly bodies as to whether this was a lucky day for traveling, without waiting for a caravan to pass by that way and pick him up, he took his hat and stick and went off at once and alone to seek his daughter.

He made straight for Great Leta, now going on foot, now sitting on a wagon, now riding on an ass, according as opportunity offered. The young married couple must certainly be at Great Leta, thought he.

But at Great Leta the late pastor's widow received him with great lamentations. She had not set eyes on the young people. It was wrong, very wrong of them not to come, for all the new-born children in the place were being taken to the next parish to be christened; and still more scandalous, during the Leutschau fair last week, Protestant malefactors had to be accompanied to the scaffold by a Papist priest. Such things were no less than flagrant infringements of the Council of Linz, and had lost the parish four Kremnitz ducats.

Thence the learned gentleman proceeded to Zeb, where he inquired after Henry's father, old Catsrider.

No one had ever heard such a name at Zeb. The father and grandfather of Henry had always been called the vihodar, and that was all. Not even in the civic accounts was the name of Catsrider to be found. So they laughed the old man out of countenance with his Catsriders. They told him that people were making an April fool of him. But for all that he would not budge, but actually made a house to house visitation through the town of Zeb, to find out what had become of his son-in-law and his daughter.

Yet for all his learning and wisdom it never once occurred to him to visit the solitary house which stood without the city walls.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

"So you want to know, my little poppet, what a wife should do who does not love her husband? She ought to pretend she loves him very much; for jealousy is like a savage dog—when he's hungry he's wakeful, but when he has his bellyful he goes to sleep. A wife who does not love her husband ought always to take care that he neither hears nor sees anything. And there grows no wonder-working herb in all the mountains around which can make a man half so blind or deaf as when his wife kisses him on the eyes, and whispers in his ear, 'My darling!' A scold is always carrying her husband about on her back, but a good-humored wife is always sitting on her husband's jacket, and he must carry her about wherever she likes. A pretty woman needs no bridle to make a horse of a bearded man like we witches do. She needs only a silken thread, the silken thread of her wheedling voice. The hand with which a pretty woman strokes her husband's cheek is a real gold mine, far more productive than the gold mines of Kremnitz. But a woman who wants an answer to the second question must have money. Yes; and I can give an answer to the third question also. So sure as I'm Barbara Pirka and the leader of the witches, I'll bring your sweetheart to you, my pretty little violet! I'll not so much as ask you his name nor where he dwells, whether it be far or near. All I've got to do is to send my little buck-goat in quest of him, and my little buck-goat will carry him whithersoever you like, if only you'll follow my advice in all things."

The witch's influence over the poor weak girl was already so strong that she followed her advice implicitly. When she met her husband at supper time, she was not ashamed to embrace and caress him, although others were looking on; nay, she even allowed him to take her on his lap and tenderly kiss the blue marks on her face, which blows not given in wrath had left behind them. It is true there was nothing blameworthy in all this fondling. Were they not man and wife? But we know that it was all deceit on the wife's part, for she loathed from the bottom of her heart the man who, under the lying pretense of making her a parson's wife, had torn her away from the darling of her heart, tied her to a common hangman, buried her alive, and made it impossible for her ever to show her face in respectable society again. But she followed the evil counsel of Barbara Pirka so well that she flattered and fondled her husband to the top of his bent, although he no longer wore the splendid scarlet doublet of yesterday, but only a day-laborer's common linen blouse. In his joy he unfastened his leather girdle and shook out the two hundred gold pieces into her lap.

"That is your nuptial gift," said he.

Let no one maintain after this that a hangman can't behave handsomely!

Next morning Michal requested Barbara Pirka to give her an answer to her second question, viz., What a woman must do who loves another than her husband?

"Alas, pet! that is not a very easy question to answer. The loves must first be looked up. Only my little buck-goat can find him, and he cannot set out until he has been shod with golden shoes."

Michal put her hand into her pocket, and took out four gold pieces. These she handed to the witch, at the same time jingling her pockets to show that there were many more gold pieces where those came from.

The witch laughed.

"What, my little gold cockchafer! don't you know then that goats have divided hoofs? My little buck-goat, therefore, requires not four but eight little shoes for his feet."

Michal immediately gave her four more gold pieces.

"And now, my dear little froggy! you will see that the black buck-goat will bring you your sweetheart, only we must wait till the old and the young master are well out of the way, which will certainly happen when the Eperies annual fair begins."

Michal believed everything the witch told her.

What else could she have done? All her former faith had been destroyed. She believed in nothing more. The wisdom of her father, the amulet of her mother, had become utterly worthless in her eyes. She had been deceived, humbled, imprisoned, mocked, tormented, she who had never hurt a living thing, she who had always been so good!

"Well," thought she, "now I'll be wicked, perhaps that will bear better fruit."

But Barbara Pirka immediately gave Simplex four of the eight gold pieces, the rest she kept for herself, and from that day forth Michal no longer heard the songs of the field-trumpet sounding in the courtyard.

