Tales From Jokai Part 6

First of all the millers approach him and exhibit to him a fine white loaf of well-winnowed wheat, and say--

"We will nourish thee with fine white loaves after this sort, if thou wilt be a faithful Sheriff unto us."

Then the vintners, who in those days were a rich and goodly Guild, address him in like manner, and exhibit to him a cask of red wine.

In like manner the weavers, the furriers, and the cobblers all allured the new Sheriff with the hope of receiving of their masterpieces, to wit, beautiful white pieces of cloth, rich cambric, s.h.a.ggy furs, and bravely embroidered shoes, if so be he remain faithful to their city to the end of his term.

Last of all come the carpenters, who exhibit to the new Sheriff a brand-new waggon, to which horses are harnessed, filled with smoothly planed boards.

And when the master of the Guild of Carpenters stands before the Sheriff, he thus addresses him--

"Behold, now, we have piled up this brave heap of hornbeams that we may burn thee therewith if thou do betray us."

It was usual to say this on the occasion of the election of a Sheriff in the city of Caschau, and n.o.body was offended thereby. For in those sad times we were often forced to defend our cities with fire and steel against foes of three different nations, whilst as a fourth enemy we reckoned the numerous freebooters, who had turned Turks after once being Christians, and prowled in the environs of the city at night, to snap up any women and children who might fall in their way and sell them to the Turks. And our fifth enemy were the malefactors lurking in the town itself; and our sixth enemy was the terrible pestilence which so often visited our gates; while our seventh and most ancient adversary was the infernal Evil One himself, from whom Heaven in its mercy defend us. Thus in those days the Sheriff had to defend the city against seven divers sorts of enemies, and see to it that they were all kept well outside the gates, wherefore he had to sustain many sieges, guard the walls day and night, cudgel in fist, persecute evildoers, or threaten them with the terrible _harum palzarum_,[14] fumigate or steep in lye all goods brought into the city by foreign chapmen, avert religious strife, frustrate the wiles of Satan, always endeavouring to judge righteous judgments, neither for the sake of lucre nor because of any interior impulse p.r.o.nouncing any sentence which might call to Heaven for vengeance or make h.e.l.l applaud.

[Footnote 14: Gradually compressing the skull between three sharp stakes till it burst.]

None feared lest his Honour Master Doronczius should not prove just such a Sheriff as the town desired, for he was a man with no visible flaw, and known to be a righteous, G.o.d-fearing man, of whom n.o.body could say an ill word.

Wherefore, after performing the usual time-honoured ceremony in the churchyard, with great rejoicing and in solemn procession they brought back his Honour into the council chamber of the town hall, where, having set him down in a large velvet easy-chair, four aldermen, seizing the four legs of the said easy-chair, raised it aloft, to the triumphant musical accompaniment of the town trumpeters and the militia drums, while the people present shouted a threefold hurrah. Whereupon the whole town council went in solemn procession to the churches, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, and everywhere sang a _Te Deum_ with great enthusiasm, and after listening to a sermon in Hungarian and a sermon in German, returned to the Sheriff's house to sit down to a great banquet, during which the united choirs, conducted by the precentor, sang all manner of delightful melodies, and towards evening platters of pitch were ignited on the angles of the bastions, and the howitzers also were fired off.

And the city of Caschau felt fully justified on the day of the election of its Sheriff in drinking so many barrels of wine and ditto beer with great rejoicing, because his Honour, Master Doronczius, was quite capable of so ordering every manner of business and difficulty that n.o.body had the least cause for anxiety.

Nevertheless, it so happened, late in the evening of the festival of St.

Peter and St. Paul (next evening), that a couple of watchmen, Wurmdrucker and Kebluska by name, to whom had been a.s.signed the patrolling of the streets, while strolling round the large building known as the Turkish lock-up house, perceived a figure enwrapped in a black cloak come hastily out of a house, which figure, on perceiving them, suddenly crouched down under the gate as if with the intent of hiding from them.

Now, as they had had strict orders to arrest and lock up for the night in the nearest ward-house every living soul, good or bad, who should be found in the streets without a lamp after the hour for closing the gates, which was proclaimed by a blast of horns from the top of the great tower--every such soul, if a gentleman, to be fined a thaler next morning, or if a poor man, then half a thaler, or if he had nothing, then to be well trounced--the two watchmen determined to seize and stop the night wanderer thus confronting them. Wurmdrucker having a lamp made of some paper-like, compressible membrane, thereupon held it in front of him that he might see the face of the unknown person, while Kebluska stretched his halberd out against him, and cried with a loud voice, "Who's there?" in Hungarian, German, and Slavonic, that he might be able to answer in one at least of the three languages of the town.

