A Hungarian Nabob Part 9

From the information given by the _gulyases_, it was easy to trace the lair of the bull. Two distinct paths led to it among the tall reeds, and the two youths, separating, chose each of them his path, and waded into the thicket in search of the furious beast. Meanwhile, the hors.e.m.e.n, who had come to see the sport, scrambled on to the high d.y.k.e, from whence they could survey the whole willow wood.

Martin had scarce advanced a hundred paces among the reeds when he heard the snorting of the bull. For a moment he thought of calling to the stranger youth, who had taken the other path, but pride restrained him.

Alone he would subdue the beast, and he boldly sought the spot from whence the snorting proceeded.

There lay the huge beast in the midst of the reeds. He had buried himself up to the knees in the swamp, and, whether from rage or for amus.e.m.e.nt, had trampled down a large area of rushes all round about him.

When he heard the clatter of the approaching hoofs, he raised his head.

One horn, prematurely developed, bent forwards, the other stood up straight and pointed. His sooty black forehead was covered with p.r.i.c.kly water-burrs, across his snout was the scar of a large and badly healed wound.

On perceiving the approaching horseman, he immediately raised himself on his fore feet and uttered a wild prolonged roar. Martin, who wished to entice the beast on to solid ground, where he could grapple with him better than in the midst of this unknown mora.s.s, and also, by way of provocation, cracked his long whip loudly. Maddened still more by this exasperating sound, the wild beast arose from his resting-place and rushed upon the horseman, who immediately turned his horse and fled out of the swamp, enticing after him the infuriated bull.

When the wild beast came out into the plain, looked about him, and saw all the people standing on the d.y.k.e, as if guessing what they wanted to do with him, he suddenly turned tail again, and snorting as he went, angrily lay down again on the border of the swamp. Martin followed after him, and again cracked his whip over the beast's head.

The bull roared at him, but did not budge from the spot. On the contrary, he burrowed with his snout among the reeds, and however much the young man might crack his whip, he only responded by beating the air with his tail.

This supreme indifference irritated Martin, and, creeping closer to the wild bull, he gave it a cut with his whip. The hooked steel wire plaited round the end of the whip cut out a whole patch on the skin of the savage beast, but it did not move. Another cut reached its neck, chipping away the skin with a sharp crackle. The bull only grunted, but did not stand up, and buried its head among the reeds to avoid being la.s.soed by the halter-line which the horseman held handy.

But now it was the huntsman's turn to grow angry, and he kept on flicking away at the obstinate animal without being able to move it from the spot, and presently a whole mob of hors.e.m.e.n began to a.s.semble around him, profoundly irritated by the cowardice of the bull, and tried to arouse it by making as great a din and racket as possible.

Suddenly a flick from the whip chanced to hit the bull in the eye. Quick as lightning the beast leaped to its feet, shook its head, and frantic with rage, rushed upon the horseman, and before he had had time to escape, struck him sideways, and with frightful force hurled him to the ground, horse and all, and began trampling them both in the dust.

The other hors.e.m.e.n scattered in terror. The overthrown charger made frantic efforts to regain its feet; in vain! The savage beast transfixed its loins with his horn. Never again will the n.o.ble animal run races in the fields. Bleeding profusely, it falls back again, crushing its rider, who, with his feet entangled in the stirrups, was unable to liberate himself.

The baited bull stood on the plain roaring terribly, and tearing up the ground with his hoofs, while the blood from his cut-out eye trickled down his black breast. He did not pursue the fugitives, but, turning back, and seeing the overthrown horse and rider still wallowing on the ground, he began taking short runs at them, like goats often do, throwing up the earth here and there with his horns. G.o.d be merciful to the poor youth beneath him!

At length Martin succeeded in extricating himself from his steed. No sooner did the bull perceive that his enemy was on his feet again, than, in a fresh access of rage, he rushed straight at him. A shriek of horror filled the air; many hid their faces. In another moment all would be over.

