CHAPTER I.

If my readers had ever seen the inmates of the Castle of Tissaret, they would not be astonished to find that, after the first shock of the sudden death of Mr. Catspaw had worn off, the matter was thought of, and commented on, with utter indifference. The order and quiet of the Castle was quite restored, and the servants sat talking of the murder round a blazing fire in the kitchen. But although some of them were in the attorney's room almost immediately after the deed was perpetrated, nobody knew any thing about it. Everybody's statement differed. They sat talking until daybreak, and yet they were no wiser than when they began. They rose and separated with opinions as various as those entertained of Hannibal's passage across the Alps.

The greatest incoherence, however, was in the dying man's own statement. When they asked him who had done the deed, he distinctly mentioned the name of Tengelyi. But Mrs. Cizmeasz, who was an honest and truth-speaking woman, insisted on its being a request to see the notary, and protested that it had nothing to do with the murder.

Mr. Tengelyi had hastened to the Castle on the night of the murder, and on hearing that the dying man's last word was his name, he grew pale and agitated. This did not fail to produce its effects upon the observers.

As soon as he had caused the door of the room, in which the corpse of the attorney lay, to be sealed up, he left the Castle.

Mr. Skinner did not arrive before the next morning, though he had been repeatedly sent for during the night.

When his carriage at length drove up to the door, the cook ran out exclaiming, "Our attorney is murdered, sir!"

"Poor man!" said Mrs. Cizmeasz; "his last words were----"

"But we have found the murderer," said the cook with great joy.

"_I_ found him!" cried the haiduk.

"Yes, in the chimney!" bawled the kitchen-maid.

"He got off!" cried Mrs. Cizmeasz, in a shrill voice.

"Yes, yes, we have him! It's the Jew--the glazier, sir; you know him," said the cook, who wished to be an important personage in the affair.

"He has made his escape," said the coachman, coming forward; "we followed him to the Theiss, when----"

"He is in the cellar," bawled the foot-boy; "I have bound him hand and foot!"

"Yes, sir," resumed the coachman, "we ran at his heels until we came to the thicket----"

"The door is duly sealed, sir, and I have the Jew under lock and key," said the cook, with dignity.

"It wasn't the Jew!" screamed Mrs. Kata.

"It was the Jew, sure enough!" said the cook.

"If it was the Jew, why did Mr. Catspaw shake his head?" urged the lady, shaking her head, in imitation of the attorney.

The dispute grew hot, and the clamour became deafening. Mrs. Cizmeasz protested that it was not the Jew, and the others swore it was the Jew.

"Are you people all gone mad?" thundered the justice, in the midst of the confusion; "it is impossible to hear oneself speak in such a Babel as this!"

In an instant the clamour ceased. Mrs. Cizmeasz fluttered and muttered still, and, turning to the person next to her, in whom she hoped to find a more patient listener, she declared, still shaking her head, that was the way in which Mr. Catspaw had shaken his when the Jew was brought before him.

"My dear friend!" said the justice at length to the cook, "is it not possible to get some breakfast?--it's bitterly cold!"

"Certainly, sir," answered the cook; "if you will go to my warm room, I'll get it as soon as possible." After a few minutes, some brandy and bread were brought until coffee was ready.

Mrs. Cizmeasz went fretting and grumbling to her room, leaving the kitchen-maid to prepare the breakfast.

The cook was happy. He had the justice now all to himself, and was busily engaged in explaining his own conviction of the murder, and in trying to persuade Mr. Skinner to believe the same. According to his opinion, there could be no doubt that the murder had been committed by the Jew, who, on hearing the approach of footsteps, had hid himself in the chimney, which also accounted for his not stealing any thing.

"The thing is too plain," added he; "a person with the smallest particle of sense could see through it; every murderer, when found in the act, hides himself behind the door, in a cupboard, or squeezes himself up a chimney! Oh, I have read of such stories over and over again. That silly woman fancies she is very wise, but she knows nothing about it."

"You are quite right," said the justice, in a fit of abstraction, and filling his glass for the third time; "you are quite right, the matter is very clear. As clear as can be."

"Did I not say so?" rejoined Mr. Kenihazy; nodding his head with great satisfaction.

"What did you say?" asked the justice, who wished to remind Mr. Kenihazy that he had had great difficulty in rousing him from sleep.

"I said that the man who had done this was certainly a great scoundrel."

"I remember you did say so; but I never should have thought this Jew had such audacity. Poor Catspaw! he was a very good man."

"And what a hand he was at tarok, the other day!" said Kenihazy; "twice he bagged the _Jew_; and with five taroks he won Zatonyi's _ultimo_. And now this Jew!"

"But the rascal denies it all!" said the cook, entering with the coffee. "Suppose you can't succeed in making him confess?"

"Succeed!" said the justice, casting a contemptuous look at the cook. "Not succeed with a miserable Jew! I have done twenty years' service in the county, and never failed in any thing I wished to accomplish!"

"Yes, sir, everybody knows that," replied the cook, with great humility; "but Hebrews are sometimes very stubborn."

"Well, if he won't confess, he'll squeak!" said Mr. Skinner, pushing his empty coffee-cup aside.

"He will have Skinner before him, a haiduk in the rear, and me at the table; we'll show you sport, my boy!" said Mr. Kenihazy, with great glee. "And once in the midst of us, he'll confess, I'll answer for it."

The breakfast was over; and Kenihazy, wondering how any one could have the bad taste to drink coffee when such delicious wine and brandy could be got in Hungary, drank off a glass of brandy to wash the coffee down.

The justice rose and lighted his pipe, which he had laid aside during breakfast. He stalked up and down the room, trying the condition of his voice. He ordered the haiduks to be ready, and the prisoner to be brought before him at once.

The cook, to whom these orders were given, very curious to see the examination of the Jew, lost no time in executing the justice's mandate.

Mr. Kenihazy sat mending some pens; and his face was radiant with joy at having picked up a piece of coarse paper, on which he thought to take down the evidence, and by this means save the better paper allowed him by the county.

Mr. Skinner's manner of treating persons whom he suspected, was simple in the extreme. His inquisitorial powers vented themselves in abuse, imprecations, and kicks. Peti, the gipsy, and the treatment which he received at the justice's hands on the Turk's Hill, are by no means an unfavourable specimen of that worthy functionary's summary mode of dealing with the lowly and unprotected; and in the present instance, the poor Jew learned to his cost, that the worthy magistrate's jokes had lost nothing of their pungency, and that his kicks retained their pristine vigour. But if the justice was violent, the Jew was stubborn. Neither Mr. Skinner's stunning rejoinders, nor the striking arguments of the haiduk, whose stick played no mean part in court, could convince the culprit of the propriety of making (as Mr. Kenihazy said) "a clean breast of it." Nothing can equal Mr. Skinner's disgust and fury. He stamped and swore--as indeed he always did--but to no purpose.

"Dog!" cried he; "I'll have you thrown into the wolf-pit. I'll have you killed!" And kicking the Jew, he sent him staggering and stammering out his innocence against the wall. "Innocent!" cried the justice, with a savage laugh, "Does that fellow look as if he were innocent?"

Mr. Kenihazy and the cook stood laughing at the culprit, while the big tears ran down his cheek from his one eye.

There was nothing, however, in the Jew's appearance that could impress one with an idea of his innocence. His red hair, matted and wet from the damp of the cellar, hung longer and straighter down his forehead than usual. His dress and beard were in great filth and disorder. His ugly features were wild and haggard from the pain of his bonds, and the ill-treatment he had received from the justice and Mr. Kenihazy; in short, he looked like one of the coarse woodcuts of Cain in the story-books.

"I am innocent--I am not guilty!" blubbered the Jew. "I implore you! I intreat you, Mr. Skinner, and Mr. Kenihazy, and Mister Cook, who knows well----"

"Yes; I know you, you villain!" said the cook. "You have always robbed me when I employed you----"

"Oh, I humbly entreat you! Oh, no, I never cheated any one!" sobbed the Jew. "The panes of glass in the saloon were very dear, and I----"

"You dirty dog!" cried the justice. "You want to shift the question, do you? I ask you again, and for the last time, why you murdered the attorney?"

"I did not kill him," answered the Jew, sobbing; "what should I have killed him for? He was my best friend; and if he were living now, he would not see me used thus."

"Very possible, if you had not killed him!" quoth Paul Skinner.

"I never killed him," persisted the Jew. "When Mister Cook took me to the attorney, and asked him if I had stabbed him, he shook his head, you know he did, Mister Cook."

"That's true!" said the other, turning to the justice. "When I took the knave to the bed-side, and asked the attorney if he had done it, he shook his head."

"But who knows? Perhaps he didn't understand me, or he had lost his senses, or he was so disgusted!"

"Oh, no!" said the prisoner, eagerly. "He hadn't lost his senses, or he wouldn't have shaken his head twice again afterwards, when you asked him if I had stabbed him."

"That's what Mrs. Cizmeasz said, I'm sure," said Mr. Kenihazy.

"Yes," said the Jew; "Mrs. Cook and everybody in the house were in the room, and saw how poor dear Mr. Catspaw shook his head when I was brought in. He did nothing but shake his head while I was in the room."

"Call the cook!" said Mr. Skinner, recollecting her extraordinary and energetic behaviour on his arrival.

"It's a great pity," protested the cook, "that your worship should fatigue yourself with the gibberish of that woman, who is as blind as a bat in the matter. It was the Jew, and nobody but the Jew, that committed the murder."

"I know all that," said the justice, with dignity; "but it's necessary to observe certain forms." And again he desired the haiduk to call the cook.

Catharine Cismeasz, or Mrs. Kata, as she was usually called, (for who, as she often and justly remarked, will give a poor widow her due? and even her Christian name is shortened, as if she were a mere kitchen-maid),--Mrs. Kata, I say, had meanwhile addressed her own partizans, to whom she complained of the stupidity of the judge, who would not condescend to listen to a reasonable woman. "I am sure," said she, "that fellow, the cook, will lead him astray; he's a treacherous knave, so he is, and he's always getting my lady out of temper with everybody; and I'm sure, sirs, he'll say it was the Jew, and yet he's as innocent as an unborn babe, for when they took him to Mr. Catspaw's bed, he----"

Here she was interrupted by a haiduk, who informed her that she was wanted; whereupon her complaint was suddenly changed into high praise and admiration of the justice, who, she said, was a proper man indeed.

After Mrs. Cizmeasz had spent a short time in dressing her head and making herself spruce before a piece of glass which hung at the window, she set off, with great consequence, to see the justice; declaring, at the same time, that the truth should and would now be known.

She had never been in a court of justice. When Mr. Skinner asked her what her name and occupation were, two things she thought the whole world knew, she became much embarrassed; and when the judge inquired her age, the cook could not refrain from tittering. "Forty-two," said she, in so low a voice that it could scarcely be heard. And when the justice warned her, in a very solemn manner, to speak the truth, for that what she was about to say would all be taken down, and that, if she deviated from the truth, a severe punishment would be inflicted upon her, she was induced to believe that the whole was planned and got up by the cook to pique her. In order, therefore, to thwart him, and in reply to Mr. Skinner's exhortation, she said she really could not say exactly how old she was, as she had lost the certificate of her birth; but she believed she was younger than forty-two. The cook and Mr. Kenihazy laughed outright; and the justice assured her, with a smile, that he was not particular about the truth on that point, but he hoped she would be more accurate in her evidence; upon which she took the opportunity of assuring him that she always gave people to understand she was older than she really was.

The questions, Whether she had known Mr. Catspaw? If she had ever seen the culprit before? What she knew of him? &c. &c. put Mrs. Cizmeasz in better spirits, and indemnified her for the disagreeable impression which the first part of the examination had made on her mind.

She was one of those women who will neither hide in the earth nor wrap in a napkin the loquacious talent with which Nature has endowed them.

Mrs. Cizmeasz had, all her life, talked with ease from morning till night; and it could not be expected that now, perhaps for the first time in her life that she spoke from duty, she should stint her hearers, especially since Mr. Skinner had particularly cautioned her to tell all she knew.

Mrs. Cizmeasz had a powerful memory at times, and, on this occasion, remembered everything. She told where she had formerly lived; how she had come to the Castle; what had happened since her first quarrel with the cook; how the Jew (pointing to him) had stolen a florin and twenty-four kreutzers from her when she sent him to the Debrezin fair to buy twelve yards of calico: in short, the good woman left nothing untold that she could remember.

At length the justice jumped up, and paced the room in a state of great perplexity; and the clerk, who did not mean to write a book, laid his pen aside. The cook cast a triumphant glance first at the justice, and then at Mr. Kenihazy; as much as to say, "There, was I not right? Did I not say it was no use to examine this woman?"

Paul Skinner could restrain his impatience no longer; he exclaimed, "What, in the name of God, woman, do you mean by all this? Do you take me to be your confessor, or your fool, that you pester me with your d--d history?"

"I humbly beg your pardon," said Mrs. Kata, greatly astonished that any one should not take an interest in what she had related; "but your worship told me to tell everything and forget nothing, and that it would all be written down, because a man's life depended upon it----"

"That you should forget nothing relating to the murder, were my words."

"Exactly," resumed the lady; "but when you ask me about my name and occupation, and I answer that I am a widow, I must also mention my husband, and how long we lived together, and I assure you, your worship, we were very happy together, and when he died, and of what he died, and----"

"Well, well," interposed the justice, heartily wishing her eloquence anywhere but there; "now tell us, in a word, is it true that when the cook took the Jew to the death-bed of Mr. Catspaw, he shook his head?"

"It is true, your worship," answered she, with a glance of defiance at the cook; "he did shake his head; if your worship could only have seen _how_ he shook his head! Since I stood at the death-bed of my husband--poor man! God rest his soul, he was a cook----"

"Yes, we know all about it," said the justice, interrupting her; "he died of dropsy. But tell us, young woman, is it true that my poor friend, Mr. Catspaw, shook his head the second time when the cook asked him?"

"He did shake his head! Your worship cannot think how he shook his head! for all the world like my poor dead husband! God rest him! The last fourteen days I never left him, day or night----"

"Who knows," observed the cook, "but perhaps he shook it with disgust?"

"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Cizmeasz, "my husband shaking with disgust? My husband was happy to the last moment. He lost his speech, poor man; he understood no one but me, and whatever he wished----"

"Who the devil speaks of your husband?" interposed the justice; "God give him peace! he must have had little in this world. The question is, whether Mr. Catspaw was in his senses or not when he shook his head?"

"Out of his senses!" said Mrs. Cizmeasz. "I beg your worship's pardon, nobody can say that but such a fool as----" here she darted a look at the cook that left no doubt of its meaning--"he who doesn't understand a man unless he speaks. When the water came into my husband's breast he couldn't speak, but I understood him to the last; and he used to throw such sweet melancholy looks at me, as if he would say, 'Thank you, my sweet dove!'"

But here she came back to the point, seeing the justice get very impatient. "How could poor Mr. Catspaw be wandering in his mind when he answered questions which were put to him?"

"He spoke? and what did he say?" inquired the justice, very eagerly.

"He didn't say much, it is true, but it was distinct," answered the woman. "Everybody in the room heard him say 'Tengelyi,' when he was asked who had stabbed him; and then the rattles came into his throat."

"Tengelyi?" cried the justice and Kenihazy, in utter astonishment. "Most extraordinary!"

"Why does your worship listen to such nonsense?" interposed the cook, impatiently; "this woman would bring her father to the gallows!"

"Nonsense, is it?" cried Mrs. Cizmeasz; "then why does the justice listen to it, and why does Mr. Kenihazy write it down? Well, I don't care! I don't want to speak; if I had not been asked I would have said nothing; I never would have spoken to any one about it."

Mr. Skinner shouted at the top of his voice that she must not confound the evidence, but tell him if her memory was quite clear--if she was quite sure that Mr. Catspaw had mentioned the name of Tengelyi?

"Why should I not remember!" cried she, amidst a clamour of voices. "The attorney spoke as well as we do now. Everybody was in the room, and everybody heard him say, 'Tengelyi.'"

"Nobody heard it!" shouted the cook, in spite of all admonitions to keep silence. "When did he say it? What reason could he have for saying it? I say----"

"When did he say it? When you took the Jew to his bed-side, and asked him if that was the man who had murdered him," screamed Mrs. Cizmeasz, getting into a generous passion; "first he shook his head, and----"

"It's not true!" bawled the cook, trying to drown her voice. "It's a lie! He first said Tengelyi, and afterwards shook his head."

"I say he first shook his head, and then said Tengelyi; and everybody who speaks the truth will say so too!" screamed the other.

"It's a lie, I say! and everybody that says it is a liar, though he swore it a thousand times!" shouted the cook, in a voice of thunder, and darting looks of the fiercest lightning at Mrs. Cizmeasz.

"I'll call the whole house to prove it," said Mrs. Kata, with a face as red as scarlet.

At length the justice interfered, and said, "To set this matter right, we must have another examination of witnesses."

While the haiduk was absent to call all the people together who had witnessed the last moments of Mr. Catspaw, the two cooks were engrossed in dispute, and Mr. Skinner warned Mr. Kenihazy to take particular notice of that part of the woman's evidence relating to the attorney's last words.

The messenger found the remainder of the witnesses jabbering away all together in the kitchen. He brought them at once to the justice; but never was a man more deceived than Mr. Skinner was when he thought to remove the veil from the mystery by the multiplicity of witnesses.

He had now got six instead of two. The steward and boots took Mrs. Kata's part; the kitchen-maid and scullery-maid that of the man cook; the cooks were equally backed. For a quarter of an hour after the witnesses had entered the room the noise and confusion were pitiable. At length the justice, shrugging his shoulders impatiently, said, "It doesn't signify a jot whether he shook his head before or afterwards. The principal thing is, that the attorney was distinctly heard to pronounce the name of Tengelyi. On that much depends. I hope you have taken that down?" inquired he, turning to Mr. Kenihazy, who nodded in the affirmative, without raising his head from the paper.

The contending parties looked at each other with astonishment. Mrs. Kata Cizmeasz, who had not the least intention of throwing suspicion on the notary, and who simply wished to prove her assertion that the attorney first shook his head and afterwards said "Tengelyi!" was now horrified at the justice's words. The cook alone had the presence of mind to remind Mr. Skinner that he had not corroborated this assertion, and also deposed that the dying man had certainly mentioned Tengelyi, but not when it was a question of his murderer. Everybody affirmed this with a nod, but particularly Mrs. Kata, who, when she saw the consequences of her evidence, burst into tears, and, sobbing, said, "I am a poor lone widow, and Mister Cook must know better than I do. I was so terrified when I saw the bleeding breast of Mr. Catspaw that I knew not what I did, or what I saw, or what I heard."

As the unfortunate witnesses endeavoured to retract what they had said, the justice was induced to assure them that everything they had said had been taken down: "And," added he, "if any of the witnesses endeavour to revoke or explain away what they have said in their evidence against Tengelyi, they shall see and feel the consequences of telling lies in a court of justice!"

Mrs. Kata, under the shock of these words, shrunk terrified into a corner of the room.

The cook, who had a profound veneration for the notary, was much afflicted, and, in spite of his respect for a justice, he could not suppress his indignation. "I cannot see, sir," said he, "what cause you can find in the evidence to suspect Mr. Tengelyi."

"What cause?" rejoined the justice, darting a look of wrath at the cook. "What cause? That's a question on which your decision will not be required. Moreover, I think it cause enough, when this woman and two other witnesses affirm that the dying man (the simple assertion of a dying man is worth a thousand oaths of another person) named Tengelyi as his murderer."

"I did not say that," sighed Mrs. Kata, stepping forward; "I only said that the attorney shook his head, and then said 'Tengelyi.' I never thought these words could throw suspicion on the notary."

"It's quite certain," said the cook, who, being a freeman, felt himself insulted by the manner in which the justice had spoken to him,--"every man can have his suspicions if he likes; but when it's a question of murder, I think it a great shame that the mere prattle of a silly woman should throw suspicion on a man of Tengelyi's respectability."

"But did you not say yourself that Mr. Catspaw mentioned the notary?" said the justice, in a cutting tone. "Moreover, it's well known that Mr. Catspaw and the notary have been enemies all their life, and it is thought that the notary has not behaved to him as he ought to have done. Even yesterday they had a violent dispute; and who knows but what the attorney had to repent it in his last moments? And what is still more suspicious is, that they quarrelled again yesterday evening. The cook himself has said so. Make a note of that!" said the justice, turning to Mr. Kenihazy.

The cook could not deny this; and Mrs. Kata, thinking to benefit the notary, and make amends for her former imprudence, related the quarrel of the previous evening, with the addition of all the scandal and tittle-tattle of the village.

"Most strange! most suspicious!" exclaimed the justice, turning to Mr. Kenihazy; "that my friend should be found murdered in his bed the very night on which he had had a deadly quarrel with the notary. This woman's evidence proves beyond a doubt that my friend died by the notary's hand. I hope you have taken down every word," said he, still addressing his clerk.

The cook wished to speak; but, finding the justice would not listen to him, he said to Mr. Kenihazy, in a subdued voice, "If the Jew didn't do it, what business had he in the chimney?"

Mr. Skinner, instead of replying to the cook, addressed the Jew: "Who has bribed you to this horrid act? Who are your accomplices, you scurvy hound? For it's you who struck the blow, you vagabond!" continued the justice. "Confess this instant! Say who employed you to murder the attorney! If you are candid, and tell everything, you may do yourself some good; but if you hesitate, I'll----" Here he raised his hand in such a way as made the Jew instinctively throw his arm over his head to protect it; and no doubt he would have suited the blow to the attitude, had not a carriage at that instant driven up to the door.

The arrival of the sheriff and his family changed the scene at the Castle entirely.

Mr. and Lady Rety proceeded directly from the carriage to the room where the witnesses were examined. The justice gave them the full details of the murder, the news of which had reached them during the night. The sheriff and his wife seemed much afflicted.

"It is atrocious!" exclaimed Lady Rety, when the justice had finished, "that such a murder should take place in my house, and under the eyes and ears of so many people!"

"My poor wife is quite overwhelmed!" said the sheriff; "she had a presentiment of something dreadful all day yesterday; I never saw her so excited and feverish in my life!"

"Do not talk so," said Lady Rety, whose lip was pale and quivering; "people will take me for a lunatic. I only felt indisposed, as, indeed, I do to-day."

The justice endeavoured to condole with her ladyship, while Dr. Sherer hastened to feel her pulse; but the Jew, whose eye encountered Lady Rety's, looked at her with a glance full of meaning.

"It's quite certain," remarked the sheriff, "that he who committed the crime is well acquainted with the ways of the house, but, what is most strange, nothing is stolen!"

"We are not quite sure of that yet," said the justice; "the servants say that they found Mr. Catspaw's watch and pocket-book in his room. I should have had a closer search of the premises; but as Mr. Catspaw was your attorney, I thought it probable that he had in his possession papers and documents which you would not like interfered with, and I therefore resolved to seal the door, and wait your decision."

"You did quite right, sir," interposed Lady Rety; "Mr. Catspaw had in his possession many documents and law papers belonging to me. I'll go myself and look after them."

"My lady!" exclaimed the doctor, "you would not think of such a thing in your present delicate state of health?"

"It is my pleasure to do it," said the lady.

"Your ladyship had better not go," interposed the cook, with humility; "the body is in the room, and----"

"The body?" said Lady Rety, striving to suppress a shudder; "you must take it away. I know better than any one else where the attorney kept my papers, and I cannot be easy until I have satisfied myself that they are safe."

In obedience to her ladyship's commands, Dr. Sherer and Mr. Kenihazy left the room with some servants. Lady Rety was in deep thought, when Mr. Skinner, who stood just by her, said, "Thank God! we have at least the man who committed the deed in our hands;" and, dragging the Jew forward, he continued: "We found this fellow in the chimney immediately after the act was perpetrated."

"What, Jantshi the glazier!" exclaimed Lady Rety; "impossible! Mr. Catspaw was his best friend, and----"

"My love!" interposed the sheriff, "that doesn't prove any thing; unfortunately, there are many instances wherein men have committed the vilest acts against their benefactors."

"There can be no doubt," said the justice, "that this Jew is the instrument of some vile person."

Lady Rety turned ghastly pale at these words, and Mr. Rety and the justice asked at the same moment if she was ill; but, instead of answering them, she inquired if the Jew had confessed his crime.

"No!" replied the justice; "not exactly confessed; but that doesn't signify. This fellow is devilish stiff-necked, but I'll bring it out of him. Moreover, the circumstances are of such a nature, that not a doubt can be entertained that----" Then he went on to relate, with great self-satisfaction, his suspicions against Tengelyi.

The effect Mr. Skinner's information had upon the sheriff and his wife was extraordinary. "No!" said he, shaking his head; "one cannot think him capable of such a thing!" while Lady Rety, who was now more composed, remarked that "One could not say what a man of the notary's passionate character would not do, with such feelings of hatred as had always existed between him and the attorney."

"Oh, we shall soon know all about it!" said the justice, with self-complacency. "I would bring it out of this fellow if he were twice the vagabond he is."

Here the culprit fixed his eye upon Lady Rety, and said, in a threatening tone of voice, "If I am to be dealt with in this way, I'll confess everything."

"Dealt with, you rascal!" said Mr. Skinner; "if you don't speak out the truth freely, the haiduk shall deal his stick across your head!"

"Your ladyship has known me a long time," said Jantshi, in a supplicating tone; "I have always been an industrious and honest man. But the justice treats me like a dog; from behind, the haiduk strikes me; in front, the justice kicks me and pulls my beard; rather than bear it any longer, I don't care who the devil I accuse!"

Lady Rety beckoned Mr. Skinner to the window, where she whispered to him that she thought the culprit was innocent, and that it would be well to treat him leniently: whereupon the justice swore that the Jew was a liar, and that he had treated him as kindly as possible. "These Retys are a strange family; the young ones protect the Bohemians, and the old ones defend the Jews," said the justice to himself. "If things are to go on in this way, there'll be no use for a minister of justice."

By this time the body was removed, and Lady Rety proceeded to the attorney's room, accompanied by the justice. Everything was in the same state as when found by the servants immediately after the murder, with the exception of the bed, which they had covered. The pool of blood on the side of the apartment, with the bloody knife lying beside it, presented an appalling sight on entering the room, and the lady stood for a moment aghast at the threshold. Mr. Rety and the justice remarked her terror, and advised her by all means to go away.

"Do not distress yourselves; it is only a womanly weakness," answered she. "It will soon be over. Mr. Catspaw was our faithful servant, and I cannot bring myself to believe in his untimely end!" And forcing herself forward, as if by a violent effort, she picked her way through the papers and articles lying on the floor, to the drawers; she then went to the box where the attorney kept all his law papers, but was equally unsuccessful in finding the much-desired documents. A few letters lay there, which it will be remembered had been put aside by the attorney before the murder.

Lady Rety was well aware that these letters were only a small part of the Vandory papers, and in hopes to find the remainder, she searched with the greatest care and patience. Still all was in vain; and she began to believe that the attorney had burned the other papers, and only kept these few letters, which, as the perusal of one of them showed her, were sufficient to force the bills from her, when her husband's conversation with Mr. Skinner attracted her attention.

"Exactly as I said!" exclaimed the latter; "the letters which we found on the floor, besmeared with blood, were directed to Tengelyi; and of those two notes there on the table, one is directed to you and the other to Tengelyi. And here I have found at my feet a bill covered with blood. It's in the notary's handwriting: 'Books for Vilma, eight florins; dress for Elizabeth, ten florins,'" said the justice, throwing the bill down with a laugh.

"It cannot be denied," said the sheriff, looking more closely at the bill, "that this is the notary's writing; but how came it here?"

"That could easily be accounted for by the evidence given in the examination."

"Impossible! utterly impossible!" said the sheriff, who happened to be too honest a man to believe Mr. Tengelyi capable of the crime imputed to him. "You surely do not, Mr. Skinner, seriously suspect the notary? You know he is not a favourite of mine; but I assure you he is the last of all my acquaintance whom I should suspect."

Lady Rety, who had attentively listened to this conversation, understood at once the nature of the case. She knew that Catspaw had possession of the papers which had been stolen from Tengelyi's house, and it seemed but natural that some of the documents should have been lost in the hurry and confusion of the scuffle which evidently had preceded Mr. Catspaw's assassination. But what puzzled her was, that some unimportant letters, bearing the notary's address, had been found, and this circumstance drew her suspicions upon Tengelyi, as either the perpetrator of, or accessory to the crime. Her suspicions were confirmed by the fact that no trace of blood was found on Jantshi's hands, face, or clothes. "If," thought she, "Tengelyi has regained possession of his documents, the best way to neutralise them is to accuse him of the murder; for he cannot in that case produce them, without proving his own guilt." Led on by this idea, she protested that the case ought to be strictly examined, and that she was convinced that the Jew was innocent of the murder. "Perhaps," added she, "the rascal meant to steal; but since there are no traces of blood on him, it is utterly impossible for him to have committed the murder. You see the room is full of blood!"

"Examine as much as you like!" said the sheriff, who was so irritated by the thought that the best friend of his youth should be accused, that he forgot his usual politeness to his wife, "Yes, we will examine! I myself will examine, and refute, this very day, the base calumny against Tengelyi!"

"I am astonished at your unusual warmth!" said Lady Rety, with a soft but bitter tone, as she walked with her husband to the cook's room; "you were not wont to defend Mr. Tengelyi in this manner."

"Defend him?" answered the sheriff, firmly. "I think we have done this man a great injustice: he was once my friend; he has lived in my house as part of myself; and, taking all in all, he never did a wrong thing against me, and yet he is the man on whom this horrid crime is sought to be fixed."

Lady Rety saw, from the humour her husband was in, that it was best to say as little as possible on the subject then, and merely remarked that, at present, it was not a charge against Tengelyi, but only a "supposition;" and, for her part, she hoped those suspicions would prove unfounded. Upon this Mr. Rety remarked, dryly, that she would certainly see her wish realised.

Mr. Sherer and Mr. Kenihazy had returned from the inquest, and were walking up and down the room debating on the largeness of the wound, which the surgeon had pronounced to be mortal, because he had heard that a poor Jew had inflicted it; whereas, if a rich man had been supposed to have inflicted it, he would have declared that it was not mortal, and that death had been caused by apoplexy, or some other illness.

The Jew still stood in the same place in the room which he had from the first occupied, with the haiduk by his side, in anxious expectation of the moment when the examination would be adjourned.