CHAPTER XIV.

Simplex was a good, honest fellow, and he had frequented the schools long enough to know that the Consistory would probably quash a union which had been fraudulently contracted; and in the present case the fraud was patent to everyone, for the wooer who had introduced himself as a clergyman turned out to be a common hangman. Simplex meant to inform his bosom friend at once, when Valentine might, if he liked, take steps to annul the marriage and make the lady his own lawful wife in the proper way.

And no doubt it was just because Simplex was thus following the path of truth and justice that he was so wondrously delivered from the extraordinary dangers which befell him on the way—dangers from which, perhaps, he would never have escaped at all if he had simply set out with the evil intention of discovering Michal's sweetheart, as the witch had supposed when she sent him off.

So he shouldered his trumpet, and had scarcely proceeded more than an hour's journey through a deep valley, known as the Wolf's Dale, which lies between rocks so steep and narrow that it is as much as two mules can do to pass each other therein, when two wild shapes suddenly pounced out upon him from an ambush, and whirling their axes over their heads, dictatorially cried:

"Halt!"

The honest trumpeter could not possibly be expected to know who these people were, for at that time the militia used to dress exactly like robbers so as to be better able to capture those gentry. They wore sheepskin caps on their heads; their shirts, which had first been soaked through with grease and then smoked dry in a chimney, were as black as ink; belts bristling with knives girded their loins; they were shod with bast shoes, and in their hands they carried muskets and long-handled axes.

The waylayers told the trumpeter to wait till their comrades came up and decided what was to be done with him; if he uttered a syllable in the meantime, he would immediately be cut to pieces. Then they whistled, and down from the rocks sprang four similar wild figures, who took the trumpeter into custody and haled him along with them.

They forced him to crawl up the steep sides of the narrow rocky gorge, by means of holes hewn therein at regular intervals, and serving as footholds and resting-places to venturesome climbers. It was just like mounting a chimney. Here and there still larger holes gaped forth from the rocky walls, from the depths of which a frightful growling resounded. But Simplex's companions bade him fear nothing. These were only bears' dens, they said. Mother Bruin was too much engaged at this season in suckling her young to bestow much attention on those who did not wantonly attack her. Yet Simplex, for all that, had not the slightest wish to make the acquaintance of a monster which is, perhaps, a still more dreadful enemy than even a robber. He knew the habits of the terrible beast, which, when it meets a man on a narrow path, rises on its hind legs and crushes him to death in its embrace.

On reaching the top of this perilous ladder, Simplex saw before him a spacious plateau surrounded by steep rocks. This was the robbers' lair.

Huge pine-trees stretched down their branches from the rocks, thus forming a sort of natural canopy over the valley. Out of the cleft of a granite rock gurgled a merry little brook, half dammed up by two huge jagged stones. The object of this dam Simplex learned later on.

The first glance at the spectacle now before him made his eyes twinkle. This natural chamber was occupied by more than a hundred robbers. Most of them were sitting round a caldron, which hung simmering over a large fire, on a iron tripod. One of the robbers served as cook, another as scullion. The former was cutting up a sheep, with which he filled the caldron, while the latter stirred the mess round and round, adding milk instead of water and frequent handfuls of saffron, cinnamon, and cloves. Truly a bandits' banquet! Others were squatting on barrels and playing dice. All of them spoke very low. No one attempted to attack the caldron beforehand, or stave in one of the many casks of wine, beer, and brandy lying about the place. The discipline among them was perfect.

In the midst of the rocky place, bales of goods were piled one on top of the other, just as they are exhibited for sale at fairs and in market-places. Aloft on this costly throne sat the three robber chieftains.

They were dressed precisely like their comrades, yet each had his distinguishing marks, so that Simplex, who had often heard them described by the country people, was able to identify them at a glance.

The first of the robber chieftains was Hafran, whose love of pomp was notorious. His girdle had a fringe of gold ducats, and from the corners of his hat hung strings of rose nobles, the largest coin then in vogue. His fingers were covered with gold rings, and the sheath and handle of his sword sparkled with precious stones. His gigantic stature was an additional and unmistakable distinction.

The second chieftain was Bajus. He prided himself on a huge mustache, each end of which terminated in a rose noble. Whenever he wanted to drink or speak, he had first to stroke back both ends of his mustache behind his ears.

The third chieftain was Janko. His body was small and thin; no one would have taken him for a man of monstrous strength. Yet he could leap from a sitting posture on to the shoulders of the tallest man, and had even been known to mount a galloping horse, or a wagon going at full speed, at a single bound. In wrestling, he could have given odds to Samson himself.

Him, too, Simplex recognized by the hellebore he was munching. For Janko, like the son of Cambyses, had made a practice of chewing hellebore from his youth upward, thus securing himself against the chance of being poisoned; though his own mouth thereby became so poisonous that all the women whom he kissed fainted instantly, and all the men whom he bit died. Even now the leaves of a large bunch of hellebore were sticking out of his mouth all the time he talked to Simplex, to whom he put these questions:

"Who are you? What's your name? Whence do you come? Whither are you going? Whom do you serve?"

