Pretty Michal Part 16

So this struggle between ferocity and magnanimity plunged the poor trumpeter into a dilemma from which there seemed absolutely no escape. The robbers whirled their axes over his head.

"Listen to me," cried Janko suddenly, "I'll tell you what we'll do.

We'll dig a deep ditch, and make the trumpeter get into it. Then we'll clap an empty barrel over him and peg it down fast, so that he won't be able to see in what direction we have gone. He must sleep in the ditch to-day, but to-morrow he may free himself with his ax and go his way."

This wise accommodation pleased all parties. The robbers forthwith dug a deep hole in the earth, put Simplex inside it, clapped over him a cask, the bottom of which had previously been knocked out, and charged him as he valued his life not to stir from the spot till dawn of day.

He did exactly as he was bid, and that was very wise of him, for when everything was perfectly still, and he might well have fancied the robbers were miles away, a shot suddenly cracked quite close to him and the bullet perforated the cask. It was a warning that he was being watched. So there he sat, and there is no knowing how long he might have remained without budging had not a fresh danger supervened; the hole in which he sat suddenly began to fill with water. Higher and higher rose the tide till it reached his very mouth, and he was forced to pull himself up to the top of the cask to escape drowning. At last he plucked up courage to look through the hole which the bullet had made, and he then saw that the whole of the rocky chamber had been converted into a watershed, and not a living soul was anywhere visible.

Then he smashed in the side of the cask with his ax, scrambled out of the hole, which was now completely filled with water, and immediately grasped the meaning of the robbers' stratagem.

With the above-mentioned improvised weir they had dammed up the mountain stream, and used its bed as a short cut into the next valley, for it was pa.s.sable so long as the water was confined within the rocky chasm; when the water had risen high enough to overflow into its bed again, it would of course blot out all traces of their pa.s.sage.

But Simplex, without bestowing much thought upon this feat, thanked the Almighty for so miraculously delivering him from so great a danger; which deliverance, moreover, strengthened him in the belief that the errand on which he was bound was a righteous one.

Thereupon, with much fear and trembling, he clambered down the rock-hewn way by which he had ascended, not forgetting to shout a good-morning into the hole of the mother bear as he pa.s.sed.

He naturally omitted to return to the kopanitscha and deliver Janko's message to the pretty hostess; but he did tell an oil-merchant, whom he met on the way, the frightful things which had happened to him and bade him deliver the message at the kopanitscha, as it was all on his way. The oil-merchant, on the other hand, gave him a piece of good advice; to wit, that when he came to the town of Saros he should hand over the bundle which he was carrying on his back to the mayor, for the plundered merchants had advertised their wares broadcast, and if people saw and recognized their stolen cloth on his person they would measure him a jacket which he would not get rid of his whole life long.

And worthy Simplex followed the advice which was given him. No sooner had he arrived at Saros than he handed over the costly cloth stuffs to the town authorities, and the merchants rewarded him with a ducat and let him go on his way unmolested, as he himself in his extant memoirs modestly informs us.

CHAPTER XV.

Valentine really becomes one of those who work in blood.

Valentine's mother had become a widow in her first youth. Her husband, an eminent citizen of Ka.s.sa and sheriff there, had been detained as a hostage by the Turks at Buda, whither he had gone on a diplomatic mission, and, succ.u.mbing to an attack of the Oriental plague, died in captivity, leaving behind him a widow and a little orphan son. He could only make his will orally, in the presence of two other hostages as witnesses, but it was on that very account all the more religiously adhered to. It prescribed that his widow should retain possession of the whole of his property so long as it pleased G.o.d to preserve her in the flesh, so that she might bring up her little son in the fear of the Lord, in all pious ways, in the true Christian Calvinistic faith, and, "quantum potest," in all knowledge and learning.