Lady Rety summoned all the servants together, and desired them to relate to her, with the greatest care and attention, everything they knew respecting Catspaw's death.

Mrs. Cizmeasz said, in a timid voice, that she could not deny that she fancied she understood the attorney mentioned the name of Tengelyi when the cook questioned him about his murderer; but she supposed it was all a mistake; for that she was a poor silly woman, and never understood any thing properly. The testimony of the butler and boots was much the same, as was indeed the evidence of all the others: they adhered to their former statement, that the attorney shook his head when the Jew was brought; and everybody admitted that a violent quarrel had taken place on the evening of the murder between the attorney and Mr. Tengelyi, and that the notary had driven him out of his house with a stick.

"But the Jew must know all," said the sheriff, who had been walking up and down the room in deep thought. "He was found in the chimney; he cannot deny that; he must at least have heard everything that passed. Rascal!" said he, turning to the culprit, "what did you want there?"

"You came to steal, did you not?" said Lady Rety, with evident emotion; "deny it if you dare! It was for that purpose the false keys were to be used, which were found upon you!"

The Jew, perceiving that suspicion rested on the notary as well as on himself, caught at Lady Rety's hint, and, throwing himself on his knees, confessed that he only came to steal. "Miss Etelka has many precious jewels," said he, entreatingly. "I saw them on her when I was repairing the windows the other day. I am a very poor and unfortunate man; and I thought to myself, if I could get some of them, it would help me. I knew Miss Etelka was not at home, and I tried to steal them. I hope your ladyship will have compassion on me, I will never do so again; I will ever be an honest man from this time."

"Fiddlesticks!" interposed the justice, with a sneer; "I dare say you'd like to be mistaken for a thief; you think that would save your neck: but it won't do! it's too evident that you at least had a part in the murder."

"Oh, I entreat you," cried the Jew, still on his knees, "I am innocent of the murder. Mr. Catspaw said so, for he shook his head when I was brought to him; and how was it possible for a weak man like me to kill a strong man like Mr. Catspaw?"

"Jew!" said Mr. Skinner, sarcastically, "that story won't do; you must find another plea: this is the first time in my life I have heard of Mr. Catspaw's strength."

"And was it likely," continued the Jew, imploringly, "that I should have gone without a weapon if I had any intention of committing murder?"

"We found a large carving-knife in the chimney," interposed the cook.

"I swear I know nothing about it," cried Jantshi; "somebody in the house must have put it there and forgotten to remove it."

"Yes, we know very well it belongs to the house," said the cook; "you stole it the day before yesterday."

"Oh, indeed, Mister Cook, I did not; and was the knife which you saw bloody? And should I not be bloody if I had killed the attorney?"

Here the steward remarked that "Jews were great conjurors. One of their tribe came to the house a day or two ago," continued he, "and made us all sign our names on a piece of paper, and in the twinkling of an eye he made them disappear again. And who knows but what this Jew has learnt the art from him; and all the world knows, that nobody is so expert at getting out blood stains as Jews."

This reasoning of the steward impressed nobody but the servants.

"Considering the quantity of blood the attorney lost," said Lady Rety, "it's quite incomprehensive to me how the murderer should escape without staining his clothes. However," said she, turning to the Jew, "if you did not participate in the actual deed, at least you know everything that passed; you must know the murderer!"

"I heard everything," said Jantshi, sighing; "I heard everything from the beginning to the end, and I shudder still when I think of it!--I wanted to jump out to help the poor man, but I was so frightened; and then I thought, too, if any thing dreadful should happen, and I should be found there; and then I became so frightened that I had no power to move."

"Well, what did you hear?" inquired Lady Rety, encouragingly; "you surely must know whether it was Tengelyi, as the justice suspects, or not? Now sit down and tell us all about it," said she, meeting at the same moment the glance which her husband cast at her when she mentioned Tengelyi.

"If you think," said the sheriff, turning to the Jew, "to exculpate yourself by cunningly involving an innocent man, you shall find yourself mistaken; you may say what you will, the strongest suspicion must always remain attached to you."

The Jew was too cunning to make any reply, and merely said that "he could not tell who the murderer was, as he spoke in a suppressed voice; but," said he, "I heard Tengelyi mentioned several times, and I heard papers demanded, and the murderer took papers away with him; but as I said before, I don't know who he was; those who followed him ought to know."

Ferko, the coachman, who had hitherto been a quiet listener, was now asked to give a circumstantial account of what he knew. There are people who are very eager to do any thing but their duty: Ferko was one of them. When the house was first alarmed by the attorney's assassination, Ferko was the first to leave his stables and to pursue the murderer, accompanied by the servants, who showed no less zeal than himself. But when the pursuit led to a very different result from what he had expected, and when, instead of taking the robber, he followed the track to Tengelyi's house, where he saw the notary, his zeal vanished, and it struck him that not to have seen any thing was by far the most prudent way of managing the matter. Perhaps he suspected the notary; but he was not inclined to endanger his own safety by giving evidence against a man whose rank in life was so far above his own. He resolved to give no evidence against Tengelyi; and as this resolution was unconditionally approved of by his best friend, to wit, by Peti the gipsy, he stated, in reply to the sheriff's questions, that he had pursued the robber to the banks of the Theiss, where he had lost his track. Afterwards, he and his friends had proceeded to the notary to inform him of what had happened.

This account would have been quite satisfactory, but for the evidence of the servant who had accompanied the coachman on his expedition; and who, merely for the sake of varying the lesser features of the evidence, stated that they had picked up a stick on the field, and that the said stick was in the ferryman's possession. That person was called in and examined: the result was, that all the unfavourable circumstances which spoke against Tengelyi were gradually elicited from the trio, in spite of the obstinate defence which they made of the notary's innocence.

"But where is the stick you talk of?" said Mr. Skinner, with evident satisfaction at the turn which the examination took.

"With your worship's permission," replied the ferryman--"that is to say, begging your worship's pardon--that is to say, I hope your worship will excuse me, we found the stick in the middle of the road, on our way from the Theiss to the notary's. We all saw it as it lay on the ground."

"Where is it?" asked Mr. Skinner, sharply.

"Please your worship, I have left it in the kitchen, for I could not presume to come to your worship with a stick."

"Bring it here instantly!" cried the justice. The ferryman left the room, and returned with a black stick with a brass fokosh at the end. Everybody was startled. Mr. Skinner took the stick and showed it to the sheriff, who clasped his hands in utter amazement.

Lady Rety whispered to the clerk, and the cook cried instinctively, "I know that stick! It belongs to the notary."

"You are both to be sworn," said Mr. Skinner to the ferryman and the coachman, "that this is the stick which you found last night." And, turning to the sheriff, he added, "I told you so! The matter is as plain as can be."

"It is clear beyond the possibility of a doubt," said Lady Rety, seizing the fokosh in her turn. "I have always seen that stick with Tengelyi; and here are his initials, 'J. T.' It is shocking!"

"I really don't know," said Rety, with great emotion; "there are many things against Tengelyi, but the impression on my mind is----"

"But consider, sir!" cried Mr. Skinner; "only please to consider! Tengelyi quarrels with Catspaw, and says he'll have his revenge. Catspaw is murdered that very night, and when dying he says that Tengelyi is his murderer. The Jew, who I now believe came merely for the purpose of thieving, hears that Catspaw is asked to give up Tengelyi's papers. The coachman pursues the murderer after the deed. The track is lost for a moment. They find it again, and follow it to the notary's house, whom they see at midnight in his usual dress, covered with dirt and violently agitated. Letters are found in Mr. Catspaw's room addressed to Tengelyi; and, besides, here is the notary's stick! What do you say to that?"

"Nothing!" replied the sheriff, shaking his head; "but all this cannot convince me. I have known Tengelyi these----"

"Indeed!" said Lady Rety, with a sneer. "It strikes me that you and the notary are mighty good friends."

"I am not his friend; but I will never believe him guilty of such a deed."

"I will furnish you with other proofs!" said Mr. Skinner. "I will go at once to his house, and examine him and his family."

"But, sir, have you considered that----" said the sheriff. But his wife interrupted him by telling Skinner to make haste, lest the notary might remove the traces of the crime.

"But Tengelyi is a nobleman!" protested Rety.

"He says he is a nobleman!" put in Lady Rety. "And it has been decided in the Assembly that he is to be treated as not noble, until he proves that he is. Go at once!" added she, turning to Skinner, "for if you were to bring him here, it would create such excitement. After all, he may be innocent."

The justice and his clerk kissed her hand, and left the room. When they were gone, the sheriff seized his wife's hand, saying, "Do you really think Tengelyi is capable of such a deed?"

"And why not?" said she, looking her husband full in the face.

"You know Tengelyi's life, you know his character, his----"

"All I know of him is that he is my enemy!" retorted Lady Rety; "and I shall never forget that, I assure you!" Saying which she left the room.

Rety's heart shrunk within him when the soul of his wife was thus brought before him in all its native ugliness. He shuddered to think that he had hitherto obeyed the dictates of this heartless woman, and he hastened away to protect the notary from the ill-treatment to which he was convinced Mr. Skinner would subject him.

CHAP. II.

Though ignorant of the suspicion which had been cast upon him, Tengelyi passed the night in sorrow and remorse. He was convinced that the deed of blood was done by Viola's hand; and his soul trembled within him as he thought that, instead of preventing the crime, he had actually gone to meet the robber on the banks of the Theiss. He felt degraded and wretched by this strange complicity. After a sleepless night, he rose with the day, and hastened to Vandory, who was still in happy ignorance of what had happened.

"Shocking!" cried the curate, when Tengelyi had finished his narrative of the late events: "to think that he should be summoned to appear before God in the very midst of his sins, and without having one moment left for repentance!"

"Shocking, indeed!" said the notary; "but is not mine the fault? Am I not a partner in this crime? I all but knew that Catspaw had possession of my papers. I ought to have known that Viola could not wrest them from him without taking his life. And what did I do? Instead of preventing the deed, I obeyed the summons of the outlaw. I waited for him, to receive the booty from hands reeking with the blood of his victim!"

"Viola's deed is horrible. I understand your feelings. But, tell me, what could you have done to prevent him?"

"My duty. I ought to have informed against him. I ought to have arrested him."

"No," said Vandory. "How could you think of arresting a man who relies upon your honour? Besides, to arrest Viola, means to deliver him up to the hangman."

Tengelyi was about to reply, when the Liptaka rushed into the room.

"Mr. Tengelyi, sir! For God's sake, do come home! Do, sir!" cried the old woman.

"What is the matter?" asked Vandory and Tengelyi at once; for the manner of the Liptaka impressed them with the idea that some accident of a fearful nature must have happened.

"Oh, gracious! The justice and the clerk!" gasped the Liptaka.

"Do tell us, good woman; what _has_ happened?" said Vandory. "Why should not the justice come to the notary's house? Is the event so very extraordinary?"

"Oh, sir! but if you knew what he comes for! He says, the notary--you, Mr. Tengelyi, sir!--have murdered the attorney--confound the fellow!--and he's come with the clerk and the haiduk; and he's at it! He questions everybody in the house."

Though used to misfortune, though prepared to meet injustice at every step, Tengelyi was, for a moment, overwhelmed with grief and amazement.

"This is too bad!" said he, with a tremulous voice. "I was prepared for any misfortune; but I was not prepared to hear myself accused of a crime! Yes; I am not prepared to answer a justice, and to plead in my defence, when the crime laid to my charge is murder!"

"It is impossible!" said Vandory, seizing his hat. "You are mistaken, my good woman. There's some mistake, I'm sure."

"I thought so too, sir," said the Liptaka: "that was my opinion, when the justice told Mrs. Tengelyi that the notary was accused of a heinous crime, and that he came to examine him. I fancied the villain was merely joking; but when they called the maid, and the man, and the neighbours, and examined them severally,--when they did that, sir, I understood that the rascal pretended to believe in what he said. And he would have questioned Mrs. Tengelyi; but she told him she was a nobleman's wife, and was not bound to answer questions. Oh! and the justice,--don't be shocked, sirs!--he said the notary was not a nobleman; and, if she wouldn't reply, he'd make her! Oh! but when he said that, I ran away to call the notary; for it's he that is learned in the law, and he'll make the justice repent his impertinence!"

"You see, the affair is beautifully got up," said Tengelyi, with a bitter smile. "They have robbed me of my proofs of noble descent, and now they are at liberty to do with me as they please."

"But----" said Vandory.

"Come along!" cried the Liptaka. "The sheriff, too, is there! He came when I ran away!"

"Come," said Tengelyi, with increased bitterness. "Come; we are safe now. You know my dear friend Rety has come to protect me in my hour of trouble."

Matters were indeed in a sad state in the notary's house. Mrs. Ershebet insisted on her privilege; and nothing could induce her to reply to the questions which the justice put to her; but the whole of the other evidence, which was taken down, went against the notary. The neighbours proved the quarrel, and the forcible expulsion of Mr. Catspaw from his house; and one of them quoted Tengelyi's words, that the fellow (viz., Mr. Catspaw) should die from his hands. The maid deposed that her master had left the house late at night; the stick was at once identified as the notary's property: in short, all the circumstances of the case were so suspicious, that the sheriff, who assisted in the proceedings, and who sought to modify Mr. Skinner's violence, though convinced of Tengelyi's innocence, could not but admit that there was a strong case against the notary.

When Tengelyi entered the room, Mrs. Ershebet rushed up, and embraced him, with sobs and tears.

"Be comforted," said the notary. "This is not our first persecution, nor is it the last. If God be with us, who can prevail against us!"

His grave and dignified manner affected the sheriff; who, walking up, addressed his former friend, and assured him that no persecution was intended by the justice's proceedings.

"Circumstances," said he, "will, at times, force the best of us to clear themselves of suspicion by an explanation of their conduct; and in the present instance, I am sure, nothing can be easier to Mr. Tengelyi."

"I thank you, sir," said the notary, dryly, "and I am sure, if your will had been done, these people would have treated me as they would wish to be treated in a similar case, and, indeed, as any honest man has a right to be treated. Allow me now to ask Mr. Skinner what the circumstances are that have created a suspicion of my having murdered Mr. Catspaw, for I understand that is the charge which they bring against me?"

"We'll satisfy you to your heart's content, sir!" cried the justice, who was in the habit of speaking in the name of the firm. All his professional sayings were delivered under the authority of Skinner and Co. He then proceeded at once to give a clear, and, strange to say, comprehensive summary of the evidence, which he concluded by repeating the chief points of the charge.

"Considering," said he, "that the said Mr. Catspaw was murdered by some person or persons unknown;--considering that no robbery was committed, and that no feasible grounds can be found why anybody should have committed that murder;--considering that the said Tengelyi's hate against the said Catspaw is a matter of vulgar talk and notoriety, in evidence of which we need but adduce the yesterday's scene, in which the said Tengelyi is proved to have threatened to kill the said Catspaw;--considering that the said Catspaw was unjustly and maliciously accused of having possessed himself of certain papers and documents the alleged property of the said Tengelyi, the which circumstance goes far to establish the presumption of an interested motive in the case of the said Tengelyi;--considering that the crime was committed at midnight, at a time when the said Tengelyi, against his usual habits and custom, was from home, and considering that sundry persons who went in pursuit of the robber came to the house of the said Tengelyi, where they found him (_i. e._ the said Tengelyi) in a dress spotted with mud;--and, lastly, considering that certain articles which were found in the room where the crime was committed, and a stick which was picked up on the road which the alleged murderer took, have been identified as belonging to the said Tengelyi, there can be no doubt that there are grave reasons to suspect the said Tengelyi of being guilty of the said murder."

"Well, sir!" continued Mr. Skinner, after delivering this address, which bore a striking resemblance to the preamble of a sentence of a Hungarian court, "Well, sir! what have you to say to this?"

The notary was silent.

"Don't be confused, sir!" said Mr. Skinner; "please to speak the truth, sir. You see our questions are put with the utmost politeness."

"Don't give him an answer!" cried Mrs. Ershebet, passionately. "Thank God, no one has as yet proved that we are not noble! They cannot force you to answer!"

"I _will_ speak!" cried the notary; "I'd reply to the basest of mortals if he were to charge me with so foul a deed!"

"You see, madam, your husband does think us worthy of a reply," said the justice: "don't be afraid; let him speak! I'm sure he'll give us the most satisfactory explanations."

"I can indeed give you the most satisfactory explanations, sir," replied the notary, who, after adverting to the fact that his late suspicions of Mr. Catspaw were now proved to be well founded, proceeded to state the contents of Viola's letter, and the steps which it induced him to take.

Mr. Skinner listened with a sly and incredulous smile.

"But, sir," said he, "how could you endanger your precious life by doing the robber's will? Mind, you say you were unarmed; and we know but too well that you were alone, and at night too! Would any man of sense wish to meet the greatest robber in the county under such circumstances?"

"I never did Viola any harm, and I had not therefore any reason to fear him, when I learnt from his letter that he regarded me with feelings of gratitude; after all, what could I do? I wished to have my papers, and I availed myself of the only opportunity that offered."

"Will you have the goodness to show us that letter?" asked the justice; "I'd like to see the robber's autograph."

"The writer of the letter intreated me to burn it," replied Tengelyi, "and I have burnt it."

"That's a pity! Perhaps you've shown the letter to some one. We want two witnesses, you know!"

"I informed my friend Vandory early this morning."

"Oh! ah! I understand,--yes, early this morning!--about the time when I came to the village and commenced examining the witnesses, eh? Is that all you have to say?"

"No!"

"From your hesitating manner I take it that you knew of the murderer's intentions."

"You have no right, sir," cried Tengelyi, "to construe any of my words in that sense!"

"Sir!" retorted the justice, "it's mere folly to deny the fact. You admit that you had reason to suppose that Mr. Catspaw was possessed of your papers; and, supposing there ever existed a letter of Viola's to you, you must have known that the robber intended to obtain the papers by means of a crime."

"Is this all?--no! more is behind!" continued Mr. Skinner, after a pause. "Your own confession proves that you were not only privy to the murder, but that you acted the part of one who stimulates and instigates the murderer. It is quite clear that Viola had no interest in the papers, nor would he have risked his life for them unless an artificial interest was created in his mind. And whose advantage did that artificial interest tend to? whose interests did it serve to promote?--Yours, and only yours!"

Tengelyi would have answered; but Mr. Skinner continued, with great pathos:

"And who is it that is guilty of so heinous a crime?--a notary! a man whose duty it is to prosecute the breakers of the law, and who imposes upon the county and the sheriff by making his house a den for thieves and robbers! This case," added Mr. Skinner, turning to Kenihazy, "is beyond our jurisdiction. It is our duty to send the prisoner to the county gaol, to prevent his being liberated by Viola and his other comrades."

The sheriff, who watched the case with great interest, interposed, and offered to be bail for the notary's appearance; but Mr. Skinner thought he had shown his respect to Mr. Rety more than sufficiently by eschewing the low abuse and the curses with which it was his habit to give vent to his feelings on similar occasions. He refused to accept bail; "For," said he, "I would not accept it even if Mr. Tengelyi's nobility had never been doubted; the privilege of nobility cannot protect a man in the present case. The associates of robbers----"

"How dare you call _me_ an associate of robbers?" exclaimed Tengelyi, his fury getting the better of his discretion; "How dare you, sir? You, of whom it is known that you are a receiver of stolen goods!"

What the notary said was, more than any thing else, calculated to wound the feelings of the worthy Mr. Skinner, and a sharper sting was given to the reproach by the fact of its being thrown at the magistrate's head in the presence of the sheriff and of a numerous audience. There certainly had been cases in which the owners of stolen cattle had accidentally found their property in Mr. Skinner's stables; but when, after leaving the place in confusion and dismay, they returned with a witness, the cattle, somehow or other, had disappeared. Accidents of this kind are not the less disagreeable from their not being unheard of; and Mr. Skinner's rage, in the present instance, passed all bounds.

"Do you ask me how I dare to call you an associate of robbers?" cried he. "You'll find, to your cost, that I dare more than that. I'll _treat_ you as an associate of robbers. I'll have you put in irons, sir; for everybody knows that some time ago, when we hunted Viola in the village, the robber found an asylum in your house! Ay, you may stare! And when I wished to search it, your wife had the impertinence to put in a protest!"

"How dare you utter this calumny?" said the notary, with increasing violence. "I sheltered Viola's family because they were in distress; but I never saw the robber. Come, Ershebet; was Viola ever in our house?"

Mrs. Ershebet, who was equally ignorant of what Vilma and the Liptaka did on that occasion, affirmed that Viola had never entered the house; but the justice sneered, and forced the old woman, Liptaka, to repeat the statement which she had made before the court-martial.

"It's but too true, sir," said she. "While they were hunting after Viola in the village, he was hid in the house. I hid him in the back room behind the casks; but neither the notary nor Mrs. Tengelyi was aware of it. And I told the gentlemen of the court that I was too frightened to tell the notary what Viola desired me to tell him, namely, that he ought to look to his papers. Heaven knows but a great misfortune might have been prevented, if I had done as I was bid!"

"I'd be a fool to believe you!" said the justice. "How could you take the robber to the back room unless some one knew of it?"

"Some one did know of it, but neither the notary knew of it, nor his wife, for she was in bed at the time. Miss Vilma and I were sitting up when Viola came to the house. We were sitting up with Susi, when we heard the noise in the street. I went out and found Viola. The place was surrounded, and there was no escape. I knew they'd hang him if they could take him, so I entreated Miss Vilma to allow me to take him in. She was moved to pity, and gave her permission. That's the long and the short of it. If it was wrong to hide him--very well! You may do with me as you please. I am an old woman, and I'm the only criminal in this business."

"Never mind, you old beldame!" cried Mr. Skinner, angrily. "We'll clear our accounts with you one of these fine days. We must now examine Miss Vilma, since it appears that all the inmates of this house are leagued against the law!" and, turning to Mrs. Ershebet, he said, "Call your daughter!"

"Never!" said Mrs. Tengelyi. "My daughter is the betrothed bride of Akosh Rety; who will dare to offend her? To think that my own Vilma should be examined for all the world like a common culprit!" said the good woman: but Tengelyi asked her to fetch her daughter.

"But, my dear Jonas, how can you think----"

"Go to your room and call your daughter!" repeated Tengelyi. "I am convinced that the Liptaka tells an untruth. My daughter has never kept any thing secret from me."

Mrs. Ershebet left the room, and returned with Vilma. The power of beauty is irresistible; even Mr. Skinner, in spite of his innate vulgarity, lost half of his impertinence when Miss Tengelyi appeared before him. He said it was necessary that a few questions should be put to her, but that he was ready to wait, if she thought it inconvenient to answer them now.

"Go on!" said Tengelyi, dryly. "Speak, Vilma. Tell us, is it true that Viola was hid in our house at the time they pursued him through the village?"

"Father!" cried Vilma; and her pale face became suddenly flushed.

"Fear nothing, my love! You've always been my good, my dear child. You were always open and candid. Tell us, now, is it true that Viola was in our house, and with your permission, too?"

Vilma stood silent and trembling. Mr. Skinner pitied her, when he saw the effect the question produced on the poor girl.

"Dearest Vilma, I intreat you to have no fear!" continued Tengelyi. "I know very well it's a vile calumny. I know you would never have done such a thing without my consent, or, at least, without informing me of it after it was done. You see, Vilma, dear, this woman--God knows I do not deserve it at her hands!--tries to clear herself by saying that it was with your permission she hid Viola in my house."

Vilma's fear yielded to the impression that a confession on her part was necessary to justify her old friend. She wept, and confirmed the statements of the Liptaka.

"Pardon me, dearest father!" added she; "I am the cause of this misfortune. I asked the Liptaka to hide Viola in this house, and I asked her to keep the matter secret from you, for I knew you would be angry with us, because they say Viola is a great criminal; though it is but natural that I did my best to save the wretched man from certain death."

"Gammon!" muttered Mr. Skinner. Kenihazy fetched sundry deep sighs; and Rety remarked that he thought Vilma's evidence consistent and credible.

Tengelyi stood lost in speechless agony. Vilma was silent, but the looks which she cast upon her father expressed unutterable despair. Vandory alone broke through the solemn silence; and, seizing the hand of his friend, he entreated him not to yield to his grief.

"Fear nothing!" said Tengelyi, gloomily. "Since I have come to this--since my own daughter tells me the truth only when examined by a judge--since it is so--there is nothing to startle; nothing is left to amaze me! It is enough!" continued he, with a deep sigh, turning to the justice. "Let us make an end of it. You know all you can wish to know. You know that everything speaks against me. I see no reason why you should trouble yourself any more with me. Give me two hours' time to arrange my affairs, and, if you please, have my house watched in the meantime."

"Of course, if _you_ have said all you have to say, there is no reason for further ceremony. I'll have the carriage ready in two hours. You had better take all the things you want for your stay in Dustbury, which, I am afraid, will be longer than you seem to anticipate."

"I will accompany him!" cried Mrs. Ershebet, weeping; "I will not leave my husband in his trouble."

"My dear Ershebet," said the notary, "I must insist on your remaining where you are. I am accused, and I must prepare my defence, and for that purpose I ought to be alone."

Mrs. Ershebet wept still more; but Mr. Skinner remarked that he was not sure whether the regulations of the prison would allow the prisoner to communicate with his family. Having said this, he left the room with Kenihazy, thereby conferring a substantial benefit, not only on the notary and his family, but also upon himself, for he had scarcely left the house when Akosh Rety arrived in a state of fearful excitement.

"For God's sake, tell me what _has_ happened?" cried he, as he rushed into the room.

"My dear Akosh!" cried Mrs. Ershebet, taking his hand, "we are lost. Our name is dishonoured. My husband is accused of murder. They are going to take him to the county gaol."

"And I am the cause of my father's ruin!" cried Vilma. "Save him, Akosh; if you ever loved me, save him!" And the wretched girl fell fainting to the ground.

They took her away. The notary looked after them in silence; and, turning to Vandory, said: "Be a father to them when I am gone!"

Rety, the sheriff, though deeply moved, was a silent spectator of this scene; for the cold politeness with which Tengelyi deprecated his interference whenever he attempted to advocate his cause, prevented him from expressing his sympathy. He now came up to the notary and assured him, with a trembling voice, that, come what might, he would use the whole of his influence to extricate his former friend from his present painful position.

"I thank you, sir," said Tengelyi, coldly, as he turned to the speaker. "I must confess I was not aware that we were still honoured by your presence under my roof. I thought you had accompanied Mr. Skinner; for, as I take it, the transaction which excited your interest is now over. Everything is in the best order, and the crime, it appears, is fully brought home to me."

"Tengelyi," said the sheriff, with deep emotion, "do not treat me unjustly. What brought me to this house, was my wish to assist you by my presence, and to induce Skinner to treat you with kindness and moderation."

"If that was your intention," retorted Tengelyi, "it would have been wise not to have used your influence for the election to that post of a man whom the presence of his chief does not prevent from abusing the powers of his office."

The sheriff was confused.

"I will not argue that point with you," said he; "but what I wish to assure you of is, that, however circumstances may speak against you, I still am convinced of your innocence. I assure you, you can rely upon me!"

"Sir!" said the notary, "there was a time when I did place my trust in my friends; but they have since been kind enough to convince me that friendship is far too pure and lofty to descend to this poor world of ours, I shall shortly be called upon to appear before my judges; and if you, sir, think you have strength enough to forget the friendship which you have hitherto shown me, it will give me pleasure to see you on the bench. Pardon me, if I leave you, I have but two hours to myself, and I wish to spend them with my wife and daughter."

And, bowing low to the sheriff, Tengelyi seized Vandory's hand and led him from the room. Rety sighed, and left the house.

CHAP. III.

The notary's position was critical, his future doubtful, and his separation from his family painful in proportion. Tengelyi wanted all his strength of mind to speak words of consolation and hope to his weeping family. The despair of his daughter in particular filled his heart with the deepest, bitterest grief.

"Do not weep, dear girl!" said he, embracing poor Vilma, whose pallid face showed more than her tears what agonies she felt. "You know your father is innocent. Things will clear up, and I shall be allowed to return to you. Won't you be my good, happy girl, when I come back!"

"Oh, father!" cried Vilma, "to think that you should go to prison, to be confined with those wicked people though but for a day, though but for an hour! And to think that I am the cause of it, dear father, it drives me mad!"

"You, my daughter? What makes you think that your confession of Viola having been hid in the house can do any thing to make my case worse than it is?"

"Father!" said she, sadly, "don't talk to me in that way! I am undeserving of your love. Will they not say you were aware of Viola's being in the house, and that you wished to deny it? And even if this were not so, are not all our misfortunes owing to our having taken in Susi and her children? And that was _my_ doing!"

"And since _that_ is the cause of your misfortune," interposed Vandory, "I am sure God will not abandon you in your trials. His ways are indeed unaccountable; but I never heard of a good action having led a man to utter ruin!"

Tengelyi sighed, but Vilma felt comforted; and even Mrs. Ershebet's sobs ceased when the curate told her that this unjust accusation was possibly the means to defeat their enemies, and to lead to the recovery of the documents. The notary added to the comfort of his wife by assuring her that his incarceration was not likely to continue for any length of time, and that Vandory would be their friend and adviser during his absence.

Again Mrs. Ershebet entreated him to allow her and Vilma to accompany him to Dustbury; but the notary felt that he wanted all his strength for the moment in which he must cross the threshold of the prison; and, with Vandory's assistance, he prevailed upon his wife to desist, at least for the present.

"If my captivity were indeed to be of long duration," said he, "I would of course send for you. But in the first days I must devote myself exclusively to an examination of my position, and of my means of defence. Völgyeshy is an honest man. I intend to retain him as my counsel; and Akosh, I know, will find means of informing me how you are going on. Where is Akosh?"

Mrs. Ershebet replied, that he had left the room with the sheriff; and Tengelyi turned to arrange his papers and books, when the young man entered. He looked excited, and his eyes showed traces of tears.

"Have you spoken to your father?" cried Mrs. Ershebet.

"I have!" replied young Rety, with a trembling voice.

"And what does he say?" asked Ershebet and Vandory at once.

"Nothing but what is beautiful and edifying, I assure you!" said Akosh. "He wept; indeed he did! He embraced me! He called me his dear son! He told me he was convinced of Tengelyi's innocence; and his heart bled to think that so honest a man, and his old friend too, should be in such an awkward position; and Heaven knows what he said besides! He pleaded Tengelyi's cause admirably; but the end of it was that he refused to comply with my request. He said that fellow Skinner would not take bail, and he could not force him. In short, he said there was nothing to be done. But then, you know, he told us his _heart_ was bleeding; can we ask for more?"