Simplex put on as nonchalant an air as he was capable of, for fear is a grievous fault in the eyes of such bandits, but they are always indulgently disposed toward a man of pluck.

"I am an orphan from Silesia," said he. "I've never had either father or mother. I don't even know what name I received at my baptism, but my comrades call me Simplex because they say I am so very simple. I come from Keszmár, where Master Matthias, the town crier, has been teaching me the trumpet, and I am on my way to Saros, where I hope to enter the service of some great lord who loves music."

The robber chieftain fixed a piercing look on the speaker and never once left off chewing his hellebore.

"If you come from Keszmár you must have passed the kopanitscha of Hamar on your way. Did you see the wife of the kopanitschar?"

"Yes, and a wondrously lovely little creature she is."

At these words the eyes of the robber sparkled.

"That woman is my sweetheart! Did you see her husband?"

"Yes, and a very polite old man he is."

"Well, if you know them, go back to them once more. I'll pay your traveling expenses"—here he proudly jingled the ducats in his girdle. "Tell them that they are both on my bad books; the woman because she a little time ago drank mead and danced till morning with the headman of Leta at the church consecration there; the man because he lately guided the son of the vihodar of Zeb and his wife over the mountains, and thus helped them to escape us. Tell them that I mean to pay them a visit shortly. The woman must then put on her best humor, and the man must not show his face at all. For if I once kiss the woman's lips and bite the man's cheek, the pair of them will have had enough of me for some time to come." At these words the robber spat out the hellebore, and Simplex perceived that his mouth and teeth were perfectly yellow. "That is the message you must deliver to them, trumpeter. For the present, however, you will remain with us; eat and drink as much as your stomach can hold, and then show us what you can do with the trumpet. We'll pay for it, of course."

Poor Simplex rejoiced exceedingly at escaping so well, and having the prospect of turning an honest penny besides, he loudly and solemnly protested that he would faithfully deliver the robber's message.

Meanwhile the sheep's flesh in the great caldron was quite done, and the robbers sat down to eat. The caldron was lowered on to the outspread skins, which served as tablecloth and napkin, and the robbers carved for themselves with their huge clasp-knives. But if their meat was coarse and their table rude, their drinking vessels were magnificent. They consisted of gold and silver chalices and pocals, the spoil of many a church and castle, and as often as a robber took a draught he drank to the memory of some comrade or other who had ended a glorious career on the wheel, gallows, or stake, winding up with a full recital of the deceased's exploits—e. g., how many men he had killed, how many robberies he had achieved, what lady of quality had been his doxy, and how at the last he had manfully endured all manner of torments rather than betray his comrades.

And after each toast Simplex had to blow a long flourish.

And as the feast proceeded, the robbers became more and more communicative. They began to boast loudly of their own heroic deeds; how, for instance, they had plundered great caravans, attacked noblemen's castles, and extirpated everyone therein in a different sort of way; how they had filled a Jew's mouth with molten lead, and nearly died with laughter at the queer faces he pulled; how they had forced a rich miser by torture to discover his hidden treasure; how they had tied the captured militiamen to the branches of trees and then torn them limb from limb; and how they had set fire to a church in which a lot of peasants had taken refuge and burnt them all alive. Everyone vied with his neighbor in boasting, and tried to make himself out more ferocious than the rest. And Simplex blew incessantly with his trumpet, so as to hear as little as possible of their ghastly stories.

The robbers forced him also to eat and drink with them, and well for him it was that he had learnt in his student days to hold a full skin. For he was well aware that so long as he could keep on trumpeting he was safe. It fared with him as with the piper in the story, who piped to the wolf to save himself from being eaten up.

Meanwhile night had set in; the rocky chamber was lit only by the heaps of smoldering logs; the robbers began to dance a wild dance, and Simplex was forced to mount upon a barrel and play for them with all his might. They stamped with their feet, roared, howled, fired off their guns, and so deftly hurled their axes at the barrel on which Simplex was standing that they all stuck fast in it without hurting a hair of his head.

He, poor wretch! dared not spring off for the life of him. It was a perfect pandemonium.

At last Hafran commanded Simplex to sound an alarm.

Simplex blew him an alarm accordingly.

"You rascal!" cried the robber captain, "it was with just such an alarm as that that they startled us at the Devil's Castle; were you the devil's trumpeter on that occasion?"

Perhaps the drink which Simplex had already taken had flown to his head, perhaps he thought it might go worse with him if he did not make a clean breast of it, at any rate he replied:

"Yes, 'twas I!"

"The devil it was!" cried Hafran furiously. "I'll cut you in two this very instant. Don't you know that you drove us into the very jaws of the devil with your d——d trumpet, and that forty of our comrades went straight to hell in consequence! Stay where you are on that barrel, that I may cut you in two at a blow!"

