Chapter 18

It was like the meeting of two hurricanes: one a mighty, moving bastion, advancing in such exact order, it seemed as if the thousand men and steeds had but one pulse; the other troops, light and swift as the wind, their spirited little horses neighing and dashing on before, as if each wished to be first in the encounter; the various coloured pelisses and plumes of their riders tossed about in the wind, and their swords flashing over their heads.

"Hurrah! hurrah!--Rajta! rajta!"

The mutual collision broke the order at once. The troops on either side divided into parties, fighting man to man; here a cuirassier was surrounded by the hussars, and there a hussar in the midst of cuirassiers; the attacking party now advancing, now retreating, as the antagonists on either side gained strength.

For some time only the two standards waving high above, and here and there a soldier's face, and the gleam of straight and curved swords, were seen through the smoke and dust; and now the wind blew the dust aside, and exposed the bright helmets, the excited countenances, the maddened horses, many of which galloped about with empty saddles, while their riders lay trodden on the field.

The clash of swords resounded on all sides, mingled with cries of victory and the groans of death.

A tall and powerful cuirassier galloped about like the genius of battle--death seemed in each flash of his sword; he rode his third horse, two having already been shot under him.

Clouds of dust and smoke again veiled the combatants, and nothing could be seen but the two banners--now pressing forward, now retarded, but slowly approaching, and cutting a deadly passage towards each other.

Old Gergo was engaged with two cuirassiers, his ardour unmingled with the impetuosity of youth; and even in the midst of the fray he found time to instruct the young recruit, illustrating his theory by many a prompt example.

A troop of hussars now dashed forward and were met by an equal number of cuirassiers; their leaders, being on the right of their troops, had not yet met face to face, but, foremost to the charge, they showed a good example, while each man fought as if he alone were responsible for the honour of his party. The right flank on either side pressing back the foe's left, they both turned round the centre, like a stiff axle--the hussars occupying the place of the cuirassiers, and the latter that of the hussars.

In the heat of the action, their leaders recognised each other--Laszlo and Gejza! But the discovery produced no wavering--both were determined to conquer or to die.

Meanwhile another troop came up to the assistance of the cuirassiers, and the hussar captain was obliged to cut his way out from between two fires, and thus came face to face with his antagonist.

"Surrender, comrade!" cried Laszlo.

"Never!" cried the hussar, as he galloped to the charge.

The sword of death was raised in either hand, their glances darted fire; for a moment they remained motionless, as if spell-bound, their swords still raised--the next both turned with one accord upon the nearest foes. Laszlo's sword pierced the heart of a hussar, while Gejza dealt such a blow on a cuirassier's helmet that he fell without a groan, and then, without turning, he cut his way through the enemy's ranks--"Hurrah! hurrah!--rajta!" And the battle-cry mingled with the clash of swords and the groans of the dying.

Meanwhile a division of cuirassiers marched rapidly through Szolnok to take the hussars in the rear.

Suddenly, at the turn of a street, two hundred red-caps stood before them. Both parties were taken by surprise at the unexpected encounter. It was but a moment. The next, an engagement took place of which we find few instances in history, namely, infantry attacking cavalry. The two hundred red-caps suddenly fired on the cuirassiers, and then, shouting wildly, rushed upon them with their bayonets; and the veteran troops, who had stood so many fires, whose valour alone had turned the day at Mor, were obliged to retreat before the fearful attack.

This circumstance occurred but twice during the whole campaign.

Görgei was the first who attempted it, with the Inczed battalion, at the time of his first retreat; that same battalion (eleventh) which so gallantly defended the bridge of Piski,[60] where more than half their number fell.

[Footnote 60: In Transylvania.]

An old Polish soldier who witnessed the combat, made the following remark:--"I have seen the battles of the _ancienne garde_, and fought with the Polish legion, but I never saw men fight like the red-caps!"

By this attack the cuirassiers were cut off from their head forces, and, pressed by Vecsey on the opposite side, they retreated hastily, without having time to save their cannon or destroy the bridge after them.

