Part 3

Finding himself locked in, he first only pettishly came out from his stronghold, waiting for some one to coax him to come to dinner; but, finding that the door was locked, and that knives and forks were actually clattering without him, he took it quite to heart, and began calling to mamma to let him out.

"Never mind him, let him cry," said mamma, who found this little episode highly interesting. But the kindly Klarika, when she thought nobody was observing, hastily concealed a turkey's pinion and a large piece of apple-tart, and ran off with them to the nursery--contenting herself with this generous revenge for the havoc done to her playthings. On this the little urchin became quiet.

When supper was over, the mutual compliments were repeated, during which Sandor took an opportunity of thrusting into his pocket a roll of bread, which he had not ventured to touch at dinner.

Aunt Zsuzsi now opened the door with great solemnity, to release the little delinquent, whom they found dancing about with greasy cheeks, and holding up in triumph the remains of the turkey's leg.

"Oh, you rascal!" exclaimed mamma, catching hold of him, and wiping his cheeks; "go directly and kiss your aunt's hand, and beg her pardon for being so rude."

Peterke slid over, drawing his mouth and nose to one side, as if he expected that the hand he was ordered to kiss was preparing to give him a box in the ear; and it was only on being convinced of the contrary that he resumed his former confidence, and ventured to ask for another piece of apple-tart, on receiving which he had the complaisance to show the company, by way of a return, how a large piece of pastry might be crammed into two cheeks.

Who was enduring greater torment than our nephew Sandor all this time? Hungry as a wolf, with only a small white roll in his pocket--and how to eat it! Wherever he went, he was sure to be seen; his only resource was to wait till everybody went to bed, and then eat it in the dark; but the two gentlemen, meanwhile, got so deeply engaged in conversation, that there was no saying when it might end.

At last he summoned up courage to say he would go out a little, and walk in the garden.

"In the garden!" repeated Uncle Lorincz; "why, it is quite dark, and the mud is very deep."

"I will sit upon a bench."

"That will be a fine walk--ha, ha, ha!"

"Perhaps the air would do my head good."

"Well, do as you like, my boy; you are at home here."

Sandor, finding himself at liberty, descended to the garden in great delight. Just below the back window of Uncle Lorincz's apartment, which looked out upon the garden, stood a winter pear. Uncle Lorincz thought he heard this tree shaking, and going to the window, he could distinguish our nephew pulling the unripe pears, and cramming them into his mouth.

"Well, he is a strange youth!" thought Uncle Lorincz, as he returned to his seat.

Before retiring for the night, the guests took leave of their kind hosts--declaring that they must set out at break of day, and would not disturb them--after which they were conducted to their apartments, and soon lay buried in the great down feather-beds and snow-white pillows, with their neat laced and ribboned covers. The coachman had been desired to harness the horses at four o'clock, and not to awake anybody; but when our provident guests rose in the morning, they found the whole household on foot, and a comfortable breakfast prepared, of coffee, rolls, cold meat, and plum brandy. This time, Uncle Lorincz gave his bashful nephew no peace until he had actually forced down his throat all that was eatable and drinkable--seeing that he was in the habit of being thus treated. When breakfast was over, there was a mutual interchange of affectionate speeches, and Uncle Lorincz once more packed up his guests in their cloaks and furs, thrusting a long cylindrical bottle of plum-brandy into Uncle Menyhert's pocket, while his wife put a large, fresh-baked cake into Aunt Zsuzsi's hand, and little Klarika provided the young Sphinx with an ample supply of cold pastry; and after exacting from their guests a promise to visit them again on their return, they all took leave--Uncle Lorincz accompanying them a few miles on horseback, to point out the best road across the plains.

* * * * *

And now we must beg our readers to draw on their three-leagued boots, and step into the neighbouring county. Here, too, the roads lie deep in mud; for the rain continues during seven weeks in these districts, as it does in the East Indies. Here, too, are villages on the highroad, and houses with open doors, and travellers hastening towards them. But now it is question of a house whose doors are shut, and of travellers who do not stick in the mud.