With that he drew his broad palash from its sheath, and grasped it with both hands.

But this time Simplex did not take the matter as a joke, but sprang down from the barrel and fled to his protector, Janko, who, laughing with hideous glee, warded off with his sword the strokes which Hafran aimed at poor Simplex, all the while opening wide his yellow-stained jaws, which with their yellow fangs looked like the jaws of a lion.

"Serve you all right!" cried he as he warded off Hafran's blows. "What! fifty of you to be scared by a single trumpeter! Let him be in peace! He has to carry a message to my sweetheart. Whoever touches him is a dead man!"

At this the wrath of Hafran against Simplex subsided, but he insisted on his leaping over his bare palash, and little as Simplex felt inclined to jump into the air just then, he had to do it; and the jest so took the fancy of the robbers that they one and all made the trumpeter jump over their swords likewise, till at last he became so tired that he threw himself prone on the ground and allowed himself to be beaten with the flats of their swords rather than jump over them any more.

Meanwhile Janko had gone to sleep. It was his custom to slumber in a sitting position, but he slept so deeply that not even a roaring lion could have awakened him.

Gradually also the remaining robbers fell down one by one heavy with drink.

Only Bajus remained sober.

It was a wise provision of the robbers that one of their leaders should always remain sober; he drank nothing but mead mixed with water, and mounted guard over the whole band when they had drunk their fill.

It was already midnight; the moon came forth from behind the rocks and shone among the dark pine branches.

"Up, you rogues!" cried Bajus, "the banquet is over. Make ready to depart elsewhere, that we may all be on the right spot at the right moment in the morning."

At this command all the fires were extinguished one after the other. When it was quite dark they began to deliberate in whispers which of their plans should be carried out first.

One plan was to attack the Iglo annual fair in the broad daylight, set the town on fire, plunder the merchants, and sack the town-hall.

Their second plan was to steal their way into the lair of the vihodar of Zeb through a secret subterranean passage, capture him and his son alive, and make them suffer all the tortures which they had inflicted on their comrades; as for the young woman, they would cast lots for her.

For a long time they could not come to any agreement.

At last they resolved to attack the Iglo fair; the vihodar they would leave to some subsequent occasion, especially as they would first of all have to gain over Barbara Pirka, for otherwise that evil witch was quite capable of throttling all the assailants one after the other single-handed.

Simplex listened, and his teeth chattered with fear. What he heard filled him with joy and terror at the same time—joy because he had now an additional argument for moving his bosom friend to rescue Michal from her frightful position; terror lest the robbers might suddenly remember that they were betraying their horrible secrets to one who was not of their band. And if they should remember, what would become of him?

He would have given anything to have been able to creep inside the crevices of the rocks near which he was cowering, so that the robbers might not perceive him.

All at once the moon, which had now risen, shone full on the spot where Simplex stood, and Hafran perceived him.

"What shall we do to prevent this fellow from betraying us?" cried he, and with that he took him by the collar and dragged him into the midst of them.

"Strike him dead!" cried Bajus.

Poor Simplex was greatly terrified; he began to piteously implore them not to do him any harm.

"Silence, fellow!" cried Hafran; "a stout-hearted lad must not blubber. He must stand firm even when the skin is being flayed from his body. Whine, and you are a dead man! We'll have no cowards here! Tremble if you dare!"

"Strike him dead!" repeated Bajus, who was quite sober.

"That'll never do," said Hafran. "We promised Janko that we would not kill the trumpeter. Besides, the fellow has played well and entertained us finely. He has made good again all the harm he did with his cursed trumpet at the Devil's Castle. At the same time we must not let him go away before us, or he will betray us to the county train-bands. Let us take him a little way down the road and smash one of his legs, so that he may not be able to go any further. In the morning some wayfarer or other will be sure to find him and take care of him. What do you say?"

But this proposition was anything but satisfactory to Simplex; not at any price would he hear of having his leg broken.

"Come, come, lad!" cried Hafran, soothingly. "Don't be scared at such a trifle! A small fracture is an everyday occurrence. The shepherdess in the hut by the roadside will put it in splints for you, mutter a charm over it, and you'll be able to dance a jig with it in no time. Here are twelve dollars to pay your expenses in the meantime; you wouldn't get as much as that from the county if you went to law about it."

And they seized poor Simplex by both arms to drag him to the place where his leg was to be shattered. Then despair suggested the saving thought of begging the robbers to allow him to blow his own funeral march, and holding the funnel of his trumpet to the ear of the sleeping Janko he blew with such force that the robber chieftain started up from his sleep and leapt his own height in the air.

"Janko! they want to kill me! Don't allow it, Janko!" cried the agonized wretch.

Janko yawned and stretched himself. Then he roughly repulsed the mob which surrounded him, and wrapped Simplex in his mantle.

