The Village Notary: A Romance of Hungarian Life. Eötvös József

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СКАЧАТЬ didn't he speak? – why not mention the letters? Come here, you d – old rascal!" thundered the judge, who was one of those amiable men whose rage reaches the boiling point at a minute's notice, and whose words are most offensive when they ought to be most conciliating. "You dog! why did you not say that you were sent by the sheriff? I have a mind to give you two dozen – I have!"

      The gipsy was aware of the favourable change in his prospects, and he replied, with considerable coolness, that the cruel treatment of the Pandurs had caused him to forget all about it; "besides," added he, "my lady told me not to show the letters to any one; and, moreover, I was sure my innocence would come to light."

      "Your innocence! it is shocking," cried the justice, holding up his hands; "the fellow has a letter from the sheriff in his pocket, and the blockhead relies on his innocence! Here are your letters; – go! – run! – and woe to you if the letters come too late to St. Vilmosh!"

      The gipsy nodded his head, and hastened in the direction of St. Vilmosh! He was scarcely gone, when Mr. Skinner vented his passion upon the Pandurs. He expressed his astonishment, intermixed with curses, at the impertinence of these worthy men for having caught the sheriff's gipsy; and when they appealed to Mr. Kenihazy, all the comfort they received was a gentle hint of certain misgivings that gentleman entertained respecting their being suffered to go at large. Akosh and the rest of the company were amused with Mr. Skinner's violence and the agility of the gipsy, who every now and then looked back, and ran the quicker afterwards. The notary and the clergyman remained serious: and when the party had left, and neither the merry laugh of Akosh nor Skinner's ever-ready curses fell upon their ear, Tengelyi turned to his friend, saying, "Do you still think that hare-hunting is the cruellest pastime of these gentlemen?"

      "No, indeed!" sighed Vandory; "and to think that these men are public functionaries, and that the weal and woe of thousands is in their hands!"

      "Ha!" cried Tengelyi, turning round, and directing the attention of his friend to a dark point which moved over the vast expanse of the heath, "is not that our gipsy?"

      "Yes; but he runs rather in a line with us, instead of to St. Vilmosh."

      "So it seems," said Tengelyi, "and for once the sheriff's orders will not be obeyed. Perhaps he is bribed by the other party; but who knows? Skinner may be right, and Peti is leagued with Viola. In that case he is now on his way to inform the outlaw of what the judge most wisely communicated to him, for I am sure that gipsy does not run so fast without good cause. But what does it matter to us?"

      And the two friends returned to the village.

      CHAP. II

      On a ridge of the Carpathian mountains, where, gradually lessening, they descend to the green Hungarian plain, lies the village of Bard, amidst meadow land, forests, and vineyards. Its situation is most pleasant, though lonely; and, removed as it is from the busy high road and the means of traffic and communication, the village is both unknown and poor. About fifty years ago, there lived in this village Esaias Tengelyi, the curate of Bard, and father to Jonas Tengelyi, whom we mentioned as notary of Tissaret. The life of Esaias Tengelyi passed peaceably and unnoticed, like the place in which he exercised his sacred calling, or the valley and the mountain side which sheltered his humble cottage. The condition of the Reformed Church in Hungary does not by any means deserve the epithet of "brilliant," even in our own days; but the present village pastors are most enviably situated in comparison to their brethren of fifty years ago. Still the life of the Reverend Esaias Tengelyi, though full of privations, was rich in enjoyment. He loved his cottage, its straw-covered roof, and the brown rafters of its ceiling. Sometimes, indeed, he wished to have the windows of his room a little larger, – and he went even so far as to take the resolution of administering, at his own expense, to this drawback to the comforts of his home. The huge stove, too, which served also the purpose of an oven, made his room preposterously small, and on baking days it threw out a greater quantity of heat than was consistent with comfort. The neighbouring curates, whenever they came to pay their respects to the Reverend Esaias, were violent in their strictures upon the parish of Bard, for neglecting to provide their pastor's study with a decent flooring: nay, more, the good man was seriously reproved, and earnestly adjured to follow the example of his brethren in office, who had successfully petitioned the Synod respecting the gross indecency of pastoral clay floors. But Tengelyi could not be moved to stir in behalf of his house: perhaps he liked it better as it was. Its windows were indeed small; but then he had often sat by them reading the Scriptures; and they had seen the roses on his wife's cheek. The stove was large, – of course it was, – but in winter it offered a convenient and warm seat; and the clay floor of his study was the same on which his father's feet had trod, when he was meditating his sermons, while the son made his first attempt to stand on a pair of trembling little legs. After all, there was nothing like the window, the stove, and the floor, for a countless number of sweet and tender emotions were connected with them. Esaias Tengelyi was happy; he felt that the largest window, that the smallest stove, and the most splendid floor of old oak, could not add to his happiness.

      But that happiness could be lessened. The pastor's wife died, and the heart which had harboured so much bliss was henceforth the home of bitter sorrow. Tengelyi gave no words to his anguish, nor did he strive to add to or lessen his grief; but his friends felt that time was as nothing to the sorrow of his heart, and that his hopes and wishes were not on this side of the grave. His little son, Jonas, was the only tie which bound the old pastor to the world. The boy was but four years of age when his mother died; what would become of him, if he were also bereft of his father? People have scarcely a heart for their own children; how then is an orphan to fare for love? And the boy was most beautiful, when he cast his deep blue eyes upwards to the father's sad face! His voice had the tones of that dear voice which taught him his first words; his yellow locks were smooth and orderly, as if fresh from his mother's hands; – what was to become of the child on this wide earth, and with no kindred, but his parents in the grave? Tengelyi would not be comforted, but a sense of his duty kept him alive.

      Little Jonas throve under his father's care. He knew not what it was to be motherless in this world, where the heart finds that trusty, faithful love it yearns for, only at a mother's breast. A child's heart is a little treasury of joy, and there is no room in it for great griefs. In the first days after the event, little Jonas called for his mother, and receiving no answer from that mild, loving voice, he sat down and wept his fill; in the night he dreamed of her, and lisped her name. But as time wore on, his mother's name was rarely mentioned, and when spring came, with its flowers, her memory passed away like the distant notes of a song. All this was natural. Children are most enviable, because they are most forgetful. A thousand flowers are blooming round a child: why should it ponder on the sorrows of the past? A thousand melodies flit around it, and the young heart leaps to them: it has no ear for the sad accents of distant love.

      Thus did the first years pass away. When Jonas had completed his eighth year, his father commenced his education. The old pastor's plan was extremely simple. He made the child ask questions, and answered them in a manner which was at once explicit and adapted to the boy's capacities. He had no idea of making his son a phenomenon; on the contrary, he did all in his power to limit his mental activity to a narrow circle, to prevent his being confused by a variety of subjects. The classical languages, as far as Jonas could understand them, and the rudiments of natural and political history, were all that old Esaias taught his son; they were all he thought necessary for that son's future vocation.

      For old Tengelyi, like the majority of fathers, had already chosen a profession for his son, and though, on consideration, he would have shrunk from the idea of forcing anybody, and much less his own boy, into a career which might be repugnant to his tastes, still, when he thought of his child's future life, he could not possibly fancy that his son should wish for any thing besides the curacy of Bard. Old Tengelyi had himself followed his father in that sacred office. It was so natural to think that he in his turn would be followed by his son. But while the father was thus tracing out his future career, and planting in the garden, besides improving the house, СКАЧАТЬ