Hungarian Sketches in Peace and War Part 41

replied the guest. "But this much is certain, that they all carry their heads under their arms, have eyes in their shoulders, and when they get hold of a man they snap his head off--kakk it goes!"

Hanzli raised his hands to his neck: he thought they had got him already.

"Just so," continued the guest, wiping his bearded chin with the sleeve of his coat. "Then all their generals eat two pounds of iron, every morning, and wash it down with a pint of vitriol."

"By all the saints!" exclaimed Hanzli, opening his mouth and eyes; "have you seen them yet, Andras-gazda?"

"I was at a place where they were talking about them: my G.o.dfather's niece has a bridegroom whose brother is serving with the green csako hussars--they have just quartered a troop in the district, and it was he who related it."

At the word 'hussar,' Vendel's attention began to be excited; it was the only word he understood in Hungarian, and it brought to his recollection so much poultry which had been carried off by the kites, and so many barrels of wine which the great bell[71] had paid, and still pays for to the present day.

[Footnote 71: In Hungary, there is a proverb that unpaid debts will be collected by the great bell.]

But it is a bad thing to mention the evil one, for he is sure to be prowling about the garden; and Vendel-gazda had scarcely time to summon to his imagination that human being metamorphosed into the inhuman called a hussar, before the door burst open, as if Sisera's army had arrived, and six moustached figures, each one smarter and more agile than the last, entered with a clash of arms, which would have disturbed the philosophy of any honest peace-loving Bohemian in Christendom; and instead of seating themselves at the table, as any other reasonable Christians would have done, they clinked and rattled about here and there, making jests on the pictures of Cossack feats on the walls, with their pendants of Spring, Summer, and Winter.

One among them was a singularly handsome youth, with raven hair, and eyes which flashed like lightning; his pointed dark moustache was provokingly becoming, and his figure as supple as a young leopard's, but he was certainly the most unreasonable of the party: he gave no rest to man or beast, and was the bane of every honest soul with whom he came in contact. Scarcely had he entered, than he stumbled over Hanzli, who was gaping in solemn wonder at the new-comers, his back bent and his neck stretched forward, as if he were trying to personify the letter S.

"Your servant, nephew!" exclaimed the hussar, thrusting his fingers among the youth's hair, and making it all stand on end; "well, what have you been about since we last met?"

As they had never met in their lives before, this question and the c.o.c.katoo _frisure_ so embarra.s.sed Hanzli, that he seized the bottle which stood before Andras-gazda and raised it to his lips, with as little ceremony as if that good man had not been sitting behind it.

"Have you lost your senses?" cried Andras-gazda, seizing the tails of Hanzli's coat.

"Make haste, man!" cried a voice deeper than any ba.s.s fiddle; "thunder and storms! make haste, man, and bring something to drink, or else"--and then followed a torrent of oaths, which it would be difficult and highly unbecoming to render into any known language.

The voice proceeded from under the huge moustache of the hussar sergeant, who had seated himself on the bench with an imposing dignity that became his rank.

Hanzli disappeared, but in a few minutes he shuffled back, and placed a brilliantly coloured plate before the sergeant.

"Did I ask for anything to eat, you stork, that you have brought me a plate instead of a gla.s.s?"

Hanzli again disappeared, and returned with a gla.s.s of foaming beer, which he placed before the hussar, handing him a fork at the same time.

"What the tartar do you take me for?" cried the hussar furiously, "that you should suppose I am going to drink such confounded stuff, as never before entered the mouth of any of my kindred!"

Hanzli's confusion increased at every step, till at last he could not find his own hands.

Oh, the worthy German dragoons! they were much more reasonable guests; they knew how to appreciate the good barley-bree! Then each had his own place, and his own tankard, beside which he would sit half the night singing honest German songs, or treating of Kant's philosophy, till some had fallen asleep on their benches, and others under them!

But the Magyar people have no conception of the ecstatic, or of beer-drinking; and it would be morally impossible to cut German or philosophy out of their nature.

Vendel-gazda had so completely lost all presence of mind, that he actually raised the tankard three times to his lips before he perceived that it was empty. From his earliest childhood he had grown up with the idea that every honest soul should keep clear of hussar soldiery; but he was not quite certain as to whether Mistress Vicza had been educated in the same principles.

Beneath the cupboard, with its head resting on Vendel's slippers, lay his favourite curly-haired, tail-clipped poodle, emitting now a half sneeze in its sleep, and now a snarl, as if in sympathy with its master's feelings.

"Good evening to you, Master Host," exclaimed the mischief-loving hussar, at the same time striking him on the shoulder as familiarly as if he had been one of his own recruits.

Vendel opened his eyes--that is, his eye--as wide as possible; while the hussar, seizing his enormous palm, gave it such a hearty slap that the room echoed with the sound, and then shaking it after the Hungarian fashion till the whole of the fat Colossus trembled like jelly, he sat down on the bench beside him, and thrust his finger and thumb into the open snuff-box, which the good man held in the other hand. In trying to find a place for his feet under the table, he trod so hard on the stump of the sleeping poodle's tail that it actually crackled, sending the poor animal howling most lamentably round the room, while his howls were re-echoed by all the six or eight dogs in the court-yard.