"I could have told you so!" said Tengelyi, quietly.

"No! no! You could not!" cried Akosh, passionately. "If an angel from heaven had told me that my father would reply to my entreaties in _this_ manner, by Heaven I would not have believed it! Oh! you cannot know how I implored him. I wept! I knelt to him! I reminded him of my poor mother! I told him, if he had ever loved me, if ever he wished to call me his son, if he would not make me curse fate for having made him my father, he should grant me this one, this poor request! And he refused to grant it!"

Vandory felt hurt at the manner in which Akosh spoke of his father. He said:--

"Who knows whether he was not justified in saying that he _could_ not comply with your request?"

But Akosh replied with increased bitterness:--

"Do you really think Skinner would have dared to resist my father if he had insisted on putting in bail for Tengelyi, or, at least, on having him confined in our own house? Oh, indeed, and what was His Excellency, the lord-lieutenant, likely to say to such an infraction of the rules? And perhaps the illustrious Cortes would not be pleased with his protecting the notary! Such are the reasons which induced my father to stifle his better feelings, and to spurn me, his only son, who wept at his feet!"

"Who knows," said Vandory, "how painfully he felt it that he was compelled to refuse you?"

"No matter!" said Akosh. "When I left the house, I saw Kenihazy busy with the carriage. We have not much time left; it were a shame to lose that time in a dispute about my father's character." And, turning to Tengelyi, he added, "Will you allow me to accompany you to Dustbury?"

The notary repeated to him what he had already stated to the other members of his family. He entreated him to bring him news of Mrs. Ershebet and Vilma; "and," added he, with a smile, "to recommend them to your protection is unnecessary!"

"All I wish is, I had a better right to protect them. I wish Vilma were my wife. What my father would not do for his son, he might perhaps be induced to do for the honour of his name."

"I understand you!" said Tengelyi; "but, thank God! I want no protection to prove my innocence. I have nothing I can leave my daughter but an honest name; and until the honour of that name is restored, I cannot consent to your marriage."

Akosh would have replied; but the carriage, which drove up that moment, diverted his thoughts into another channel. Tengelyi embraced his wife and daughter, seized his bunda, and stepped into the carriage, which Rety had sent, to the great vexation of Mr. Skinner, who intended to convey the notary in a peasant's cart. Mr. Kenihazy seated himself beside the prisoner, two haiduks occupied the rumble, and the unfortunate notary thanked heaven when the carriage drove off, and withdrew him from the gaze of his despairing family.

The county gaol at Dustbury was, in those days, free from the prevailing epidemic of philanthropical innovations, which a certain set of political empirics are so zealous in spreading. The ancient national system of Austrio-Hungarian prison discipline was still in full glory; but as coming events cast their shadows before, so this venerable and time-honoured system was every now and then attacked by the maudlin and squeamish sentimentality of modern reformers. Nay more, a committee was appointed to inquire into the condition of the prisons and their inmates in the county of Takshony; and though the keeper of Dustbury gaol allowed each prisoner on the day of the inquest full two pints of brandy; though they were ordered to play at cards, and be merry, the gentlemen of the committee insisted on giving a libellous account of Captain Karvay's mode of treating his prisoners. The established prison discipline suffered a still ruder shock, when, in the gaol of a neighbouring county, no fewer than six prisoners were dull enough to permit their feet to be frozen by the cold; and though the county magistrates gave them the full benefit of their attention, though their feet were amputated with a handsaw, though only one of the patients survived, and though such things were known to have frequently happened without any one being the worse for it, yet (so great is human perversity) a cry of indignation was got up against the worshipful magistrates of the said county, for all the world as if those honourable gentlemen had _made_ the cold.

And besides, at the very time that the prisoners' feet were frozen in the lower gaol, there were no fewer than eighty prisoners confined in one room in the upper part of the building; and these eighty men, though they disagreed and fought on the slightest provocation, were still unanimous in their complaints of excessive heat. This circumstance shows that malicious persons will complain of any thing, if they can but hope to bring their betters into trouble. But the committee of inquiry could not continue for ever, and the cry of indignation became hoarse from its very excess. The new instructions, which government was weak enough to publish during this crisis, were put on the shelf, and Mr. Karvay returned to his Austrio-Hungarian management, of which the excellence was clearly proved by the yearly increasing number of its _pupils_--pupils, we say, for what is a prison but an academy for grown-up boys and girls?

The council-houses in Hungary serve likewise the purposes of county gaols. The council-chambers, the court, and the prison are under one roof. This system has its merits on account of its compactness. The council-houses, which, though not exactly _built_ by the nobility, are built for their exclusive _use_ (always excepting the prisons, of which the nobility leave a small part to the peasantry,) are not only used for quarter sessions and the like; no, they are also made to serve purposes of a more social nature.

The hall, for example, with its green table, resounds in the morning with the shrill tones of Hungarian eloquence, or it is hushed by the gravity (it is well known that this inestimable quality is greatly aided by the smoking of strong tobacco) with which sentences of death are passed, and criminals sent off to instant execution. But whatever want of measure and order a man may detect in the debate of the morning, he will find it brought to its level in the ball of the evening, when a hundred couples move to the sounds of harps and violins. Among the miscellaneous uses to which the county-house is put, one of the most important is that it serves as a place of rendezvous for the assessors and other officials. They meet in every room, and show a wonderful activity in conversation, and a no less wonderful energy in smoking their pipes, which pursuits are notoriously conducive to despatch and accuracy in business. The Hungarian nobility resemble the Romans in more than one respect. That classic people had an innate desire to pass their time in the forum; the Hungarian assessor exults in his council-house. In it he passes his life. It is here he works, eats, smokes, sleeps, and gambles. In the county of Takshony, this laudable custom was of course in a high state of perfection. It is therefore but natural that Mr. Skinner should have left Tengelyi's house only to proceed to the council-house at Dustbury, where he spread the news and surrounded himself with a chosen body of his friends, who, with him, were eagerly looking for the arrival of the prisoner. We find them in the recorder's office, where Mr. Shaskay condoled with the assessor Zatonyi about the depravity of the world; while James Bantornyi, holding the recorder by the button, informed that worthy magistrate of all the forms and observances of the English trial by jury; and an Austrian captain, who spent his half-pay at Dustbury, held forth at the further end of the room, assuring some of the older assessors that this shocking increase of crime was solely owing to the flagitious mildness of the penal laws, a proposition to which his hearers gave their unconditional assent by sundry deep sighs and significant exclamations against the scandalous scarcity of capital executions and the jeopardy into which this ill-advised leniency put the lives and limbs of the well-clad and bean-fed among the Takshony population. Völgyeshy, though generally averse to large assemblies, had joined and indeed scandalised the party, by protesting his conviction of Tengelyi's innocence.

Mr. Kenihazy's arrival, and the news that he had safely conveyed the prisoner to Dustbury, drew the attention of the several groups in the room to the worthy clerk, who gloried in the excitement which his presence produced.

"Heavy roads," said he, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. "Heavy roads, I assure you, gentlemen! I'd never have thought that we should have had so much trouble."

"So he did trouble you!" said Mr. Skinner. "Very well. I thought as much. You are so late, I am sure something came in your way."

"Came in my way with a vengeance!" said Mr. Kenihazy. "Luckily, I had the two haiduks. I could never have done without them."

"What the devil! Did the notary fight? Did they endeavour to rescue him?"

"No! not exactly!" said Mr. Kenihazy, reluctantly; for the general interest these questions excited made him loth to disappoint his audience, "we fell asleep on the road. They are doing something to the bridges. We were forced to leave the dyke. The carriage was almost swamped in the mud; and, as I told you, if the haiduks had not been with me, and if I and the notary had not put our shoulders to the wheels, bless me, we shouldn't have been here till to-morrow morning; in which case the brigand would have attempted to rob me of my prisoner. But I'd like to have seen them, that's all!" added he, shaking his fist; "I'd have taught them manners, dirty knaves as they are!"

This explanation of Mr. Kenihazy's late arrival was far too commonplace to satisfy the worshipful gentlemen; but still the principal interest remained concentrated on Tengelyi, and half-a-dozen voices asked at once:

"How did the notary behave?"

"What did he say?"

"Did he make any ill-natured remarks?"

"He did not do any thing," replied Mr. Kenihazy; "how could he? since the sheriff ordered me to treat him with the greatest leniency!"

Everybody was astonished, and the recorder exclaimed:

"Are you sure that the sheriff gave such an order?"

"Of course he did. I never saw him more energetic in my life than when he told me that he was convinced of Mr. Tengelyi's innocence--yes, innocence was the word!--and that we ought to avoid any thing which could possibly make his position more painful."

"Strange!" cried Shaskay, shaking his head.

"_I_ thought it strange; but as the sheriff told me that to offend the prisoner was as much as an offence to himself----"

"It's quite natural! quite! you know," cried Mr. Skinner, when he saw and cursed his clerk for the effect which those words had on the company, but particularly on the recorder. "It's quite natural, you know. His son is in love with the notary's daughter; and now that Tengelyi has got himself into trouble, the sheriff must do something in the way of taking his part, for there is no saying what that hot-headed fellow Akosh would not do. But _I_ am the man who knows the sheriff's real sentiments. Lady Rety told me to use all due diligence and severity in the trial of the offender, who has murdered her most faithful servant; and we know, gentlemen, that the sheriff never differs in opinion with his lady."

"If that is the case, I have been wrong in what I did," said Mr. Kenihazy, scratching his head; "after what the sheriff told me, I did not even offer to bind his hands and feet--indeed, I have treated him with great politeness. I wanted to converse with him, but he made no reply to what I said."

"Conscience! it's all conscience!" groaned Mr. Shaskay.

"That's what I thought when he refused to smoke a pipe, though I offered it over and over again."

"You might have let it alone, sir," said Mr. Zatonyi, with great severity. "In your relations with prisoners, your behaviour ought to be dignified, grave, and majestic: to show them that there is some difference between you and a vagabond."

"Never mind, Bandi," said Mr. Skinner, when he saw that his clerk smarted under the reproof, "never mind; you're over polite, you know. Tell them to send the prisoner up. We'll be grave enough, I warrant you!"

Mr. Kenihazy left the room; and a few minutes afterwards Tengelyi entered with an escort of four haiduks. Völgyeshy accompanied him. That gentleman had left the company, when he heard of the notary's arrival: he had gone to confer with him. The notary's face was serious, and his behaviour had that dignity, gravity, and majesty which the assessor advised Kenihazy to practise in his relations with culprits.

"How devilishly proud the fellow is!" whispered Mr. Skinner to Mr. Zatonyi: "but never mind; we'll get it out of him in no time."

"So we would if the sheriff did not protect him!" sighed Zatonyi.

The formal surrender of the prisoner was made, and Tengelyi expected every moment that they would take him to his prison; when Captain Karvay asked the recorder what kind of a chain the notary was to have.

Simple as this question was, it seemed to puzzle the magistrate, who was at length heard to say, that it would be better to wait for the sheriff's arrival, before any thing was decided on the point.

"Nonsense!" cried Mr. Skinner; "give him a chain of eight or ten pounds, and have done with it."

Before the recorder could make an answer, Völgyeshy interfered, saying, "that to chain the prisoner was useless and therefore illegal. No attempt had been made to escape."

"It strikes me," said Zatonyi, "that Mr. Völgyeshy is the advocate of every criminal."

"No, not of every one," replied Völgyeshy; "but I am proud to plead the cause of those of whose innocence I am convinced; and it is for this reason I have asked Mr. Tengelyi to put his case into my hands."

"Have we then the honour of seeing in you the advocate of Tengelyi?" said Mr. Skinner, with a sneer.

"_Desperatarum causarum advocatus!_" whispered Zatonyi. "If Viola had not escaped, you might have seen a practical illustration of the results of your defence."

"Whatever result my pleadings may have, does not depend upon me," retorted Völgyeshy. "All I say is, that I mean to do my duty to my client, and I know that our respected sheriff will take my part against you."

These last words told upon the recorder; and, after a short consultation, it was resolved to lock the notary up without chaining him.

Messrs. Karvay and Skinner were utterly disgusted with this resolution. The gallant captain complained of the unfairness of the court, who made him responsible for the safe keeping of the prisoner, and who yet refused to sanction the necessary measures of precaution. But a sheriff's influence is great, particularly immediately after the election; and all Mr. Karvay gained by his demurrer was a hint from Shaskay, to the effect that it was far easier to keep a prisoner in gaol than to confine certain people to the field of battle; and the homeric laughter which followed this sally drowned his voice, when he rejoined that great caution ought to be used with any deposits in a council-house, since certain monies, though wanting feet and though kept in irons, had been known to vanish under the hands of certain people. This brilliant repartee was utterly lost, and nothing was left to the gallant gentleman but to protest that it was not his fault, if he was unable to obey the sheriff's orders respecting the treatment of the prisoner; for since they would not allow him to chain the notary, his only way was to put him into the vaults.

This proposal filled the mind of Völgyeshy with horror, not indeed because the vaults of the Dustbury prison have any resemblance to those mediæval chambers of horror which the managers of provincial theatres expose to the horrified gaze of a sentimental public. No! The cellars of the Dustbury prison, though by no means eligible residences, were not half so bad as the most comfortable of the lath and canvass dungeons to which we have alluded. The door of these vaults, which opened into the yard, led you to twelve steps, and by means of these into a passage, lined with a score or so of barred doors. The whole arrangement was simple, safe, and useful. There are none of the paraphernalia of a romantic keep, no iron hooks, no trap-doors, no water-jars; on the contrary, if the prisoners have any money, they can get wine and brandy, and as much as they like, too. The Dustbury prisons are strangers to the nervous tread of pale and haggard men. It is true that the number of prisoners prevents walking; but there is a deal of merry society; there is smoking, idleness, swearing, singing, in short, there is all a Hungarian can desire. This shows that the lower prisons of Dustbury are very satisfactory places, at least for those for whom they were built. There were, indeed, some witnesses and a few culprits, who, though uninured to prison life and averse to its gaieties, were compelled to a protracted stay in these places, and who had the presumption to complain. But of what? Of nothing at all! there was no reason to fear that the gaoler would let them die of thirst, for on rainy days there was an abundant supply of water, which came in by the windows, and which was retained in its own reservoir on the floor of the prison. But they complained of the badness of the air, (and indeed the air _was_ bad, at least it seemed so to those who were not used to it), which might perhaps have been the cause of the prevalence of scurvy and typhus fever.

Such places are unquestionably very disagreeable, for the prevailing prejudice forces magistrates and guardians to dispense medicines to each of the sick prisoners. And medicines are fearfully expensive! But this motive was scarcely powerful enough to induce the Cortes of the county of Takshony to build new prisons; for the gentlemen of the sessions adopted certain remedial measures against long druggists' bills. The prisoners were treated by a homoeopathic practitioner, and this measure reduced the charge for medicines to a very low figure indeed. The construction of a new prison cannot therefore be ascribed to pecuniary motives. No! it was simply owing to the impossibility of confining more than a certain number of people within a prison of certain dimensions; and though one half of the culprits were always allowed to go at large on bail, yet the county was at length compelled to provide for the accommodation of a greater number of its erring sons. The new prison was built on the best plan, and fitted with all modern improvements. It contained eight good-sized rooms and a hall. Each of the eight rooms was inhabited by from twenty-five to forty, and the hall by from fifty to eighty prisoners. But, strange to say, the sanitary condition of the inmates of the new prison was as bad as that of the sojourners in the old vaults, and this extraordinary circumstance fully justified the opinion of some of the older assessors, that the frequency and virulence of disease had nothing whatever to do with the locality.

Such was the state of the gaol in which the people of Takshony confined above five hundred prisoners; and it is therefore but natural that Völgyeshy should shudder at the thought of Tengelyi being confined in the same room with the other criminals. Four small rooms were set apart for the reception of prisoners of a better class; and Völgyeshy insisted on his client's right to have one of those rooms.

"What next?" cried Zatonyi, laughing. "Did I ever! A village notary and a private room in a prison! It's too good, you know!"

"I say!" cried Mr. James Bantornyi; "Mr. Völgyeshy is right! Every prisoner ought to be locked up by himself, that's what the English call solitary confinement: each cell has got a bed, a wooden chair, a table to do your work on, and a Bible, or a crucifix if you are a Catholic. It's the best plan I ever heard of! I've seen it in England. Did any of you ever read the second report? I mean the Second Report on Prison Discipline?"

"Nonsense! I wish you'd hold your peace with your English tom-fooleries!" said Zatonyi. "We are in Hungary, sir!"

"But I say," rejoined James, "there is not a severer punishment than solitary confinement. Auburni's system, of which I saw the working at Bridewell, is nothing compared to it!"

"Of course! of course!" laughed Zatonyi; "you'll come to advise us to give our prisoners coffee, and sugar, and rice, as I understand people do in America. But now tell me, how can you confine each prisoner by himself, when there are five hundred prisoners and thirty-three wards? There's no room, my dear fellow; that's all."

"And why is there no room?" cried the Austrian captain, passionately. "Because, instead of hanging people, as our fathers did before us, we go to the expense of locking them up for so many months or years. If I had my way, I'd make room for you! Fifty stripes and the gallows! There's a cure for you; and all the rest is d--d nonsense!"

"I should have no objection to Tengelyi's having a separate room," said the recorder; "but really there is none. The four cells which are set apart for solitary confinement are taken."

"Then there _are_ some rooms devoted to that purpose, are there?" cried Mr. James Bantornyi, eagerly. "Oh, very well! Did I not always tell you we'd come to imitate England? Solitary confinement is introduced for four prisoners! A beginning being once made, I have no doubt but the rest will follow."

"You are right!" said the recorder, in a mortal fear lest it should be his lot to have a description of the Milbank prison. "But, after all, who can help that we have but four rooms, and that they are all taken?"

"Taken? By whom are they taken?" inquired Mr. James, who took a praiseworthy interest in prisons and their inmates.

"One of them is retained by the baron," said Captain Karvay. "It's now three years since the poor gentleman was sent to prison, and I'll swear to it he's innocent."

"Is he indeed?"

"Nothing more certain!" said the gallant captain. "He's a capital fellow, but a little violent, you know: and it may have happened that he has ordered his servant to beat a man; indeed, I don't know, but perhaps he did it himself. It's what everybody does, you know, and nobody minds it. But the baron had ill luck. Thirty years ago, he knocked one of his servants on the head, and the fellow died in consequence of the blow. A prosecution was commenced and carried on, and while it was being carried on it was all but forgotten; when, as ill luck would have it, the poor baron chanced to get himself into a fresh scrape. He is fond of his garden. The peasants stole his fruit and flowers. So he swore the first whom he could lay his hand on should have forty stripes. It was a vow, you know. And what happened? The very next morning a young chap was caught stealing cherries. Of course the baron could not think of breaking his vow. The young fellow was not quite ten years of age; he could not stand forty blows, and he died before the thing was fairly over. There was another row, and the county magistrates could not but sentence the baron to be confined for six months; the upper court cancelled the judgment, and gave the poor man four years! Only fancy! and he's seventy years old. It's an atrocious cruelty, you know, to send such a man to prison, and for four years too!"

"Yes, I remember," said James Bantornyi. "I heard it talked about when I returned from England. But I thought he had got over it. Some time ago I saw him on his estate."

"Why," replied the recorder, "if we were not to give him a run now and then, his manager would play the devil with his crops and cattle."

"The second room," continued the captain, "is inhabited by an attorney: he was sent here for forgery. And in the third room lives an engineer, who is likewise accused of forging bank-notes."

"And did it ever strike you," asked Mr. James, with great anxiety; "did it ever strike you that solitary confinement exerts a salutary influence on the prisoners?"

"It certainly does. Ever since the baron has lived with us, he's grown fat; he never complains of any thing except of his ill luck at cards, and that he cannot get any wine which is strong enough for him. He's blunted, you know."

"Wine and cards are not fit agents to carry out the purposes of solitary confinement: but, after all, the English too have, of late, relaxed the former rigour of their system. But how do the others go on?"

"The attorney acts as middleman between the borrowers and lenders of money, and the engineer is always writing and sketching. I suppose you saw his last _quodlibet_ with the sheriff's portrait, and the autographs of all the magistrates, and with a few bank-notes mixed up with them. It was remarkably well done, especially the notes."

"Capital!" said James. "Occupation is the life of prison discipline. It improves the criminals, you know."

Völgyeshy, who had scarcely kept his impatience within bounds, interrupted this conversation.

"One of the cells is untenanted," said he; "why don't you put Tengelyi in that?"

"Impossible!" said the captain, dryly. "The worshipful magistrates have resolved that one of the rooms must be kept empty, to provide for an emergency."

"But is not this an emergency?" asked Völgyeshy.

"I don't care whether it is or not!" said the captain, twisting his moustache. "All I say is, that the worshipful magistrates have instructed me to keep that room empty. I have my orders, sir. Besides, we cannot put the notary into that room to please anybody; for Lady Rety has used it as a larder these three years, and she keeps the key."

Still Völgyeshy persisted; but the recorder interfered, saying, that the mildness which the sheriff had recommended could not, by any means, be carried to the bursting open and disarranging the larder of the sheriff's wife. And when Völgyeshy told them that, at least, an arrangement might be made by confining two of the three prisoners in one room, and assigning one of their cells to his client, his proposal excited a violent storm of indignation.

"I wish you may get it!" cried Captain Karvay. "I wonder what the baron would say if I were to force somebody upon him! And I don't know what he would say if I were to tell him it was to make room for a village notary."

But the decision of the affair was, as usual, brought about by Mr. Skinner's energy. That great lawyer protested that he could not think of fighting or squabbling for such a self-evident point; that Mr. Völgyeshy had a right to defend the notary as much as he pleased; but that the worshipful magistrates had an equal right not to care for Mr. Völgyeshy or his defence.

The matter being thus settled to the satisfaction of all but the notary's counsel, the recorder said to Karvay: "But you'll put him somewhere where the crowd is not too great!"

"Of course. I'll send him to No. 20.,--as sweet a room as you'd like to see, and with but five people in it. There's the old receiver; a murderer; a man confined for horse-stealing; and two children convicted of arson."

"Very good," said the recorder. "Whatever he wants, he must have; for the sheriff wishes us to treat him kindly."

With a heavy heart did Völgyeshy follow the captain to the hall, where Tengelyi was awaiting the close of the discussion.

"It's rather strange that they should leave me without chains," said the notary, as they descended the steps to the vaults. "I am in the power of these people; and, I assure you, they'll give me a taste of what they can do."

"I'll make an end of it!" cried the advocate. "I'll go and talk to the sheriff. He cannot mean----"

"He does not mean any thing!" said Tengelyi, with bitterness. "It's a pity that you should trouble yourself; not only because you'll lose your labour, but also because, in my position, a man gets blunted to smaller sufferings."

"But the additional straw which----"

"I am no camel, my dear sir.--Stop here. I will not allow you to accompany me farther." And, turning round, the notary followed his gaoler.

Völgyeshy left the place sadly and reluctantly. At some distance from the council-house he met Kalman Kishlaki, who had just come from Tissaret to inquire for Tengelyi. The news of the notary's confinement in the vaults struck young Kishlaki with angry surprise. He hastened to the place where he had left his horse; and, without giving the poor beast time to rest, he rode back to Tissaret to appeal to Akosh, and, through him, to the sheriff.

CHAP. IV.

The last rays of the setting sun shed their brightness on the roofs of Dustbury, when Tengelyi entered his prison. As he paused on the fatal threshold, his heart ached within him, to think that this was his farewell to the free light and air of heaven. The prison was dark. The dirty panes of glass in the windows, the rough paper which, pasted over the frames, supplied the want of them in more than one place, added to strong bars of iron which protected the windows, created a dim twilight even in the midst of the gladness and brightness of day; but to those who entered the place in the afternoon, as Tengelyi did, it appeared as dark as night, until their eyes became accustomed to the darkness. This circumstance, and the murky and fetid air which he breathed, unnerved Tengelyi so much, that he paid no attention to the words of comfort which the turnkey addressed to him. That meritorious functionary, who gloried in the military rank of a corporal, considered every new prisoner in the light of a fresh source of income to himself; and his politeness to the notary was not only unbounded, but even troublesome. He bustled about the prison; selected the most comfortable place for the new comer; deposited the notary's luggage in what he called a snug corner; and exhorted the other prisoners, rather energetically, to be civil and polite to their guest. He asked Tengelyi whether he had any commands for the night. The notary asked for some bedding.

"We'll find it for you," said the corporal. "Of course I must borrow it from some other man; and I don't know what he'll want for it a day; but if you'll pay the damage, we'll find it for you, that's all."

Upon the notary declaring that he was willing to do so, the corporal continued: "We find you every thing for your money. You can have meat, brandy, wine, whatever you like, if you've got some money. I say," added he, in an under tone; "it would make matters pleasant if you were to send for a drop for these chaps. When they get a new companion, they want to drink his health, you know; and these here fellows are dreadfully put out, because they've been disturbed in their places. You ought to make things pleasant, you know; for they _will_ be mischievous unless you do."

The notary declared his readiness to "make things pleasant," as the corporal called it.

"I say!" cried that person; "this gentleman is a real gentleman, and nothing but a gentleman. He means to give you wine and brandy to drink his health in; so don't trouble him!"

Saying which, and while several voices expressed their joy, the corporal left the cell and locked the door. Tengelyi sat down on his luggage, and leaning his face on his hand, he gave himself up to his gloomy thoughts; but he had scarcely done so, when a voice from the other side of the place disturbed him.

"Don't be sad, comrade!" croaked the voice. "This cursed cellar is awfully cold. If you're once sad, you're done for!"

The place was so dark that Tengelyi could not distinguish the speaker's form; but the cracked voice, and the gasping and coughing of the man, showed him to be old and decrepit.

"What's the use of being mum?" continued the voice. "Take it easy! People who live together ought to be cronies! Besides, we are much better off here than you or anybody would think--ain't we, boys?"

"Yes! yes!" replied two voices, which evidently proceeded from a man and a boy.

"We're snug and comfortable! There are some drawbacks, you know. My poor Imri here has a whipping on every quarter day, and Pishta is going to lose his head--that's all. It's a bore, you know."

"What the devil makes you talk of it?" said the man's voice, trembling.

"Never you mind! Who knows but you'll get off for all that? Why, you were not even twenty when you did for that Slowak; by the same token, you were a jackass to kill that fellow of all others for the miserable booty of ninepence which you found in his pockets. As for me, I've twice been under sentence of death, and you see I'm none the worse for it. But if they _will_ chop your head off, why, it's some comfort to think that they hanged your father before you. Never mind, boy, you're as likely to dance on my grave as I am on yours! When a man has lived up to ninety-three years----"

"Three and ninety years!" sighed the notary, with a shudder.

"Three and ninety years!" continued the old man, with his usual cough. "It's a good old age, you know; and fifty-four years of that time I've lived in gaol, and I'm none the worse for it; if the Lord keeps me alive, they'll discharge me on St. Stephen's day that's coming."

"Fifty-four years?" cried the notary.

"Ay! it's a good long time, ain't it? I've been in gaol for stealing horses and other cattle, and I was a party to a murder. Twice they locked me up for arson, but, d--n me, I had no hand in it in either case; and this time I'm caged because people _will_ have it that I was the head man in the Pasht robbery--you know three men happened to be killed on the occasion. Never mind, I'm to be a free man on St. Stephen's day; and, after all, though _I_ say it who should not, their worships were not far out when they brought that business home to me!"

"I say, father, you're an out-and-outer!" said the boyish voice. "Come, tell us of the Jew that lost his life!"

"Tell you, indeed, you abortion!" said the old man. "Don't you hear me coughing. Ask Pishta! he'll tell you how he diddled that Slowak."

"D--n Pishta! he doesn't tell stories half so well as you do, father; it gives one an appetite for the business to hear you."

"Never mind, lad! you'll have your share of it, I warrant you!" laughed the old man. "The devil shall take me by ounces, if you don't kill a man before you've got a beard to your chin."

"I'll kill any one! I'll drink blood! Let me once get out of this place, and you'll see!"

"Will you, indeed! You'll get the shakes before you do it, my boy."

"Drat the shakes! I'd wish you to see me at work. I'm not the coward I was when they brought me here. Wasn't I a fine fellow, father? A knife made me _funky_. But your fine stories have set me up. I can't help dreaming of the old Jew whom they hanged in the forest. Let me once get an axe in my hand! I shan't use it for woodcutting, that's all."

"Bravo!" cried the old man. "You're a bold fellow, you are! By the bye, what's the other chap about?"

"He's asleep!"

"Is he? then box his ears, and wake him!"

And turning to Tengelyi, he added, "That boy Imri is a whapper, sir; but the other chap's a scurvy rat!"

A loud wailing cry, and the entreaties of the other child, showed that Imri had obeyed his patron's command; and though the notary was resolved not to enter into any conversation with his fellow-prisoners, that cry of pain overcame his resolution.

"Why don't you let the poor boy sleep?" said he.

"You leave my children alone, sir!" said the old robber, rather fiercely. "They ought to fight. It does them good, you know. Makes them hard, sir, as hard as nails! That little fellow, Imri, is a whapper, sir. That boy'll do me honour, that boy will; but that sleepy cove in the corner will never come to any thing. I've given them a year's schooling, sir, and that's why I ought to know them."

"You would do better to think of your death-bed, old man. You are driving these children to ruin."

"Ruin be d--d! I'll make men of them. I'll give them reason to be grateful to their worships for locking them up with me. I'll give them a bit of education, you know."

At this moment the turnkey opened the outer gate of the prison, and brought a large lamp, which he placed in the hall, so as to economise its light for three of the cells. The reddish glare of the lamp showed the notary the place to which his misfortune, and the malice of his enemies, had brought him. It was a perfect hell of sweating walls, half-rotten straw, filth, chains, and iron bars. The old prisoner, to whom Tengelyi had spoken, squatted in a corner, with his head leaning on his knees, so as to conceal his features. But in the intervals of the conversation, he raised his head, and showed a countenance on which the crimes of nearly a century had set their mark. His was one of those faces which, once seen, are always remembered, and the very turnkey felt some awe when he approached him. His white beard, which covered the lower half of his face, the thin long silvery locks which descended to his shoulders, and his sunken eyes and temples, showed that he had reached an age which few men attain, and the sight of which is wont to fill us with respect, or at least with pity. It was not so in the case of this man. The keen look of his eyes under his bushy eyebrows impressed you with a conviction that this patriarch of the prison, though he might want the power, did not lack the will to commit any crime; and when his trembling and shrivelled hands were stretched forth towards you, it was not pity, but a feeling of comfort you had in thinking, that these hands had lost the strength to grasp the dagger or aim the blow.

