The Strange Story of Rab Raby Part 4

It can well be imagined how to the overtaxed peasant wine-grower who has run out of money, this same "red Jew" is a friend in need, quite ready to help him out of his difficulty, for he will pay for his wine at the rate of two gulden a kilderkin. But this did not happen in well-regulated communities. Only the munic.i.p.ality had the privilege of selling wine, and to it the citizen only dare retail his vintage. And the price which he received for it was fixed by the law at one gulden.

So the wine-grower pours likewise into the great vat his "deputy-tax,"

wherein he reckons a gulden for a kilderkin, and the "red Jew" draws it out again at two gulden a kilderkin.

Thus it befalls that the owner of the vineyard brings the bottles which he has brought with him empty to the vineyard, empty home again. And yet that is called a first-rate vintage! But it was hard for the good man himself to esteem it so, and no wonder he was doubtful!

And thus the vintage went on till nightfall. Then the gates of the vineyards were shut, and the judicial vintagers paused in their work, yet not to betake themselves to rest, but to carry on further business within doors.

The judge and his deputy, the notary and the jurymen, all conferred together, the notary being auditor and controller in one, whereby it may be gathered that he was a very clever fellow.

The Jew Abraham was likewise called into the council, in order to a.s.sist in the money-changing.

For at that epoch all kinds of money were current in the country, which only came into evidence as they pa.s.sed in daily exchange. To dispose of them was not easy, so the Jew was bidden to give proper money in exchange for them. When he got back to Vienna he could in his turn get rid of it.

During the money-reckoning transaction, Abraham appeared with the accounts giving the amount of money taken over, the price of the wine, and the bad money left behind.

"Can't you buy this bad money too, father Abraham?" queried the notary.

"No indeed, my lord, for if I change false money they will lock me up, but you will quietly put it away in the cash-box, and pay out with it, your servants' wages, your heydukes, messengers, and foresters. In due time, these coins will again be in circulation at the tradesman's stall, or the inn, and the public will be fingering it once more for fees and fines, and so the bad money comes round again, just as the sun goes round the earth, for it is not by any means lost."

Everyone laughed at the Jew's explanation.

Then Abraham stated how much he would give in gold for the small change he had taken, and the business was settled without further ado.

"But now, Mr. notary," proceeded the Jew, "just make me out a receipt to attest that I have changed the money, and that we are quits, but write it in Latin, not Rascian."

"All right, Rothesel."

"Also, I would ask you not to write my name 'Rothesel,' but 'Rotheisel,'

with an 'i' if it is just as easy to you."

"But everybody calls you 'Rothesel'?"

"You may call me what you like, but in writing at any rate, I am 'Rotheisel.' I had this favour granted me in Vienna, from the Kaiser himself--that I might write it with an 'i.'"

"And a nice round sum that very 'i' cost you in Vienna, Abraham, or I'm much mistaken! Confess frankly, it did!"

"Pray why should I confess anything about it? What does it matter whether this 'i' cost me but a single h.e.l.ler, or a hundred thousand gulden--you, not I, pay them, after all is said."

When the Jew had gone, the notary packed up the ducats in stacks, and placed them beside him round the inkstand, while the president began: "Well, now the outsiders are off home, only the privileged councillors and the members of the council remain, in order to be present at the opening of the great coffer."

Now it is not permitted to every official to glance at the contents of the mysterious coffer. As the privy council alone remained, the notary fetched out from the cupboard, as many night-caps as there were men, and each one drew the covering thus provided over his head, so that only the tip of his nose was visible. This was done so that none might see where he was going. When all were thus blindfolded, the notary alone excepted, the latter took a light from the table, and gave the end of his stick into the judge's hand; the judge in his turn reaching the end of his to the juryman behind him, and so on, till the chain of blindfolded men were ready to start. Where? Ah, that was the notary's secret, for he it was who directed their progress.

"Now there come steps," he cried, "one, two, three," and so on, till he had counted ten. Then a key creaked in an iron lock. "Stoop down so you don't hurt your heads," came the word of command, and they pa.s.sed through a low door. "Here we are," cried their leader, "now you can look."