At that instant, when the savage beast was not more than a yard's distance from its victim, it stopped suddenly, and threw back its head with a jerk. A skilfully thrown noose had gripped it round the neck, and the end of that noose was in the hands of the stranger youth, who now emerged from among the reeds. Hearing a sound like bull-baiting, he had hastened to the spot, and did not arrive a moment too soon. Another second and his rival would have been trampled to death.

The bewildered beast, feeling the suffocating pressure of the la.s.so about its neck, turned towards its new opponent, but he also now turned his horse's head, and throwing the la.s.so-line across his shoulder, set off at the top of his speed across the plain.

That was something like a gallop! The heavy wild beast was constrained to run a race with the swiftest of steeds. The cord was pressing tightly round its neck, and blindly, helter-skelter, it had to go in a perfectly straight direction till it dropped.

The youth galloped with it straight towards the racecourse, and then suddenly sprang to one side. The bull bounded away right on, and now the horse remained behind, while the bull flew on in front. By this time it had lost all count of where it was.

The horseman now drew forth his long whip, and began to cut and lash out from behind at the bull, which rushed on even quicker and quicker. The trampling of the horse's hoofs, the cracking of the whip, the shouting of the people, confused it into utter stupidity. It could only run on and on, the blood trickling from its nose and mouth, its whole front flaked with foam, its tongue lolling forth, till, on reaching the racecourse, which was covered with a roaring mob, its strong legs gave way beneath it, and, unable to hold itself up any longer, it collapsed in a ditch, and, rolling a good distance, rooted up the ground with its snout, then stretched itself out at full length on the sward, and ceased to breathe.

Shouting and huzzahing, the mob escorted the new Whitsun King along all the streets of the town, for he was in duty bound to stop before the houses of the chief magistrate and town councillors, and there drink their healths in a good b.u.mper, which admirable custom goes to prove that the Whitsun King had need to be not merely a good runner, but a good drinker too; and this latter quality was all the more necessary, owing to the circ.u.mstance that, when he had done with the rest of them, he had, last of all, to go up to John Karpathy's castle in the company of all the sworn jurors, and drink again there.

Now, when the sworn jurors brought in the new Whitsun King to introduce him to Squire John, the great man ordered every one to leave the room incontinently, so that they two might be quite alone together.

Master Jock was sitting in an armchair, with his feet in a large tub of water, chewing a couple of bitter almonds. All this was by way of preparation for the evening's debauch.

"What is your name, little brother?" he inquired of the Whitsun King.

"Michael Kis, at your service, your honour."

"Well, Mike, you are a fine young fellow. You please me greatly. So now you are going to be Whitsun King for a whole year, eh? What will you do with yourself all that time?"

The youth twisted his blonde moustache upwards, and steadily regarded the ceiling.

"I really don't know. I only know that I shall be a bigger man than ever before."

"And if at the end of the year you are deposed?"

"Then I shall go back to my stable at Nadudvar, from whence I came."

"Have you neither father nor mother?"

"I have no belongings at all. I have never seen either father or mother."

"Then stop where you are, Mike. What if I make a bigger man of you than you yourself have any idea of; make you take your place in genteel society here; give you as much money as you like, to drink and play cards with; and turn you into Michael Kis, Esq., lord of the manor of Nadudvar?"

"I shouldn't mind, but how to conduct myself so that they may take me for a gentleman, I don't know."

"The bigger blackguard you are, the greater gentleman they'll take you to be. It is only our rustics who are modest and respectful nowadays."

"If that be all, I am ready."

"I'll take you with me everywhere. You shall drink, dice, bully, brawl, cudgel the men, and befool the women to the top of your bent. At the end of twelve months your Whitsun Kingship will be over, you will doff your genteel mummery, and become the leader of my heydukes. You shall then don the red _mente_, and wait upon those very gentlemen with whom you have been drinking and dicing for a whole year; you shall help into their carriages the same little wenches with whom you used to make merry. I consider that a very good joke. I don't know whether you think so, too? How the gentlemen will curse and the ladies blush when they find out who you were!"