At the old man's feet lay a boy of fourteen, with a withered and oldish face. His cheeks were pale, his forehead wrinkled, and his eyes dull and glazed, except when the old man called him by his name, or stroked his hair with a trembling hand. It was then that some feeling was expressed in that haggard face. It was then that the boy's eyes gleamed in wild exultation. It was the yearning of the human heart for kindness, and its gratitude even to the depraved. The other boy, whose wailings induced Tengelyi to speak, had crept up to the iron railings of the door, and there he stood gazing at the light of the lamp. When the flame burnt clear and bright, the boy clapped his hands and laughed; but when it burnt low, he said he was sure the lamp was neglected, and that it would go out, as it did the other day.

"If I could but creep through the bars!" sighed he. "If they'd only let me trim it! I'd give it a large wick and plenty of oil; and I'd make it burn with a red flame, and a yellow flame, and a blue flame! Look, look! what a bright jet of fire! Grow! grow little flame! rise to the house-top, and shine over the town and warm it! Oh, see how splendid!" And the poor lad pressed his glowing face to the iron bars. "Oh! if they'd but let me touch it!"

"It's no go, my boy!" cried the young murderer from the furthest corner of the cell; "they won't allow you to set the prison on fire, as you did the other day. Get away from the bars, you little rascal; if you don't, I'll drag you away by the hair!"

"Bravo, Pishta! Give it him!" said the old man; "he all but killed us with his smoke. You see he's mad!"

Pishta got up and seized the boy; but Tengelyi interfered, and asked how the child could have set the prison on fire.

"That boy! There never was such a boy! He used to ask me by the hour for my steel and flint; and when he once had it, there was no getting it away from him. He would strike fire, and when he made the sparks fly he laughed and screamed like mad. And one night he prigged a piece of tinder and lighted it, and put it in the old cove's straw."

"Pull his ears for him, Pishta!" cried the old man. Even Tengelyi's interference would not have saved the lad from being beaten, had not the appearance of the turnkey, with some bottles of wine and brandy, engaged the attention of the prisoners.

"Give us the brandy, Imri; and I say, Pishta, take a bottle and let that nasty toad alone, since the man who treats us wishes to protect him. Let him stare at the flame to the end of time; only look sharp that he doesn't claw your tinder. Will you not take a drop, sir?" added the old man, addressing Tengelyi. The notary's refusal astonished him quite as much as the cleanliness and neatness of his dress and appearance.

"If you don't care, I'm sure _I_ don't!" said he; and, turning to his comrades, he added, in a whisper: "Leave him alone, for after all he pays for our brandy. To-morrow morning we'll make him send for some more. He's our cellar, you know! Drink, Imri, my boy! Stick to the brandy. You look rather queer about the eyes; but never mind, you'll get used to it, and you're a whapper for all that."

Thanks to the old man's calculations on his future generosity, Tengelyi was left to his reflections. The prison presented a scene of uproarious hilarity, which, at length subsiding, gave place to the deep and heavy breathing of its drunken inmates, when the door again opened and admitted a man, who, laying a mattress, a pillow, and a blanket at Tengelyi's feet, introduced himself as Gatzi the Vagabond, a former inmate of the cell, though at present a kitchen prisoner[29] of the recorder's. Having thus informed Mr. Tengelyi of his state and station, both in the world and in the prison of Dustbury, he produced a small basket with eatables, adding that they were sent by Mr. Völgyeshy, who wished the notary to be patient, for that he was sure to have his own private room next day. "And," added Gatzi, "I'll make you a bed fit for a king to sleep on. I've just made the recorder's bed, and he is particular, you know."

[Footnote 29: See Note I.]

Tengelyi, who had not broken his fast since the previous day, took some meat and bread, and invited the new comer to fall to.

"Thank you!" said Gatzi the Vagabond. "I've eaten as much as I can eat. The recorder had no end of things for supper. I waited at table, and minded my own business, I can assure you. But you don't take any wine! I hope it's good; and it's I myself fetched it at the inn, and the landlord knows he can't do me, for if he did I'd go to the Lion next time, that's all."

"Try it!" said Tengelyi. "As for me, I do not mean to take any."

"I humbly thank you!" said the prisoner, seizing the bottle. "Ah, well-a-day, what wine! Bless me, if you'd give me such wine every day, I'd never wish to leave this place."

"It strikes me you are pretty well reconciled to your captivity."

"Oh I'm far more comfortable than I might be. I've been a servant ever since I was a boy; and now I'm a kitchen-prisoner. Dear me! there's no difference between the two; and when the weather's bad, and I sit by the kitchen-fire thinking how they used to set me to work, both in winter and in summer, it strikes me that I'm better off than I ever was. I've got plenty to eat, a warm jacket, and a few kreutzers now and then for an extra service. The haiduks don't bully me--in short, it's the very place for a poor fellow like myself."

"But what of liberty? Would you not like to be free and unfettered?"

"These chains of mine _are_ troublesome; yes, so they are, especially when I've to change my boots. You can't believe how awkward they are at times, though they are lighter than any in the place. But, after all, who knows when they take them off but that I must carry heavier loads to gain my bread? And as for liberty, why you see, sir, in fine weather, in a starry night, I think it would be a nice thing indeed to be racing over the heath with my fellows; but, after all, liberty's very uncomfortable: a man must work for his bread, you know."

The notary sighed.

"Cheer up, sir!" said the Vagabond, in happy unconsciousness of the real cause of the notary's sigh. "Cheer up, sir! To-morrow you'll have your own room; and since Mr. Völgyeshy's your lawyer, I am sure you'll get through the business, however ugly it may be. The devil himself could not live in this hole among a parcel of blackguards! Would you believe it, sir? there isn't a respectable man among the lot!"

"Society's none of the best in the other cells, I dare say," responded the notary, as he settled down for the night.

"Oh, but it is! It was quite a pleasure to be in the cell I once lived in. They were all men of substance, I assure you, sir, and mighty fine stories they told. There was no end of good stories. There was a woman, too--but this is a place to despair in."

"Then, I presume, this is not your own cell?"

"By no means!" said Gatzi the Vagabond, with great pride. "I'm in the habit of sleeping in the recorder's kitchen, or in the yard, and I've only come down here because Mr. Völgyeshy told me to watch lest something might happen to you, sir."

"What can he mean?"

"Why that old fellow there is fit for any thing in a small way. He's been after one of the boys in such a manner that the poor child has got the epileptics."

The notary shuddered.

"Why do they allow him to have the children in his cell?" cried he.

Gatzi the Vagabond, stretching his limbs in his bunda, replied, with great composure:--

"They say the fellow's so desperately wicked, that whenever a man was locked in his cell, he was sure to commit some horrid crime the moment he came out of prison. As for Pishta, they've put him here because the recorder says he has no chance of living. He'll lose his head to a certainty. And the children are small and weak; what harm can they do when they get out?"

"But what are they in prison for?"

"It's a queer thing altogether!" yawned Gatzi. "There were no end of fires in the village where they come from, and it was found out that half the children in the place had a hand in it; little toads, you know, of from twelve to fourteen. Mr. Völgyeshy says it's a disease; and I dare say he's right, for one of the boys has been a making fires ever since he came here. But, whether it is a disease or not, it didn't matter. The justice had the other boys and girls soundly whipped; and as for these here two, he sent them to gaol because they're orphans. Fine plants they'll come to be. Good night, sir!"

CHAP. V.

There are moments in the life of every votary of the world's splendour and ambition in which, wearied by the obstacles which obstruct his path, and harassed by the petty failures of a thousand wishes, the more ardent because they are unreasonable, he looks back with something like regret on his past career, while the future fills his soul with fear, mingled with disgust. The rewards of ambition are scanty, its labours great. There is profuseness in the promise, there is a niggardly stinginess in the performance. The hour of doubt and sorrow comes for every one; that hour which makes us feel that "the paltry prize is hardly worth the cost." But the man of real ambition, the man of high purposes, who walks the rugged paths of greatness, not because he wishes that the crowd should stare at him, but to satisfy his own ardent mind; not because he longs for command, but because his mind thirsts for freedom,--such a man, even in his darkest hours, will never look back to the past with that intensity of bitterness which the sheriff felt, when, pacing his room, and reviewing his position, he became convinced of the fact that his past career was as false as his present existence was hollow.

His was not an unfeeling heart. In his younger years he was loving, and zealous for the love of others. Moderately accomplished, with a fine property, and a good face and figure, Rety was formed to pass his life in tranquil happiness. But there was something in his character which blasted the fair hopes of his youth. He was weak and vain, and these two qualities spoilt his appetite for the good things with which fortune had so amply provided him. Once removed from his natural sphere, his life was a series of bitter disappointments. His attachment to the friends of his early youth sprang from a desire of praise and friendly conversation. When he entered into practical life, he was equally influenced by the views of his family, and by their advice; and though in the outset he was rather a passive than an active sharer of the high plans of his father, his vanity soon caused him to covet those very distinctions which he for a time pretended to disregard. His first move in that career brought him in opposition to Tengelyi, the friend of his youth. Rety was not insensible to the meanness of the transaction. He did all he could to change his father's purpose. He told him that to treat his friend in this manner would for ever undermine his self-respect. But his father protested that all the hopes of his life were bound up in this one desire; his mother added her entreaties; and the neighbours said there never was so young and so gentlemanly a justice in the county. And when they all protested that Tengelyi had not the least chance of carrying the election, Rety wanted the strength to resist, and all that the nobler feelings of his mind effected was to make him ashamed of himself. He was afraid to meet his friend; and he added to his wrongs by breaking off the acquaintance.

Thus launched into public life, accustomed to the frequent glorifications and distinctions of county life, Rety's innate vanity became of gigantic growth; and when he took his father's place of sheriff, when the Cortes of the Takshony county made him the object of their devotion, he exulted in what he considered his pride of place.

Some people accused him of want of principle. They protested that his habitual dignified reserve was the result of a deep scheme, and that his ambition was of the most insatiate and the boldest kind. They were mistaken. The sheriff was satisfied with his position. All he wished was to be the first man, the beloved and exalted man of the county. His was a modest vanity. His mind did not crave for fame, or for a grand sphere of action. He was satisfied to rise gradually and peaceably, and to be surrounded by an admiring circle of friends. The county of Takshony yielded the fullest satisfaction to these wishes, and the sheriff's aspirations were confined to its borders. It never struck him that it is a disgrace for a man to be the favourite of _all_ parties. But this tranquil enjoyment of petty honours could only last while there was no one near him to disturb it. His distinctions ceased to be grateful to him when new wishes were awakened in his heart. The death of his first wife and his second marriage served to disgust him with his repose upon his laurels.

In the choice of his first wife he had followed his heart; his second alliance was caused by ambition. The woman of his choice had no property; but she was a magnate's daughter, and celebrated for her beauty and her talents. To think of the many that would envy him if he, a widower, were to marry the most beautiful woman in the county, made him happy; and that thought was a solace to him, even when he found to his cost that his wife had other qualities besides beauty and talents. Lady Rety felt uncomfortable in her position as the wife of the sheriff of Takshony. Though her father was poor, he had rich relations, many of whom were high in office; and the uninterrupted correspondence in which she stood with some of the greatest men in Hungary, while it dissatisfied her with her present station, caused her to strain every nerve to raise her husband to a higher rank. From the moment she entered his house, she strove to urge Rety on.

And she succeeded. He had hitherto prided himself on being the first man in the county. She told him that was a small matter indeed. She told him the county of Takshony was not worth living for; that the cheers, the exultations of the crowd were caused by his cellar, and not by his merits. The affability which his office imposed upon him as a duty became perfectly odious to Rety's mind, when his wife convinced him that it was a meanness to bow and smile to the Zatonyis, Skinners, and Kishlakis. She spurred him on; she sneered at him and his county politics, until he felt utterly wretched, demoralised, and contemptible. He yielded, and resolved to aim at higher dignities.

That resolution was the curse of his life. A vain man wants the breath to run a long race: vanity must have applause for each word, and praise for each act. Rety knew that the road to higher things is open to those only who league themselves with one party. And when he left his batlike position, when he joined a party for good, he saw to his horror that there were some people who doubted his excellence; the criticisms of his enemies made him miserable. And when he yielded to the impulse of his ruling passion, when he returned to his undecided position between the hostile factions, their shortlived applause was poisoned by the sneers of his wife. The sheriff's conduct was vacillating and fickle. Nobody could be more painfully conscious of this fact than he himself was.

The part which Lady Rety played in the robbery of Tengelyi's papers was divulged by Viola's confession, and eagerly commented on by the gossips of the county. Those who credited the robber's statement believed too that the sheriff had acted in concert with his wife. But this opinion was erroneous. The sheriff knew nothing of Lady Rety's plans; and, though sensible of the importance of the papers which Vandory possessed, he was too honest, and, indeed, too weak, to consent to any thing like a crime. But when the robbery had been perpetrated, and when his wife informed him of Viola's confession, he asked her with horror whether the robber had spoken the truth. "He has!" replied she, with that boldness which experience told her was wont to awe him into submission. "I have done the thing I am accused of. But why did I do it? It was for the benefit of your family, name, and interests. Will you accuse me? Can you think of producing me in a court of justice? Will you dare to cast dishonour upon your own name? If you do, you effect your own ruin, without convincing any one of your innocence. They accuse you more than me. If you turn against me they will say, it is not because you are innocent, but because you are a knave. The only thing you _can_ do is, to hush the matter up."

Rety was miserable. But there was no alternative; and he chose to become an accessory after the fact. Mr. Catspaw's assassination increased the difficulties of his position. Some papers, of which the property was traced to Tengelyi, were found in Mr. Catspaw's room. So long as Tengelyi was thought to be the murderer, the circumstance of the papers being found might be explained by asserting that the notary had lost them when he committed the crime; but if he could prove his innocence, were not those papers likely to increase the suspicions which the sheriff felt were entertained against him? And was not Tengelyi likely to rest his defence on those very suspicions?

Rety, as is usually the case with weak men, was by no means fond of the person who reigned over him; the coldness of years ripened into hate. He was estranged from his old friends; scorned, and perhaps hated, by his own children; he was exposed to danger and infamy, and all for her sake. He could not pardon his own weakness, but he hated her the more cordially; a feeling which she returned with interest. This distracting position was still heightened by the contents of a letter which the sheriff took up at times, and threw down again, to stamp the floor and ponder on certain points which seemed to move his feelings. That letter, which was in Vandory's handwriting, was to the following purpose:--

"My dear Brother,

"You know that I am not in the habit of using this name too often. I loved it once; but I have dropped it since I saw that it would hurt your interests. I am your brother, but I have never claimed other rights than those your heart gave me; and if I now remind you of the bonds which unite us, it is to recall you from the path which leads to certain ruin.

"Samuel, you are on the brink of an abyss. The very next step you take will decide your fate for ever. If you proceed in your career, you are given over to evil. Your honour, now jeopardised, is irretrievably lost. There are crimes which defy all repentance. Consider, my brother, whether worldly honours and riches can repay you for peace on earth and for the loss of your hopes of heaven!

"There was a time in which you professed friendship for Tengelyi; but let that pass. You thought proper to sacrifice his friendship to the cravings of your ambition. I leave it to your heart to decide whether you were right or wrong. But even if Tengelyi had never been your friend, you ought to feel for his situation. You are convinced of his innocence; you know the circumstances to which he fell a victim; you know the authors of his misfortunes; and you know those who accuse him because they wish to hide their own misdeeds. Will you suffer him to fall a prey to his enemies? Will you plunge his family in misery and ruin? I never thought that I should have to raise my voice in a case in which duty speaks so clearly. I was convinced that you, who bear so great a share in Tengelyi's misfortunes, would strain every nerve to save him. I was mistaken. The entreaties of your own son could not prevail upon you even to alleviate the sorrows of this ruined family. All that is now left to me is to remind you of your promise to me; and, though reluctantly, I must also remind you of the obligations which, according to your own words, you are under to me.

"Yes, Samuel; a review of the past will convince you that I was always a faithful brother to you: that, for your sake, I sacrificed what mankind prize as most high and valuable; and that I have a claim upon your gratitude.

"I was a child when my mother died, but I was old enough to become conscious of the change in my life when our father married for the second time. Your mother was the bane of my childhood. Before she was a mother she hated me, because I reminded her of what she longed for; and when you were born, she feared lest I should share our father's property with you. Everybody pitied me, and there were some people who wished me to hate you. But I loved you. I loved to embrace you; to hear you speak, and to teach you my childish games. I was neglected, hated, and persecuted; but I had a brother, and I hoped to be happy when he came to be a man. My childhood was so utterly wretched, that my hopes had nothing but the distant future, and the older I grew, the more insupportable became my condition. You say my father loved me. He never showed it. The slightest mark of kindness from him would have prevented me from quitting his roof as I did. My departure from home was covered by a distant relation of my mother's, who found the means and the passports for a journey to a foreign country. He supported me during the first years of my voluntary exile. At the end of three years he died. Death surprised him with such awful rapidity, that no time was left to inform his friends of my whereabouts, or to provide for me in his will, and I found myself, at the commencement of my studies at Göttingen, thrown upon my own resources, and, though not friendless on foreign soil, I felt homesick. But I had no faith in my father's affection, and I conquered that feeling. My poverty could not shake my resolution. I worked for my living, and was happy and proud that I could support myself. I lived thus for more than ten years. My longings for my country passed away. I all but forgot my mother's language; and when I passed my examinations and took my degrees, I felt as a native of the foreign land in which I lived. It was at this time I saw your name in the lists of the University of Heidelberg. I left Göttingen, and hastened to meet you.

"I write this, not to reproach you. If I was useful to you, your presence was a source of happiness to me. What I wish is, to remind you of those happy days, of those days when there were no secrets between us; when it was as unlikely that I should ask for any thing that could give you pain, as that you should refuse to comply with any of my requests.

"No one knew of our consanguinity, and many people wondered at our friendship; I was so much older than you. Even Tengelyi could never suspect that we were brothers. We agreed to return together to my father's house, and to ask his pardon for my rash and injudicious step.

"Heaven would have it otherwise. You knew the woman whose love caused me to forget all other ties, and to make her country mine. I knew my father was proud. I knew that my chosen wife would be a source of annoyance and sorrow to him. He could never be reconciled to the marriage of his son with the daughter of an artisan; and you, too, advised me to take the place which at that time was offered to me, and to remain in Germany.

"My happiness was of short duration. My wife died a few months after your departure from Heidelberg. I felt very lonely. You were far away. Tengelyi had left the place before you. My soul was sorrowful, even unto death. I resolved to turn my steps homewards, but I did not inform you of my resolution.

"I wished to see my father and his house before introducing myself to him as his son. What I saw convinced me that it was better to remain unknown as long as my father lived. My name and my claims to the property were likely to inflame your mother's hate against me, and the prodigal's return would have embittered the last days of his father. We resolved to keep the secret between us; and when your recommendation caused me to be appointed to the curacy of Tissaret, I had no reason to desire a change of my position. I lived in the house as one of the family. My father, led by instinct, loved me like a son, and I was permitted to cheer his declining age. Your mother died, and my father's death followed soon afterwards. In his last hour I knelt by his bed, told him who I was, and asked his pardon. He wept. He embraced and blessed me as his son. You were present, he blessed you too, and entreated us to be of one mind, and to love one another.

"After my father's death there was no obstacle to my assuming my real name; but while I stayed in your house a variety of circumstances had come to my knowledge which prevented my taking that step. Our father was in debt, and you and your wife had, for some years, lived on your expectations. To claim my share of the property was to condemn you to a life of privations and regret; and to assume my name and resign my heritage was ungenerous. It was burdening you with an obligation in the eyes of the world. Besides, I was fond of my new vocation, and I felt that the position my name would give me was likely to interfere with my duties as a clergyman. I entreated you not to reveal the secret of my birth to the world. As it was, I could live with you, and love you as a brother, and that was all I wanted.

"The world would say that I sacrificed much to you. I sacrificed a name of which you yourself are proud, a fine property, and an enviable position; for though I am not eager for honours, I have often felt that my power of doing good to my fellow creatures would be greater if I had not resigned the advantages of my birth. Do not force me to believe that I made that sacrifice for one who is unworthy of it!

"Tengelyi's fate is in your hands. It is in your power to save him, and to restore his honour and reputation to their pristine purity. I need not tell you how you can do it. But, my brother, if you ever loved me, if our father's last prayer is indeed sacred to you, and unless you wish me to curse the moment in which my love for you induced me to sacrifice my interests for your sake,--do, for your children's sake, for the sake of your hopes of heaven, what your duty and conscience command you to do.

"BALTHASAR."

The sheriff had just read the last lines of this letter, when the door opened. His brother stood before him.

When Kalman returned from Dustbury, he went to Vandory, and gave him an account of Tengelyi's situation; on hearing which, the curate hastened to the sheriff, to intercede in behalf of his friend.

Vandory's arrival took the sheriff by surprise. He was not prepared for an interview with his brother; and, evidently confused, he held out his hand. But the curate did not seize it. His face had lost its habitually mild expression. It was solemn and severe.

"Balthasar!" said the sheriff, sadly; "will you not take the hand which I hold out to you?"

"Samuel!" replied the curate; "why should our hands meet, since our hearts are far asunder?"

The sheriff threw himself back in his chair.

"Alas!" cried he; "and you, too, repulse me! you, too, condemn me, Balthasar! you, whose heart is so full of love and pity!"

Vandory was deeply moved by the sorrow which his brother's features expressed.

"I condemn no one," said he. "Believe me, I would not have come to you if I were not convinced that your good natural disposition would triumph over these guilty passions. But the least delay is fatal. Tengelyi is in prison----"

"Don't name him!" cried Rety, violently. "Would to God I had never heard his name!"

"You are indeed far gone," sighed Vandory. "To think that, instead of repenting, you should hate the man whose pardon you ought to implore!"

"Implore his pardon? his?" cried Rety. "No! he is the spoiler, the destroyer! Is it not he who caused my only son to leave my house, cursing fate which made him son to _me_? Is it not he who robs me of the affections of the last person that loved me? Tell me of one of my sufferings which may not be traced to him!"

"And who is the cause of all this?"

The sheriff was silent.

"Whose fault is it," continued Vandory, with great earnestness, "that the bonds of friendship which once united you are now torn asunder? Who was the persecutor? who the destroyer?"

The sheriff would have spoken, but Vandory proceeded:--

"Tengelyi is in prison. He is locked up with murderers and thieves; and you, the sheriff of the county, use your power and influence only to wreak your vengeance upon him, and to add to his sufferings. Who, I ask, is the injured party?"

"I am not the cause of the notary's sufferings," said the sheriff, pettishly. "I am convinced of his innocence; but I cannot stay the arm of justice, even though it strike in a wrong direction."

"Samuel!" replied the curate, sadly, "that excuse will exculpate you in the eyes of man; but how will you stand with it before God, when He calls you to account for Tengelyi's sufferings?"

"I've done all I could do!" retorted Rety. "I offered to bail him. I implored Skinner, and I instructed Kenihazy, to treat the notary with the greatest mildness. Can you, in reason, ask me to do more?"

"I, as your brother, can indeed ask you to do more! I sacrificed everything to you----"

The sheriff looked confused and ashamed.

"Fear nothing," said the curate, with a sneer (the first he ever was guilty of): "nobody can hear my words. You need not be ashamed to be reminded of what, it seems, you have forgotten; namely, that it is your brother who speaks to you."

Rety made an unsuccessful attempt to speak; but Vandory continued:--

"Yes; I am your brother. The papers by which I could have proved my birth are lost. A court of justice might, perhaps, refuse to hear me, if I were to claim my name and property; but you know the truth of what I say, and you cannot deny that I treated you as a brother ought to do."

"My gratitude----" muttered Rety.

"Where is it? Where is the brotherly affection which was to indemnify me for the loss of wealth; that is to say, of power and influence to do good? This is the fulfilment of your voluntary promise never to refuse any request of mine! I confided in those promises; for I was convinced that I should never abuse my power. We were happy as it was; and I was satisfied with my position, which gave me an opportunity to improve the condition of the peasantry. Even our former intimacy with Tengelyi was on the point of being restored. He was willing to forgive and to forget. Your children were a new bond of union between you. Whose fault was it that those happy days are gone? I will not accuse you; but I will ask you, when were you happier,--then, or now? You sigh? Oh, Samuel! why did you not listen to the still small voice within you, which protested against the first step on that fatal path? I will not talk of the heartlessness with which you treated Tengelyi. Akosh loved Vilma. You knew it was my dearest wish that these children should not be separated; but your pride revolted at the thought that your son should marry the daughter of a notary; and Tengelyi, the friend of your youth, was ordered to leave your house!"

"I knew nothing of my wife's doings!" cried the sheriff. "I would never have consented to her treating the notary as she did."

"Be it so!" continued Vandory, warmly, and even passionately. "I will not argue with you whether that assertion agrees with what you did afterwards. As the world goes, a father has a right to dictate to his children; I will not quarrel with you because you abused that right. But the abstraction of my documents----"

The sheriff started up. "All is lost!" cried he. "My own brother condemns me as a villain!"

"God sees my heart!" replied Vandory. "When the first attempt at a robbery was made in my house, I would have spurned such a suspicion. I made a voluntary resignation of my birthright. How, then, could I suspect that any one should desire to rob me of the documents by which I could prove my rights? That I had no suspicion against you, is shown by my informing you and your wife of my intention to commit those papers to Tengelyi's keeping. But when the robber followed them even to my friend's house; when Viola accused the attorney and your wife as guilty of the theft; when I considered that no one besides you could take an interest in those papers----"

Vandory stopped before he pronounced his conclusion. The sheriff covered his face with his hands.

"I am not naturally prone to suspect any one," continued the curate; "and to suspect you, of all men, gives me unspeakable grief. If you can explain it, if you can exculpate yourself,--I will thank God, and ask your forgiveness, even on my knees!"

Rety rose from his chair. His heart was full, to overflowing. Not to speak was death to him. So he told his brother the share which his wife had taken in the robbery, and of her having informed him of it after the deed was done. "You may despise me," continued he; "you may hate me; but I could not, I cannot, act otherwise than I did. My evil genius induced me to marry that beldame. I was blinded by her family, her beauty, and by the praises of people who called her the queen of the county. I knew that she married me for my fortune; and I never mentioned your existence to her. Afterwards, I waited for a good opportunity to break the matter to her; until circumstances forced me to an explanation. She discovered my son's attachment to Vilma, and insisted on my sending Tengelyi, or, rather, Vilma, out of the house. As for me, I admit that I would have liked it better if Akosh had chosen another woman for his wife; but, partly for your sake, and partly because I hoped that he would change his mind, I refused to obey Lady Rety's commands. She acted for herself; and, when I reproached her, she sneered at me for being in fear of a curate and a poor notary. It was then I told her of your real position, and of the power you had of depriving me of one half of my estates. The wretched woman would not be dependent on your generosity: she availed herself of the attorney's help to deprive you of the papers by which you could prove your claims."

"My poor Samuel!" cried Vandory.

"Oh, my brother!" continued the sheriff; "neither you nor any one else can conceive the agony of my heart! My children turn away from me; my reputation is gone; and you yourself consider me as the partisan of robbers and thieves!"

Vandory would have spoken; but the sheriff continued, violently:--

"Don't speak! don't try to comfort me! I _am_ the accomplice of robbers; and my very position compels me to hush down and cloak this villanous business!"

"The bonds which unite you to your wife are sacred," said the curate. "You are not allowed to abandon her to her fate; and, fallen though she is, it is your duty to defend her. But you must not sin for her. You may, indeed, you ought to, sacrifice yourself for her sake; but it is sinful to endanger the life of a guiltless man merely to shield that guilty woman from the punishment she so richly deserves!"

"I understand you," replied the sheriff; "nor would I hesitate for one moment, if I could save Tengelyi by sacrificing my wife. I hate her! But what is the use of accusing her, and of dishonouring the name of my children? The more clearly it is proved that the attorney robbed Tengelyi of his papers, and that my wife was accessory to the act, the more convincing will be the proof of his seeming guilt."

Vandory acknowledged the justness of this view of the case. He admitted that the sheriff was unable to effect Tengelyi's liberation; and he therefore entreated him to protect the notary against the petty persecutions of his enemies. The sheriff was amazed when Vandory informed him of the manner in which the people at Dustbury had thought proper to execute his orders respecting Tengelyi. He promised to go to Dustbury early the next morning, and to provide for the prisoner's comforts.

"Do, Samuel," said Vandory; "do your best for poor Tengelyi, and leave it to God to do the rest."

The sheriff sighed.

"Be of good cheer!" continued the curate: "let us hope for better days."

"Brother!" said Rety, sadly; "the man whose conscience accuses him, knows neither hope nor comfort."

CHAP. VI.

A few days after Tengelyi's incarceration, Mrs. Ershebet removed to Dustbury, where she hired a small house. The wretched woman was a prey to the deepest misery. She was proud of her husband. She was accustomed to hear his praises wherever she went. It was generally admitted that Tengelyi was the most honest and upright man in the county; and that man, the pride of her heart, and her idol, was in gaol! He was accused of a crime: the dangers which threatened him made her shudder. Ershebet was a strong-minded woman. She stood by Tengelyi in all the reverses and vicissitudes of his life. But the last blow was more than she could bear. Her distress made her careless of everything; even her daughter's society and conversation failed to cheer her, and her former friends were convinced that she could not survive Tengelyi's sentence.

Vilma, on the other hand, rose with the storm. She was convinced of her father's innocence, and firm in her hopes of better days. Her sorrow was of the keenest, but it was tempered by her conviction that it was her duty to cheer her mother, and by her love for Akosh, whose devotion kept pace with the unfortunate events which threatened for ever to destroy the honour and prosperity of the notary's family. The sheriff was now no longer opposed to the wishes of his son; indeed, there was nothing to prevent the perfect happiness of the young couple, except their anxiety concerning Tengelyi's fate.