"Fear nothing, my lad! I'll not let them hurt you!"

But the rest became more and more importunate.

"Are you mad, Janko? Will you let him saddle us with the gendarmes while we are all drunk? They will fall upon us while we are sound asleep, and then where shall we be? We must either kill him or break his leg."

"We'll do neither the one nor the other," said Janko; "we'll buy him off. D—n it! let's be gentlemen! What are you most in need of, my lad? I see your clothes are in rags. You'd better have it out in good stout cloth."

With that he lifted up one of the bales of goods and opened it. It contained scarlet cloth.

He began to measure it with his arm.

"There you have five ells of cloth for your coat and vest. Hafran, you measure him as much from your share for his hose, and you, Bajus, give him of yours for a mantle."

They fell to cursing, and curses fell as thick as hailstones; but Janko left them no peace till Hafran had clipped him off five ells of green Turkish cloth for his hose, and Bajus had contributed just as much blue English cloth for his mantle.

"But now he must give back the twelve dollars," remarked Bajus; "if his leg is not to be broken, he won't require money for mending it."

"Not so," said Janko; "when a gentlemen has given a musician money he does not ask it back again."

"Well, all right; but at any rate you must also give him six dollars as we have done."

But Janko could not be made to see this at all.

"Why should I give him money when you've given him some already?

"Then I'll smash one of his legs, for I mean to have value for my money."

The poor trumpeter tried to put an end to the dispute by instantly volunteering to return the twelve dollars; but it had like to have gone ill with him in consequence, for he thereby so deeply wounded Hafran's pride that the robber chief at once fired his gun at him. Fortunately Simplex ducked so nimbly that only his cap was grazed.

"What do you take us for, you bumpkin? A gentleman does not ask his money back again from a musician. Either Janko must give you as much as I have given you, or I will strike you dead."

So this struggle between ferocity and magnanimity plunged the poor trumpeter into a dilemma from which there seemed absolutely no escape. The robbers whirled their axes over his head.

"Listen to me," cried Janko suddenly, "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll dig a deep ditch, and make the trumpeter get into it. Then we'll clap an empty barrel over him and peg it down fast, so that he won't be able to see in what direction we have gone. He must sleep in the ditch to-day, but to-morrow he may free himself with his ax and go his way."

This wise accommodation pleased all parties. The robbers forthwith dug a deep hole in the earth, put Simplex inside it, clapped over him a cask, the bottom of which had previously been knocked out, and charged him as he valued his life not to stir from the spot till dawn of day.

He did exactly as he was bid, and that was very wise of him, for when everything was perfectly still, and he might well have fancied the robbers were miles away, a shot suddenly cracked quite close to him and the bullet perforated the cask. It was a warning that he was being watched. So there he sat, and there is no knowing how long he might have remained without budging had not a fresh danger supervened; the hole in which he sat suddenly began to fill with water. Higher and higher rose the tide till it reached his very mouth, and he was forced to pull himself up to the top of the cask to escape drowning. At last he plucked up courage to look through the hole which the bullet had made, and he then saw that the whole of the rocky chamber had been converted into a watershed, and not a living soul was anywhere visible.

Then he smashed in the side of the cask with his ax, scrambled out of the hole, which was now completely filled with water, and immediately grasped the meaning of the robbers' stratagem.

With the above-mentioned improvised weir they had dammed up the mountain stream, and used its bed as a short cut into the next valley, for it was passable so long as the water was confined within the rocky chasm; when the water had risen high enough to overflow into its bed again, it would of course blot out all traces of their passage.

But Simplex, without bestowing much thought upon this feat, thanked the Almighty for so miraculously delivering him from so great a danger; which deliverance, moreover, strengthened him in the belief that the errand on which he was bound was a righteous one.

Thereupon, with much fear and trembling, he clambered down the rock-hewn way by which he had ascended, not forgetting to shout a good-morning into the hole of the mother bear as he passed.

He naturally omitted to return to the kopanitscha and deliver Janko's message to the pretty hostess; but he did tell an oil-merchant, whom he met on the way, the frightful things which had happened to him and bade him deliver the message at the kopanitscha, as it was all on his way. The oil-merchant, on the other hand, gave him a piece of good advice; to wit, that when he came to the town of Saros he should hand over the bundle which he was carrying on his back to the mayor, for the plundered merchants had advertised their wares broadcast, and if people saw and recognized their stolen cloth on his person they would measure him a jacket which he would not get rid of his whole life long.

And worthy Simplex followed the advice which was given him. No sooner had he arrived at Saros than he handed over the costly cloth stuffs to the town authorities, and the merchants rewarded him with a ducat and let him go on his way unmolested, as he himself in his extant memoirs modestly informs us.

CHAPTER XV.