But the person so addressed replied in no language at all, but, having a long stick in his hand, knocked the paper lamp out of Wurmdrucker's hand, so that it collapsed altogether, and would have run off then and there had not Kebluska so thrust at him with his halberd that the point thereof went right through his cloak, pinning to the door of the house the would-be fugitive, whom the two watchmen then seized, and tying his hands behind his back, urged him on before them to the ward-house hard by the Turkish prison, and there locked him up in the dark room, where they were wont to keep the ashes.

The imprisoned vagabond would not tell his name, and the watchmen, not having a lamp, could not see his face, but all along he begged and prayed them to let him go free; he would give them ever so much money for his freedom, he said.

At this the watchmen were even more afraid. They fancied they had got hold of some evil spy, and not for any amount of treasure would they have let him out of their hands till morning, hoping to get a still greater reward when they handed him over to the Sheriff. When he promised them a hundred ducats they felt sure that the Sheriff would reward them with two hundred, so in the morning they let out the prisoner in order to take him to the Sheriff, and lo! the prisoner was--the Sheriff himself.

So much for their two hundred ducats. The two watchmen were speechless with terror, they did not know what to say in their sudden amazement.

Master Doronczius said nothing to them, but hastened home, and the same day, under some plausible pretext or other, perchance on a trumped-up charge of brawling or blaspheming, seized and thrust both of them into the prison called after Pontius Pilate, where so long as Master Doronczius remained Sheriff they might be quite certain they would remain.

n.o.body, therefore, at that time knew anything of their secret, for they might just as well have been buried alive as imprisoned in the dungeon of Pontius Pilate.

In those days there lived in the city of Caschau a rich master-butcher, whom they called Stephen Sandor, who had two houses, one in the high town and the other next door to the apothecary's, which had no common thatch, but instead of a roof a cupola made of pointed tiles, like an Egyptian pyramid. In those days the whole of the princ.i.p.al square was built of such houses, with pointed cupolas, the quadrangular stones with which they were built being welded together with lead and iron clasps.

This rich butcher had an only son, Joseph by name, who had also been brought up to be a master-butcher, and had just given proof of his mastery, and manfully too, for he had felled his bullock at the first stroke, and thus escaped the fine of a ducat per extra stroke imposed on bunglers.

Joseph was indeed a stout, well-set-up fellow, yielding to none of his fellows in mettle; at pike-tilting he always kept in his saddle, and never failed to carry off the Shrove Tuesday goose in triumph. Withal he was an honest, diligent youth, and a regular church-goer; and when it came to psalm singing, he out-bawled the whole congregation. Moreover, every man loved and respected him, and never could it be said that he gave half an ounce less in the pound than he ought to have done.

On the day when this Joseph achieved his master-stroke, his father said to him: "Be off, my son; it is high time. Look about the town a bit, and search for a befitting consort. Look not for property or wealth, but rather for a good heart and a pure spirit. These two things every man should bring home; G.o.d will give the rest."

Then Joseph confessed to his father that he had already chosen for himself a worthy and beautiful maiden, an orphan from Eperies, Catharine by name, whose father and mother were dead, and who had put up at the house of an elder sister in the town. He would shorten the days of her orphanhood, he said.

Old Stephen Sandor also knew personally the girl, as well as her guardian elder sister; both of them were good and gentle souls; Catharine, in particular, was such a mild and modest creature that one had but to look at her to feel towards her an impulse of human tenderness.

Her only fault was her great pallor. But this trouble every foreign girl was exposed to who came to dwell at Caschau from the surrounding country or from other places, for there was something in the atmosphere of the town or its drinking water from which the fair faces of foreigners derived this pallid hue, which went by the name of the "Caschau complexion." And there was no escape from it save by quitting Caschau and going to other places, or else by taking to themselves a husband.

So the "Caschau complexion" was no great defect in Catharine's face, after all, so soon as Joseph's father had agreed that his son should take her to wife. After the marriage festivities it would vanish of its own accord, and the new wife would grow as rosy as the other pretty girls of Caschau.

So Joseph immediately sent his witnesses to the house of Catharine's elder sister, and not long afterwards rings of espousal were exchanged between them, and the wedding-day was fixed for the market-day before the festival of St. Vincent.