The youth reflected for a moment; but then he threw back his head, and cried--

"All right! I don't care."

Master Jock looked at his watch. "It is now a quarter to four. Remember that. At a quarter to four twelve months hence your gentility, your n.o.bility, will cease. _Till_ then you are just as much a gentleman as the rest of us. Every month you will receive from me a thousand florins plunder money. The first thousand is in this reticule. Now be off! My heydukes will dress you. When you are ready, come down to my drinking-room. Be rude to the servants, especially as they know you to be but a boor, and call the gentry by their nicknames only--Mike, Andy, Larry, Fred, Ned, for instance. Me they call Jock, remember."

Half an hour later Mike was back again, dressed as a gentleman.

In the drinking-room there was fun enough going on already even without him; for there the rule was, Welcome everybody, and wait for n.o.body. The master of the house introduced the newly arrived guest as Michael Kis, Esq., lord of the manor of Nadudvar, who, "like a jolly good fellow,"

had come disguised as an ostler to the Whitsun Kingship compet.i.tion, and there acquitted himself like a man.

Every one thought this a most original joke. It was plain to every eye, moreover, that he was a gentleman and no boor. All his movements, whether he lolled back on a chair, or leaned his elbows on the table, or chucked his cap in a corner--_betyar_ tricks every one of them--was proof positive that he must have been brought up in good circles. A real _betyar_ would never have dared to lift up his head here; but this fellow, metaphorically speaking, b.u.t.tonholed everybody. In a few moments, in fact, Mike had drunk good-fellowship with the whole company, and become as familiar as if he had lived among them all his life.

Meanwhile the eternal b.u.mper began to circulate, and Mike fell to singing a new drinking-song which none of them knew, and the company took it up with spirit; and, more than that, it was better than any they had ever sung before.

Within an hour Mike had become a perfect hero in that genteel circle. In his cups he far outstripped them all; and when it came to card-playing, he won whole heaps of money from all and sundry without moving a muscle of his face, raking the dollars in with as much _sangfroid_ as if he had sacks of them at home. Nay, he even lent a lot to Franky Kalotai, thereby obviously displaying an utter contempt for money, for it was notorious that Franky never paid anything back.

And now the heads of most of the gentlemen engaged in this drinking-bout began to loll about unsteadily. Everybody had got beyond the limit where the good humour begotten of good wine ends and drunkenness begins; when a man no longer tastes his wine, and is only sensible of a giddy hankering for more. At such times Bandi Kutyfalvi was wont to exhibit his ancient _tour-de-force_, which consisted in swallowing with outstretched neck a whole b.u.mper of wine at one gulp or, to use his own technical expression, without a single hiccough. Now, such a feat naturally requires for its performance an extraordinarily concave and well-practised throat, and, with the exception of Bandi, there were not above one or two others who could successfully accomplish it.

"Why, that's nothing at all!" cried Mike Kis, accomplishing the feat without the slightest exertion. "But now, let any one try and do what I can do--sing a song and at the same time drain a b.u.mper without leaving off singing."

Now, this was an entirely new trick, and an extremely difficult one to boot; for, to be properly performed, it required not only that the glottis should remain immovable during the pa.s.sage of the vinous torrent down the throat, but also that the throat should give forth at the same time a clear, uninterrupted voice. Yet Michael Kis performed this feat with masterly dexterity, to the general astonishment, and gave back the bowl for the next man to imitate him.

Naturally they all came to grief. Every b.u.mper of wine was a fresh occasion of shame, and the drinkers laughed heartily at one another, for every one of them was obliged to interrupt his song while he drank.

Michael Kis had to show them once more how it was done.

"A b.u.mper here!" cried Bandi at last, and gallantly buckled to the attempt; but the song only proceeded a little way, and then a drop of wine managed to get into his windpipe, and immediately, like a whale rising to the surface of the sea to blow, or like a stone triton spouting forth the water of a fountain, a violent upward rush of imprisoned breath discharged through every aperture of the suffocating wretch the wine that filled his throat.