The jurymen had often been in this place before. It was a low-pitched cellar, with a ma.s.sive, vaulted arched roof, and in a corner of it, there stood an iron coffer made fast to the wall.

Beside this iron chest stood a Rascian "pope," whose hand they could reverentially kiss if they wished. How he came there no one knew.

The "pope" produced a large, curiously wrought key, and the notary a second one like it.

"These are the keys, open it who can!"

Three or four times some jurymen made the attempt, yet without success; in vain did the keys press right and left in the wards, but it opened not.

"We are wasting time," cried the "pope." "Do you try, Mr. notary, you understand it."

Whereupon the notary turned the keys, and the coffer was opened.

Everyone wanted to see inside.

There were nothing but ducats there: ducats, indeed, by hundreds, in fine transparent bladder bags, through which the yellow metal gleamed seductively. The sacks stood as in battle array, like so many soldiers close to each other. There must be a fabulous lot of gold there! Now another row was to be added to it. Then from a side compartment of the chest, a small book was fetched out wherein the notary entered all kinds of accounts. And strange entries might those be, judging from the frequent exclamations of the jurymen, which showed that the budget he examined was a notable one.

"Tut, tut," cried the notary interrupting, "you don't want it published to all the world."

"But if it has to be, eh?"

After which, certain accounts were duly registered in the little book, and the great coffer was again closed. Then the "pope" spoke.

"I see well enough that you have again husbanded your funds carefully, and that the money has increased, but where does the blessing of Heaven come in? You never give a thought to the Church! You promised to buy a new church bell, to gild the church roof, and to build a house for the parish priest. There's no money for all these things, but the coffer gets fuller and fuller."

"Make yourself easy, your reverence," answered the notary, "all that may come next year, if we are spared. For that the small cash-box will suffice."

"So you think it will, do you? What has ruined the hospital? The poor sick folk nearly perish of hunger in summer, and are nigh frozen in winter, whilst you carry off the timber by cart-loads as presents to Pesth, and then think of the amount of smoked sturgeon and caviare and wine you send thither, and all for the magnates, but nothing for the sick and needy!"

"Let it be, your reverence, there's nothing so advantageous for the sick as fresh air, and nothing so harmful as overloading their stomachs. But it's far better that we should give firing for the magnates, than that they should make it hot for us!"

"And the poor-house which our revered Queen, Maria Theresa, endowed, is it not still empty? What are we about that we do not find inmates for it? But you find none."

"The devil we do! Don't the blind and the lame stand each Sunday before the church door, but if we want to befriend them, we've only to say: 'Come you, poor wretches, we'll show you the way into the poor-house,'

and off they run in a fright, so great a horror have they of the bread of the State."

"You children of the devil! And what of the poor Izbeghers whose forty houses were burned down? The Emperor allowed them as much from the treasury as the worth of the houses amounted to, but you raised the rents of the remaining houses and then dunned them for the money."

"That's natural enough, seeing the Emperor let the State annex the burned part in order to pay so much the less to the ground-landlord. If Peter has nothing, then pay Paul, that is the rule."

"A G.o.dless rule too! Amend your ways, I say, for if next year as many complaints reach my ear as have this, I'll denounce your coffer to the Treasury."

These words only provoked laughter.

"Your reverence is not such a bad sort," ventured the judge in a conciliatory tone.

Thereupon, the keys were withdrawn, the night-caps again donned, and the notary led his blind men again to the ground-floor of the council chamber, where they congratulated one another on the risks run.

"Only yon priest should not have it all his own way with his maledictions," grumbled the judge. "But they are all like that. Each one of them thinks that hardly earned money should be wasted on churches and hospitals."

"I also think, my lord, that it would be better that such an unreasonably big sum of money should be divided to each one as he has need," suggested a juryman bolder than the rest.

The speaker might, from the a.s.senting murmur which greeted his speech, take it for granted that he had a good many on his side, but the eloquence of the notary soon crushed such sympathy.