These testamentary dispositions were most rigorously observed. Dame Kalondai herself carried on the business of her late husband, who had been butcher and ham-curer as well as sheriff, and she never gave her son a stepfather, though in her day she must have been a very pretty woman. Even now she was so buxom and blooming that she looked like a gigantic edition of a swaddling babe. She had taken particular care that Valentine should be properly educated. He always had nice clothes and well-bound books, and when the proper time came she sent him to Keszmár, though it was with a very heavy heart that she consented to part from her little son for so long a time.

So worthy Dame Sarah did not see her little son again for three full years, and when at last he did appear before her she could scarcely recognize him.

She could not get it into her head that the man with the big mustache was really her own little son. His father at his age had had no sign of one.

Then she tried to persuade him that he had grown thin. The melancholy which Valentine could not hide from her she ascribed to some illness or other. The bad mountain-water was certainly to blame for it.

And she had good remedies against such complaints. They were not, indeed, of the drastic sort of which the professor at Keszmár had so large a store; her remedies were simply good and tasty dishes which she prepared for her little son with her own hands. She invented a savory dish against every ill of life, and you had only to taste of it to be instantly cured. And when the evil was caused by bad water, with what could you more certainly cure it than with good wine?

But Valentine's sadness would yield neither to the most delicate cookery nor to the most savory meats; he allowed the daintiest tit-bits to remain on his plate untouched, as if he meant to save them for someone else, and he drank the good wine mixed with water.

Worthy Dame Sarah vainly bothered her little son to tell her what was the matter with him. On all such occasions he would only smile, kiss his mother on the cheek, and tell her that there was absolutely nothing the matter with him, his disposition had only changed a little lately, he said. He naturally did not tell Dame Sarah anything of what had happened to him at school.

Now if anyone ever wants to know what is really going on at his own house, let him just go to his neighbor's and there he'll find out all about it.

One Sunday evening Dame Sarah came home from her neighbors', the Fürmenders.

"Why, Valentine!" she cried, "what is this I hear of you? Young Fürmender says that you were expelled from the school at Keszmár!"

"If he says so he speaks the truth."

Oh how delighted was Mistress Sarah when she heard these words!

"If it's only that which grieves you, my dear, good child!" said she, soothingly, "don't think anything more about it. Your father was expelled from three schools, but that did not prevent him from getting a wife and becoming sheriff. You, too, will pick up a nice girl, and may become sheriff as well, one day. Don't fret yourself about it. I never meant you to be a parson."

With that she kissed and embraced him, and he really did seem a little more cheerful after all these tokens of motherly love.

Very soon, however, his face was as long as ever.

Dame Sarah's remedies were inexhaustible. The best thing for such moping, woebegone fellows, is certainly wedlock. An unmarried man is like a widower and a widower has cause to be miserable.

She choose for him a virtuous, discreet damsel, the sister of the above-mentioned young Fürmender, Catherine by name, who was by no means indisposed toward the stately Valentine Kalondai. Beautiful, indeed, you could scarcely call her; but her mother had not been a whit prettier, and yet she had managed to do very well.

Then she took her son Valentine to the social gatherings, where the young lads and lasses, beneath the eyes of their parents, made merry with one another in all meekness and sobriety.

But Valentine led neither blonde nor brunette out to dance. There he stood leaning against the wall as if he had been put there for the express purpose of propping it up, and kept as still as if he was afraid of missing a single word of the conversation that was going on around him.

And when the bolster dance followed, during which it is the amiable custom for the lads and lasses to alternately carry round a silken bolster, deposit it in front of the person whom he or she likes best, kneel down upon it, and so remain till the favored one tenderly raises the suppliant and dances with her, whereupon it is his turn to carry the bolster round—then, I say, Valentine behaved very badly. For when Kitty Fürmender brought the bolster to him, and sank down on her knees before him, Valentine would not dance with her, and did not even raise her up, but rudely told her that he had made a vow never to dance again. Then Kitty naturally burst out crying, for how could an honest girl be insulted more grossly?

When they got home Dame Sarah said to her son:

"I say, Valentine, young Fürmender says you are possessed by evil spirits."

"I don't much care if I am."

"And for that reason you don't trust yourself to talk with the girls. He also says you will have nothing to do with your father's business because you have a horror of blood."

"He says that, does he? Well, I'll just show you to-morrow that I've no fear of blood, and am well able to carry on my father's trade."

Dame Sarah rejoiced greatly at these words, for nothing would have pleased her better than to have seen her son relieve her of the cares of the business; and no sooner had Valentine declared his intention of approving himself a master in his craft than she handed over to him the keys of the chamber in which were preserved the tools and weapons of his father, the butcher's ax, the knives, muskets, and swords, which no man's hand had been allowed to touch since his death. It is not surprising, therefore, if all these implements were somewhat rust-eaten, and it was only natural that Valentine should spend the whole of the forenoon in furbishing them up with polishing powder, tow, and chalk, till they shone as bright as mirrors. He was evidently determined that his father's tools should gleam quite splendidly when he wrought his promised masterpiece.