The notary himself bore the blows of misfortune with his usual sturdy perseverance, but, we regret to say, with more than his usual bitterness. Neither Völgyeshy's advice, nor the entreaties of Akosh and Vandory, could induce him to see the sheriff. He refused to avail himself even of the legal remedies which were at his command, unless they agreed with his ideas of what the law ought to be; and Völgyeshy's complaints that his conduct was likely to injure the defence, he met with dogged indifference.

"I am innocent!" was his usual plea on such occasions. "My innocence will sooner or later come to light; and although I am forced to prove that I am not guilty, I will at least avoid guilty means in doing so."

This was the state of affairs during winter; nor was it changed in the beginning of spring. The prisoner passed that time surrounded by all the comforts, and even luxuries, which the ingenuity of the sheriff could devise, and which the nature of a gaol would admit of. His little room was comfortably furnished; he was not without society, and among those who visited him, no one was more assiduous or more eager to effect a formal reconciliation between the notary and the sheriff, than Völgyeshy the advocate. It is in the midst of one of their discussions on the manner and time of the defence, that we find them on a fine day in March.

"Consider, my friend," said Völgyeshy; "there can be no humiliation in your speaking a few kind words to the sheriff: nor is there any meanness in writing one or two simple lines to the lord-lieutenant, entreating him to adjourn your case."

"But I tell you it is a humiliation!" retorted the notary. "I will not condescend to beg for mercy. I am innocent. If they condemn me, it is their affair, not mine!"

"But you need not beg for mercy," replied the advocate, with a sigh. "All I desire is, that you should treat people with kindness and civility; that you should not insult them when they show you sympathy, as you did the other day when Kriver and the attorney-general called on you."

"And what is the use of this sympathy? Do these people think me guiltless? No! they came because the lord-lieutenant mentioned my name with kindness? Am I to herd with beings like these?"

"My dear sir!" entreated the advocate, "consider the nature of the charge; pray consider the consequences of your conduct!"

"The consequences? Oh, I am aware that my conduct leads me to the scaffold!" replied the notary, passionately. "Let them do their worst; and may my blood be on their heads! I am not their first victim, nor indeed the last."

"And your family!" cried Völgyeshy. "What is to become of your wife and children?"

Tengelyi covered his face and wept. At last he said, with a trembling voice:--

"What is it you wish me to do? Am I to kneel to Skinner? am I to bribe false witnesses? or have recourse to some equally infamous means? I know that these things have more effect in our courts than the musty legal remedies which they taught us at college. We adopt a homoeopathic treatment to cure wickedness. If you are accused of a crime, you may save yourself by committing a crime. Our Dustbury magistrates wish to prove their oriental descent, by extorting presents from the suitors in their courts. I know it all; but how can you ask me to condescend to sue and to bribe?"

"My dear friend, you are unreasonable!" said Völgyeshy, seizing the notary's hand.

"Unreasonable!" cried Tengelyi. "I, of all men, have cause to be so. I commenced life as an enthusiast, I grant it; but were its lessons lost upon me? No! All I have latterly wished for was, to be a useful and humble member of the community, and to end my life in peace. But even this is denied me. My wife is not likely to survive my misfortune; my daughter's grief, though less avowed, is not less acute. My son has to enter life with a dishonoured name: and after all this, I am expected to abandon my principles! Is it not enough to drive a man mad?"

"No!" replied Völgyeshy; "for no honest man was ever in so distressing a situation, and without his own fault too. I admit all you complain of; but what I say is, that there is no humiliation in your asking the lord-lieutenant and Rety to adjourn the decision in your case."

The notary shook his head, and replied,--

"My asking them to delay the sentence, what is it but a confession that I doubt the justice of my own cause?"

"By no means. It is a proof that you do not consider the case ripe for decision. We cannot but admit, as it stands at present, that all the evidence is against us. Public opinion is in your favour. Nobody doubts your innocence, though there is no evidence we can adduce in support of our statement of the case. If you were to be judged by a jury of your countrymen, I am sure I would not hesitate to appeal to their verdict. But the judges cannot travel out of the record, and they cannot but decide against us. Time may do a great deal for us. That Jew is now dying of typhus fever; who knows but he may recover, and our promises may induce him to confess the truth? Perhaps we may find out Viola, and defeat the accusation by producing him; perhaps some circumstance may turn up----"

Here the advocate's argument was interrupted by Janosh, the hussar, who had quietly entered the room and listened to the latter part of the conversation. Yielding to the entreaties of his son, the sheriff had consented to let Janosh wait upon the notary in prison; a duty which the old trooper fulfilled with so much alacrity, that even Tengelyi was moved by the devotion and kindness of his new servant.

"I say, sir," said the hussar, approaching the table at which Völgyeshy and the notary were seated, "is it a fact that they cannot injure you if we manage to produce Viola?"

"Certainly!" replied Völgyeshy; "if Viola could be induced to appear and to confess that it was he who killed the attorney, there can be no doubt but that the decision would be in our favour."

"Then the great thing is to find him?" said the hussar.

"We have tried it in vain," replied the advocate, with a sigh. "We have sent orders to all the justices, we have written to all the counties, but nothing has come of it."

"Well, sir, no wonder he dodged you," said Janosh, shaking his head; "who the deuce thinks of sending a drummer to catch rats? Viola won't leave his address at a justice's, I promise you."

"But what are we to do? Do you know of any other way?"

"Of course I do! it's the only way to do the thing. If you hunt after your watch, some thief will tell you where it was last heard of. If you wish to find Viola, you had better speak to some of his cronies."

"We have asked the Liptaka, and Peti the gipsy?" replied the lawyer.

"Well, as far as the gipsy is concerned," said the hussar, "I'll be bound that cunning creature could give us a hint or two, if he thought proper. But who knows whether he was not a party to the murder of the attorney? Besides, he is Viola's sworn brother, and thinks, perhaps, they would hang him, if they had him fast and sure."

"As for the hanging part of the business," said Völgyeshy, "Peti knows very well that Viola is not to be tried by court-martial. A common court will not condemn him to capital punishment, since he is not guilty of any other great crime besides the assassination of Catspaw; and, especially, since he has once gone through his agonies."[30]

[Footnote 30: See Note II.]

"That's what the sheriff may say; but Peti won't believe it. A gallows is an ugly concern to joke with. But there are others--"

"Who?" asked Völgyeshy.

"Why, sir, any of the robbers that are now in gaol. An honest man does not know his fellow, but a robber does. For instance, there is Gatzi, sir, the Vagabond; give him leave of absence for two or three weeks. I will put on a peasant's dress and go with him, and I'll promise you I'll keep him safe. Now, I tell you, if he and I don't bring Viola to this place! you may call me a liar, even when I tell you that we beat the French at Aspern."

Völgyeshy, who was aware of the uninterrupted correspondence in which the captive robbers in Hungary stand with their comrades out of doors, volunteered at once to solicit the dismissal from custody of Gatzi the Vagabond, and he proposed that the two men should start early the next morning.

"We had better go this very night," said the hussar. "If any of the robbers see me leave this place with the Vagabond, I'll warrant you there's not a robber in the county but will know of it before to-morrow's sunset. They'll mistake him for a spy, and if they do, we may go whistling after Viola."

Völgyeshy was struck with the truth of this remark.

"And besides, sir!" continued Janosh, confusedly. "I beg you a thousand pardons; and I'm sure I'll do any thing I can for Mr. Tengelyi--any thing I'll do to get him out of this confounded place; but Viola is after all a fellow-creature, and his wife is the best woman I ever set my eyes on, and his children are so pretty,--they've called me Batshi, and plucked my moustache! You see, sir, it wouldn't be decent in me to twist a rope to hang their father with. Punish him as you please, sir; but as for death--you see it's a very queer thing!"

Völgyeshy repeated his former statements and promises; and the old soldier, who was well pleased with them, stroked his moustache, saying,

"Well, if that's the case, sir; and why shouldn't it be? especially since the sheriff has said so, and after all he is the man to say who is to be hanged; since that's the case, I'll be a rascal if I don't bring Viola along with me. It's much better for him, poor fellow, to get his punishment, and have done with it; and as for his wife and children, I'll be bound Mr. Tengelyi will do what is right by them. Let Gatzi go with me, and you'll see what we'll do. It's not the first time I've left my quarters with a queerish order; still no one can say but that I've always come back with credit to myself. The worst thing a man can do is to despair!"

CHAP. VII.

The month of March is notoriously fatal to the inmates of the Hungarian prisons. The typhus fever increases in that month to a fearful violence. It is but natural that the year of Tengelyi's captivity should have exhibited the average amount of disease and mortality in the Dustbury county gaol. Nothing, indeed, appeared more natural to the Dustbury people. They looked upon the sufferings of their fellow-creatures with so much indifference that a stoic might have envied them; and as for the prison coffin, which was put in requisition more than once a day, it was to them a matter of light and fanciful conversation.

The medical inspector of the county of Takshony--and here our readers must pardon us a short digression on the merits of the Hungarian medicinal police, for the man who filled that important office, and whom we shall take the liberty of most particularly introducing to the public, had devoted his whole life to the elucidation and exemplification of that great official problem, how far it is safe, and even profitable, to neglect and disobey the orders of superior boards and committees?

It is now some years since a terrible disease prevailed among the cattle throughout the country. Pursuant to an order of the High Court, all communication was interdicted between the counties; the county of Takshony too was placed in a state of unenviable isolation, and a rigorous prohibition was published against the importation of foreign (that is to say, not Takshony) cattle.

And what was the consequence? One of the justices having bought some cattle in a neighbouring county, insisted on taking them to his estate. The sanitary commissioner and the border guards protested; and the justice, who was accustomed to have his oxen and sheep in the fields of his neighbours, was now precluded from taking them to his own fields. But a state of things which involved so gross a violation of the laws of property, could not possibly last. For the medical commissioner of the county remarked with great fairness, that the order of the High Court stated expressly that no _foreign_ cattle should be allowed to enter the county, but that it was perfectly ridiculous to suppose that any oxen belonging to a county magistrate could be _foreign_ cattle. Some few months after this lucid decision, which, strange to say, did _not_ obtain the unqualified approval of the High Court, this meritorious servant of the public proposed to an assembly of magistrates to prohibit the transit of cattle for the term of one month, since it was proved by the experience of years that the disease among the cattle had always broken out in this particular month, just about the time of the Dustbury cattle market. There was not at the time any disease among the cattle in the neighbouring counties; but one thing is certain, viz., that the landed proprietors of Takshony realised enormous sums by the sale of their oxen. A variety of other measures might be adduced to prove that the medical commissioner was fully deserving of the high degree of popularity which he enjoyed. It now remains to be told how it happened that this deserving patriot was elected to the important post of a county commissioner of public health.

When his predecessor, the late commissioner, died,--the worthy man was notorious for killing pheasants and larks with the same sized shot, and drugging all his patients with the same modicum of pills,--the lord-lieutenant and the Estates of Takshony had a tussle on the appointment of a medical officer. The lord-lieutenant promised the place to a distinguished young man of excellent conservative principles. He was a Roman Catholic; he had a diploma; he had been tutor to a magnate, and he had written several poems and charades. But the Estates of the county of Takshony laughed at his Excellency's recommendation, and, insisting on their right of election, they chose another man, and one of whose abilities the county was utterly ignorant. But it was said of him that he knew French, English, and the breeding of silkworms, that he was an honorary member of sundry foreign agricultural societies, that he had studied medicine and law at the university of Sharosh-Patak, and that he was a Calvinist. But the election was annulled; the county was divided into two hostile camps, and the contest lasted above a twelvemonth, when the rival candidates were forced to withdraw from the field, and the hostile factions united in favour of a third party; the reigning medical commissioner of the county. He was a Lutheran, and as such he was agreeable to his Excellency, who hated the Calvinists, and to the Estates, who bore an equal hate to the Romanists. The successful candidate was not of the conservative nor indeed of any other party; he had never been a tutor; he was ignorant of foreign languages, and of the breeding of silkworms; he was not a member of any learned society either at home or abroad; and he was therefore agreeable to all parties, and (as Kriver said) a born angel of peace for the county of Takshony.

Dr. Letemdy, the medical commissioner, was a great man. He treated every one of his patients according to the very system which that individual patient preferred to all others. This accommodating temper of his was, like virtue, its own reward. If the patients had the worst of it, the fault was their own; and besides, Dr. Letemdy had a number of champions on his side. The homoeopathists said it served the patient right, for the fool insisted on being treated allopathically; and when the patient refused to be bled, the allopathists raved about the fatal theories of the homoeopathists. Add to this that he advised the old bachelors to marry and the young ladies to dance; that he sent the married ladies to the watering-places, and that he indulged his male patients with tobacco, gulyashus, tarhonya, and wine; and it is but natural that Dr. Letemdy was held in great veneration, not only in his own county, but also in the districts and "demesnes that there adjacent lay."

An epidemic disease is the touchstone of a physician. It is here he has to prove not only his skill, but also his courage, his devotion, his philanthropy. The typhus fever which raged in the Dustbury gaol gave Dr. Letemdy a favourable opportunity to display his brilliant qualities; and candour compels us to state that he did display them to a most dazzling extent; for, considering that the great duty of a medical commissioner consists in preventing the extension of an infectious disease, and considering that he was in daily communication with the first families of Dustbury: he made an heroic sacrifice of his feelings, as a physician and a man of science, by never once crossing the threshold of the infected place. The prisoners were thus left to their fate and to Nature; the druggist's bill was remarkably moderate, and Dr. Letemdy could not, in justice, be accused of having adopted a false treatment in the case of any of the many deaths which were daily reported to him, and which he, excellent man! entered, though with a bleeding heart, on the register.

The majority of the Dustbury prisoners were not generally discontented with their involuntary place of residence. Cheerful society, wine, brandy, gambling, singing and laughing, indemnified them, especially in winter, for the pleasures of liberty; and, indeed, there were some of the noble and ignoble inmates of the place who strove hard in autumn, and would not be satisfied till they were safely housed in what they considered their winter quarters.

But in the month of March of the year 18-- the Dustbury gaol was a place of howling and gnashing of teeth.

There was a sick ward in the prison. The Estates of the county, obedient to superior orders, had one room and six beds prepared for the sick among the prisoners. And although there were only five hundred people in the gaol, it so happened that the sick ward was always full; nor was it possible, during the prevalence of the epidemic, to separate the infected from those who were in health; each remained on the spot where the hand of disease struck him. The upper rooms had from thirty to eighty prisoners, and from two to three corpses daily. Many of the vaults were absolutely emptied by the death of their inhabitants.

The prisoners were moody and desponding. Even the boldest shrunk from the sight of death in its ghastliest form; and the very haiduks who did the service of the prison, spoke of the scenes which they witnessed with pity and even with tears. The cells which once resounded with riotous laughter and wild songs, were now silent as the grave; but when night came on, the slow measure and the lugubrious sound of hymns was heard to rise from the loopholes which led to the streets. The sound was like the groaning of a vast multitude. And at night, too, the sentinel on his lonely post listened to the prayers of the prisoners, to the confused and earnest murmur which rose on the air and was hushed in silence. The prisoners conversed but little, and always in whispers. When the haiduks entered the gaol in the morning, to take them to their usual exercise in the yard, they found the wretches clinging to the iron railings of their cells, each crying out and entreating them to open his cell first, that he might not lose any of the precious moments of air and sunshine. Some who were struggling with the disease, and who could not stand or walk, crept up the steps and lay on the pavement of the yard, happy to breathe the fresh air of the morning and to see the bright sun before they died.

Among the prisoners in the cell next to the steps were two brothers. They were herdsmen, and the sons of honest parents. An hour of youthful frolic had brought them into the hands of the justice, and from thence to gaol. The younger of the two, a mere child, was the first to fall ill, and his brother tended him as a mother would her infant. It was he who had persuaded his younger brother to do the deed for which they were imprisoned; and was he to see that brother die? He implored the haiduks to send for a doctor, or to procure his brother's release. He said he would willingly suffer the punishment for both. "Let them keep me here two years instead of one! let them keep me here for ever, but let that poor boy go! He is innocent! I told him to do it!" cried he, wringing his hands, and entreating the corporal of the haiduks. Even the eyes of that hardened man filled with tears as he replied, that the entreaties of the prisoner were of no avail, the county having resolved to confine all the inmates of the prison to its precincts to prevent the disease from spreading. As the days wore on, and when there was no hope of the lad's recovery, the unfortunate young man spoke to no one. At the hour of recreation he seized his brother's wasted form, took him to the yard, sat down by his side, and taking the poor boy's head in his arms, remained quietly sitting there during the short half-hour which they were allowed to stay out. One day a haiduk said to him: "Why do you drag him about with you? Don't you see he is dead?" The prisoner shuddered. He looked at the body which lay by his side. He kissed it--but there was no breath! He put his hand to its heart: it had ceased to beat! He stared into its eyes, they were fixed and glazed! its limbs were stiff and cold. "He is dead!" cried the prisoner, with a broken voice, as he reeled and fell. They took him back to the cell, but he never regained his consciousness. He, too, fell a victim to the epidemic.

In a cell adjoining his there was a man who moved even his fellow-prisoners to compassion. He had passed ten years in gaol: his hair was turning grey; his body had lost its former strength; but the term of his punishment was all but over. Only a few weeks were wanting to the day to which he looked for his return to the world, broken in health, but rid of his chains. Nobody expected him. Nobody was to receive him and greet him; but he was to be free! That one thought made up for all he had suffered. When the fever broke out in the gaol, he grew anxious and restless: he asked his fellow-prisoners how they did? he asked the haiduks whether there were any deaths? For the first time in his life, he was afraid of death; for the first time in his life, he had an earnest hope. Two days before his liberation he was taken ill. His despair was fearful to behold. He told the bystanders that he expected to be a free man in forty-eight hours: he talked of his native village and of his plans for the future, and that he intended to live an honest life, if, indeed, his life were spared. He prayed and wept. He cursed the hour of his birth; he hurled his maledictions against God, who had kept him alive all these long years to deprive him of the fruits of his hopes and his patience. He doted on life; after ten years' absence, the world seemed a paradise to him; there was a deep yearning in his soul for the fresh green meadow, the glassy expanse of the river, and the wide and boundless view over the Puszta. He had dreamed of these things during the long weary nights of his captivity; and now, when there was but the space of one single step between him and this longed-for bliss, now, now he was to die! Now, even before he was free! even before the chains were off his hands! There was the glow of fever in his brain, turning, whirling, and distorting the things of this earth before his burning eyes: but that one thought was uppermost even in the wild ravings of fever; and his wailing voice was heard to lament the fate which robbed him of liberty.

At length death set him free! And many were there in that prison who gasped for freedom, and found it in the grave.

And, after all, if they had been but guilty! If there had not been men, aye, and women, too, who died in that prison by no fault of theirs! For the law of Hungary, that nobody can be punished until he has been sentenced by a competent judge, is a privilege of the nobility; and thus it would be difficult to point out any prison in which there are not a great many people, in consequence of an information against them,--and that but too often unfounded,--who for years suffer as much and more than the greatest criminals. This was the case in the Dustbury prison.

Among a variety of people who were arrested at the suit of some unknown informer, there was one man who was perfectly innocent, and who, after an incarceration of five months, had not yet been able to find out how, why, and wherefore he was in gaol. The poor man, whom his fellow-prisoners despised for his very honesty, sat apart from the rest in a corner of his cell. His young wife had done and sacrificed her all to obtain her husband's liberation. Three times daily did she come to the windows of the prison and looked in, and he, shaking off his despondency, came up to the window and told her that he was well, asking for his father and mother and his children; and when he felt that his voice trembled with inward weeping, he entreated her to go away, because he would not have her know how much he suffered. Völgyeshy's mediation availed the poor woman at length to prove her husband's innocence. Early in the morning, when the prison was opened, she went down to the cell; but her husband lay senseless on the straw. He was discharged, and a few days afterwards death set his seal to the warrant of his deliverance.

There were but two men who strove to soften the sufferings of these poor creatures. One of them was Vandory; the other was the Catholic priest of Dustbury. Religious questions ran at that time very high in the county, and the adherents of the two sects were engaged in a violent controversy about the most legitimate method of solemnising marriages between Protestants and Catholics. Vandory and the Catholic priest thought proper (in spite of the general displeasure which their proceedings excited) rather to _act_ than to _talk_ religion. The church militant was sufficiently represented in the county of Takshony; perhaps it was not amiss that there were at least two men who opined that the Church had some other duties besides fighting its own battles; and that amidst the violence of the contending parties there were two men who devoted themselves to peace-making, to instructing and comforting the quarrelsome, ignorant, and distressed. Whenever Vandory could manage to leave Tissaret for Dustbury, he passed the greatest part of his time in the prison. The priest followed his example; and the words of bliss and comfort of the two curates gave new hope to many a wretched heart. Some indeed there were who scorned the messengers of peace, but even they came at length round, and listened to them; for what man, especially in a season of distress, can do without the comforts of religion?

The effect of Vandory's words upon the prisoners was truly miraculous. When he entered the gaol, when they heard his voice, and even his step, their faces were radiant with joy. The inmates of the wards which he entered assembled round him in respectful silence, and the kind and loving manner with which he addressed them softened the hearts even of the most hardened. But most powerful was his influence on the Jewish glazier, on the man who was suspected of being an accessory to the assassination of Mr. Catspaw. The circumstance of his having been found in the attorney's chimney made his evidence of the greatest importance in the Tengelyi process; and Völgyeshy, the notary's counsel, insisted on the Jew being confined in a separate cell. The sheriff seconded this demand. A room, which was originally destined for the keeping of firewood, was prepared for the reception of the prisoner, who was at once consigned to it, to the unbounded delight of Mr. James Bantornyi, who considered this mode of disposing of the Jew as a glorious victory of the principles of solitary confinement. Lady Rety, indeed, objected to what she called an unnecessary harshness, in the case of a man of whose innocence she protested she was convinced. So strong was her feeling on this head, that she even condescended to visit the prisoner once or twice; and though she with genuine humility insisted on the turnkey keeping the secret of these visits, that generous man was equally eager to proclaim to the world this fresh instance of the condescension and charity of the excellent Lady Rety. Indeed, that charity was the more meritorious, inasmuch as no one else pitied the Jew. Nobody spoke to him. The very haiduk who brought him his scanty allowance of bread and greens treated him with contempt, and the prisoner was abandoned to all the torments of solitude. He had no hopes of the future, no gladdening reminiscences of the past.

Gladdening reminiscences! He was a Jew; that one word tells his whole history. Born to be a sharer of the distress of his family, brought up to suffer from the injustice of the masses, cast loose upon the world, to be not free but abandoned; struggling for his daily bread, not by honest labour, for that is forbidden to a Jew, but by trickery and cunning; crawling on the earth like a worm which anybody may tread upon and crush; hated, hunted, persecuted, scouted: such was his past. Such are the sufferings common to the Jews in Hungary; but Jantshi had a heavier burden to bear than the generality of Jews. His disgusting ugliness made him suspected even before he was guilty; and now that his features were still more distorted by fear, he was the very picture of misery and wretchedness. But nobody pitied him; and it seemed that he himself doubted whether any one could pity him. Vandory found him moody and uncommunicative; the curate saw that the Jew considered him as a spy. He strove hard to gain the prisoner's confidence; but in vain! Jantshi received him with the deepest humility. He replied to every question, and he seemed to have no objection to become a convert; but everything he said showed that he considered the curate's visits as a kind of examination.

This state of things changed suddenly when the prisoner was taken ill. He, too, was seized with the epidemic. His case was hopeless. He lay alone in his room; there was no one by to cool his parched lips with a draught of water. It seemed as if the people out of doors reckoned him as one of the dead; for even Lady Rety was quite comfortable in her mind when she understood that there was no hope of the patient's recovery, and that his delirious ravings were incoherent. Vandory alone showed his kindness of heart, by doing all he could for the poor man. When in Dustbury he called upon him twice a-day, and hired a woman to sit up with him. Awaking from his delirious dreams, the Jew saw Vandory sitting at his bedside; when he started up at night, moaning for water to slake his burning thirst, the nurse came and gave him to drink; and when he asked who it was that sent her, she told him it was Vandory. The curate was to him a providence, a guardian angel; in his wildest dreams he called for him, imploring his help; and as the days passed by, as he grew weaker and weaker, when the tide of the fever turned back, leaving his mind clear and unoppressed for the last time, he called out for Vandory; "For," said he to the nurse, "I cannot die unless I speak to the curate, and thank him for all he has done for me. Besides, there is a secret,--something which Mr. Vandory cares to know, and which I ought to tell him. I entreat you, my dear good woman, go and see whether he has come from Tissaret!"

The old woman left the cell, and shortly afterwards the curate entered it. On seeing him Jantshi broke out into a paroxysm of tears.

"Be comforted, my friend!" said Vandory, with deep emotion. "God is merciful, and His mercy will not forsake you!"

The prisoner seized Vandory's hand. His tears drowned his voice: he was silent.

"You are much better now," said the curate, sitting down by the bed. "You will recover, I am sure; and I trust you will be a useful member of society."

"Oh, dear, reverend sir!" said the Jew, with a firm voice; "it's all over with me! I feel that I must die; but it is not for that I weep. I have not had so much joy in the world that I should regret to leave it. I never knew my father and mother; and a poor Jew's life is very little worth. When I'm once underground, they will perhaps cease from troubling me. But, reverend sir, when I think of all you have done for me--for _me_, whom people treat like a dog; and when I think that you, who did this, are a Christian, and that it is you, sir, whom I----" Here the prisoner's voice was lost in tears. He covered his face with his hands, and sobbed.

It struck Vandory that this was the time to impress upon Jantshi the necessity of his conversion to a purer faith. He therefore told him that God was indeed merciful, and willing to receive the homage, of the humblest heart; and that Christ----

But the Jew shook his head. "No, reverend sir," said he, with a sigh; "do not ask me to do it. I will never abandon the faith of my fathers. How utterly lost a wretch I must be if, after having clung to that faith all my life (it was my only virtue, sir), I were now to abjure it. There is nothing in the world I would not do for you, sir; but do not ask me to do this!"

"My son," said Vandory, "do not think I wish for your conversion for _my_ sake. It would be a grievous sin if I were to ask you to consult any thing but your own conviction in this, the most important step in life. But I urge the matter for your own sake--for the sake of your soul's welfare. The religion of Christ is the religion of love----"

"The religion of love!" cried the Jew, with something like a sneer. "Sir, go and ask the Jews, my brothers, what they know of that love? If all Christians were like yourself, sir," added he, in a softer tone, "I might possibly have left my faith, and accepted theirs. I, for my part, have found but few good men among the Jews. As it is, I wish to die in my father's faith. But there is a secret on my soul which I must communicate to you before--I am fast going, I fear!"

Vandory moved his chair close to the bed, and the Jew detailed to him the circumstances of the robbery of the documents, and the share which the Lady Rety and the attorney had in the perpetration of that crime.

"But who killed the attorney?" asked Vandory. "You ought to know. The place where you were found allowed you to hear all that happened in the room."

"I heard it all. It was Viola who did the deed. He spoke to the attorney, and I know his voice."

"Wretched man! Why did you not state this in your examination?" sighed Vandory. "You know that another man, an innocent man, is accused of the crime, and you know that your confession alone can save his honour and his life!"

"You ask me why I did not state it?" replied Jantshi, staring at the curate. "The lady, who is as great a lawyer as any in the county, told me that the suspicion would lie with me if I were to speak in Tengelyi's favour."

"But what business had you in the place where they found you?"

The Jew shook his head.

"I implore you," said Vandory. "I entreat you----"

"Why shouldn't I say it!" cried Jantshi. "I've sworn to keep the secret; but this woman has abandoned me in my distress, why then should I spare her? Listen! I will tell you. The day before the murder, the Lady Rety and the attorney had a quarrel. He refused to give her the papers which he had taken from Viola. The lady sent for me, and promised me two thousand florins, if I would----"

The curate clasped his hands in astonishment and horror.

"If Viola had not anticipated me," whispered the Jew, "I would have killed the attorney!"

He fell back upon his pillow. Vandory sat silent and lost in thought. Jantshi's tale had filled him with horror, but with hope too, for it held out a chance for Tengelyi. Rising from his seat, he said,

"My friend, thank God that He has given you strength and time to repent and atone for your sins. What you have told me suffices to clear the notary from suspicion; but to make your testimony effectual, you must repeat it in the presence of two witnesses."

"Am I to repeat what I shudder to think of?" said the Jew, mournfully.

"It is your duty. How can you expect God to show you mercy, if you refuse to atone for your sin?"

"I will do it!" said Jantshi, after a pause. "The notary is your friend. I will do it for your sake!"

"If you are too weak," said Vandory, deeply moved by these words and the way in which they were uttered; "if you are weak now, you had better take rest. In a few hours----"

"No! sir, no! Now or never! In a few hours I shall have ceased to speak. Come back at once, reverend sir! Tell anybody to come. I'll tell them all, for I am a dying man. I care not for the sheriff's displeasure. He cannot harm me now!"

"You need not say any thing to excite Lady Rety's displeasure," said Vandory. "Your transactions were chiefly with the attorney, you need not tell them any thing about your intentions----"

"But I _will_ tell them!" cried the Jew, with a savage exultation. "I will have my revenge. That woman was my evil genius! She led me on to crime, and abandoned me in my distress!"

"And is this the moment to think of revenge?" said the curate.

The Jew was silent. At length he replied, "Let it be done as you wish it. I will do anything to please you. But," added he, "go at once. My time is very short, sir."

Vandory called the nurse, and hastened away.

CHAP. VIII.

When he left the cell of Jantshi the glazier, the curate hastened to find some trustworthy persons whom he might take to hear and testify to the Jew's confession. The great county sessions were being held in the county house, and the curate was aware that some of the justices and assessors were sure to be assembled in the large hall of the building. When he entered it he found a numerous meeting, under the presidency of no less a person than Mr. James Bantornyi.

