The Strange Story of Rab Raby Part 26

Everything is paid for in ready money, so that if a well-to-do purchaser buys a herd of sheep and has not the price forthcoming, he leaves his silver knife and fork (which he carries about with him) as a pledge, and the seller knows well enough they will be redeemed in due course.

Towards mid-day, the "market-kitchen" becomes thronged. Here too the famous gipsy stew needs no advertising, for its savoury odour betrays its whereabouts, and it only wants good wine to wash it down to make it complete. But this same good wine is dear, and only for the gentry. The Velencze people have already annexed a table near the bar, and sit round it and listen to their favourite song:

"See I will drink with you, So I can clink with you A gla.s.s of good wine: But if you do not choose, To pledge, I'll not refuse Alone to empty mine."

But now come the Bicske contingent, each one of whom brandishes a huge weighted stick, or copper axe, while their neighbours have already deposited their weapons on the table.

These late-comers observe that the others have already annexed the best table, and proceed accordingly.

"You gentlemen from Velencze have come early," growls Bognar Laczi, the leader of the Bicske party.

"Yes, and by this you must have caught plenty of mud-fish." (This is intended as a graceful allusion to the Lake of Velencze.) "And what's more, have swallowed them by this time," sneered a pugnacious looking, thick-set fellow, who also belonged to the Bicske gang.

As is well known, the worthy dwellers by the Velencze lake do not relish this kind of reflection on their sport, and they resented it accordingly.

But the fight does not yet begin, for who is fool enough to fight over the fish he eats? Besides, eating is the first and most important business, so they sink differences in order to make a square meal.

"Now, friends," says Bognar Laczi to the Velencze contingent, "what say you to some music? We have brought our own piper and a cornet-player with us, so I propose that we take it in turns; first your gipsies shall play, and then our musicians."

"All right," agreed the others, and thereupon the n.o.ble representative from Bicske had his favourite tune played on the bagpipes.

"I've a house and a sweet little wife of my own, And bread and bacon and crops that I've grown."

And everything progressed smoothly, for while the music was going on, no one could talk, and if one guest called to someone else at the other table, he did not forget to address him as "n.o.ble friend." But at the second round of wine the company began to sing with the music, and it was not easy to stop their efforts. Finally, the two parties insisted on singing different songs at the same time, the result being an uproar, wherein cymbal, fiddle, bagpipe, and cornet strove for precedence in a very rivalry of tumultuous discord.

The Velencze leader could not stand such an annoyance, and he promptly hurled an empty bottle at the wall just above the head of the Bicske chief, so that the fragments fell on the latter's head. He then seized his axe, struck the beam with it, and cried out defiantly, "Let's see who is the better man?"

The valorous Bicske men and their ten Velencze companions, were equally ready to join in the fray thus begun. So they seized their axes and clubs, and began to brandish these in a highly menacing fashion. For there is no fighter like your Magyar when his blood is up.

At this perilous juncture appeared the representatives of peace and arbitration, in the person of Sir Stephen Keo, the "Knight of Kadarcs,"

and his companion, Mr. Postmaster Leanyfalvy, who led between them Mathias Raby, and presented him to the company.

The old campaigner, with his shabby sheepskin over his shoulders, and a short pipe between his teeth, pressed into the ranks of the combatants as calmly as if the Geneva Red Cross had sheltered his breast. Not a bit intimidated by the uproar, he brandished his pike, and cried out in a shrill voice:

"So you are at it again, are you! Be quiet, you fellows; and so early too, for you can't have drunk much yet. But listen to me, friends. This gallant gentleman whom you see here is Mr. Mathias Raby of Raba and Mura, the son of the late Stephen Raby, that n.o.ble patriot, who so often stood up for Magyar rights. During his absence from home some bullies in Szent-Endre have ejected this n.o.ble gentleman from his own house, and occupied it. Now he calls upon us, the patriots of Velencze and Bicske, to come to his aid, and will pay us a salary of two gulden per head, to drive out the illegal occupiers from his lawful domicile.

Therefore I suggest that you adjourn your mutual quarrel till the next Stuhlweissenburg fair (and chalk it up so that you do not forget it); but meantime, come with us, and help to right the wrong done him."

Whereupon the twenty men present cheered loudly and signified their readiness to go.

"We have four carriages here," said Sir Stephen. "Four must stay with the horses, so that there will be sixteen all told for the expedition."

And so it was arranged.

But Bognar Laczi urged immediate action. "Let's be off, all of us, only let us send on a scout who shall warn the Szent-Endre people that we are coming in full force. They shall not say that we take them unawares, but should get their fighting gear in readiness."

It took some time for Raby, the postmaster, and the knight to agree to this arrangement, for they deemed such a proceeding would be pure folly.

Szent-Endre might be too strong for them, if it had time to collect all its forces. But at last they gave in, and sent on their scout ahead, delaying their actual start till nightfall.