A handsome carriage, drawn by four spirited grays, was driven by a young gentleman, while the smart-liveried coachman sat beside him.

The youth was slightly flushed with the exercise: he wore a low-crowned hat, and light summer dolmany, while his embroidered fur cloak lay across the seat. Guiding the horses dexterously over the difficult roads and rickety bridges, he finally turned aside about half way through the village, and drove rapidly towards a dilapidated house, before which he was obliged to rein up his horses, as the _porte-cochère_ was closed.

"Hej! ho!" cried the coachman, leaping from the box, and knocking at the door.

"Go in at the side-door, and open the _porte-cochère_ yourself, Matyi; but take the whip with you, or else the dogs will tear you to pieces."

The coachman did as he was desired. No sooner had he reached the court, than a terrible encounter took place between the dogs and Matyi, who swore and lashed away with his whip until he had succeeded in opening the gate.

The tumult brought out a buxom dame, whose appearance betokened somewhat more than a cook, and somewhat less than the lady of the house. Standing at the entrance, with her arms a-kimbo, she exclaimed in a sharp, shrill voice: "What diabolical noise is this, I should like to know? are the Turks or the French coming, eh?"

Meanwhile, Matyi having opened the _porte-cochère_, the carriage drove into the gateway; and the young man, leaping from the box, and throwing the reins to the coachman, stepped up to the dame, who eyed him askance, with an expression of dried plums, as if doing her best to make herself as disagreeable as possible to the new-comers.

"Ah! my sweet Boriska," said the young man gaily, "how handsome you have grown since we last met! I thought you were to be married that carnival; but I suppose it was premature, eh?"

"Well, you have grown ugly enough yourself, Master Karely, since I saw you last: you were a pretty child, but I should not have known you again."

"Thank you, Boriska, dear. Is my uncle at home?"

"Where else should he be?"

"Because I have come to see him, with my mother and sister."

"What! are they here too?" said the dame, fixing her sharp eyes on the carriage, like a two-pronged fork. "Well, I can't understand how folks can leave home, and wander abroad for weeks."

"Call my uncle, there's a dear girl, and you can help one another to scold."

The beauty cast another sour glance at the vehicle, and disappeared into the kitchen. Karely, meanwhile, opened the carriage door, and the mud being deep in the gateway, he lifted out the two ladies in his arms. One was his mother--a calm, ladylike person about forty, with a sweet, melancholy expression: the other was his sister--a merry, mischievous looking little fay of about twelve, with bright sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks, and a constant smile on the never-closed lips.

"Welcome kindly! We will not wait for them," said Karely, laughing, as he lifted them out and opened the door, which Boriska had shut behind her.

Our readers having had a slight glance at the travellers, I must inform them that the lady who has just arrived is Mrs. Erzsebet Hamvasi, sister of Abraham Hamvasi, to whose house they have come, and which had been left equally to the lady and her brother by their parents--although Erzsebet Hamvasi, subsequently Tallyai, had left her brother in undisturbed possession, only desiring an occasional reception when _en route_.

As Karely opened the door, Boriska appeared at the farther end of the room, calling into the stove: "Come out; you have guests here." To which a voice from within responded: "Let them wait." After a few minutes, a door opened behind the stove, and a man of spare bent figure advanced towards the travellers. His face was disfigured by small-pox, and rendered grotesque by a pair of stiff gray moustaches, which grew straight forward from under the nose, leaving only the extremities of the lips visible, and giving him very much the appearance of an otter. He wore an old stuff coat--too cool for winter and too warm for summer--the sleeves of which were turned up to the elbow; for he had just come out of the stove, which he had been plastering, and both hands were covered with mortar.

To judge by his countenance, he certainly did not seem endeavouring to look pleased to see his dear relations; and though the lady greeted him amiably, he did not seem much inclined to open the other side of the door at which she was standing, waiting for her brother's welcome.

"What! so many of you!" he exclaimed, pushing open the door with his elbow; "where the tartar are you all going?"

The lady shook her head placedly, and pointing to her brother's dirty hands--"How now, dear brother!" she said, in a half reproachful and half jesting tone; "must you really do such work yourself?"

