King Matthias and the Beggar Boy Part 3

He wanted to have a grand library, a large university, and a learned society of scholars in Buda, that Hungary might take her place among the other nations of Europe in the matter of learning. But he wanted also to improve the condition of trade, arts, and manufactures; and, regardless of expense, he sent to foreign lands, especially Italy, for master-craftsmen to come and train the apprentices, whenever he saw that they needed better teaching than was to be had just then from their fellow-countrymen.

Clocks were by no means common articles at this time in other lands, and the first clock that kept good time in England is said to have been that set up at Hampton Court many years later--that is, in 1530. But in the reign of Matthias, clocks made their appearance on many of the castle towers in Hungary; and, thanks to the king's encouragement and the energetic measures he took, it was not long before Hungarian craftsmen became so famous that the Grand Duke of Moscow asked to have goldsmiths, gun-founders, land-surveyors, miners, architects, and others sent to him from Hungary.

But where is the use of arts, crafts, and manufactures--how indeed can they flourish--where there is a dearth of food?

What with enemies without and enemies within, there were extensive districts in some parts of Hungary, and among them some of the royal domains, which were little better than wildernesses when the king came to the throne. Villages had been burned down, the inhabitants driven away, and the land left desolate in many parts; and in order to tempt the people back, and induce others to come and settle in these deserted spots, the king caused it to be proclaimed at the fairs that land might be had rent-free by those who would undertake to cultivate it, and that for a certain number of years they should be exempt from taxes of all sorts.

The king did all he could to induce the great landed n.o.bles to follow his example in these matters, and to pay more heed to the cultivation of their property, and to the peasants who laboured for them, than they had been in the habit of doing.

One day, so the story goes, he invited a number of distinguished n.o.bles to dine with him in one of the northerly counties, and when the meal was ended he distributed among them a number of pick-axes and spades, and taking one himself, called on them to join him in clearing away the underwood and digging up the ground.

The active young king, who was well accustomed to exert himself, worked away energetically; but the well-fed, self-indulgent lords almost melted away, the labour made them so hot, and very soon they were completely exhausted.

"That's enough, my friends," said the king, observing the state they were in. "Now we know a little of what it costs the peasants to produce that which we waste in idleness while they live in poverty. They are human beings like ourselves, yet we often treat them worse than we do our horses and dogs."

The spot where Matthias read his n.o.bles this wholesome lesson is still pointed out in Gomor.

But indeed some of them needed sharper teaching than this, and Matthias did not scruple to give it them.

Where was the use of the peasant's ploughing and sowing his fields or planting and tending his orchards and vineyards, where was the use of trying to encourage trade and manufactures, when at any moment the farmer, merchant, peddler, might be set upon and robbed of all his hardly-earned goods? Yet so it was; for in some parts of the country, especially in the north, there were robber-knights and freebooting n.o.bles, chiefly Bohemians, who had been invited into the country during the civil wars, and now, finding their occupation gone, had built themselves strongholds among the mountains, from which they issued forth to plunder and rob and often to murder travellers, traders, farmers, and any one they could lay hands on. Yet these same robbers were many of them men of n.o.ble birth, and there were some who were not ashamed to make their appearance in the courts of law, and to help in bringing smaller thieves and robbers to justice.

Now King Matthias was so true a lover of justice that his name has become a proverb, and when he died there was a general sigh and exclamation, "Matthias is dead! justice is fled!" It was not likely, therefore, that he was going to tolerate robbers merely because they were n.o.bles; and after giving them fair warning--for he would be just even to them--he destroyed their castles, and hung a few of them on their own towers by way of example to the rest, who did not fail to profit by it and amend their ways: so that by the end of his reign travellers could pa.s.s from one end of the kingdom to the other in perfect safety, and the peasants could gather in their crops without fear of having them taken from them by violence.

At the time when our story begins, the war against the robbers was being carried on with great energy, and the king's generals were busily engaged in storming their strongholds.

But like many another monarch who has had the welfare of his people at heart, Matthias was very fond of going about among them and seeing for himself, with his own eyes, what was the real state of affairs and what were their needs and wrongs. More than once on these secret expeditions it had happened to him to come across men of humble birth, whom, like Miska the beggar boy, he fancied capable of being turned to valuable account, and took accordingly into his service. And his shrewd eye seldom deceived him.

Did not Paul Kinizsi the giant, for instance, turn out to be one of his most famous generals? And yet he was only a miller's boy to begin with--a miller's boy, but an uncommonly strong one; for when the king first saw him, he was holding a millstone in one hand and cutting it with the other--a proof of strength which made the king think he was wasted on the mill, and would be a valuable acquisition to the army, as he certainly proved to be.

Something more and better than mere brute strength had attracted him in Miska, and had induced him to send the boy on his hazardous mission to Mr. Jason Samson.

Nothing, of course, had been heard of him since he started, and now, sundry other robbers having been disposed of or reduced to order, it was Mr. Samson's turn.