These testamentary dispositions were most rigorously observed. Dame Kalondai herself carried on the business of her late husband, who had been butcher and ham-curer as well as sheriff, and she never gave her son a stepfather, though in her day she must have been a very pretty woman. Even now she was so buxom and blooming that she looked like a gigantic edition of a swaddling babe. She had taken particular care that Valentine should be properly educated. He always had nice clothes and well-bound books, and when the proper time came she sent him to Keszmar, though it was with a very heavy heart that she consented to part from her little son for so long a time.

So worthy Dame Sarah did not see her little son again for three full years, and when at last he did appear before her she could scarcely recognize him.

She could not get it into her head that the man with the big mustache was really her own little son. His father at his age had had no sign of one.

Then she tried to persuade him that he had grown thin. The melancholy which Valentine could not hide from her she ascribed to some illness or other. The bad mountain-water was certainly to blame for it.

And she had good remedies against such complaints. They were not, indeed, of the drastic sort of which the professor at Keszmar had so large a store; her remedies were simply good and tasty dishes which she prepared for her little son with her own hands. She invented a savory dish against every ill of life, and you had only to taste of it to be instantly cured. And when the evil was caused by bad water, with what could you more certainly cure it than with good wine?

But Valentine's sadness would yield neither to the most delicate cookery nor to the most savory meats; he allowed the daintiest t.i.t-bits to remain on his plate untouched, as if he meant to save them for someone else, and he drank the good wine mixed with water.

Worthy Dame Sarah vainly bothered her little son to tell her what was the matter with him. On all such occasions he would only smile, kiss his mother on the cheek, and tell her that there was absolutely nothing the matter with him, his disposition had only changed a little lately, he said. He naturally did not tell Dame Sarah anything of what had happened to him at school.

Now if anyone ever wants to know what is really going on at his own house, let him just go to his neighbor's and there he'll find out all about it.

One Sunday evening Dame Sarah came home from her neighbors', the Furmenders.

"Why, Valentine!" she cried, "what is this I hear of you? Young Furmender says that you were expelled from the school at Keszmar!"

"If he says so he speaks the truth."

Oh how delighted was Mistress Sarah when she heard these words!

"If it's only that which grieves you, my dear, good child!" said she, soothingly, "don't think anything more about it. Your father was expelled from three schools, but that did not prevent him from getting a wife and becoming sheriff. You, too, will pick up a nice girl, and may become sheriff as well, one day. Don't fret yourself about it. I never meant you to be a parson."

With that she kissed and embraced him, and he really did seem a little more cheerful after all these tokens of motherly love.

Very soon, however, his face was as long as ever.

Dame Sarah's remedies were inexhaustible. The best thing for such moping, woebegone fellows, is certainly wedlock. An unmarried man is like a widower and a widower has cause to be miserable.

She choose for him a virtuous, discreet damsel, the sister of the above-mentioned young Furmender, Catherine by name, who was by no means indisposed toward the stately Valentine Kalondai. Beautiful, indeed, you could scarcely call her; but her mother had not been a whit prettier, and yet she had managed to do very well.

Then she took her son Valentine to the social gatherings, where the young lads and la.s.ses, beneath the eyes of their parents, made merry with one another in all meekness and sobriety.

But Valentine led neither blonde nor brunette out to dance. There he stood leaning against the wall as if he had been put there for the express purpose of propping it up, and kept as still as if he was afraid of missing a single word of the conversation that was going on around him.

And when the bolster dance followed, during which it is the amiable custom for the lads and la.s.ses to alternately carry round a silken bolster, deposit it in front of the person whom he or she likes best, kneel down upon it, and so remain till the favored one tenderly raises the suppliant and dances with her, whereupon it is his turn to carry the bolster round--then, I say, Valentine behaved very badly. For when Kitty Furmender brought the bolster to him, and sank down on her knees before him, Valentine would not dance with her, and did not even raise her up, but rudely told her that he had made a vow never to dance again. Then Kitty naturally burst out crying, for how could an honest girl be insulted more grossly?

When they got home Dame Sarah said to her son:

"I say, Valentine, young Furmender says you are possessed by evil spirits."

"I don't much care if I am."

"And for that reason you don't trust yourself to talk with the girls. He also says you will have nothing to do with your father's business because you have a horror of blood."