The imperial forces, thus pressed between two fires, were obliged to evacuate Szolnok, and retreat among the Zagyva morasses.

After their desperate conflict with the red-caps, the cuirassiers were again routed by a fresh regiment of hussars, and driven into the Zagyva; but few of the weary horses had strength to struggle through the water, and their heavy armour prevented the men from swimming: thus many sank in the stream.

* * * * *

It was evening when the battle was over. Horses without riders were galloping about the plain, while here and there a wounded steed neighed mournfully, as if searching for his master. Powder-waggons and cannon lay overturned on the field, which was strewed with the dead and dying.

The trumpet sounded the retreat, and the hussars assembled from every side, their horses rearing and prancing as if they had come out for the first time that day.

An hour afterwards, the sound of music was heard in every _guinguette_, and the hussars' spurs clinked to the gay cymbal and clarionet. The battle was forgotten; it was now the time for mirth.

Old Gergo treated his comrades. He was rich enough--for he had killed an officer of rank; and though his pupil the recruit could scarcely keep his feet, he continued to treat him in spite of his resistance.

"But if we drink it all now, corporal, we shall have nothing left for to-morrow."

"Don't argue with me, but drink; that's the order now, and to-morrow will take care of itself;" and the soldiers drank on, while their companions danced and shouted to the gay sounds. All was feasting and revelry within the town.

But without, upon the battle-field, what painful sounds hailed the fall of evening?--it was the fearful groans of the dying! What sad thoughts called forth those sighs from the parting spirit! Home, glory, mother, and beloved ones,--never to meet again! The evening breeze bears them away: whither?

An officer of hussars went over the field with a military surgeon, while his soldiers bore the wounded away on their arms.

The young officer turned mournfully from one sad spectacle to another. Here lay a young soldier in the bloom of youth, the point of a sword had pierced through his cuirass and come out behind; and from whose hand had that thrust come? a little farther, lay another, whose face was so cut, and disfigured by the dust, that none could have recognised it! and now his eye rested on a young hussar who lay on his back, his outstretched arm still grasping his sword, over which the fingers were closed so stiffly that it was impossible to release it; near him an old soldier had died, with his arm around the neck of his horse, which had been killed along with him, like two old comrades whom death could not part.

The young officer carefully surveyed the field, and his quick eye passed none over. He had reached a little knoll, where, half concealed among some bushes, a white form seemed to move. It was a young cuirassier officer, who lay with his face buried in the long grass.

The hussar knelt down to raise his head, and called for assistance.

"Thanks, comrade!" said the dying youth faintly, as he turned his face towards him.

The last rays of the setting sun shone on the handsome, pale countenance, the closing eyes, and the deep wound just below the heart.

"Laszlo!" groaned the hussar, "is it thus we meet?"

"Lay me on the grass, brother; I am dying," said the cuirassier faintly. "Alas! my bride will wait in vain!"

The surgeons examined the wound, and pronounced it mortal; he had but a few moments to live.

"Tell my bride," said the young man, in scarcely audible accents, "that my last thought was of her--and bury me where she may come and"--

The young hussar sobbed bitterly beside his dying friend. "Alas! that we must part--that one of us must die!"

"God bless you, brother--be happy!" murmured Laszlo, convulsively grasping Gejza's hand; "poor Aniko!" and his head sank on his comrade's breast.

The sun's last rays had set, and the pale moon rose, shedding her quiet beams on the closed eyes and silent lips!

The long-looked-for day had come and gone; that day so full of hope and fear for the young sisters.

It had brought grief and joy; but the joy was not for the hopeful, nor the tear for the trembling heart, though one stood at the altar, and the other at the lonely grave; and one indeed wore the white and the other the black dress, but neither wore that which she had prepared.

THE BREWER.

Nature had endowed Vendel Hornyicsek, the brewer of B----, in the county of Raab, with five hundred and seventy nine pounds of standard weight; and he was not the man to turn tail before a stuffed lamb and any given quantity of beer.