But being an uncommon character himself, Matthias was attracted by anything uncommon and out of the way in other people. He was fond, too, of unravelling mysteries, and therefore, much as he hated lawlessness and robbery, and greatly as he was exasperated by some of Mr. Samson's secret doings, nevertheless the man appeared by all accounts to be such a very strange, remarkable being that the king's curiosity was whetted, and after himself paying a secret visit to the eccentric "Cube," as he called the odd-looking castle, he resolved to try what mild measures would do, before proceeding to extremities.

Whether Miska had succeeded in getting into the robber's nest or not the king had no means of finding out, but his first step was to have a summons nailed up in the middle of all the four sides of the grim castle. It ran as follows:--

"All good to you from G.o.d, Mr. Jason Samson!

"Present yourself in Buda on the third day of the coming year, and give an account of your stewardship.

"MATTHIAS, the King."

The men charged with affixing this to the castle walls withdrew when their work was done without having seen any one. But some one or other had seen and read the summons; for when they returned the next morning, it had been torn down, and in its place, also affixed to the four sides, appeared these words:--

"_Some other time._"

A week after this bold answer another summons was put up. This time it was:--

"_Surrender._"

The day following the answer appeared:--

"_Not yet._"

About a week after this last reply, a company of soldiers, under the command of General Zokoli, surrounded the ill-omened castle, which stood out grey and silent against the rose-coloured mists which ushered in the sunrise.

The general had given orders for the scaling-ladders to be put up, when all at once a huge raven-black banner rose up from the centre of the building with a shining death's-head displayed upon it, and beneath this the words:--

"_Touch me at your peril!_"

Zokoli ordered the a.s.sault to be sounded, and soon the brave soldiers, always accustomed to be victorious wherever they went, might have been seen climbing the ladders on one side of the "Cube." As soon as they reached the top of the wall, which was also the ridge of the roof, it turned on a hinge, or rather sprang open like a trap-door, as if it had been touched by a conjuring rod, and disclosed to their astonished eyes the gaping mouths of three rows of guns ranged close together.

Now came a blast, loud and deep, like the sound of some giant trumpet or organ-pipe, and then what appeared like a long fiery serpent darted from one corner of the building to the other, and was followed the next moment by the thundering roar of a couple of thousand guns.

There was one loud, terrible cry, and when the cloud of smoke cleared away, a couple of hundred men were to be seen lying dead and maimed round about the castle.

The king had given Zokoli strict orders to spare his men as much as possible. He ordered one more a.s.sault on the same side therefore, thinking that the defenders would not have had time to reload their guns. But again a couple of hundred of the besiegers fell a useless sacrifice to the experiment; and unwilling to waste any more lives, General Zokoli retired, completely baffled and much mortified, to report what had happened. And then the king's anger blazed forth, and he exclaimed,--

"Wait, and I'll teach you, Samson!"

CHAPTER IV.

IN THE ROBBER'S NEST.

Great men--especially the very few who are great even in their night-shirts, as the saying is, which was the case with King Matthias, if it ever was with any one--great men are, by their very natures, strongly attached to their own ideas and opinions. It is not easy to shake them when once they have made up their minds about a matter; for truly great men are not given to hasty judgments. They are firm in their convictions, but they have some reason to be so.

Now the king had a sort of instinct or power of reading character, and he felt convinced that the beggar boy whom he had come across so strangely would either succeed in getting into the castle, or would never be heard of again. He had firm faith in him.

There were a good many matters, as we have seen, requiring his attention in Hungary just then, and therefore, though he was extremely angry with Samson for his contemptuous behaviour, he decided to put off punishing him for a time. He felt that, after General Zokoli's discomfiture, it would be wisest not to take any further steps against the clever robber until he could be certain of success; and he resolved on all accounts therefore to wait until Miska made his appearance, or at least until the six months had expired.

Of course there were some who believed that Miska would never be seen again. The king had taken a fancy to him, that was all; but he was only a beggar boy, when all was said and done, and most likely he had sold his new clothes to the first Jew he came across, and was in rags again by this time!

When three months, four months, five months, pa.s.sed away without bringing any news, those who knew anything about the matter shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads more than ever.

But one fine morning, just six months after Miska had left Visegrad, and when every one but the king had given him up, it was announced that a stranger had arrived in Buda, giving no name, but saying that he had been entrusted with special business by the king, and could not give account of it to any one else. The king's whims were so well known at the court that the stranger was admitted without difficulty, and was ushered into the king's presence forthwith. Matthias was alone, and at once recognized his man, who stepped into the room, looking very spruce, and as sound as an acorn.

"It's you, Miska! You have brought good news; I can see it in your eye.

You're a man--speak!"

Miska bowed, and when he had a little recovered himself--for there was something about the king which was rather awe-inspiring in spite of his good nature--he drew a deep breath and said,--

"I have been there, Mr. King--in the castle with Mr. Samson--and I know all about it!"