"It is no shame to work," replied her brother; "never trust to others what you can do yourself."

"I would kiss your hand, dear Uncle Abris, if you would put on gloves," said Karely, laughing.

"Easy enough for fine gentlemen like you to speak, but a poor man must do what he can.--Boris! bring me a bowl of water to wash my hands, for these gentle folks are ashamed to stand in the room with me."

"Dirty the dishes, indeed!" cried Boris sharply; "there is the tub."

Master Abris went and washed in the tub; then, lifting up the bed-quilt, he wiped his hands and face in the sheet, with so many grimaces, that it was evident he was undergoing an unusual penance.

The guests meanwhile entered the sitting-room. Every room has its own peculiar perfume. On entering some apartments an agreeable friendly odour, which we cannot account for, greets the sense, while others are so close and so unpleasant that we involuntarily retreat. The apartment of Uncle Abris was among the latter. The walls were soiled and daubed with pencil scrawls of several years' standing; there was a thick carpet of straw and feathers beneath the beds; the furniture was an inch deep in dust, and it was impossible to see out of the windows, which had cobwebs in every corner.

The lady sighed deeply as she entered this apartment; one could almost read on her countenance, that she was recalling brighter days, when everything in the house looked very different from what it did now.

Uncle Abris, having very coldly kissed each of the party, endeavoured to smile a little; but not succeeding, he gave it up, and his features resumed their usual hard, anxious expression.

His guests would gladly have taken off their cloaks, but where should they put them down? It would have been ruin to clean clothes to come in contact with anything in the room.

"I should like to sit down somewhere, Uncle Abris," said Sizika, looking round her with innocent scrutiny.

"Well, my dear, here are plenty of chairs, and a sofa," said Uncle Abris.

"What! _may_ I brush off all this pretty dust?" asked Sizika roguishly. "I thought it was put here to dry."

Karely laughed; while his mother put her finger to her lips, and shook her head; and Uncle Abris answered quietly, "Dust we are, and unto dust we must return, and therefore we need not despise dust;" and, in order to strengthen the golden precept, he lifted the flaps of his coat, and, wiping three chairs for his guests, seated himself on a fourth.

The lady placed herself down opposite to her brother. One was silent, the other did not speak; and so they remained nearly an hour. Occasionally one or other would sigh deeply, "Heighho!" on which the other would reply, a quarter of an hour after, "Ay, ay!"

Karely having gone out to look at the horses, Erzsike went to the window, and, wiping one of the panes with her pocket handkerchief, tried to look through it. You must not be perplexed, dear readers, at our having first called this merry little fairy Sizika, then Erzsike; both denominations come from the same source, and there is perhaps no name in the Hungarian language which admits of so many variations to represent the various gradations from the utmost refinement to the greatest coarseness; hence the tender, caressing Siza, the gay, roguish Erzsike, the robust, noisy Erzsu, and the dirty, untidy Boske.

It never entered Uncle Abraham's head to ask his guests if they wanted anything; he only sat and sighed. Matyi, the coachman, a smart lad from Lower Hungary, now entered; he had been a csikos,[6] and was an inveterate specimen of cleverness and roguish insolence.

[Footnote 6: _Csikos_, who take care of the horses and studs of the vast meadows or heaths, called _puszta_.]

"Is there any hay to be sold here, sir?" he asked, saluting the master of the house.

"Hay! hay! for whom do you want hay?"

"Not for myself, sir, but for my horses--that is, not for my horses, but for my master's."

"Well, let's see; I believe I can give you a little," said Hamvasi, weighing each word, as he took the key of the barn from his pocket, and went out. The guests could hear the murmurs of Boris outside the door:--"The tartar take them all! to come to an honest man's house with four horses, just that they might devour more hay, as if two were not enough!"

Master Abraham gave the key to Matyi, making him promise not to drop any of the hay about, because it was dear; and, after watching till he had returned, he re-entered, and resumed his seat without speaking.

In a few minutes, Matyi came in again: "Where shall I find a tavern sir?"

"A tavern! what do you want a tavern for?"

"Not for the horses, sir, but for myself. I want to get a glass of wine."