By morning they had reached the "Pomazer" Inn safe and sound, so they halted and baited the horses. The pa.s.sengers sprang from the carriages, and stretched their drowsy limbs. Then they roused the hostess and ordered some coffee, and everyone knows what "Hungarian coffee" means; it consists of red wine, ginger, and pepper, and is drunk boiling hot.

But this beverage kept them going all day, so invigorating was it.

While the horses fed, the messenger they had dispatched to reconnoitre, came back with the news that all Szent-Endre was agog, the munic.i.p.ality having brought together a rabble armed with sticks, pitchforks, and flails, who had collected in front of Raby's house, while the townsmen in the courtyard were armed and ready for the attack.

"Heigh ho," shouted the a.s.sailants. "What joy! We shall have someone now with whom we can fight! So let's drive on so that we can be soon in fighting array."

"Stop a bit, my n.o.ble friends," said Sir Stephen Keo. "First of all, let us exercise a little strategy. For this will be the decisive struggle, and remember I am in command! Before all, we must know the fortress we are about to conquer. Now the house has two doors, the one opening on to the Buda street, the other behind into the garden. Therefore we must divide into two parties. The one must begin the frontal attack from the street, the other will go round into the vineyard and take their chance under shelter of the garden. The Velencze men will lead the one attack, and those of Bicske the other."

The old fire-eater was not only an accomplished strategist, but likewise a great student of character. He knew his people, and that if he placed the two factions side by side, they would quarrel at least over precedence if over nothing else, that neither would give in, and that all chance of success would consequently be ruined.

"Now who will lead the attack from the street?" asked their commander-in-chief.

It was settled by drawing lots; the garden position falling to the Bicske party.

"So we are to go behind, are we?" questioned Bognar Laczi sulkily.

"n.o.ble friend," pleaded the old knight, "for those who tackle a seven-headed dragon, there is no 'behind,' for on every side there is a head. You will attack the enemy's rear-front."

He was obliged, however, to make this concession to the Bicske a.s.sailants, that they should travel first in two coaches to reach the garden by a roundabout way, and yet be there at the same time as the Velencze contingent.

These delicate points of precedence being settled, they drove off in fine style, two of the vehicles turning towards the vineyard, and the other three to Szent-Endre.

They could hear as they drew nearer that the whole place was in an uproar. In the Buda Street the citizens had organized an impromptu army. There they were in little national groups, the Magyars with clubs, the Serbs armed with flails, the Rascians provided with pitchforks. It looked as if it would be a hundred to one.

The s.p.a.ce in front of Raby's house was occupied by a mixed mob of hangers-on of all kinds, who were carrying sticks, and lances, and old flint muskets.

In front of this phalanx stood the lieutenant in full gala dress, with the big drum slung round his neck, ready to give the storming signal, and inciting the mob with warlike exhortations.

But it was in reality no joke, and the antagonists, seeing the attacking party, retreated into the house and endeavoured to close the door behind them. Only when they felt themselves safe did they begin their defensive operations.

The crowd without did not take an active part in the fray, but only looked on.

The Velencze contingent tried first of all to break in the door, but it was barricaded too fast from within. So a regular attack had to be essayed.

The old Knight of Kadarcs directed operations from the coach where he still sat.

"Just take the stakes out of the well-posts, and you can jam in the door with them."

Four of the party managed to wrench out the stakes, and jammed them against the great door like a Roman battering-ram, whilst three others worked at the smaller door with their stout clubs. But those inside defended themselves bravely enough, it must be owned. In the court stood logs of wood piled up, and these they hurled at the besiegers, who naturally returned the projectiles back from whence they came.

Within could be heard the directions of the defenders to those inside to fire on the a.s.sailants if these effected an entrance.

But all the attacks of the Velencze men had been perfectly futile, had not the Bicske auxiliaries come up just in the nick of time to the rescue.

They, in fact, decided the issue of the battle. All at once they uttered a tremendous yell which scared the enemy back into their entrenchments.

Hereupon, a frightful tumult ensued, the crowd without shouting and seeking to find an outlet over the walls of the neighbouring houses, or in the out-houses and stables. Then the Velencze party made a tremendous dash for the barred door, and succeeded in effecting an entrance. What followed is indeed difficult to describe.

"Take care to hit them on the head," shouted the old commander-in-chief from his perch in the coach, while the mob laughed loud and long, as one after another member of the town council crawled out on all fours over the neighbouring roofs into safety, whilst first one and then another of the Szent-Endre worthies were thrown out like cats on to the ground below. The last to be turned out was the notary, his clothes torn, his temples bleeding, and his teeth knocked out, yet there was not a soul who seemed to sympathise with him.

The mayor had bethought him of a refuge in the chimney, but they lighted straw below, and he was forced to push his way out. But the chimney being too narrow, he only succeeded in getting his head and arms out, and there he stuck, gesticulating wildly like a jack-in-the-box, till the siege being over, they could take off the chimney-pot and so free the prisoner.