At midday Dame Sarah served up all Valentine's favorite dishes, and after she had feasted her little son right royally, she told him that she had given due notice to the guild-master that her boy was about to qualify himself for his profession, and also that she had already paid for the license. All ready in the stall stood the fat ox whereon he was to display his dexterity on this occasion. In the cellar a cask of wine had been broached, and on the counter she had deposited four or five gold pieces, as it was quite possible that the 'prentice hand of the young master might have lost its cunning, so that he would not be able to fell the ox at a single blow, in which case he would have to pay to the butcher's guild a gold piece for every extra blow till the ox fell.

"Alas, dear mother," cried Valentine, "my guild-master is not where you seek him. Captain Count Hommonai will be my guild-master. It is not in the slaughter-house, but on the battlefield that I mean to achieve my masterpiece. I will not strike oxen, which are unable to defend themselves, but Turks, who can give back blow for blow. War shall be my trade."

At first Dame Sarah would not believe him, she thought it was only the wine which was speaking out of him; but when Valentine fetched down his father's arms, the old sword, the musket, the long three-edged dagger, all most splendidly burnished, the good woman burst into tears, fell upon his neck, begged him to stay at home, and adjured him not to commit such an act of folly. He was still too weak a lad for that sort of thing, she said. What! had she brought him up so nicely, and even got a learned professor to teach him Latin, only that he might now go away and be cut down by the first wild Turk he met, or get one of his legs torn off by a chain-shot, and leave his widowed mother comfortless? But all this had not the slightest effect upon Valentine. He replied that his father had gone to the wars before him, and he meant to do what his father had done.

Now when Dame Sarah saw that all her maternal begging and praying and all her fine words were quite thrown away upon her son, she suddenly turned round and overwhelmed him with the bitterest curses.

"Very well, then, you wicked, obstinate son, if you will bring trouble and sorrow down upon your mother's head, go, and be hanged to you. I know all about it. Young Fürmender has told me that you have chummed up with a vagabond sort of fellow, one Simplex, who serves as field-trumpeter with Count Hommonai, and is your dearest bosom friend. He it is who leads you astray into all kinds of wickedness. He it is who has persuaded you to be a soldier. Very well, if your comrade is dearer to you than your own mother, be off with you. You may go and die far away where I can't get you buried, for all that I care. If one of your hands is cut off I'll disown you, for my son had both his hands. You may go and beg your bread, but don't look to me for help. From me you don't get a red farthing. Your father left all his property to me, remember."

"Except his weapons," said Valentine. He asked for nothing more, but went straight off to Captain Hommonai and enlisted under his banner. They gave him a horse, a wolf skin, and three Polish guldens by way of enlistment-money, and kept fast hold of him, for the troops were to set out for the camp at Onod at a moment's notice.

And Mistress Sarah hardened her heart to such a degree, that as the banderium marched out of the town the same night amidst the blare of clarions, she did not even stand in the doorway to greet her son for the last time; but she hid herself behind the flower-pots in the window, and while she peered yearningly after him, she poured out all the fury of her heart upon the trumpeter by wishing that he might break his neck on the way. And this curse was within an ace of being fulfilled upon worthy Simplex.

CHAPTER XVI.

The departure of the troops took place in the dead of night. Valentine rode beside his faithful Simplex, who not only had to blow the field-trumpet but also to beat the kettle-drums, which hung down on both sides of his saddle. His horse was naturally the sorriest of hacks, for all the others were much too spirited to patiently endure the roll of kettle-drums close behind their ears.

"Look ye, comrade Simplex," said Valentine, "our present campaign will be my ordeal. You have told me that my poor Michal is unhappy and wants to see me; that she has never reached Great Leta, that she has been shamefully deceived by her husband; that she suffers much, and is exposed to indescribably great dangers. More than that you will not tell me, nor have I asked to know more, but I have been thinking ever since such thoughts as these: Shall I not be committing a grievous sin if I go seek her? Shall I not be d——d for it along with her? It does not matter very much, perhaps, if I'm d——d, although I, too, should like to see my dear old father in Paradise, and the sight of my good mother among the blessed would rejoice me greatly; but the thought that I might drag this unhappy creature down to hell with me, fills me with horror. Her place is in heaven among the angels. But you've such an enticing way of putting matters, that I'm no longer able to decide whether what I am about to do is good or bad. Now I mean to leave it to the decision of the Lord of Hosts. When we stand on the battlefield, he who tries the hearts and reins will read in my breast that I still love my Michal, though she has bound herself by an oath to another, and if this feeling be a sin, the guards of the Lord, the angels of Death are there, and he can charge them to call me away so as to prevent me from committing evil. If, however, I return in safety, if sword and bullet (and I certainly shall not keep out of their way) leave me unhurt, that will be a sign that the heavenly Omnipotence is ready to perform a miracle for my sake, whereby I shall win back again her whom I had given up for lost. If I return safe and sound, if no evil befall me, I'll go and seek my Michal."