"He says that, does he? Well, I'll just show you to-morrow that I've no fear of blood, and am well able to carry on my father's trade."

Dame Sarah rejoiced greatly at these words, for nothing would have pleased her better than to have seen her son relieve her of the cares of the business; and no sooner had Valentine declared his intention of approving himself a master in his craft than she handed over to him the keys of the chamber in which were preserved the tools and weapons of his father, the butcher's ax, the knives, muskets, and swords, which no man's hand had been allowed to touch since his death. It is not surprising, therefore, if all these implements were somewhat rust-eaten, and it was only natural that Valentine should spend the whole of the forenoon in furbishing them up with polishing powder, tow, and chalk, till they shone as bright as mirrors. He was evidently determined that his father's tools should gleam quite splendidly when he wrought his promised masterpiece.

At midday Dame Sarah served up all Valentine's favorite dishes, and after she had feasted her little son right royally, she told him that she had given due notice to the guild-master that her boy was about to qualify himself for his profession, and also that she had already paid for the license. All ready in the stall stood the fat ox whereon he was to display his dexterity on this occasion. In the cellar a cask of wine had been broached, and on the counter she had deposited four or five gold pieces, as it was quite possible that the 'prentice hand of the young master might have lost its cunning, so that he would not be able to fell the ox at a single blow, in which case he would have to pay to the butcher's guild a gold piece for every extra blow till the ox fell.

"Alas, dear mother," cried Valentine, "my guild-master is not where you seek him. Captain Count Hommonai will be my guild-master. It is not in the slaughter-house, but on the battlefield that I mean to achieve my masterpiece. I will not strike oxen, which are unable to defend themselves, but Turks, who can give back blow for blow. War shall be my trade."

At first Dame Sarah would not believe him, she thought it was only the wine which was speaking out of him; but when Valentine fetched down his father's arms, the old sword, the musket, the long three-edged dagger, all most splendidly burnished, the good woman burst into tears, fell upon his neck, begged him to stay at home, and adjured him not to commit such an act of folly. He was still too weak a lad for that sort of thing, she said. What! had she brought him up so nicely, and even got a learned professor to teach him Latin, only that he might now go away and be cut down by the first wild Turk he met, or get one of his legs torn off by a chain-shot, and leave his widowed mother comfortless? But all this had not the slightest effect upon Valentine. He replied that his father had gone to the wars before him, and he meant to do what his father had done.

Now when Dame Sarah saw that all her maternal begging and praying and all her fine words were quite thrown away upon her son, she suddenly turned round and overwhelmed him with the bitterest curses.

"Very well, then, you wicked, obstinate son, if you _will_ bring trouble and sorrow down upon your mother's head, go, and be hanged to you. I know all about it. Young Furmender has told me that you have chummed up with a vagabond sort of fellow, one Simplex, who serves as field-trumpeter with Count Hommonai, and is your dearest bosom friend. He it is who leads you astray into all kinds of wickedness. He it is who has persuaded you to be a soldier. Very well, if your comrade is dearer to you than your own mother, be off with you. You may go and die far away where I can't get you buried, for all that I care. If one of your hands is cut off I'll disown you, for my son had both his hands. You may go and beg your bread, but don't look to me for help. From me you don't get a red farthing.

Your father left all his property to me, remember."

"Except his weapons," said Valentine. He asked for nothing more, but went straight off to Captain Hommonai and enlisted under his banner.

They gave him a horse, a wolf skin, and three Polish guldens by way of enlistment-money, and kept fast hold of him, for the troops were to set out for the camp at Onod at a moment's notice.

And Mistress Sarah hardened her heart to such a degree, that as the banderium marched out of the town the same night amidst the blare of clarions, she did not even stand in the doorway to greet her son for the last time; but she hid herself behind the flower-pots in the window, and while she peered yearningly after him, she poured out all the fury of her heart upon the trumpeter by wishing that he might break his neck on the way. And this curse was within an ace of being fulfilled upon worthy Simplex.