"Well, I will give you one just now," said Uncle Abris, and taking the key of the cellar, he went out, desiring Matyi to wait at the entrance.

Boriska stormed and dashed about, scolding and holding forth to herself.

Scarcely had the old gentleman re-entered and silence resumed her reign, than Matyi appeared a third time: "Boriska wants to know, sir, what she shall cook for supper?"

"Supper! are you used to sup?" asked Uncle Abris, turning to his guests.

"That we are," replied Karely quickly, before his gentle mother had time to say the contrary.

Master Abris sighed deeply, rose and went into the kitchen, whence he was heard talking in a low voice to Boriska, who, on the contrary, spoke as loud as possible, so as to be heard in the next room.

"What! that beautiful fowl!--have you lost your senses? I make a fire now! there is no wood cut. Let them eat cheese, there is plenty of bread. Indeed I shall not open the pot of preserves--I can't knead puddings, I've a sore hand. I am not a cook; and why don't you keep one, if you want to turn innkeeper?"

All this was heard distinctly by the guests within. And now, for once, Uncle Abris really got into a passion, and, going out to the court, he struck down a renowned cock with the rolling-pin, and, lighting a fire himself, he set to work to pluck it, till Boriska, seeing it was in vain to oppose, snatched the cock from his hands and turned him out of the kitchen.

In about two hours the banquet was ready. The unhappy cock had been burnt to a cinder, and his bones were not harder than his flesh. The half-baked bread stuck to the knife when it was cut, and to the palate when it was chewed; and the dishes were so full of salt and cayenne that tears came into the eyes of the eaters.

The lady sat at the head of the table, and scarcely tasted anything; she sighed deeply on seeing the worm-eaten holes in her dear mother's table-linen, the well-known knives and forks loosened from their deer's-horn handles, and the old family plate all bruised and broken. What may not a man come to who has no wife to keep his house in order!

During supper Uncle Abris, having taken some wine, ventured to break the silence, and asked his sister whither she was _en route_.

She replied, smiling, that they were going to visit Gabor Berkessy.

"What! to that detestable man!" exclaimed Uncle Abris, somewhat under the influence of the wine.

"Why is he a detestable man?" asked Karely, half amused, half annoyed.

"Because when I was a student in Debreczen he informed upon me once for visiting a tavern. I was punished by twenty-four hours' confinement, and I have never forgotten it since."

And yet it was good thirty years ago!

"And what are you going there for, if I may ask?" continued Uncle Abris.

The lady did not answer; on which Siza took up the conversation: "We are going to look out for a wife. Mr. Berkessy has a daughter who would just suit my brother."

"Hm!" replied the old man, ungraciously looking over his shoulder at Karely; "you are still a child."

"That is just the reason we want to get him married," replied Sizike demurely. "He is a good lad, but somewhat unsteady; when he has a wife, his understanding will come. And then," she continued, "it is much better to marry young, than to grow old, and fall into the hands of some virago."

The child spoke these words with such peculiar gravity, that Karely could scarce restrain his laughter; her mother shook her head, and Uncle Abris looked as if he were sharpening his teeth to devour her.

"Hm! you know how to talk at least; can you bake bread too?"

"Oh! that I can, uncle, though I do not know that I could dress the szalonna[7] for it."

[Footnote 7: Szalonna is a kind of fat which they are fond of eating with bread in this district; but the same name is applied to the wet dough which is found in badly-baked bread.]

Uncle Abris saw that he was losing ground, and moved back his chair, which was a signal to the rest of the party to rise; and, after the usual ceremonies on leaving table, the guests asked to be shown to their apartments, whither Uncle Abris conducted them, giving each a candle, which he begged them to put out as soon as they went to bed.

There were rooms enough in the house, but it was melancholy to see them. Pease, maize, and onions lay in every corner; and the beds were just in the condition in which they had been left by the last occupants.

Karely went to the smaller of the two rooms which had been allotted them, and in a few minutes he was in bed.

"Dear mamma, we shall freeze here," said little Sizike, feeling the ice-cold pillows; "what shall we do?" and knocking at Karely's door, she asked if he were asleep.