His head was a complete circle, a worthy rival for any pumpkin produced on the sunniest plain; and Mount Ararat itself might have blushed in the vicinity of his nose. He had only one eye, which you might have suspected he had borrowed _ad usum_ from some misanthropic mole--it was small, green, and peculiarly adapted to sleep; but mother Nature was not unjust, and what she curtailed in one feature she amply refunded in another, by bestowing more than ordinary proportions on the mouth, into which capacious aperture the four-quart tankard would certainly have disappeared altogether had it not been held fast by its two handles. Except, however, to receive the contents of the tankard, the good man seldom made use of this feature. It is true that he could speak nothing but the German and Bohemian languages, in which he had been born and bred; for though he had lived thirty years in the county of Raab, he had never been able to make himself understood in the Hungarian language, and certainly he found no living creature, unless it were those travelled gentlemen, the storks, to address him in his native tongue. Moreover, Vendel Hornyicsek gazda[61] was not a lover of great commotion; he was by no means ambitious. He would sit quietly in the chimney-corner from morning till night, replenishing his interior with ample potions of the genuine barley-bree, and turning in his mind some philosophy peculiarly his own. He never dined at regular hours, or rather he dined at every hour of the day; it was a continual, unwearied struggle with his appetite--that invincible Antæus, who, as often as he was overcome, rose with redoubled strength to renew the attack; and these struggles did not cease with the day, like the labour of ordinary mortals, but he was accustomed to wake at night and strive to satisfy the cravings of the voracious monster. A pitcher of unusual dimensions was regularly placed by his bedside, just within comfortable reach of his hand; for it was his firm belief that whoever goes hungry to bed dreams of being devoured by Pharaoh's lean kine; it was probable, however, that he would have despatched the whole seven had they come to an actual encounter.

[Footnote 61: The common name for host or master.]

In the village of B---- they still exhibit as a relic his flannel stockings, each of which would have contained at least a Presburg peck of anything you liked to put into it; while a wandering Sclavonian family might have harboured snugly in his sleeve.

There was not a vestige of a beard on the broad expanse of face, which was naked as the moon, and blooming as the Pacha's rose. The corners of his mouth extended upwards, as if they were amusing themselves at the expense of the eye placed over them, and there was not the slightest rumour of anything like brow or lash to crown the eyelid. As an indemnity, however, for such destitution, the chin was doubled and trebled; indeed, it would have been difficult to decide where it began and how it ended; and a few orphan hairs endeavoured to keep their ground on the vast and sterile heath above his ears.

Our worthy host had already disposed of three ribs, or in other words, he had followed to the grave three wives, each of whom had weighed above two hundredweight. But what did he derive, after all, from so many weddings and funerals? To be left alone at last, for the house to go to wreck and ruin, for the beer to get sour, the bread to be half baked, and the meat half cooked, while the hawks carried off his poultry, and the rats his cheese; in short, his whole establishment went to auction, like the Csakys'[62] straw, till finally in the height of his distress, Vendel resolved--what else could he do?--he resolved to look out for another wife, and actually set about carrying his project into execution. In former times he had been used to contemplate and weigh duly every consideration connected with this most important step, together with the merits requisite in the object of his choice. She must be plain, that he might have no cause for jealousy; of small speech, but ample dowry; and her knowledge and accomplishments must consist chiefly in the noble art of pampuska[63] cookery, with which, namely, the pampuskas, our worthy host's most sublime ideas of mortal happiness were connected. Hitherto he had succeeded to the utmost of his wishes, and three wives adorned with all the requisite virtues had rendered the pampuska morsel sweet to his lips. Moreover, he had lived in uninterrupted peace and tranquillity, without having ever had the slightest cause for uneasiness; on the contrary, the first impulse of every one who looked at either of the three worthy dames had been to turn and run as long as there was a road before him.

[Footnote 62: This family is said to have had once such abundant crops that, in order to get rid of it, they were obliged to let all who would carry it off.]