The gentlemen there and then assembled were members of an association for the prevention of cruelty to animals. Mr. Bantornyi was the founder and chairman of this charitable institution. Mr. James was a fit and proper person to take the chair, for no man could vie with him in racing and hunting, which pursuits, as every body knows, are prone to create a loving tenderness for the animal creation in the human mind. When Mr. James returned from England, his ambition had taken a higher flight. He was emulous of the laurels which Wilberforce and the Quakers earned in advocating the interests of the black, and injuring that of the white population of the British colonies. There are no black people in Hungary; but there are gipsies who are brown, and Bantornyi's "Association for the Improvement of the coloured Population of Hungary" would have enchanted all the Wilberforces and Gurneys of Great Britain. The landed interest of Takshony was greatly in favour of the plan. The gentry were indeed but slightly acquainted with Mr. Wilberforce's emancipation theories; but when Mr. James Bantornyi made his grand speech, and explained that _gradual_ emancipation was carried out by apprenticing the slave, and by making him work four days in the week, the Takshony people became quite enthusiastic for this kind of philanthropy, which they preferred to their own _Urbarium_,[31] the compilers of which had been most disgracefully neglectful of the vagrant population. But, strange to say, the gipsies demurred against the proposed improvement of their condition. They fled from the hands of the philanthropists who sought to apprentice them; and Mr. James Bantornyi saw clearly that Hungary was not ripe for his more subtle projects, and that his activity must be displayed in another field.

[Footnote 31: See Note III.]

He therefore founded his famous Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. There was much opposition, but his perseverance triumphed over it. It was argued that the ninth chapter of the first volume of the _Tripartitum_[32] would go for nothing if the privileges of the Hungarian nobility were extended to dumb animals; and that a landed proprietor and a member of the Holy Crown would lose his high position if he were forbidden to whip his horse to his heart's content. The objection was grave, but Mr. James was fertile in expedients. He stated that the association would confine itself to the prevention of cruelty to animals in the case of the _villain_ population of the county. Again, it was objected that peasants were, in the service of their landlords, sometimes compelled to beat their horses; and Mr. James decided that it was by no means cruelty to animals if a nobleman beat a horse or other cattle, or caused it to be beaten, nor was it cruelty in a peasant to beat his horse on robot-days, or in winter. So liberal an extension of protection against the restrictions of the association silenced even its greatest opponents; and the Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals held its sittings, and flourished to the satisfaction of its members, and especially of its paid secretary and treasurer.

[Footnote 32: See Note IV.]

When Vandory entered the hall, the assembly were in the act of considering and debating on the case of an ass which had suffered from the violent temper of its owner. Party feeling ran high; for a strong body of conservative members argued that, whereas the association was intended to prevent cruelty to, that is to say, the beating of, animals, that is to say, of horses: the benefits of its protection could not, with any degree of propriety, be extended to asses, sheep, and other creatures of an inferior description. The radical members, on the other hand, were equally zealous, and far more pathetic, in the cause of donkey-emancipation; and, excited as they were with the debate and the various points of thrilling interest which the subject offered, they remarked with astonishment, not unmixed with disgust, that the curate, unmindful of the merits of the question, approached Völgyeshy and Louis Bantornyi, whispered to them, and left the hall in their company. Everybody was puzzled, and some were eager to know the secret of this sudden intrusion and mysterious disappearance. Mr. James Bantornyi was highly incensed against Vandory; for the members declined giving their attention to the question, and it was found necessary to adjourn the meeting. But besides Mr. James Bantornyi, there was another person in the council-house whom Vandory's conduct affected equally powerfully and still more disagreeably.

Lady Rety sat at the window of her bedroom, of which the view commanded the yard, when she saw Vandory leaving the glazier's cell, and walking straightway to the great staircase of the council-house. She was struck with his manner, though it excited no apprehensions in her mind. But, after a short time she saw him returning, accompanied by Völgyeshy and Louis Bantornyi. They entered the prison, and, immediately afterwards, the nurse whom Vandory had hired to attend the Jew, left the cell. They had evidently sent her away.

"What can this mean?" thought Lady Rety. "The Jew is delirious: he cannot recover. What can they want in his cell? This is indeed strange! Völgyeshy is Tengelyi's advocate; and Vandory--If that Jew were not such a rascal--I must look deeper into this business. I'm frightened, and I ought to be calm. The woman who waits upon the Jew is in the yard. I'll send for her; for she ought to know all about it."

Lady Rety sent her maid for the old woman, who soon after entered the room, with many curtsies. She was utterly bewildered to have been sent for by, and to be compelled to talk to, the lady sheriff.

That lady strove hard to conceal her emotion. She told the poor woman that Jantshi was an old and faithful servant of her house, and (to the best of her opinion) innocent of the crime laid to his charge. She added, that she took the greatest interest in the unfortunate man; and, having praised the nurse for her care and watchfulness, she asked her how her patient did, and why Mr. Vandory and the two other gentleman had gone to his cell?

The replies of the woman were not calculated to quiet Lady Rety's apprehensions. She learnt that the Jew had regained his consciousness; that he sent for Vandory; and that he said something about a secret. She was likewise informed of the fact, that the curate had had a long interview with him; and she trembled to think that Völgyeshy and Louis Bantornyi had been called in to be witnesses to his confession.

"Did you hear what the Jew said to Mr. Vandory?" asked she, with a trembling voice.

"His reverence sent me away," said the old woman; "although I cannot, for the life of me, understand why he should do so; for I've never been a gossip all the days of my life; and he might have trusted me with a Jew's secret any day. But, since his reverence sent me away, I know nothing about it; only, I believe the infidel made confession of his crimes."

"Why do you think so?" said Lady Rety, with a start which attracted the old woman's attention.

"I'm sure I did not listen; and, even if I had wished to do it, I could not have done it, because I'm rather deaf; but I think they talked of bad things; for I've never, in all my born days, seen his reverence so violent as he was when he left the cell. God knows; but I think the Jew has told him of great crimes. When I came back to the cell, the unbeliever was quiet for some minutes; but I had scarcely sat down, when he became restless, and asked me whether they would come. 'If they wish me to confess,' says he, 'they ought to make haste! Why don't they come?' I told him his reverence had just gone away, and he ought to be patient; but he tossed about, and groaned. It was a sad thing to see him plagued by his conscience; and he would not be quiet till his reverence came back with two other gentlemen. He asked them whether they'd allow him to confess; and when they said 'Yes,' he seemed quite comfortable.--But, my lady," cried the old nurse; "your ladyship is so pale! Is your ladyship sick?"

"No!" said Lady Rety, with a violent effort to appear unconcerned. "Go to your patient, my good woman. The gentlemen will probably leave him soon."

"Very well, your ladyship. I'm sure the poor man won't live till to-morrow morning; and perhaps he'll want me in the night. All I care for is, that the truth should come to light; for that is the great thing, after all: is it not, your ladyship?"

"Go! go!" gasped Lady Rety. "I dare say the truth _will_ come to light!"

The old woman kissed her hand, and left the room.

Lady Rety locked her door; and, overwhelmed with despair, she flung herself on the sofa.

The Jew had made a confession. From Völgyeshy and Vandory she could not expect forbearance. She could not hope that Tengelyi's friends would make a secret of what Jantshi had told them; since his disclosures were evidently in Tengelyi's favour. She knew that she was hated by all, and that against such accusations she could not rely on the assistance of her husband.

"What shall I do?" cried she, with a shudder. "Is there no means of salvation?--There is none! Tengelyi's case is too far advanced to be suppressed; and even if it were not, to whom could I confide my dreadful position? Whose advice can I ask? On whose assistance can I rely? My husband?--am I to truckle to him? Am I to implore his assistance? He never loved me! He hates me now! He will leave me in my danger! He will turn against me to prove his own innocence! No! I will do any thing but bend to him!"

A sudden thought seemed to strike her. She fixed her eyes on the desk which stood on the dressing-table. She shuddered.

"No! No!" cried she; "it has not come to this pass yet. I cannot do it!"

She went to the window; but before she had opened it, her eyes were, as if by magic force, again attracted by the desk.

"It makes me mad!" said she. "God help me! That thought haunts me! I cannot shake it off!"

"But why?" continued she; after a pause--"why should I shudder at the thought. To die----? After all, death robs us of that only which we have. And is there anything I have to lose? I have no children. I detest my husband. My plans are frustrated. Infamy and punishment await me--I have no choice!"

She opened a secret drawer in the desk, and produced a small bottle containing a whitish substance. Her hand trembled as she put it on the table.

"Here's arsenic enough to poison half the county. This is my last, my only alternative.--But they say it is a painful death. They have told me of people who died after excruciating torments of many hours, foaming and cursing with the intensity of the pain. What if this were to be my case? Horrid! to suffer the agony of hours! to feel the poison eating into me; to feel my every nerve struggling against destruction! to howl and to suffer, and to have no one to tend me! to have no one by to wipe the sweat of agony from my face! Or worse, to be surrounded by those whose every look tells me that they are waiting for the end, not of my sufferings, but of my life!"

With a convulsive motion she pushed the poison away.

"But no!" cried she, with a sudden resolution. "I will not live to see their triumph! I'll take the whole of it! it will shorten my sufferings. It will kill me in a minute--Oh, but to die! to die! and there's twenty years' life in me!--Suppose the old woman told me a lie? Suppose what she said was not true; or that the Jew did not tell Vandory what I fear he did? Why should he betray me? What good can it do him? I must know more about this matter before I proceed to extremities," said she, as she took her cloak, and restored the poison to its place in the desk.

Night had set in. Nobody observed the guilty woman as she crossed the court-yard and knocked at the cell in which the Jew was confined. The old nurse opened it. She looked aghast when she saw the sheriff's wife in that place and at that time.

"How does your patient go on?" asked Lady Rety.

"He's quiet now!" said the old woman. "When the gentlemen left him, he said he was happy now that the murder was out. He's been asleep since. Poor fellow! if he could but know that your ladyship's ladyship has condescended to ask how he is going on!"

"Leave the room!" said Lady Rety, with a trembling voice. "I want to speak to this man before he dies."

The old woman tarried; nor was it until the lady had repeated her command, that she left the room, muttering and discontented. When she was gone. Lady Rety approached the bed and spoke to the Jew.

He made no reply. His breath came thick and irregular. His limbs moved convulsively. The shadows of death were thickening over him.

Again and again she spoke to him. At length he raised his weary head, and stared vacantly at the Lady Rety.

"You do not know me," said she. "Look up, man! Tell me, do you know who I am?"

"Leave me alone," gasped Jantshi. "I've told you all I know. I've nothing more to say. Let me rest."

"Look up, and see to whom you are speaking. It is I, the Lady Rety!"

"The Lady Rety?" said the Jew, while a ray of returning consciousness darted over his features.

"Who else would come to you? Who else cares for what becomes of you?"

"Begone!" screamed the dying man. "Begone! What can you want of me? I'm not strong enough to steal or murder!"

"You are mad!" cried she. "How _can_ you talk in this manner? Suppose some one were to hear you?"

"I do not care," replied he. "I have no fear of anybody."

"Do not let them impose upon you," said she. "I know they tell you there is no hope for you. They've told you so to make you confess; but I have it from the doctor that you are in no danger whatever. You're weak, that's all. Keep your own counsel, I entreat you! They tell me Mr. Vandory called upon you; did he?"

The Jew groaned and laughed at the same time. He stretched his trembling arms and seized Lady Rety's hands.

"Ah!" said be, "that's what you come for? You want to know what I have said of the crimes which we have committed. Set your mind at rest. I've told them all--all--all! Do you understand me? I've told them every circumstance, from the first day that the attorney hired me to steal the papers, to the night you promised me your cursed money if I would kill the attorney. You said----"

"Silence, miscreant!" cried Lady Rety, striving to disengage her hands from the grasp of the Jew.

"Miscreant! Ay, indeed, miscreant!" retorted the Jew; "but how will they call _you_ who bribed me to these enormities?"

"Rascal of a Jew! who will believe you?"

"They are sure to believe me. Viola has said what I say, and nobody can doubt it!"

"You must revoke all you have said. I'll bring other witnesses to whom you must say that they bribed you to give false testimony."

"I will not revoke a word of what I have said--not a single word----"

"How dare you, Jew----"

"Don't threaten me! Your promises and threats cannot affect me now. This very night will remove me from your jurisdiction. But you," added he, with a convulsive effort--"You who seduced me and abandoned me to my despair--you, Lady Rety, will find your judge. I've dreamed of it. I see it now! I see you standing by the side of the executioner. He has a large glittering sword. Tzifra, too, is there, and Catspaw, and a crowd of people. They tie you down upon the chair----"

His voice sunk down to an indistinct murmur, and his hand, which still clasped Lady Rety's fingers, held them with a cold and clammy grasp. She tore it away, and, rushing past the nurse, she hastened to her apartments.

She rang for her maid.

"Give me a glass of water!" said she.

Julia, the maid, was astonished and shocked to see her mistress look so pale.

"Are you ill, my lady?" asked she. "Shall I go for Dr. Letemdy?"

"No! Hold your tongue! Mind your own business!" said Lady Rety. "Give me a glass of water, and be off!"

Julia obeyed. Lady Rety locked the door after her.

It is easier to defeat the sympathy of mankind than to baffle their curiosity. Lady's maids in particular are always most eager to mind other people's business when they are told to go about their own. Julia had left the room, but she returned to the door and listened.

What she heard served still more to excite her curiosity. Lady Rety walked up and down. She sat down, arranged her papers and wrote. Again she got up, and tore some papers. Again she paced the room. She opened a drawer. Again she sat down, and Julia overheard a deep, deep sigh. Then again there was a sound as of something being stirred in a glass.

"She is ill!" thought Julia. "She's taking her medicine! I ought to call the doctor!"

She listened again, and heard the rattling of the glass as it was violently put down upon the table. This, it struck her, was a sign that her mistress was fearfully ill-tempered. She thought it more prudent not to go for the doctor. After a short time she heard deep groans. She knocked at the door, but she received no answer. This circumstance, and the moaning inside, which became more violent every moment, caused her to forget Lady Rety's ill-temper, and to hasten to the sheriff, whom she found closeted with Vandory.

Julia told them all she had heard when listening at her mistress's door.

"She has done the worst!" cried Vandory. "Let us make haste. Perhaps there is time to save her!"

They hurried to the room. They tried the lock. It resisted. A low moaning was heard from within.

"Break it open!" cried Vandory.

As the two men rushed against the door, it gave way. They entered.

It was too late.

The glass,--the poison,--the livid and distorted face of the wretched woman, showed them that there was no hope.

She looked at her husband, and made a violent effort to speak; but when he knelt down, and seized her hand, he felt it stiff and cold.

She heaved a long deep sigh.

"May God have mercy upon her soul!" said Vandory. "She is dead!"

CHAP. IX.

Even the humblest among us excites the interest of at least some of his fellow men, at the very time when he is removed beyond its sphere. The church bells toll for the poorest man, and, however lonely he may have been throughout life, people will assemble round his coffin. Whatever may have been the obstacles that blocked up a man's path when alive, there are no impediments to the progress of his funeral procession; and the very beggar, who never had a crust or a rag which he could really call his own, comes into possession of a small freehold, which is given to him to hold, and to enjoy, till the day of judgment. A dead body is an object of interest and of awe. And why? Is it because respect is due to him who acts sensibly, and because the majority of mankind cannot do a more sensible thing than to die? Or is it because the dead have passed through that arduous ordeal in which all of us are equally interested? Death is indeed a capital teacher. Any one who has his doubts about the value of earthly things, and who would wish to know whether the objects he strives for are worth his trouble, can easily set his mind at rest by watching the death of any of his fellow-citizens. A funeral procession, a coat of arms, or a name on the coffin, and on the grave or mausoleum a marble column or a wooden cross; an after-dinner conversation, a score of mourning letters, a paragraph in the provincial papers, or at best a column in "The Times" or "La Presse," that is the _gloria mundi_! A crape hatband, and a suit of mourning; quarrels about the expense of the funeral, or the "cash he left behind him," is all that reminds us of the love and devotion of family life. And as for friendship--we all know its value and its duration!

We do not mean to plead in defence of the cynical views which we have just expressed. Bitter thoughts _will_ press to the surface of our heart when we ponder on the pride, pomp, and circumstance of life, and the utter oblivion to which we fall a prey after our surviving friends have paid us what they significantly call "the last honours." But still, as there is an exception to every rule, we must admit that the people of Dustbury were neither unmindful of Lady Rety's death, nor forgetful of it; at least not in the first fortnight after the event. The most noble the Lady Rety was a person of great importance. Her decease would have attracted attention under any circumstances. That a lady of rank and property, the head of an excellent table, and the owner of a splendid wardrobe, should depart this life, is shocking, even if she takes that step with all due formality, and with the assistance and advice of half-a-dozen physicians. But Lady Rety's case was far worse. Dr. Letemdy had indeed been called in, but at a time when his help and co-operation was quite out of the question; and his professional learning was of no avail, except in enabling him to protest that the most noble lady might have been saved, if greater despatch had been employed in soliciting his presence. Mr. Sherer, who was likewise on the spot, asserted his conviction that the draught of which Lady Rety died must have been any thing but sugar water, and that almond milk might have saved her life, if she had not died before he could offer that miraculous medicine. But the fact remained unaltered. Lady Rety had taken poison. The medical men in the county of Takshony had a just title to complain of this encroachment upon their legal sphere of action, and the people of Dustbury were equally justified in their laudable and charitable endeavours to discover the secret causes of this shocking occurrence.

Rety's family and friends would have it that the accident was occasioned by a mistake. Lady Rety, they said, was in the habit of taking magnesia, which she kept in a drawer where she had some time previously placed a bottle of arsenic for the purpose of killing rats. In the twilight of evening she had taken the poison instead of the drug; and this--the Retys protested--was the cause of the terrible catastrophe. But explanations of this kind are by no means palatable to the understanding of the crowd. The Dustbury gentry would not, and could not, credit any thing like a simple story. They all and each launched into the boundless realms of surmise and speculation, and in their praiseworthy endeavours to make out a substantial and shocking account of Lady Rety's death, they were eagerly assisted by Julia, who had been all but an eye-witness of the decease of her mistress. Julia gave so interesting an account of the sadness and despondency to which her lady had of late been a victim, and of her extraordinary behaviour on the last day of her life, that all her hearers relinquished any doubts which they might have entertained, for the firm and (under the circumstances) comfortable conviction of Lady Rety's suicide. But as for the cause of that step, it remained a secret and a mystery to the gossips of the town of Dustbury.

The sheriff made no allusion to the cause of his wife's death. The most watchful sympathy or curiosity could not trace home to him any word or action that could have strengthened or confirmed any of the various surmises and rumours which were afloat on the subject. The cause of Lady Rety's suicide remained an open question. Perhaps it was attributable to temporary insanity; perhaps she had been urged to that desperate step by the conviction of her inability to prevent her son's union with Vilma Tengelyi, and she preferred death to certain shame; or perhaps the sheriff had driven his wife to despair (the ladies of Dustbury were very eloquent on this last hypothesis) by a concentration of matrimonial brutalities; for what woman is a stranger to martyrdom? Certain it is that none of Mr. Rety's words or looks could be adduced as an authority for all or any of the above surmises. Still, those who knew him became aware of the deep impression which the death of his wife had made on his mind.

His sorrow was not indeed caused by a return to the old love of days long gone by. The flowers of love have indeed been known to luxuriate in the soil of a churchyard, especially in the case of couples whose matrimonial doings did not present that edifying spectacle of love, honour, and obedience, which is inculcated by, and which is so rarely to be met with out of, the catechism. Mr. Rety had had too deep an insight into his wife's character to lament his loss. His grief was the growth, not of affection, but of remorse. He accused himself for being the cause of the misfortunes he saw around him. A letter was found on her table, which the miserable woman had addressed to him; and in which she reproached him as the cause of her unfortunate life and wretched end. And was not this accusation well-founded? Could Rety look back upon the past without feeling that the events to which his wife fell a victim, were brought about by his own culpable weakness. If he had candidly told her of his relationship to Vandory, she would perhaps have refused to marry him; or if she had, she would have been resigned to the idea that the curate was her husband's brother, but she never would have thought of committing the crime to which her evil spirit had urged her. Rety's weakness and indulgence had made her the woman she was; his dislike and aversion drove her to that desperate step which she would never have taken, if she could have hoped for the sympathy and protection of her husband. Thoughts like these filled Rety's mind with bitter grief, which not even Vandory's gentle words could assuage.

The Jew's confession, which was the cause of Lady Rety's death, remained without any of those favourable results which it was expected to have. It had no influence on Tengelyi's fate. Even before the Jew made his confession, there were few who doubted of Mr. Catspaw's having been implicated in the robbery of the documents; but this very fact, when once established, strengthened the suspicions which were entertained against Tengelyi. If the documents were in Mr. Catspaw's possession (and Jantshi's evidence proved that they were), that fact alone was reason enough to induce Tengelyi to commit the crime of murder. The Jew's assertion, that it was Viola who killed Mr. Catspaw, was unsupported by the second witness, and inadmissible as evidence against the numerous and grave circumstantial evidence which was adduced against the notary. His only hope of safety lay in the contingency of Viola's capture and confession of the murder. That hope was a vague one. It was now more than a fortnight since Janosh and Gatzi the Vagabond had left Dustbury in quest of Viola, and no news of their whereabouts and their chances of success had reached Vandory. It was scarcely reasonable to suppose that the old hussar should succeed in an undertaking, which had hitherto foiled the endeavours of Akosh, Kalman, and Völgyeshy, and, indeed, of all those who took an interest in Tengelyi's fate.

Peti, the gipsy, was indeed strongly suspected of being privy to the secret of Viola's retreat; but neither entreaties nor promises could induce him to answer young Rety's questions. As for the Gulyash of Kishlak, who was known to have received Viola's family, after the flight of the latter, into his tanya, and who had afterwards taken them away in his cart, he, too, gave none but unsatisfactory intelligence. He protested that he had taken Susi and her children to a Tsharda, at the distance of about three miles from Kishlak, where he had left her. He had not the least idea what could have become of her. Curses and entreaties, threats and promises, were alike in vain; it was evident that even the rack could not induce him to say more. The old woman, Liptaka, though devoted to the Tengelyi family, and especially to Vilma, was inexhaustible in excuses of her ignorance of Viola's whereabouts; until at last, wearied and perplexed by young Rety's questions, she protested that she would not betray Viola's confidence, even if she could; and when Akosh attempted to move her by his entreaties, she exclaimed:--

"No! no! Master Akosh! You know I'm as fond of you as ever a nurse was of her own child; but do not--do not compel me to hate you! I'd lay down my life for Mr. Tengelyi; but I won't be a Judas, no! not even for _his_ sake! He has no end of friends; they'll liberate him, sooner or later; and even if he were to remain in prison, I know they keep him decently and comfortably, and his family is well provided for. But Viola can expect no mercy at the hands of the magistrates! To give him up to his enemies is to murder him and his family; and even if Susi were not my near relative, I'd rather tear my tongue out than betray her husband!"

What could Akosh do? Viola's friends were resolved to keep the secret; and, after a search of two weeks, old Janosh was still as much as ever in the dark as to the direction which the fugitive had taken.

Both Janosh and Gatzi the Vagabond were convinced that Viola was not hidden in any of the neighbouring counties. It was not indeed likely that he had left the kingdom of Hungary, as Gatzi was fond of asserting; but even this reflection was but cold comfort to the two adventurers. In which of the fifty-two counties of Hungary were they to seek him? was indeed a question which sadly puzzled the tactics and the military experience of old Janosh.

"Viola is a devil of a fellow!" said he to his comrade. "He has retreated, and so cunningly too, that Satan's self would be at a loss to find him. Ej! what a general he would have been!"

"What does '_to retreat_' mean?" asked Gatzi, who listened to the tales of his companion with the greatest interest.

"Did I ever!" cried the hussar. "Do you mean to say you don't know what it is to retreat? But, after all, it's but natural," added he, after a few moments' consideration. "You have not been in the wars, where they would have taught you. Now, mark me! to retreat is when they order you to fall back."

"Ah! I understand! It's when the enemy drives you."

"You're a fool!" said Janosh, angrily. "A good soldier won't run away, nor will he be driven. I have never been in a battle in which we did not beat the enemy, and yet we retreated!"

The old hussar, like many soldiers in the Austrian army, was firmly convinced that the Emperor's troops had never been defeated.

"To retreat," added he, "means to fall back, after you've given your enemy a drubbing. Do you understand me?"

"Oh yes! I understand!" replied Gatzi; "but I can't make out why you should fall back after a victory."

"Donkey!" said Janosh, with a compassionate smile; "you retreat because you're ordered to fall back; and a soldier who doesn't obey orders is shot. That's all!"

"But why do they order you back?"

"Why, indeed? That's not our business!" replied the old trooper, angrily; for it was the very question which had puzzled him all his life. "Why, indeed? A good soldier obeys his officers, and the rest doesn't concern him. Why they order you back? A stupid question that! Perhaps it is to make you advance, for if you fall back you've got room to go forward. Perhaps they do it to give the enemy time to rally their men, and to prepare for another battle. I say, Gatzi, if you were a soldier, and if you were to ask such questions, they'd shoot you on the spot!"

Such conversations were instructive to the Vagabond Gatzi, and entertaining for Janosh, who gloried in the reminiscences of his campaigns; but they did not promote the ends of the two travellers. The Gulyash of Kishlak was as little communicative to Janosh as he was to his young master, nor was the hussar more lucky in his inquiries in other quarters.

"It strikes me they've agreed upon it!" murmured he. "They have but one answer to all my questions, and that answer is the worst they can give. Every one says, 'I don't know; you'd better inquire somewhere else!' and so we go from one tanya to another, without being any the wiser for it!"

They had, indeed, by this time, made the round of three counties; and though Gatzi became gradually accustomed to their roving life, and though Janosh, riding, as he did, through forests and over moors, felt almost happy to live again the life of a trooper, they came at length to be fairly tired of their fruitless search. The season, too, was by no means favourable. The month of April has a general reputation for changeableness; but in the year in which Janosh and Gatzi rode in search of Viola, that month was by no means changeable. On the contrary, it rained from the first day to the last. Janosh had seen a deal of hardship in the course of his long and eventful life; but still his temper was not proof against the provoking sameness of this extraordinary April weather. At length he fairly lost his patience.

They were just traversing the third county, at a distance of about eighty miles from Dustbury. They had been on horseback from an early hour in the morning, and now the sun was setting, when Gatzi confessed to his older comrade that he could not find the tanya to which he had promised to conduct him. The old man had hitherto borne all disappointments with great fortitude, still hoping to get news of Viola; for Gatzi had told him that the Gulyash to whom they were going knew all the herdsmen of the district. What was to be done? They were in the heart of the forest; they had lost their way; and, although Janosh swore that it was a shame for an old man to follow at the heels of a mere boy like Gatzi, he could not but wrap himself up in his bunda, and follow his companion, who was looking for marks on the trees, and for cross branches on the road, these being the signs by which men of doubtful honesty are in the habit of marking their track for the benefit of their comrades. It was quite dark when the two wanderers were at length attracted by the glare of a fire. They struck from the path which they had hitherto pursued, and reached the tanya which they sought. The pleasure which Janosh felt as he stretched his limbs by the fire could not be greater than the rapture of the Gulyash when he recognised Gatzi. The old herdsman, it seems, had been Gatzi's partner in more than one affair of which they did not care to inform the county magistrates.

When the old Gulyash had had his chat with his young companion, Janosh stepped in and asked for Viola. The first answer which he received was a profession of utter ignorance on the part of the Gulyash; when Gatzi too showed his desire for information, the herdsman told them to stay the night.

"To-morrow morning," said he, "I'll conduct you to somebody who is likely to answer your questions. There is a Gulyash in this neighbourhood who came last autumn from your part of the country. He is a good-for-nothing fellow, who does not associate with any one. He doesn't sell cattle, and there is no talking to him. But, after all, it is very likely that he can give you the information you require."

"Who can he be?" said Gatzi, astonished. "I don't know of any herdsman from our parts who has gone to this county."

"It's the brother of the Gulyash of Kishlak," replied the old man. "His brother is a trump of a fellow; but this chap is a blockhead. He won't speak to a body."

"It can't be the brother of the Gulyash of Kishlak. Old Ishtvan had but one brother, who died last autumn."

"Nonsense! I tell you, man, I have seen him. He is a handsome fellow, and darkish. He brought his wife and two children. Don't tell me he's dead."

"I say, the brother of the Gulyash of Kishlak is dead, though the man, whom you take to be his brother, may be alive, for all I know: but I am sure he is no relation to Ishtvan the herdsman!"

"But I tell you he is! Don't teach me to know Ishtvan the herdsman! It's true I haven't seen him for many years: but formerly we were much together; and last year, when he brought his brother's family to this place, they all slept in my hut. One of the children is not at all likely to live; but the other boy is a fine fellow. I am sure he'll be a better sort of a man than his father. There! now don't you believe that I am going to take you to the brother of the Gulyash of Kishlak?"

In the course of this conversation, Gatzi cast significant looks at the old hussar; and when their host had retired for the night, he said, "I'll lose my head if the fellow he speaks of isn't Viola!"

"I am sure it's he," whispered Janosh. "Let us keep our own counsel, lest he refuse to show us to the place."

"How he'll stare, when he hears that his neighbour, of whom he thinks so little, is no other than Viola, the great robber! What a treat!" said Gatzi, as he lay down by the fire. "But I'm as sleepy as a dog! Good night!"

"Good night!" responded Janosh, turning round, and arranging his bunda for the night. The day had been one of extraordinary fatigue. His lair in the hut was comfortable, and the fire burnt bright and cheerful at his side; but still the old hussar could not sleep. He turned and tossed about, a prey to restlessness and harassing thought. Now that Viola was all but found, Janosh began to doubt whether he was justified in disturbing the poor man's quiet life, and whether it was not better to leave him where he was.

"He's come to be an honest man," thought he; "why should I remind him of his former misfortune? I dare say they won't hang Mr. Tengelyi; but as for Viola, I'm not at all sure whether they'll stick to their word when they have him in their power. His wife will despair, and his children come to be little vagabonds; and who will be the cause of all this misery but I, who am now trying to entrap him, for all the world like one of those d--d spies whom we used to hang in France!"

Old Janosh had but one comfort amidst these distressing reflections. He might indeed find Viola; but there was no necessity which forced him to give him up to the county magistrates: and, after all, was it not possible, in conversing with Viola, that they might find out a means of liberating the notary without any prejudice to the late robber's life and liberty?

"For," said Janosh, "God knows he has suffered enough! and his children, bless them! they are such fine creatures, and so loving. I wouldn't harm them; no, not for the world!"