"What do you want, Sizike?"

"We cannot undress here, Karely, there are no curtains on the windows."

"Well, blow out the candle."

"O dear! I am afraid in the dark!"

"Then lock the door."

"The door will not shut properly."

"Well, wait, Boske, I will get up and sleep there, and you can come here with mother," and, jumping up and out of bed, he dressed and came into the next room, putting the ladies into his.

"And now confess, Erzsu," he said, trembling with cold; "why did you cheat me out of my warm bed into this cold one?"

"Because you had warmed it already," replied Erzsike, merrily.

There is nothing gayer than the childish mirth between brother and sister. Even the mild lady laughed heartily. But it was no easy matter to get warm, even under feather beds. Such rooms attract the cold all the winter; and even in summer, if the weather is damp, one is apt to get chilled and cold. Scarcely had our travellers fallen into an uneasy sleep, than an inconsiderate cock crew loudly just under their windows.

"Karely, do you hear the ghost of the cock we ate last night?" cried Sizike, waking up.

It was out of the question trying to sleep again; and in a short time they all rose and dressed, feeling in every limb as if they had been beaten.

There is a great art in making beds. In some beds you fall asleep immediately on lying down: the pillows, which have been placed out in the sun, have still the freshness and natural heat which they have attracted; the mattresses and feather-beds are so skilfully arranged, that every limb feels at home, and on whichever side you lie, you awake on it next morning; while in others, turn which way you will, you can never find a place--now shivering, now perspiring, you try to sleep, but start up in a fright,--the woodworm gnaws and bores, the bed creaks and cracks. If at last you do fall asleep, it is to dream of robbers, and when you awake you cannot turn your head. Strange that no book has yet been written on this very necessary science!

Our travellers had still a grievous ordeal to go through, and this was breakfast. They would gladly have avoided it; but Uncle Abris gravely declared, that having fulfilled his part of the obligation--having roasted the coffee, and boiled the milk--they must not be wasted. So they all sat down; and although the coffee was a little burned, and the milk a little run, and the rolls somewhat stale, no one grumbled; but, finishing as quickly as possible, prepared to depart. The carriage then drove up, and Uncle Abraham assisted his guests into it. He now smiled in good earnest. "They are off at last, and will want nothing more"--it was easy interpreting his smile. Having kissed them all, and wished them a prosperous journey, he thought he had passed all dangers, when Matyi exclaimed: "I quite forgot to drink that glass of brandy which your honour wanted to give me."

Uncle Abris once more grew pale, and retreating into the parlour, came out with a glass about as large as a thimble.

"Is this all for me, sir?" asked Matyi, holding up the little glass in surprise; and having emptied it, he looked round, as if to say, Was there anything in it?

"Will you have half a glass more?" asked Uncle Abris, with extraordinary generosity.

"Thank you, sir," replied Matyi; "I am afraid of overturning the carriage. Bless your honour! bless you, Boriska! we shall be back again in a week."

It was lucky that the horses now set off, for the party could no longer contain their laughter. Uncle Abris and Boriska thrust their heads out of the door, and it was not until the carriage had totally disappeared from view that they ventured to return into the house.

Boris never ceased scolding all that day. "Is it for this, indeed, one has relations--that they may come and lay waste the house, while we are stinting all the year round just to stuff these locusts! The cows don't eat so much in a week as they used for their horses; and that little, saucy girl could only make bullets of the good bread, and throw it about. She will eat it some day though, I'll answer for that, the delicate dear! And then the work they gave folks!" In fine, good Mrs. Boriska summed up her complaints by declaring, that if they ever set foot in the house again she should leave it, and let Master Abris shift for himself; and then, slamming the door in his face, she left him to his solitary reflections.

* * * * *

Our readers are by this time aware that there is a certain Gabor Berkessy who has a marriageable daughter, to obtain whose hand two marriageable young men are hastening from different parts of the country, accompanied by their respective families, as beseemed.

We entreat our readers' patience to accompany us once more to a third county, and then we shall all hasten to Uncle Berkessy's together.