[Footnote 63: A sort of fritter--a Bohemian dish.]

But let no man call himself happy before his death--he may do so afterwards if he has a mind; as the wise Racien said a fortnight after the inundation. Vendel Hornyicsek having for the fourth time resolved to put on the orban cap, so outwitted his good sense in his advanced age, as to take to himself a mate who was both young and pretty, and whose name was Vicza.

The first had been Nani, the second Lotti, the third Zsuzsi, all good, quiet, pious names. Hey! Vendel, Vendel, why should you have stumbled upon a Vicza! and such a Vicza too, whose eyes might have allured the sun from the skies, and each one of whose saucy motions might have charmed the very curd[64] into life; a Vicza who, instead of pampuska cakes, baked such witch pogacsok,[65] that he must have been a very Saturn who ventured to partake of them; and it must be observed, that although every muscle of this fair Vicza was replete with vivacity and motion, yet the most flexible part of her whole person was that small member designated by anatomists the tongue; indeed, it required no whalebone palate like that of the monster of the deep to emit such effusions as would clear the whole atmosphere.

[Footnote 64: In Hungarian, the expression is more _naïve_--_sleeping milk_ being the literal translation.]

[Footnote 65: Bannocks.]

Scarcely had Mistress Vicza placed her foot in her husband's house when it became an overturned world. Her appearance had much the same effect as pouring vitriol into water, or putting a leech among the foals. Every servant was obliged to be on his feet at cockcrowing, and wo to that cheek on whose sleep the sun shone, for Mistress Vicza's palm was sure to celebrate it; moreover, she was in the kitchen, storeroom, barn, fold, stall, in short, everywhere at once, to see that all was going on in order, and that the folks were not sleeping or stealing. She saw everything, knew everything, and had a word for everybody, persecuted and pursued from morning till night whatever was capable of motion, followed up every command to the very letter, and was unfailing in her promises, which were invariably threats.

These new arrangements by no means pleased the good Vendel. He could never sleep beyond daybreak, for all the windows and doors were then thrown open to let the morning air pass through the rooms; he had nobody to sit and discourse with to make the time pass, for nobody had a moment to sit down--the whole household seemed to be on galvanic springs from sunrise till sunset. He was kept, besides, to regular meals, and they only dished three times a day for him--for him who had been accustomed to eat every hour of the twenty-four; and, oh unparalleled barbarity! he was obliged to forego altogether his nightly repasts.

If the unhappy man complained of having nothing to do, a basket of beans in their husks was placed before him to be peeled, or some other such employment which he would set to work at with a heavy sigh, thinking mournfully the while of his three dead partners, and the happy days which had fled never to return.

But Vendel was a philosopher, and he knew that it was best to submit with a good grace, for how should he set himself in opposition to the rising hurricane, or look the lightning in the face? Who indeed would not have drawn in his head between his shoulders when the capped Bellona turned with outstretched arm to pour forth the vial of her wrath in hailstones and coals of fire, lightning flashing from her eyes and thunder pealing from her mouth? Vendel was not the man to cope with such elements of war; he would have borne even more for the sake of a quiet life.

Our worthy host kept a large beer-tavern in the village of B----, which had been hitherto the resort of all the cuirassiers and dragoons in the neighbourhood, who beguiled every leisure hour in the enjoyment of the national beverage, while their kind host showed them a never-failing good example.

A tall stripling of a Moravian youth, meagre as a sign-post, was the beerhouse Ganymede. One might have thought his master had chosen him purposely to form a contrast to himself. His mouth was always wide open, and his eyes, which seemed trying to find their way out of his head, stared vacantly before him: if he looked at anything at all, it was apparently with the point of his nose.

From two arms of immeasurable length dangled a huge pair of uncouth red hands, which looked as though they were not really his own, but merely borrowed for the day's work, and his awkward legs he seemed rather to drag after him than to be indebted to their assistance for the act of propulsion.