As for the object of old Janosh's search, it was he who, under the assumed name of a brother to Ishtvan, the herdsman of Kishlak, inhabited the tanya to which Gatzi's friend had promised to conduct the two adventurers. The outlaw's place of refuge was not quite so large and commodious as his farm-house at Tissaret; but it was as favourable a specimen of a tanya as a man of Viola's character and habits might wish to see. The roof was made of reeds, and afforded a shelter against the rain; the walls were newly washed, and shone hospitably over the dun and desolate heath. The tanya was built on a slope of the mountains, which, forest-crowned, extended in the rear; and in front lay the immense plain, dotted with flocks and herds of cattle and horses, with here and there a steeple rising on the far horizon. Near the house was a stable and some haystacks; and close to the threshold lay a couple of large fierce wolf-hounds, basking in the rays of the sun.

Viola might have been happy. He had found a place of refuge: he was removed from all social intercourse; and this is, in itself, a blessing for the persecuted and maligned. He might have been happy, if our happiness or misery were not at least quite as much depending on the past as it is on the present. Viola's recollections were most gloomy. His mind was saddened by the thought that he was compelled to leave the scenes of his former life. An exile from the place of his birth, he languished and grieved quite as much as men of better education do, when fate compels them to fly from their own country. The lower classes cling, not only to their country, but also to the place of their birth. Their lives lie within a narrower circle; and, however great his patriotism, a peasant's love for his _home_ is still greater. With some it is a predominant feeling; with others it is a madness. His real country, his real fatherland, is the village in which he saw the light,--the narrow spot of earth on which he passed his earliest years. If you remove him from that place, he finds little consolation in the thought that his new abode is still on Hungarian soil, that his country's language is still spoken around him. He sighs for his birth-place, for the humble roof of his parents, for the fields in which he used to work, for the trees in the shade of which he took his rest. His reminiscences are not national, but local; his sphere of interest and action is limited to the confines of his parish. And even if this were not the case, is not our life a totality? Can we separate the past from the present, or the present from the future? Are not our joys bound up in remembrance and hope? And what was there in Viola's past, what was there in his future, to cheer him up, and to nerve him amidst the sorrows of life?

Could he ever forget the injustice and cruelty of mankind? Could he forget that they had hunted him like a beast of the forest? And, worse than all, could he forget his own deeds? the blood he had shed,--the blood which still clung to his trembling hands? How could he hope for happiness? The future lowered over him like a pall. His name was, indeed, unknown in that part of the country. His master, and the people with whom he had dealings, took him for a brother of the Gulyash of Kishlak; but what guarantee had he for his safety? The arrival of any of his former associates, the discovery of his having come to the county with a false passport, was sure to divulge his real name, and deliver him into the hands of justice. Every stranger who approached the tanya made him tremble. He trembled to think that his own boy might betray the secret of his father's guilt. But still, he could have borne all this. He might have inured his heart to sorrow and anxiety if his wife had been happy, if the love of his children had withdrawn his mind from the remorse and fear in which it lay shrouded.

Fate willed it otherwise!

Susi wanted but little for happiness. To love, was her vocation. She had no wish but to live with her husband and her children, to devote herself to them, to care, labour, and pray for them. Her heart was made to resist the blows of fate, if they failed to strike at that one tender point. When she knew of her husband's liberation,--when she took her children to their new home, she felt as if there was nothing to wish for, or to hope; and all her past sufferings were lost in the feeling of happiness which pervaded her mind. To live far away from mankind, removed from the scene of her former sufferings,--to live a new life, lonely and unknown,--had been her wish for many years; and that wish was now realised. She knelt down at the threshold of her new tanya, and wept and prayed with a grateful heart. She had nothing to ask for, nothing to desire!

But her happiness was of short duration. Her younger child was weak and sickly. Its little face had that expression of sadness which, in children, is a sure sign of suffering and disease.

"How could it be otherwise?" said Susi; "sorrow was its first food. My tears have effaced its smiles, and ever since it opened its soft blue eyes it has seen nothing but grief and sorrow. The poor child cannot help being sad!"

The unsettled life which Susi had latterly been compelled to lead, and which the infant had shared with her; the cold autumnal air to which it was exposed; and last, not least, the fatigue and exposure of the journey to their place of refuge, had a fatal effect upon the tender health of the child. So long as the excitement continued, and while she had to tremble for the safety of her husband, Susi took no heed of its altered appearance; but a few days after their meeting in the tanya, she became alive to the danger which threatened the infant's life. To see and despair of all hope was one and the same thing. After some days of maddening anxiety, the child died, and a little grave near the tanya was all that remained of so much sorrow and so much love.

The child's death struck a deeper blow to Susi's heart, from the circumstance of its occurring in the very first week of her new-found repose; but when she remarked her husband's sadness, who, still depressed by the late events, considered the death of his youngest born as a harbinger of the approach of avenging fate, she felt that Viola wanted to be cheered and comforted, and her love for him conquered the grief of her mother's heart.

"Who knows," said she, "whether the child is not all the better off for leaving this world of sorrow; and perhaps this misfortune has been sent to us, to prevent our becoming too presumptuous in our happiness? And, after all, have we not Pishta, and does he not grow up to be a fine bold fellow, like his father?"

But in January little Pishta was seized with the fever. His mother's anxiety, her watchfulness, her care, the smiles of comfort from her breaking heart, and her secret tears and wailings,--all,--all could not prevail against the stern decree of fate; and after three long weeks, Pishta was buried by the side of his little brother, and Susi felt that there was nothing in the world that could make her happy.

She complained not; she spoke not of her misfortune; she strove to hide her grief from her husband: but the forced smile on her pale face, the rebellious sigh which _would_ break forth, the trembling of her voice, when an accident, when

"The wind, a flower, a tone of music"

reminded her of her children, and her turning away to hide the tears which _would_ bedew her cheeks, spoke more plainly than any wailing and mourning by which the wretched woman might have given vent to her grief. Viola loved his wife too warmly to be deceived by her seeming calmness; his keen eye found the traces of secret tears upon her face; he understood her wordless woe, and his heart was a prey to the bitterness of sorrow. To love, to see the loved one suffering, and to feel that we cannot do any thing to lessen her grief, is a bitter feeling indeed; and Viola felt as if fate had saved his life, only for him to drain the cup of misfortune to the very dregs.

"Wretched man that I am!" cried he, as he stood alone on the heath; "after all my sufferings, must I live to see this day? If I had suffered for my crimes, God would perhaps have pitied my children; but now His hand strikes me in them! There is blood on my hands,--but is it Susi's fault? Are my little ones guilty? Father in heaven! what have they done, that Thy wrath should pursue them?"

Thus lost in the bitterness of his grief, he sat on the hill near his house, when his attention was attracted by the violent barking of his dogs, and as he looked in the direction of the tanya, he beheld a stranger approaching him. Viola lived in solitude; the Gulyash of Kishlak had only called on him once since he dwelled in the tanya, and the herdsmen and outlaws of the county were by no means inclined to cultivate the acquaintance of their new neighbour, for a few unsuccessful attempts had convinced them of his reluctance to join them in their illicit doings. No wonder, then, that the approach of a stranger attracted Viola's attention. But his astonishment passed all bounds when he recognised the sheriff's hussar, and when the latter called him by his real name, a name which he had not heard for many months.

At some distance from the tanya, Janosh had thanked his guide for his trouble, and sent him and Gatzi back, for he wished to speak to Viola freely and without being interrupted. The latter could hardly trust his own eyes, when he saw the old soldier, who used to be a pattern of neatness, attired in a peasant's dress, travel-stained, and with his hair and beard neglected.

"Is it you, Janosh?" said he, addressing the new comer. "What does this dress mean?"

"It's strange, isn't it? We are naked when we are born, and naked do we go to the grave, or at best they give us a gatya to sleep in. A soldier was a peasant at one time, and to a peasant's estate he returns; that's how the world goes. After all, my present dress is none of the worst, only I felt queer in it at first, accustomed as I am, you know, to be buttoned up in a tight hussar jacket. For some days I fancied I was not dressed at all!"

"But where did you come from, and what has brought you all this way from home?"

The old soldier, who had some secret misgivings about the honesty of his errand, felt uncomfortable at this question.

"Why," said he, scratching his head, "I wanted to call on you,--that is to say, I wanted to find you. I've some important matters to talk to you about. But don't be frightened, man!" added he, on seeing Viola's astonishment; "I have indeed promised to find you, but I have not promised to tell them where you are. I'll have my palaver with you, that's all, and you may afterwards do as you please. As for the worshipful magistrates, they shall never get any thing out of me; no! not even if they'd skin me alive! I'm not the man to blow upon a deserter! Bless you! I never did that sort of a thing!"

Viola's curiosity was heightened by the words and the manner of Janosh; and his desire for an account of the sudden and mysterious appearance of the latter was at length gratified by a circumstantial statement of all the events which had taken place at Dustbury and Tissaret, since the assassination of Mr. Catspaw. The impression which this news produced upon Viola was fearful.

When Janosh told him of Tengelyi's situation, he cast a despairing look to heaven, and cried:--

"I am a cursed being! I am born to destroy all who come near me, no matter whether they are my friends or my foes!"

And covering his eyes with his hands, he gave himself up to a transport of grief.

His distress moved the old hussar, who endeavoured to comfort him in his own rough manner.

"Don't you think," said Janosh, "that Mr. Tengelyi is very badly off! Nonsense, man! he isn't even in gaol."

"But where is he?"

"Why he is not exactly in gaol; but he's in a room of his own in the prison. He has plenty to eat and to drink, for it's I who wait upon him; and you might have known that I am not a man who would give Master Akosh's father-in-law cause to complain. He's all right and comfortable, and there's no reason why he should not walk away, if they had not got that accursed criminal process (for that's the name they give it, I believe,) against him. But there's the rub! Unless his innocence is proved, they'll sentence him--Heaven knows to what! And you see----"

"Did I not wish to serve him?" cried Viola, in a violent burst of grief. "I'm in gratitude bound to serve him! He gave shelter to my wife and children. I would have given my life to make him happy. I killed the attorney because I thought to do him good, and what has come of all my gratitude?"

"Well?"

"Why, this has come of it! He's the honestest man on the face of the earth, and they accuse him of _my_ crime! and it's I who have got him into prison,--oh! and if you had not come and told me all, they would execute him in my place!"

"Viola! my boy," said the hussar, "you're wrong. The case is not half so bad as you make it out, I assure you."

"Oh, Janosh! why, when I was sentenced at Tissaret, did you come to my assistance? Why did you save my life? You see what I have come to! I'm ready to bless the day of my death. When a mad dog feels the distemper, he will run away from the house of his master, in order not to harm his benefactor! That's what a mad dog does,--but I, I am worse than a dog, for I am dangerous to those whom I love best!"

Janosh, who was deeply moved by Viola's remorse, endeavoured to comfort him, by protesting he was sure there must be some means of extricating the notary from his present dangerous position.

His words, rude and awkward as they were, had their effect upon Viola. He became more composed, and said--

"As for the notary, he is safe. It will take us three days to go to Dustbury. The papers which I took from the attorney are in my hands; they are covered with blood, and when I tell them how the thing was brought about, they cannot possibly suspect Tengelyi."

The old hussar shook his head.

"I don't think," said he, "you can do it in that way. You're not in a fit state to take a resolution. You are in despair, and what you intend to do ought to be well considered. Nothing is more easy than to go to Dustbury. 'Here I am! I'm Viola! I've killed that rascal, Catspaw!' Why it's mere child's-play to say the words. But the worst is behind. When they've once got you into gaol, I don't see how you can get out of it."

"I don't care!"

"But you ought to care! Why, man! it's the very first thing you ought to think of! They have indeed promised not to take your life, and even the sheriff has pledged his word for your safety! But who can tell? I wouldn't advise you to rely on the promises of the gentry, and it's far more prudent to manage the business otherwise."

"Have you any idea how it can be done?" said Viola, sullenly.

"Of course I have! Give me the papers! I'll take them to Dustbury, and tell the gentlemen that I have spoken to you, that you gave me the papers, and that you made no denial of your having murdered the attorney."

"They'll never believe you!"

"If they don't, I'll call in another witness--Gatzi the Vagabond, who is a good fellow. He's come along with me, and he's now at your neighbour's, the Gulyash. Two honest witnesses can prove any thing; but as Gatzi is not, perhaps, quite honest, because he's in the habit of stealing now and then, we'll have the Gulyash as a third witness. While we are telling our story at Dustbury, you and your wife and children leave this place, and when they come to arrest you they'll find an empty house. That's _my_ plan!"

"I have no children!" said Viola, with a deep sigh; "our last--our little Pishta--was buried two months ago!"

"Pishta!" cried Janosh; "my little Pishta! Why, that's a dreadful misfortune!"

"The two little ones are dead! I am childless! My poor Susi is not likely to survive her sweet children long. She is sinking fast; poor woman, she won't see the next snow!"

The two men sat in silence. Viola was lost in gloomy thought, and old Janosh's eyes were full of tears. At length he said,--

"Truly, God alone knows why fate deals harshly with some people! They tell me we're all going to the same place in the end, and that God, who is a great general, commands us to march straight through this world into another. But I must say, the men of the rear-guard have the worst of it. The advanced guard have it all to themselves--grub, and glory, and all; and those that remain behind are in for short commons and kicks. I've known that sort of thing, my boy! When an army retreats, the best men are ordered to the rear; and in the wars I've been dealt with as you are on this earth. 'Devil take the hindmost!' is a true proverb. Bless me! you can't fancy what hard blows we got, and how we were starved! but, after all, it was then I learnt that a man ought never to despair. For when you've come to the camp, a good general is sure to praise and reward the last man of the regiment; and I'm sure our Father in Heaven will do the same when you march into quarters. And besides, who knows but the tide will turn? Susi is left you, and that's a great blessing. Why shouldn't she have half a dozen children? You won't have another Pishta, I'm afraid; for there is not another such a child on the earth, nor will there ever be; but you'll have plenty of children. And, I say, no one knows what a deal of good luck such a child may bring you; and all I say to you is, you're a fool if you put your neck into the keeping of the Dustbury gentry. Bless you, man, it's the worst you can do! and there's time enough for the worst, I should hope!"

Viola listened to the old hussar's advice, without showing his dissent either by words or gestures; but when Janosh ceased speaking, and looked at him, waiting for a reply, he shook his head sadly, hopelessly, and said,--

"You would not advise me as you do if you could but know what I have suffered. You warn me not to surrender to my judges and you counsel me to fly from punishment. But do you really think, my poor Janosh, that my present and past sufferings are not a hundred times more painful than any punishment which they can award to me? You say they will sentence me to death. It's no more than what I deserve. And what is even the most painful death, compared to the unceasing fear which has weighed upon my heart ever since I came to this place? I am eighty miles from home; but what, after all, are eighty miles? _You_ have found me, and others may!"

"There you are out! It's not every man has been in the wars, and----"

"You found me by accident! Oh, I tell you, I've played the coward! I've crouched among the ferns and the brushwood, when I saw a stranger approaching my house! When my master asked me about my former pursuits, I felt the hot blood rush into my face, and I trembled for all the world as if I stood before my Judge. No, Janosh! my life is a hell! it's not the life of a human being, and the sooner I've got rid of it the better for me, for Susi, for all!"

"They won't hang you!" said Janosh. "The sheriff has come to quarrel with his wife, and he has been an altered man ever since. He has promised to spare your life, and I'm sure he'll stick to his word, that is to say, if he _can_; for, after all, who knows but the other gentleman may get the better of him? and it's always my opinion one ought never----"

"Stop!" cried Viola. "I'm sure you mean well; but I've made up my mind. Believe me, ever since my children died I've often thought whether to surrender is not the best thing I can do. Even if you had not come and told me of the notary's danger, I think I should have given myself up to the police, to rid myself of the torments which now prey upon my mind. A few days before my poor Pishta died, the child was so thin and worn out you would not have known him if you had seen him at the time. Nothing was left of him but his sweet soft voice; methinks I hear it now; and he----What were we saying?" continued Viola, wiping his eyes; "to think of him makes me forget all and everything. What was it, Janosh?"

"You spoke of Pishta's death. Don't go on, pray!"

"I must! I must tell you, that shortly before he died, and, indeed, all the time he was ill, he entreated me not to go on being a robber: 'Won't you, father, dear! you won't be a robber any more?' were the last words I ever heard him say. Now, tell me, is it in my power to obey my dying child's request if I remain here? Let the meanest thief come to this house who has seen me in former times; is he not my master, because he has my secret? Can he not force me to join him in any crime he may choose to perpetrate? I'm lost! My very honesty depends upon an accident; and chance alone can protect me from falling back into my old ways."

Janosh sighed; for he felt the truth of Viola's remarks.

"There's blood on my hands, and I must die! It's but common justice! I've thought the matter over, and I see no other way to get out of it. And, after all, there is neither peace nor comfort in this world after such a deed! When they have pronounced my sentence, my conscience will cease from accusing me. I have not, indeed, ever had the _intention_ of killing any body! Accident has made me what I am--a murderer! and fate has decreed that I am to suffer for my crime. What man can prevail against his destiny?"

"This is all very well; but what's to become of Susi, I'd like to know?" said Janosh, with a deep sigh.

Viola made no reply. His features were violently contracted; his hands clung with a tremulous grasp to the staff which lay by his side; his chest heaved as if it were bursting. At length he said, with a trembling voice,--

"What is to become of Susi when I am dead? Why, it's this which unnerves me! But what am I to do? Poor woman! If I could do aught to remove her sorrow, if her misery were not so great that nothing can add to it, I would suffer all! all! all! I would not care for the pangs of my conscience! I would not mind my fears and my sorrows, neither here, nor even in the world to come, if I could hope that my life would serve to comfort Susi. But her heart is brimful of anguish. There is no room for fresh griefs, no room for comfort of any kind; nay, more, my presence compels her to forego the only relief she has--that of taking her fill of weeping! No! no!" continued he, passionately, "I cannot bear it any longer. I'll do it, since it _must_ be done, and I'll do it at once. God will perhaps have mercy on her when I'm dead and gone! He'll take her away from this world, in which there is no place of rest--no! none at all for those that love Viola; and even if she does not die, she will be safe, and perhaps some charitable hearts will pity her case and provide for her. Come, Janosh! bind my hands and take me to Dustbury. Be quick!"

These words, and the tone in which they were spoken, convinced Janosh of the firmness of Viola's resolution, which he did not attempt to oppose, because he felt the weight of the arguments which the repentant robber had advanced in support of it.

"After all, you're not far from right," said he, after a short pause. "I'll be bound for it they won't hang you; and perhaps it's better for you to have your punishment over, and have done with it. It makes you a free man; and prevents you being brought back to your old ways. But as for the binding part of the business, it's sheer stuff and nonsense, I tell you. If you come of your own accord, they'll put it down on the bill as a special point in your favour, and strike off a few years from the time of your captivity. But, hang me if I take you to Dustbury! It would be a disgrace to me to the end of my life, if people could say, it was old Janosh who arrested Viola!"

"Very well!" said Viola, "if you won't take me, you may go to Dustbury at once, and tell Mr. Tengelyi to be of good cheer, I'll be at Dustbury on the fourth day from this. My Bojtar[33] will soon come back to take charge of the cattle. I must talk to Susi lest she should be shocked by my sudden departure. Poor woman! it will be a hard thing to take leave of her."

[Footnote 33: Bojtar, _i.e._ helpmate.]

"Why," said old Janosh, "if you've made up your mind to go, you had better not mention your plans to Susi. After you've come to Dustbury, I'll go to fetch your wife; and when the sheriff tells her that your life is not in danger, I'm sure she'll get reconciled to the arrangement. Be of good cheer!" added the old soldier, shaking Viola's hand; "all's well that ends well! They'll lock you up for a few years, and after that time you'll go back to Tissaret as an honest man. But I must be off now. It would frighten Susi to death to find me here, and in this dress too!"

Saying which, the hussar turned to leave the spot; but after walking a few yards he came back, and said:

"I forgot to mention, that you need not come if you should repent of your resolution. I'll take my oath nobody shall ever learn from me where your tanya is; and all they can say is, that I'm a greater donkey than they thought I was, because I couldn't manage to find you. But, believe me, I don't care what they say. God bless you, my boy!"

Janosh did not wait for an answer. He hurried away; and after a few minutes, Viola heard the quick trotting of a horse. It was Janosh on his way back from the tanya.

"After all, my life will be good for something," muttered Viola. "I wanted to prove my gratitude to my benefactor, and all I did was to bring another misfortune upon him. At present I have it in my power to save his life by the sacrifice of my own! But what is to become of Susi?"

He sat lost in gloomy thoughts, with his head leaning on his hand, when his wife returned to the tanya. Her voice awoke him from his dreams. It struck her that he looked as if he had wept. But for the poor woman, who came from the grave of her children, there was nothing extraordinary in his tears.

CHAP. X.

Viola had many difficulties to encounter before he could carry his project into execution. His resolution was irrevocable; but what was his most plausible pretence for leaving the tanya without alarming the fears of his wife? Ever since their change of abode, Susi showed the greatest anxiety whenever her husband left her, though but for a few hours; and this anxiety, so natural to a woman in her position, had risen to a formidable height ever since the death of her children. Her husband was her all--her only treasure,--her sole comfort on this earth. And was he not always in danger of a discovery of his former character and pursuits? Her anxious care was, in the present instance, almost maddening to Viola. In the course of that day he attempted a hundred times at least to tell his wife that he must leave her for a few days; and a hundred times he felt that he wanted the strength to break the matter to her. At one time it struck him that Susi was more cheerful than usual, and he was loth to distress her at such a moment; another time he thought she looked sadder than she generally did, and he considered that frame of mind unfavourable to the reception of his communication. Indeed there is no saying how he could have executed his project if Susi had not been struck with his embarrassed manner, and the preparations he made for the journey. She questioned him, and he told her that his master had sent in the morning ordering him to fetch some cattle from a neighbouring county. Susi trembled; but there was no help for it. Viola was bound to obey his master's orders: he could not possibly refuse obedience by stating the reasons of his aversion to the journey; and the poor woman was reduced to snatch at the straws of comfort which lay in her husband's assurance that the place to which he was sent lay at a greater distance from the county of Takshony than their present abode did.

"Don't be afraid. Nobody can know me at that place; no Tissaret people come there!" said Viola; and Susi did her best to appear quiet and unconcerned.

Viola was conscious of the fate which awaited him. Whenever he looked at his wife he shuddered to think what her anguish would be when the true nature of his errand was revealed to her; and all his strength of mind could scarcely suppress his tears. He struggled hard to keep them down; and in the evening, when, after pressing Susi to his heart for the last time, he mounted his horse, she could not, by any outward signs, get a clue to the deep despair which ate into his heart. When his voice came to her with the last "God bless you!" she had no idea of the truth. It never struck her that she heard his voice for the last time.

Viola was inured to suffering. His grave aspect hid the anguish which convulsed his mind: but when his horse had borne him onwards to the deep forest, his grief leapt forth like a giant; and, shaking off the bonds of restraint, he bent his head low down on his horse's neck, and his powerful frame trembled with the convulsions of deep, hopeless, unmitigated grief.

It was late in the afternoon when he left the tanya; the faint rays of the setting sun shone from the west, and the crescent, shedding her silver light through a few feathery clouds, shone upon the solemn silence of the earth below. The beauty of Nature cannot prevail against the existence of care; but it can lessen its intensity: grief, with its bitter and passionate expression, yields to solemn sadness. Nature seems to share our woe: each star looks feelingly down from its sphere; and the boundless horizon brings our own littleness, and the trivial character of our sorrows, home to us.

The peaceful silence which surrounded Viola gave peace to his weary heart. He dried his tears as he looked up to the stars, that send forth their rays of hope from their spheres of silence and mystery.

He came to the hill whence, but a few short months ago, he had cast the first glance at his new tanya. He stopped his horse and looked back. The dim light of the moon showed him but a whitish speck, and a herdsman's fire near it. He thought of the hopes which bloomed in his heart when he came to the place; he thought of the events which destroyed those hopes in their first and fairest bloom. He thought of his children, who lay buried at the foot of the hill, and of their wretched mother, and of the cruel blow which was about to descend on her devoted head. Again the big tears gushed forth from his eyes; but when this sudden burst of sorrow was over, he regained all his former firmness.

"Who can help it?" said he, with a deep sigh, as he turned his horse's head away from the place which contained all he loved best. "What man can run away from his fate? I was born for misery!"

Viola intended to go to Tissaret and to surrender to Akosh Rety, or, if he did not find him, at least to send the Liptaka to tend and comfort his wife. The distance from the tanya to Tissaret was full eighty miles; and Viola, to avoid being seen by any one, especially in the county of Takshony, shunned the roads and beaten paths, and journeyed mostly at night. He had therefore time enough to think of his situation and prospects. But his thoughts would still return to Susi.

"I would not care," said he to himself, "if I could but be comforted on her account. She'll despair when they tell her that I have surrendered to the county magistrates. She will think me cruel! But what was I to do? They would have found me out at last. Old Janosh found me sure enough, and others might follow in his track any day. They would have pounced upon me and arrested me. But now that I surrender of my own free will, I can at least prevent them from taking Mr. Tengelyi's papers. I can get him out of his troubles, and who knows? perhaps they'll give me a pardon, Janosh said they would!"

This last reflection was a great comfort. If ever a man expected the approach of death calmly and with firmness, that man was Viola. But death by the hands of the executioner is terrible even to the most courageous; and Viola, who thought of Susi, was prepared to suffer all and everything, except this one last infamy, which he felt convinced his wife could never survive.

"Perhaps they will lock me up for ten years--let them! they may torture me, they may do their worst, I won't care for it. It will give Susi strength to know that I am alive, and that she can be of use to me; and I, too, I'm sure I'll bear any thing if I can see her at times; and after all there must be an end even to the worst punishment, as Janosh told me, and I shall be able to live as an honest man to the end of my life!"

Such is human nature. In the worst plights we cast the anchor of our hope amidst the shoals of lesser evils; but without hope we could not live for a day.

Viola's reflections on his position tended greatly to calm and comfort his mind. He was a two-fold murderer: but there were a variety of extenuating circumstances in both the cases; and, with the exception of his two great crimes, of all his breaches of the law, there was not one which exposed him to capital punishment; the circumstance that he had already undergone what the Hungarian law calls "_the agony_,"[34] namely, the mortal anxiety of a culprit under sentence of death, and in the present instance his voluntary surrender to the criminal justice of his country would stand in the way of a capital sentence. And if he succeeded in liberating the notary from his present painful position, could he not rely on the protection of Akosh Rety and his friends?

[Footnote 34: See Note II.]

The third night of his journey found him at a few miles' distance from Tissaret. Here he was under serious apprehensions lest he should fall into the hands of Mr. Skinner's Pandurs, before he could surrender or manage to deliver the papers to Akosh Rety. Viola had no idea of the real cause of the importance of the papers, but when he remembered that they were taken from him at the time of his capture in the St. Vilmosh forest, and that Mr. Skinner had attempted to deny their existence, he was justified in his fear that the justice would annihilate the documents if they were to fall into his hands. He resolved therefore to defend them to the last, and to prefer death to captivity, unless he could place the notary's papers in the hands of a trustworthy person.

At break of day he reached the St. Vilmosh forest. He had been on horseback ever since sunset, and his horse was fatigued. It was a good two hours' ride to Tissaret from the place where he stood, and he pitied the horse, which had done many a good service in by-gone days. He knew the danger to which he exposed himself by approaching the village by daylight, for nothing was more likely than that he would be seized and dragged to the justice's before he could meet young Rety. But what was he to do? The forest had been cleared in the course of the winter; the trees were still stripped of their foliage, and there was no place in which he could have remained till sunset. He had no other alternative but to proceed.

"And after all," thought he, "on the plain I can keep a good look out, and get out of the way, if need be. _Hollo_, my boy!" added he, patting his horse's neck, "don't fail me to-day, old comrade! I'll give you into good hands. Perhaps Master Akosh will take you to his stable. He'll use you for hare-hunting, for you've had a good schooling in racing. They've hunted us many a time; but never mind! Your time has come at last, Hollo, my boy, for this is the last time you and I are on the heath together!"

He continued his way in deep thought; and the horse, too, as if conscious of his master's grief, walked dejectedly amidst the trees on the outskirts of the forest.

Viola's train of gloomy reflections was interrupted by the sound of hoofs. He looked up, and beheld three Pandurs, who were travelling on the other side of the clearing. He turned his horse's head to steal away; but they had seen him, and rode up to him.

There was but one means of safety. He knew it at once, and, putting spurs to his horse, he rushed forward.

"Stand, or die!" shouted his pursuers; but, though fatigued, Hollo was still a match for the jaded hacks[35] of the county police, and the reports of the pistols which were fired behind him only heightened his speed. He rode on in the direction of Tissaret, and the Pandurs, who still kept their eyes upon him, followed, though at a distance.

[Footnote 35: Note V.]

Akosh was at that time in Tissaret. Ever since his wife's death, the sheriff felt an aversion to return to his family seat. He left the management of the property to his son, who lived in old Vandory's house; for he too had an aversion to the Castle and the reminiscences connected with it.

The morning on which Viola approached his native village, Vandory arose early, according to his habits, and seeing that the sky was clear and unclouded, he could not resist his desire to visit the Turk's Hill, to see the sunrise from its summit. He roused Akosh, and induced him to accompany him to the hill, on which we found the curate and Tengelyi at the commencement of this history.

There are few people in the world who like to be disturbed in their sleep; and though Akosh Rety yielded to his uncle's entreaties, his temper was none of the sweetest, as he accompanied the enthusiastic old man, who, in the course of their walk, held forth on the beauties of the rising sun, while he delighted in the anticipation of the glorious spectacle which awaited them. To the shame of Akosh Rety be it spoken, that not all the glories of that gorgeous phenomenon, and much less his uncle's arguments, could convince him that it was worth while to wake him from his sweet dreams, merely for the purpose of seeing a few pink clouds and breathing the moist and chilly air of an April morning. But though the beauties of Nature failed to engage his interest, his attention was soon directed to and attracted by another spectacle.

Akosh had not been on the Turk's Hill ever since the autumn, when he met Vandory and the notary after the hunt. It was but natural that he should think of all the events that had occurred since that time. His heart was full, and he turned to the curate, saying,--

"I remember, for all the world as if it had happened yesterday, that poor Tengelyi stood where we now stand. Our horses were at the bottom of the hill. To the right stood Paul Skinner, the great fool. I think even now I hear his curses when he looked to the forest of St. Vilmosh, and saw that the Pandurs were escorting a prisoner. You remember it, don't you? I protested that it was not Viola whom they had with them!"

As he said these words, Akosh turned in the direction of the St. Vilmosh forest, and his quick eye discovered the horsemen, who at that moment broke from the forest and spurred over the plain.