"Come, come, don't make such a noise," said the hussar; "what if I had stood on your nose?" And as the dog returned to its accustomed place at its master's feet, he got hold of its head between his knees and filled its nostrils with snuff; while the poor animal, endeavouring to bite, bark, and sneeze at the same time, exhibited the most ludicrous appearance. Everybody in the room was ready to split with laughter; even Hanzli ventured to grin, and thereby incurred the displeasure of his gracious master, who turned his eye upon him severely, as if to say: "I take the joke from the soldiers, because they are hussars; but you are Hanzli, and you have no business to laugh."

Meanwhile, poor Vendel's nose grew longer and longer. "What a terrible race!" thought he to himself; "they respect neither heaven nor earth, never drink beer, take an honest man's snuff to give it to his dog, and then laugh at the whole affair! Heaven preserve us! what may not come next?"

What indeed!

Mankind has a singular propensity for thrusting his nose wherever he hears laughter or noise; and considering this weakness, what should be more natural than that all the inhabitants of the kitchen should press to the door of the beer-room to hear what was going on, and consequently that Mistress Vicza, with her eyes burning like two coals, should immediately follow in the track of the "linen folk?"

But no sooner did the sparkling eyes, the rosy cheeks, and the elastic figure of Mistress Vicza make its appearance, than the hussar started from his post beside Vendel, and bounded towards the door.

"Ah, sweet one! I have not seen you yet," he exclaimed, proceeding _brevi manu_ to span the small waist of the pretty hostess.

"For shame, sir!" exclaimed Mistress Vicza, extricating herself from the hussar's grasp; and then, running over to her husband, she began to caress and fondle him--drawing his cap over his head, and trying to make room for herself on the bench beside him--though, at the very moment she was kissing the dear old man, her bright eyes glanced slily at the handsome hussar. (_Pro memoria_ to every married man--when his wife kisses up one of his eyes, let him look well after her with the other.)

Our hero, in order to repair his fault, after looking about him and twisting his moustache, turned suddenly towards the group of servants a.s.sembled at the door, and seizing the nearest, a plump, rosy-faced little girl, with long plaited hair tied with gay ribbons, he imprinted a hearty kiss on her cheek, on which she screamed so loudly that he started back in alarm, bounding over the tables and chairs in his way.

"I'll settle your wits for you, master, if you can't behave better than that!" cried a deep voice in echo to the scream.

"How now! what is the matter, countryman?" said the hussar, peering into the bold countenance of the hardy peasant.

"'What is the matter?' that girl there is my bride; and I'll soon let you know what the matter is, if you dare to touch her again!"

"Ah! is that the case? who knows but that she would prefer me, after all?" replied the hussar, and, leaping over the table, he once more seized this living organ of sound, who screamed louder than before.

"Storms of Karpath!" shouted Andras, starting up, and kicking the bench from before him; then dashing his cap on the ground, he began tucking up the sleeves of his shirt.

"You want to fight, I suppose?" said the hussar, smiling complacently; "but swords are not made out of scythes, and you had better leave a hussar alone."

"That I shall not, when he touches my bride, were he a dog-faced Tartar! I shall beat him not only out of this, but out of the world too, if he had a thousand souls! I don't care for your sword, Master Hussar;" and loosing the mantle from his neck, the st.u.r.dy peasant seized the pole he had brought with him, and held it forth with an arm as knotty as an oak.

"Don't be foolish, now, Andras!" cried the little girl, running over to the pole-gladiator, and endeavouring to pacify him.

"Keep yourself out of the way, Panna," said Andras; "this is no time for trifling; I'll show him who is master here!"

"Why now, Andras, if you are determined to fight, I will get a weapon of your own dimensions," and, laughing gaily, the hussar opened the door and went into the court.

"Bring what you like, the beam of a mill, or an oak-tree, I don't fear you, with six others at your back!" cried the athletic labourer, a.s.suming an offensive and defensive position with his back to the wall.

"Don't be reckoning on us," said the sergeant; "we have nothing to say to you--the lad can stand for himself."

"You will probably part company soon," muttered Andras, waiting with open eyes for the hussar's return.

He appeared at length, with neither a mill-beam nor an oak tree, but a long, slender reed, which he had pulled out of the roof.

"What! do you dare to make a fool of me?" cried Andras furiously.

"Not I," replied the hussar seriously, and stepping up to him, he began shaking the reed before his antagonist's face, who tried in vain to catch it, growing more impatient every instant, as the reed tickled his nose and mouth, and the gay laugh of the hussar rang in his ears, till at last, maddened with fury, he swung violently round and dashed the great cart-pole with such violence before him, that it brought down a shower of lime and mortar from the opposite wall, against which it fell, after causing great havoc on its way--several chairs and tables lay despoiled of arms and legs on the ground, and the two-eared tankard before Vendel-gazda was shivered into a thousand splinters; while Hanzli lay below one of the tables contemplating the scene at full length. What became of the hussar, or how he managed to escape in that critical moment, Heaven only knows; but when Andras looked about him, after this feat of annihilating rage, he found the reed still at his mouth, like a cigar twelve feet long, and the hussar standing opposite to him as before.

A general burst of laughter responded to Andras's gape of astonishment.