The wedding-day arrived, and the marriage took place with full ceremonials. The bride was fetched from her sister's house, and conveyed to the House of G.o.d in a carriage drawn by four horses, with plumes and coloured kerchiefs on the horses' heads, and thence to the house of the bridegroom through all the chief streets of the town, to the accompaniment of merry music; and every young man who saw the bride sitting in the beribboned carriage smiled and said to himself, "What a Caschau complexion she has got."

On that day Catharine was paler than usual. In the church itself her sadness, her anguish, were observed generally. Once, when her bridegroom took her hand, she burst into tears, and shrank timidly away from him.

Her pallor, her timidity, her weeping, were, all of them, not unbecoming to a bride, so n.o.body was much struck thereby at the time.

After the dancing came the ceremonial of conducting the bride and the bridegroom to the marriage bed, when the bridesman seized Catharine's hand, while two sword-girt youths went before them, two bridesmaids following after with the bridegroom, and the musicians began to play a gentle, dreamy melody, to the music of which the two torch-bearing youths and the two bridesmaids danced round the bridegroom and the bride, as if thereby the better to enlace them together, till they came to the bedroom, and there also they danced round them once more, each man taking his and each girl her fellow's hands, and then all together they scampered out of the door, which they banged to behind them, leaving the young couple alone; but the music droned on outside ever more softly, ever more gently, at last scarce audibly, as if it would imitate the whispering of the happy pair inside.

But no sooner were the bride and the bridegroom alone in the bridal chamber than Catharine quickly plucked the bridal wreath from her head, tore it desperately to pieces, and then, opening the window looking on to the courtyard, leaped out of it.

The astonished bridegroom, in the first moment of his surprise, did not know what to do, but looking out after the girl, and perceiving that she was making straight for the well at the top of her speed, he quickly rushed after her, and caught the wench at the very moment when she was about to plunge down the well and kill herself outright.

Joseph pressed the la.s.s tightly in his strong arms so that she could do herself no harm, and asked her anxiously what was the matter, and why she wanted to run away from him. At first the girl only sobbed, and begged him to let her die; but inasmuch as the bridegroom would by no means consent thereto, the girl confessed something to him which made the hairs of his head rise to heaven with horror; indeed, by the time the girl had told him everything, the bridegroom also had fainted, and lay there at her feet.

And within there, in the house of dancing, they were playing the dreamy melody which imitates the lisping of happy lovers, and stately maids and stalwart lads were dancing together and singing:--

"Dance, dance, the stately dance, Wave, wave the rosy chain, To knit together bride and groom."

The marriage came to nought. Catharine, half dead, was carried back to her sister's house, the bridal guests scattered in dismay. Nevertheless, Joseph said not a word of what Catharine had told him to any one, but mounted his horse, took a cudgel in one hand and a lance with a streamer to it in the other, and trotted off to the Sheriff's house. There, without leaving the saddle, he rattled at the gate with the point of the lance, and cried aloud in the hearing of all the people--

"Hearken, Michael Doronczius! Here am I, Joseph Sandor, sitting on horseback, with lance and cudgel in my hands. Mount thy horse also, if thou be a man; take thy lance and thy cudgel and come out with me in the open, there to fight together; thou knowest wherefore, but tell it to none. Let G.o.d judge betwixt us."

It was an unheard-of audacity for a simple burgess to challenge the town Sheriff himself to a tilting duel with cudgels and lances. The people listened in amazement, but still more amazed were they when Master Doronczius not only did not prosecute the audacious youth, but told the watchmen to let him go in peace, as he must certainly be out of his wits.

But Joseph Sandor, when Doronczius would not come out of his house to fight with him in G.o.d's name, took a bladder lantern, hung it on the point of his lance, hung beside it a ragged sheep-skin jacket and a pair of hose, and throwing the lance over his shoulder, galloped through the town, exclaiming at every street corner--

"Hearken ye! old and young. Which of you hath seen this Michael Doronczius, whom I am seeking with a lantern? Tell me, who hath seen him? What hath become of him?"

And in every crowd there is never any lack of merry roysterers ready to give mocking answers to such scornful questions.

"I have seen him. He is hiding just now in a mouse-hole, only his spur is visible."

"I have seen him. He is dressed up in his wife's clothes; he is selling bacon in the market-place among the huckster wenches."

"Never mind, Joe," cried another, "he is sitting behind the stove. He would freeze up if he came out."

"Nay, he would like to come," cried the fourth, "only his mother won't let him. She wants him to skein her thread for her."

"He'll come immediately," said a fifth, "only he's looking for his lance; the fowls are sitting on it, and he durst not drive them away for fear the c.o.c.k might peck him."

"Let him alone," cried a sixth, "he's lying sick; a gnat bit him yesterday."