To complete the singularity of his appearance, this youth was in the habit of wearing a coat with long and pointed tails, the sleeves of which scarcely reached below the elbows, while the ends of the tails dangled against his ankles; his waistcoat had doubtless boasted of some very brilliant colouring in days long past, though it would have been difficult to distinguish the shades at present, and most of the gilt buttons had only left their ears as a remembrance. Wide csikos[66] drawers adorned his legs as far as the ankles, beneath which his bare feet, were thrust into a pair of heelless slippers; a high cravat stood up around his neck like a halter, in which no less than three glittering pins of Bohemian stones constituted the especial glory of his toilet.

[Footnote 66: The csikos, who keep the horses on the plains, are noted for their wide drawers.]

It was late in the evening. The dogs were barking about the streets, and the peacocks crying in the neighbouring farm-yard; otherwise the village was very quiet, the good folks having for the most part retired to rest with the sparrows.

Master Hans, or Hanzli, as he was commonly denominated--we have evaded the question as long as possible, but finally we must acknowledge that the youth's name was Hanzli; it was no fault of his, poor fellow! his god-parents were alone to blame; and doubtless, had he been capable of speech when they so basely betrayed his helpless innocence, he would have protested against it--Hanzli thrust his nose and his arm out of the window, then drew both back, and the window was closed.

The village had been deserted for some weeks by the German soldiery; and from that day forward the beer-room had become pitifully empty, for it was only now and then that some desperately thirsty wretch dropped in by chance, and ventured to slake his thirst with a glass of the barm-smelling wine.

A dim light flickered on the long table, round which leaned despondingly a dozen of empty chairs. Vendel-gazda sat near the cupboard, in a red flannel dressing-gown and a pointed white cap with a blue border; his hands, which were placed on his vast stomach, held a plated snuff-box, and with his legs outstretched beneath the table, he snored away to his heart's content, while the much-esteemed goblet stood before him like an old fat dame with her arms a-kimbo.

Hanzli having closed the shutters, and looked about him to see that all was right, listened hard for a few moments to his master's deep breathing, as he bobbed behind the tankard, and then hastily making up his mind, he shambled over with long strides on tiptoe--hands, eyes, and mouth all moving together, as if he were stepping with each of them, and, pausing before the table, he raised one leg, balanced himself on the other, and peeped into the depths of the tankard. It was still half full. This was enough. Having once more peeped into it to make sure that his imagination was not deceiving him, he seized it by the two ears, and, raising it to his month, began to draw in the unoffered beverage, his knees bending under him, and his eyes starting from his head with the enormous exertion.

As he continued raising the huge tankard till half his head was within it, a tremendous explosion was suddenly heard in the kitchen, as if pots and pans were being thrown at somebody's head, which so startled Hanzli that he emptied the remains of the barley nectar over his head and shoulders; and what was his mortification when, on replacing the empty tankard, he encountered Vendel's green eye staring at him wide open, as if to say, "I see you, my lad; and I wish you good health!" but that was not what he said.

"Hanzli, my lad, go and see what is broken in the kitchen." Could he have uttered a severer reproof?

But Hanzli had too much sense and too much confidence in his master's goodness to believe that he was in earnest; he knew that he would probably return with the answer that it was his nose that was broken; and having recovered from his first embarrassment, he merely drew a long breath terminating in a whistle, and shook his head until the shake resolved itself into a wave.

"Poor Master Vendel!" he seemed to say; "it was another world in Mistress Nani's lifetime; you were not then roused from your sleep in this manner."

Vendel-gazda replied by a pitiful gaze at Hanzli. He would have clasped his hands too, but only the tips of his fingers could reach each other. He looked as if he would have said: "My poor lad, Hanzli, you too have a bad job of it now-a-days; in Mistress Nani's lifetime, the key of the cellar lived in your pocket, and you were not then obliged to empty my tankard."

The two countrymen were used to this silent language. They might have conversed in their own tongue, to be sure. But then, who knows--in short, there are cases--and Vendel and Hanzli were of this opinion--in which least said is soonest mended.