"What does this mean?" cried he, as he directed Vandory's attention to the chase.

"What is it?"

"Look! look! they are going at a fearful rate. One man in front, and three after him as if they were pursuing him!"

The curate sighed.

"Heaven forbid!" said he. "I have seen one of my fellow-creatures hunted down from this very spot. I hope and trust----"

"It's a chase!" cried Akosh. "It's the foremost man they are after. How he cuts away! straight through the meadows and over the fields!"

"God help him!" said the curate, folding his hands.

"He can't escape! they are driving him up to the village, and his beast is done up. They have been gaining upon him ever since we first saw him!"

"Let us hope the man is not a robber!" said Vandory, who watched the proceedings of the horseman with painful attention. "I am sure he is a robber, or at least his pursuers take him for one," added he, after a short pause.

"I see the carbines of the Pandurs!" cried Akosh. "The poor beast is done up! One of the rascals is close at his heels--there! he's come down horse and all! On! on! my fine fellow! you're safe for a few minutes! you've got a start now! Goodness knows!" added the young man, "I'd do any thing to give him a fresh horse!"

Viola's position--for we need not say that it was he whom Akosh and Vandory beheld from the Turk's Hill--was improved by the fall of one of his pursuers; for when the second Pandur came up to the place where his comrade struggled under the weight of his horse, he stopped and dismounted to assist him. As for the third officer, he was far in the rear; and as it was Viola's greatest desire to reach the village, and to give the papers into the hands of a trustworthy person, he could for a moment hope to succeed in his endeavours.

"Hollo! my good horse, don't fail me in this last extremity!" gasped he, as he spurred his steed. "On! on! Hajra! Hajra! Hollo!"

But Hollo's last strength was spent. The poor beast came from a long and fatiguing journey, and for the last half-hour the race had been over broken ground, fields and ditches. From a gallop he fell into a broken trot; and Viola, who was close to the Turk's Hill, and who saw his pursuers coming nearer and nearer, tried all he could do, with voice, whip, and spur, to urge the exhausted animal onward. The horse was covered with white foam, the perspiration ran down his long black mane, he trembled on his legs--but despair made Viola blind to the sufferings of his faithful companion, and again and again he buried his spurs in his bleeding sides. Hollo made another rush forward.

"Stand and surrender!" cried a voice behind him.

Viola turned round.

The Pandur was at the distance of but a few yards from him; another minute would have brought him to his side.

The outlaw seized the pistol at his saddle-bow, and turned it upon his pursuer. But the Pandur had his carbine in readiness.

He raised it, and fired.

Viola uttered a loud shriek! He flung back his hands and fell on his horse's neck. The frightened animal leaped, plunged, and rolled on the ground!

Akosh Rety, who had left his position on the hill for the purpose of interfering, if possible, in behalf of the pursued, came just in time to prevent the Pandur from ill-treating the wounded man.

The latter had dismounted, and would have struck Viola with a fokosh, had not young Rety prevented him.

"You're a dead man, if you dare to hurt him!" cried Akosh, endeavouring to extricate the robber from the weight of his horse. "Scoundrel! don't you see you've killed him?"

"Killed him, indeed! So much the better!" said Tzifra, (for it was he, whom the patronage of Paul Skinner had established among the county police). He would have resisted, but on consideration he thought it best to avoid a quarrel with the sheriff's son.

"I don't care, sir, whether I've killed him or not," said he; "I'm sure it does not matter. Don't you see, sir, it's Viola; and I'm entitled to the reward of five hundred florins, which the county has promised to the man who captures or kills him. I hope he'll die before my comrades come. Confound them, they'd be after claiming part of the money!"

Akosh paid no attention to the Pandur's brutal expressions, and with Vandory's assistance he succeeded in removing the horse from the body of the wounded man.

"He is dead!" said Akosh, as they laid him on the turf. "Life is extinct, and with it all hope of proving Tengelyi's innocence!"

The curate knelt down and examined the wound.

"No!" said he. "He is alive, but the ball has pierced his breast. He is not likely to live; still I think he will linger on for a few hours. I say!" added he, addressing the Pandur, "mount and ride to the village! Tell them to send a stretcher and call in a surgeon!"

"I'd rather----" replied Tzifra. "Don't you think me such a fool as all that. I'm entitled to a reward of five hundred florins, and if I go, my comrades will come and claim the money. And, after all, your worships are my witnesses that it was I who shot him!"

"If you don't go this very moment, I'll blow your brains out!" shouted Akosh, taking up a pistol which had fallen from Viola's hands. "Be off! I'll give the blood-money if no one else will!"

His threats and promises induced Tzifra to hasten away. Young Rety and the curate remained with Viola, and when the two Pandurs came up they were at once despatched for some water; but neither the water, nor the words of comfort and consolation spoken by Vandory, availed to break through the deep slumber of death which lay on the wounded man.

Half an hour passed thus, and already did the people from the village flock to the spot, when Viola gave some signs of returning life.

He moved his limbs, opened his eyes, and looked around.

"Do you know me?" said Akosh, leaning over him, and taking his hand. "Pray look at me, Viola!"

"I know you!" replied the outlaw, with a broken voice. "It's well you are here, for it's you I wanted to see."

He raised his hand, and made a vain attempt to open his dress.

"Open my coat for me!" said he. "Take the papers away. They are Mr. Tengelyi's papers, which Jantshi the Jew and Catspaw the attorney stole. I came to restore them to their owner."

Akosh took the papers in his hand.

"They are covered with blood!" groaned the outlaw. "There's some fresh blood on them; but it's no matter,--it's my own blood. Mr. Tengelyi deserved well of me,--we are quits now. Tell him I kiss his hands, and don't let him say that Viola was a reprobate who returned evil for good!"

While he spoke, the people of the village came in crowds and stood round him.

Vandory advanced, and said,--

"My friend, perhaps you are not aware of the fearful suspicion which rests on Mr. Tengelyi, on account of these very papers?"

"I know all about it!" replied Viola. "Janosh told me everything; and it was for the purpose of clearing him from suspicion that I came to deliver myself to the magistrates."

With a violent effort he raised himself on his arm, and exclaimed:

"Men of Tissaret, listen to me! Whoever says that it was Mr. Tengelyi who killed the attorney, that man tells an untruth, no matter who he be! _I_ am the murderer. I intended to take the papers which the attorney and the Jew stole from the notary. He threatened to shoot me, and I slew him. The notary is not guilty of the murder, so help me God!"

He fell back, and lay motionless. The villagers were deeply moved by his words. They stood silent, and many of them wept.

"Poor fellow!" said an old peasant at length, "why has fate dealt with you in this manner? You were a good neighbour, and I thought you would close my eyes after my death, as I closed your father's eyes before you."

Viola turned his glance upon the speaker.

"Old man," said he, "when you pass my house, and see it desolate or inhabited by strangers, you will not forget Viola, your neighbour, who owned it in former times. God sees my soul! it was not by my own fault that I came to be what I am. May God have mercy upon me, and upon those who made me a robber!"

"Clear the way! let me pass! for mercy's sake, let me come to him!" cried a female voice at a distance; and as the people fell back on each side, old Mother Liptaka came running up to her dying kinsman.

"Take him up!" cried she. "Why don't you take him to the village? There's life, and hope, and help! Come along, some of you, and carry him to my house!"

"Leave me alone, coz!" said Viola, drawing his breath with great difficulty; "leave me alone! Nothing can do me good. It's over with me, and it serves me right. There's blood on my hands, and I pay for it with my own blood. Heaven is just, coz! But since die I must, let me die here in the free air of heaven, and in the warm rays of the sun."

His voice grew fainter and fainter.

He moved his hand.

The Liptaka, obedient to his wish, knelt down by his side.

"Go to Susi, coz!" said he; "tell her I implore her pardon for having deceived her when I left my home. Tell her I could not help it. I could not abandon my benefactor in his distress; and if I had told her what I was going to do----"

The words died on his pale lips. Once more did he open his eyes on the clear blue sky, on the distant village, and the people around him. He closed them again. A strange smile passed over his face, and with his last breath he whispered,--

"_Susi!_"

"May God have mercy on every sinner!" said the old peasant. "He has much to answer for!"

"His sufferings were great!" said Vandory. "May the earth be light to him, after the struggles of this life!"

CONCLUSION.

It is scarcely necessary to detail the results of Viola's last confession. Tengelyi's liberation and the alliance of his house with the Retys, and of the Retys with the Kishlakis, by means of Kalman and Etelka, were its first fruits. The happy consummation of the wishes of the young people, and the heartfelt contentment which expressed itself in the faces of all around him, sufficed to rouse Mr. Rety from the gloomy lethargy into which the events detailed in this history, and especially the death of his wife, had sunk him. He did not, indeed, feel at ease in his official position, which he resigned, under the pretence of ill health; nor at Tissaret, for the place reminded him of many things which he wished to forget; but he sought and found all his heart longed for in his dignified retirement at Dustbury. He was respected by all factions, for he never opposed any, and he was the favourite of the ruling party, whatever it might be, for his political opinions were always exactly those of the majority. Some people believed that he intended to remove to Pesth. They were mistaken. Rety was the first man in Dustbury: he did not care to follow, since he might lead. Besides, he became, in course of time, sincerely attached to old Kishlaki, who disliked Pesth, and who preferred Dustbury, his pipe, and the frequency of his intercourse with his son, Kalman, and his daughter-in-law, Etelka, to all the capitals of Europe. It need hardly be said, that Mr. Kishlaki was not any longer, nor did he ever intend to act again as, president of a court-martial.

The notary was moody and depressed for many months. Misfortunes are apt to spoil the most facile temper, and Mr. Tengelyi's temper was _not_ facile. His wife's entreaties could never induce him to inhabit the Castle of Tissaret, and to join the family circle of Akosh and Vilma Rety. But the happiness which surrounded him, the beneficial influence which he, the father-in-law of the lord of the manor, exercised over the condition of the inhabitants of Tissaret, and the conversation of his friends, Völgyeshy and Vandory, conquered his habitual ill-humour, and made him, in course of time, an agreeable and even indulgent member of the circle in which he moved.

As for Mr. Paul Skinner, his fate was simple in the extreme. An unfortunate mistake which he committed, by compelling the peasants of Garatsh to repair his house instead of the roads, caused the High Court to deprive him of his office, and, with it, of all the means he possessed to attract attention or merit public reproof. If he is still a tyrant--for nothing is known of his present doings--he must confine his oppression to his family circle, where it is but too likely that he will at length meet with opposition.

Susi was anxiously waiting for her husband's return when the news of his death reached her. It came upon her like lightning: she fell, and lay in a death-like swoon. When she returned to consciousness, she arose and went to the graves of her children, which were for the first time covered with the fresh verdure of spring. She knelt down and took her leave of all that remained of her loved ones; and, having done this, she consented to accompany the Mother Liptaka to Tissaret. She asked, as a favour, that she might be allowed to live in the house which she and her husband formerly inhabited. Akosh Rety had the house repaired, and everything arranged as it was when Viola was an honest and thriving peasant. It was there Susi lived, lonely and solitary, speaking to no one, and never leaving her room except by night. After sunset she would go to the Turk's Hill, where she remained till morning dawned on the far plain.

Some months passed in this manner. Akosh and Vilma (now his loving wife) were walking on a fine evening in June to the Turk's Hill, when they were startled by a female voice, singing the words of the psalm:--

"Oh that to me the wings were given, Which bear the turtle to her nest! That I might cleave the vaults of heaven, And flee away, and be at rest!"

Vilma knew the singer.

Early next morning, when the peasants went to their work in the fields, they found a woman lying on her face, close to the Turk's Hill, on the spot where Viola had breathed his last.

They tried to wake her, but they could not. Susi slept, never to wake again!

* * * * *

My work is done; and nothing now remains but to say adieu to my readers. But before I close this book, let me turn to the boundless plain of my country, and to the scene of the joys and sorrows of my youth, to the banks of the yellow Theiss! There is a beauty in the mountains; there is a charm in the broad waters of the Danube: but to me there is a rapture in the thought of the pride of Hungary,--her _green plain_! It extends, boundless as the ocean; it has nothing to fetter our view but the deep blue canopy of Heaven. No brown chain of mountains surrounds it; no ice-covered peaks are gilded by the rays of the rising sun!

Plain of Hungary! Thy luxuriant vegetation withers where it stands; thy rivers flow in silence among their reed-covered banks: Nature has denied thee the grandeur of mountain scenery, the soft beauty of the valley, and the majestic shade of the forest, and the wayfaring man who traverses thee will not, in later years, think of one _single_ beauty which reminds him of thee; but he will never forget the awe he felt when he stood admiring thy vastness; when the rising sun poured his golden light on thee; or when, in the sultry hours of noon, the _Fata Morgana_ covered thy shadeless expanse with flowery lakes of fresh swelling waters, like the scorched-up land's dream of the sea which covered it, before the waters of the Danube had forced their way through the rocks of the _Iron Gate_; or at night, when darkness was spread over the silent heath, when the stars were bright in the sky, and the herdsmen's fires shone over the plain, and when all was so still that the breeze of the evening came to the wanderer's ears, sighing amidst the high grass. And what was the feeling which filled his breast in such moments? It was perhaps less distinct than the sensations which the wonders of Alpine scenery caused in him; but it was grander still, for thou, too, boundless Plain of my country, thou, too, art more grand than the mountains of this earth. A peer art thou of the unmeasured ocean, deep-coloured and boundless like the sea, imparting a freer pulsation to the heart, extending onward, and far as the eye can reach!

Vast Plain, thou art the image of my people. Hopeful, but solitary; thou art made to bless generations by the profuseness of thy wealth. The energies which God gave thee are still slumbering; and the centuries which have passed over thee have departed without seeing the day of thy gladness! But thy genius, though hidden, is mighty within thee! Thy very weeds, in their profusion, proclaim thy fertility; and there is a boding voice in my heart which tells me that the great time is at hand. Plain of my country, mayst thou flourish! and may the people flourish which inhabit thee! Happy he who sees the day of thy glory; and happy those whose present affliction is lightened by the consciousness that they are devoting their energies to prepare the way for that better time which is sure to come!

NOTES TO VOL. III.

NOTE I.

KITCHEN-PRISONER.

In all matters of internal management, the Hungarian prisons have always been arranged on the self-supporting system. While the service of the house, the feeding and airing, and the discipline, were in the hands of the haiduks, who acted as turnkeys, the meaner work was done by the prisoners. A few of them were always chosen to clean the wards and cellars, to sweep the yard, to cook the prisoners' dinners, and (not unfrequently) to assist the servants of those among the magistrates who occupied chambers in the county-house. The men who were used for this kind of work were called "_kitchen-prisoners_;" and as the occupation was not only a distinction but also a means of making them comfortable, the post was eagerly competed for. So accustomed were the magistrates to see certain functions discharged by prisoners instead of by free men, that once upon a time, when not a single evil-doer was confined in the county gaol of Wieselburg, and when the haiduks refused to sweep, char, and cook, such occupations being "_infra dig._," the worshipful magistrates assembled, and, for the purpose of putting an end to so disgraceful a state of things, resolved to _hire a prisoner_, meaning thereby the engaging of a person who, for a certain pecuniary consideration, would condescend to act as servant to the turnkeys. This resolution was carried out, and the man whom they engaged was ever afterwards designated by the name of "_The hired kitchen-prisoner_."

NOTE II.

AGONY.

The Hungarian criminal law held that the moral sufferings of a culprit on the eve of execution are quite as severe a punishment as death itself. Hence, if a culprit was hanged, and the rope broke, he was usually released. A free pardon was also granted to those whom the headsman failed to kill in three blows. If a culprit escaped, the circumstance that he had been ordered to be executed, and that he had suffered "_the agonies_," was a great point in his favour whenever he was recaptured and brought to trial.

NOTE III.

URBARIUM.

Whatever travellers and politicians may have asserted to the contrary, Hungary has not, for many years back, known any privileges of race. Her social and legislative distinctions were founded on _class privileges_. In the very first year of her history we find, indeed, a distinction between a governing and a governed race. When Arpad invaded the country, his companions and the aborigines who joined him were free. But the majority of the Slowaks, who opposed him, were defeated and reduced to servitude. The number of the serfs was increased by the frequent predatory excursions into Southern Germany, Greece, and Upper Italy, in which the followers of Arpad indulged, and from which they returned with treasures, cattle, and captives. The latter remained as bondsmen on Hungarian soil.

When St. Stephen, king of Hungary, induced his people to embrace the Christian faith (in the year 1000), all Christians, even the serfs, and all converts to Christianity, became free men; but all heathens were reduced to, and remained in, servitude. Hence many nationalities were emancipated, while part of the original Magyars became serfs. This is the origin of the Hungarian _peasantry_.

In the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, the Hungarian peasant had ceased to be a serf. He was merely "_glebæ adscriptus_," and bound to a _robot_; that is to say, he was compelled to work for two days each week for the benefit of the lord of the soil. In return, a certain portion of land (from thirty to forty acres) was ceded to him, and he was compelled to pay tithes to the church. The landlord had no right to remove him from his _cession_.

In the fourteenth century, the _robot_, or labour rent, was increased, and the peasantry were moreover obliged to give one ninth of their harvests to the landlord, but, on the other hand, they were freed from military service. The noblemen, or, more justly speaking, the franklins, alone defended the country against foreign invasions. At a later period, when the Turkish wars commenced, the attacks of that hardy, numerous, and warlike race, placed Hungary in great jeopardy, and the franklins, awed and terrified beyond measure, summoned the peasants to defend the country. A law was passed compelling twenty _cessions_ to produce, equip, and maintain in the field _one_ soldier; and the men who were thus raised were called _hussars_, from _hus_, which means twenty. The derivation of the name was of course speedily forgotten; and in later years the Hungarian cavalry used to boast that they were called _hussars_ because each man of them was a match for twenty.[36]

[Footnote 36: The nickname of the Hungarian infantry was Cherepai, or double dealers, because it was asserted that in the exchange of prisoners, two Turks were given for one Hungarian foot-soldier.]

In the year 1512, Cardinal Bakatsh, the archbishop of Gran, thought proper to preach a crusade against the Turks, and to exhort the peasantry to rally round the standard of the cross. They obeyed the call with great readiness, but once assembled and in arms, they advanced some new and dangerous doctrines. Property, they said, ought to be equally divided. No one was entitled to one inch more of ground than his neighbour. They protested that they saw no necessity for lords and magnates, and as for the king, they put him down as a luxury. Their cry was that Hungary was large enough for all to live in plenty, if the land were equally divided. For the furtherance of their doctrine, and for the purpose of giving a practical proof of their thesis, "that there was room and plenty for all," they attacked and slaughtered, not the Turks, but their landlords, and all other opponents of their fraternal democracy. Some priests who joined them directed their destructive fanaticism against the church, and, under the cry of religious and political liberty, all ecclesiastical and secular government was declared to be vicious and damnable.

This insurrection was at its height, when the franklins and magnates of Hungary assembled under John Zapolya (afterwards King John), the Voyewode of Transylvania. A war of extermination commenced, and the forces of the fraternal democrats were eventually routed in a fierce battle, which was fought near Szegedin. Their leader, George Dozsa, fell into the hands of John Zapolya, who ordered him to be placed on a red-hot iron throne, while his temples were scorched by an iron crown. The other leaders of the insurrection were hanged, broken on the wheel, and quartered. The Diet, which assembled immediately afterwards, declared that the peasants had forfeited all their rights. They were degraded to the state of serfs, _ad perpetuam rusticitatem_; that is to say, they could never purchase their emancipation, and rise to the estate of citizens or franklins.

Fifty years later, we find some laws which prove that this cruel decree was "more honoured in the breach than the observance." The peasants have returned to their robot of two days each week; but nevertheless their condition is extremely precarious, for the law of the land is still against them, and whatever privileges they enjoy, they hold them, not by right, but by indulgence.

In 1715 occurs the first introduction of a standing army and of war taxes. The landowners refused to pay these taxes, because they protested that, as they were the proprietors of the land, and as every burden on the peasant was a burden on his landlord, it followed that all that the peasants paid was in reality paid by them, and that to tax peasant and landlord meant no more than taxing the latter twice. The war taxes were consequently paid by the peasantry. But as these taxes rested and depended on the tenure of the peasants, the government considered itself entitled to protect them against the encroachments of the landowners, and to establish them irrevocably in their _cessions_.

In 1764, the Empress Maria Theresa proposed a law to the Diet regulating and determining the duties and rights of the peasantry. The Diet found fault with the details of the bill, and rejected it. The Empress convoked no other Diet, but, deviating from the course of the law, she decreed that the bill should be enforced throughout Hungary by means of Royal Commissioners. The Estates of Hungary demurred against this decree, not only because the clauses of the bill were utterly impracticable, but also because the interference of Royal Commissioners was a source of great annoyance to the Hungarian magistrates and landed proprietors. The Hungarian Chancery and the Home Office supported the Diet in the question of details, because it was impossible to make one rule suffice for the whole country. One councillor only, M. Izdenczy, declared that the thing could be done, and he volunteered to prepare the code, if the Empress consented to let him have an unlimited quantity of Tokay from her cellars. His wish was complied with, and he undertook and finished his gigantic task in the year 1771. His code was that very year introduced throughout Hungary under the name of _Urbarium_.

Izdenczy's work has a strong resemblance to the Doomsday Book. Every village within the Hungarian countries and crownlands has its own Urbarium put down in it, stating the number of cessions, and describing the various tenures, burdens, and local rights (right of wood and turf-cutting, of pasturage, &c.) of the peasants.

The next Diet met in 1790, and memorialised the Crown about the _manner_ in which the law had been introduced; but no complaints were made of the law itself, which obtained a provisional ratification under the condition of a future revision. But the French wars compelled the Diet to devote all its energies to matters of greater urgency, viz. to the defence and preservation of the House of Hapsburg. At a later period the subject would have been resumed but for the necessity under which the Hungarians were to struggle for their constitution against the attacks of the Emperor Francis; but still the revision of the Urbarium, though long delayed, was at length finished in 1836 and 1839. The revised work was far more liberal than the Urbarium of Maria Theresa: it tended to equalise the rights and duties of the peasants; and its leading principle was, that in no single case the condition of the peasantry should be harder than it was in the most favoured localities in the times of Maria Theresa. Exceptional rights were thus made general; emancipation was henceforth possible, and attainable even by common energy and industry. But the act of the free and unfettered emancipation was voted by the Diet of 1848, on the motion and by the influence of M. Kossuth, who, while he abolished the Urbarium, induced the Diet likewise to provide for the indemnification of the landowners. The present emperor of Austria has revoked all the laws of 1848; but he did not venture to repeal the Emancipation Bill. Nothing has, indeed, transpired as to what the Austrian government proposes to do respecting the indemnification of the landed proprietors.

NOTE IV.

TRIPARTITUM.

Hungary had at no time a systematic code of civil laws, although several jurists attempted to codify the Hungarian common law and the cases in which it was modified by statutes. Their zeal was great, for, from the earliest times, the Hungarian lawyers found it necessary to protect their institutions against the encroachments of the royal prerogative, which were the more frequent and formidable as several of the kings were not only princes in Hungary, but also sovereigns of other countries. Sigismund, for instance, was emperor of Germany, and king of Bohemia and Hungary. Uladislaw I. ruled over Poland and Hungary; while Ladislaw Posthumus, Uladislaw II., and Louis II., united the two crowns of Bohemia and Hungary. At length Uladislaw II., who was a weak prince, and who was nicknamed _Doborze_, from his habit of saying "Well! well!" to everything which happened, consented to the urgent entreaties of the Diet that the common law should be codified; and _Verbötzi_, the leader of the opposition and a good lawyer, was instructed to compile a code of laws. He published his work under the title of "_Opus Tripartitum juris Hungarici_."

Verbötzi was afterwards appointed to the post of Palatine; but he was overthrown by a junta of magnates, because they considered him as a radical and a friend to the _bourgeoisie_. They protested that his work was injurious to their privileges. Before the Tripartitum could be submitted to the Diet, King Louis II. (Uladislaw's successor) died in the battle of Mohatsh (1526). His death was the cause of a war of succession between King John Zapolya, Prince of Grosswarasdin, and King Ferdinand of Hapsburg. Verbötzi, who exerted himself on King John's behalf, and who was banished by King Ferdinand, took refuge with the Turks, who appointed him to the post of Cadi for the Christian inhabitants of the district of Buda, where he eventually died. After his death, the work of the exiled outlaw became the highest authority of Hungarian jurisprudence and the standard of common law. It was never formally enacted by the Diets; but as the kings of Austrian extraction considered the Tripartitum as injurious to the privileges of the Crown, they compiled another code of laws, which they published under the name of "_Quadripartitum_" and in which they set forth and enlarged upon the royal prerogatives. But the Quadripartitum was rejected by the Diet, who thus acknowledged the authority of Verbötzi's Tripartitum, which since that time has not only been considered as law, but as an integral part of the constitution; and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries we meet with various statutes of the Diet, interpreting or repealing certain paragraphs of the Tripartitum.

The most important parts of the Tripartitum are those treating of the rights of the nobility (Trip. part i. ch. 4-9.); part ii. chap. 3., "Qui possint condere leges et statuta;" and part iii. chap. 2. "Utrum quilibet populus vel comitatus possit per se condere statuta."

The theory of voting in Verbötzi's work is extraordinary in its way. He has a maxim that the votes are to be weighed and not counted ("non numeranda sed ponderanda"), and consequently he speaks of a "pars sanior" of the community, and defends his doctrine by the following reasoning:--

"Verum si populus (_i. e._ nobilitas, part ii. ch. 4.) in duas divideretur partes, tunc constitutio _sanioris_ et potioris partis valet. Sanior et potior pars autem ilia dicitur, in qua _dignitate_ et _scientiâ_ fuerint _præstantiores_ atque _notabiliores_"--Verbötzi, Trip. part iii. ch. 8. s. 2.

Among the numerous peculiarities of the work, we find "capital punishment with a vengeance" (poena mortis cum exasperatione) pronounced against those who maliciously kill any member of the Diet in the course of the session.

"Præmissorum nihilominus malitiosi sub Diæta occisores aut occidi procurantes præviâ tamen citatione _poenâ mortis cum exasperatione_ condemnentur."

Another obsolete punishment is that of making a man an "Aukarius." It is provided by law that the slanderers of magistrates shall be condemned to the "poena infamiæ;" and, in explanation of this punishment, we learn that the culprit shall be made "ut omni humanitate exuatur." He is struck with what the Code Napoleon would term "mort civile," and, in token of his condemnation, a _rope_ is tied round the culprit's body (the rope being the mark of infamy, which monks wear to show that they have resigned the pomps and vanities of this wicked world), and as the sentence is being publicly read to him, a _goose_ is placed into his hands. The Hungarian word for goose is _oeke_, and from thence the Latin name of the person so treated is _Aukarius_.

NOTE V.

HAIDUKS ON HORSEBACK.

The hussars are the Hungarian cavalry, while the haiduks or pandurs are foot-soldiers. Both hussars and pandurs act as county police. Whenever the _statarium_ was proclaimed in any county, the _persecutor_, or chief of the county police, was instructed to provide horses for a reasonable number of haiduks, and to send them in quest of robbers.

END OF THE THIRD VOLUME.

LONDON: SPOTTISWOODES and SHAW, New-street-Square.

Transcriber's Note: This novel was originally published in three volumes, without a table of contents. The title pages for the second and third volumes have been omitted, and a table of contents has been created for this electronic edition. Also, the following typographical errors present in the original edition have been corrected.

In the Preface, "attempted to pourtray" was changed to "attempted to portray".

In Volume I, Chapter IV, "Had it not been for the younker Akosh" was changed to "Had it not been for the younger Akosh".

In Volume I, Chapter V, a period was added after "know him as I know him", "gave Mr. Kislaki to understand" was changed to "gave Mr. Kishlaki to understand", and "Baron Shoskuti; and Mr. Kriver, the recorder" was changed to "Baron Shoskuty; and Mr. Kriver, the recorder".

In Volume I, Chapter VI, a quotation mark was added after "the same as they were before".

In Volume I, Chapter VII, a period was added after "afraid for their money".

In Volume I, Chapter VIII, "an argument on Vetsöshi's abilities" was changed to "an argument on Vetshösy's abilities".

In Volume I, Chapter X, "Dont stand losing your time" was changed to "Don't stand losing your time".

In Volume I, Chapter XI, "his wife---- can" was changed to "his wife----can", and a quotation mark was added before "I didn't think I could be happier".

In Volume II, Chapter II, a quotation mark was added before "Od's wounds!".

In Volume II, Chapter III, "its not a gentleman's carriage" was changed to "it's not a gentleman's carriage", "an iron gripe" was changed to "an iron grip", and "Even Messrs Skinner and Catspaw" was changed to "Even Messrs. Skinner and Catspaw".

In Volume II, Chapter V, "if Mr. Skinner's likes it better" was changed to "if Mr. Skinner likes it better", "be took another parcel" was changed to "he took another parcel", a period was added after "still smiling", "as Skoskuty called it" was changed to "as Shoskuty called it", "a resolulution to that effect" was changed to "a resolution to that effect", and "sighed Kisklaki" was changed to "sighed Kishlaki".

In Volume II, Chapter VIII, "to keep them sober" was changed to "To keep them sober".

In Volume II, Chapter X, "knew to be an accessary" was changed to "knew to be an accessory".

In Volume III, Chapter I, "Do not distress youselves" was changed to "Do not distress yourselves".

In Volume III, Chapter II, a quotation mark was added after "nothing can be easier to Mr. Tengelyi".

In Volume III, Chapter III, "the keeper of Dustbury goal allowed each prisoner" was changed to "the keeper of Dustbury gaol allowed each prisoner", "hade made the cold" was changed to "had made the cold", and "utterly digusted with this resolution" was changed to "utterly disgusted with this resolution".

In Volume III, Chapter V, a period was added after "retorted Rety", and "not allowed to, abandon her" was changed to "not allowed to abandon her".

In Volume III, Chapter VI, "said Jonash, shaking his head" was changed to "said Janosh, shaking his head".

In Volume III, Chapter VIII, a quotation mark was added before "Is there no means of salvation?".

In Volume III, Chapter IX, "It's true I havn't seen him" was changed to "It's true I haven't seen him", and "dotted with flocks and herds of cattle and and horses" was changed to "dotted with flocks and herds of cattle and horses".