"But in that case you must take care that I come back too, for without me you will not find your Michal, even if you were to set out to seek her with Christopher Columbus himself for your guide."

"Have no fear, comrade, we will live and die together."

But Valentine lagged behind the troop. A load lay upon his breast. From his earliest childhood he had been wont every night, as it grew dark, to say this prayer: "Be with me, O Lord my God! and let my poor, good mother awake safe and sound. Amen." His tutor had taught him a much finer prayer in Latin; but this prayer he never could recollect. He could never reconcile himself to the secula seculorum; why should he ask good things for himself for a thousand years to come? He was content to pray for what he wanted day by day. That would be quite enough if it were granted him. He made as if he were only dismounting to tighten his loosened saddle-girth, and when he was out of hearing of his comrades' curses, he covered his face in his furred horse-cloth and muttered his short prayer, whereupon he swung himself into his saddle with a lightened heart and galloped after his comrades.

By morning they stood before Nemeti, which is half an hour's journey from Göncz, and there the captain, officers, and gentry swear the banner oath under the open sky. Then they halted, and after a short rest proceeded on further.

Just as they were about to cross the Hernad at Nemeti, whom do you think they found on the banks? Why, Dame Sarah with a huge Kassa wagon drawn by three stout horses. The wagon was well laden. It contained a Gönczer cask full of wine, a keg of plum brandy, fresh white bread, cakes, sheep cheeses in small trusses, and in the midst of this ambulant storehouse beamed the radiant countenance of the buxom citizeness of Kassa, with both her round white arms bare to the elbow.

"My dear, good mother! What do you want here?" cried Valentine, rushing to the wagon.

"Oh, you wicked son! if you are bent on following this trade, I, at any rate, won't let you die of hunger. Come, eat and drink! Call hither, too, the gentleman officers and your good companions. There is enough here for everyone."

They did not wait to be asked twice, but crowded round the wagon straightway, and Dame Sarah helped them to everything with both hands. When she perceived the trumpeter she singled him out from the rest.

"Hi! come here, trumpeter! May the thunderbolt strike the ground within three yards of you! You've seduced my son, have you? Then come hither and sit down by me, and if you don't eat your fill it will be the worse for you."

Good Simplex did what he could. He sat down in the wagon at Dame Sarah's side, and ate and drank his fill; but soon his appetite began to flag, and at last he protested he could go on no longer.

"Fellow! you must eat or I'll stuff it down your throat."

And with that she seized Simplex by both arms, shook him like a sack which must be made to hold still more, and compelled him to begin his meal over again.

But worthy Valentine was more delighted at the sight of his mother's strong, stout arms, than at all the good things she distributed, and he covered the good creature with kisses.

"And now, dear mother, turn back, there can be enough of a good thing," said he, perceiving that the main body of the hussars had reached the ford on the opposite side, and only the rear guard still remained behind. The officers also urged her to turn back.

"Turn back, eh? Do you really think I have come all this way, with a heavy-laden wagon, only to turn back? I will follow my son to the very end of the world. I'll not leave him just when things are going badly with him. Why should I be afraid when others are not?"

In vain they represented that it was not the proper thing for a woman to roam about in regions haunted by fighting Turks. There was no reasoning with her, they were obliged to take her along with the baggage wagons.

Meanwhile the scouts brought tidings that the Turkish predatory bands were assembling on the other side of the Theiss at Plakamocz. It was a good thing that all the ferry-boats at Tokay had been drawn up on to the shore, thus preventing the enemy from crossing over without great difficulty.

Count Hommonai therefore resolved to seek the Turks beyond the Theiss, and led his troops toward Tokay.

When they had crossed to the other side of the river, they could nowhere find a trace of the enemy, who evidently intended to entice the Hungarians further inland, and then drive them back upon the Theiss.

Dame Sarah would have followed them to the other side also, but this they would on no account allow her to do. The baggage wagons had to be left behind on the opposite bank. She then begged that, at least, they would let her drive up to the highest hill thereabouts, from whence she might watch her little son scuffling with the Turks.

"Take care, good mother, that a cannon ball does not hurt you."

"Fiddlesticks! You call yourself a student, and don't even know that a cannon ball cannot fly across a river because the water draws it down," cried Dame Sarah, triumphantly, and with that she drove to the top of the hill, where she stood up on the wagon and thence surveyed the course of the skirmish, while her great lout of a coachman, in his fear and anguish, crawled under a wagon, and viewed the fight with his back. And yet the fellow called himself a man!

First of all, five Turkish horsemen appeared on the top of a hill. How many more lay behind the hill, nobody of course could tell.

To the left stretched a large morass covered with rushes, on the right lay an oak forest. The presumption was that the whole thicket was swarming with hidden foes.

So out against the five Turkish horsemen rode just as many and no more, from the Hungarian side, whereupon the five Turks turned tail and galloped off, the Hungarians also instantly returning to their ranks.