The Village Notary Part 30

Susi sat down by the side of the cart. She covered her face with both her hands, and wept bitterly.

"Don't be afraid, child!" said the Gulyash; "either I go over or Peti does. You see the forest is just before us, and if there's not a road, confound it! we'll make one."

"So we will!" cried Peti. "I'll cross the water, though the very devil were in it. Let me feel my way a little. Is not that the large tree we saw the other day?"

"May be it is, but I can't make it out on account of that confounded fog. There are lots of high trees in the forest."

"To the left of the tree, about two hundred yards from it, there is a clearing in the wood. On the day I spoke of, we drove through it with the cart. Don't you remember?"

"How the deuce shouldn't I remember! There ought to be some reeds to the right of the tree."

"So there ought to be! Now you go to the right and I to the left. If I can find the clearing, and if that's the tree I spoke of, I'll walk through the water; for it's a rising ground from that tree to the other bank of the Theiss."

"I'll go with you," said Susi; "my heart beats so fast--there's a murmur in my ears--let me go! I'd die with fears if you tell me to remain here."

"Susi, my soul, if I can cross the waters, I'll come back and carry you on my back. But stay where you are--stay for Viola's sake, if not for your own!"

They walked away and were lost in the darkness. Susi stood by the water, looking at the forest. "Alas!" sighed she, "I am so near him, and yet I cannot go to him!"

The poor woman was right. On the other side of the water, scarcely more than a thousand yards from the place where Susi trembled and prayed, we find Viola with his comrades, encamped in one of the few oak forests of which Hungary can boast. The soil on which this forest stood was continually exposed to the overflowing of the Theiss, to the banks of which it extended, and by which it was rather divided than confined; for another forest of oaks covered an area of several miles on the other side of the river. The forest was a noisy place in summer, when there was a plentiful harvest of acorns; the grunting of a thousand pigs, and the whistling and singing of a hundred Kondashes[24], was loud, beneath the thickly woven branches and the deep green foliage; and large fires, surrounded by fierce-looking bunda-clad figures, burned amidst the huge trunks of the trees. But in winter the forest is deserted; the huts which the Kondashes had built were overthrown by the first storms which ushered in the severe season. Only one of these huts was still inhabited. It was the one which lay farthest from St. Vilmosh, and close to the end of the forest. This hut was the favorite retreat of Viola and his gang. There was not a road or path for miles around them; and the shrubs and trees which surrounded the hut hid it so effectually, that even at twenty yards distance it was impossible to discover any trace of it. On the other side, towards St. Vilmosh, the forest extended many miles, and even the boldest among the county hussars avoided the spot, ever since an inspector and two Pandurs had been shot there. Viola was justified in fancying himself as safe as a king in his palace; for who would betray him? He was sure of Peti, and the Gulyash Ishtvan; and as for the other sharers of the secret, he was still more certain of their discretion, for they were all equally guilty, and the same punishment awaited them.

[Footnote 24: See Note VII.]

The hut, in a corner of which was the robber seated on a log of wood, was large, roomy, and well conditioned. A heap of straw, covered with bundas, which stood the robbers in place of a bed; a clumsy table, and an iron kettle, and various weapons--such were the objects on which the fire threw a broad and glaring light. Viola sat lost in deep thought, while two of his comrades, the only ones who were present that night, stretched their weary limbs on their bundas, as they stared at the burning wood and the red flames.

"I say, butcher!" said one of them, "don't you think a bit of meat would be just the thing for us?"

The speaker, whom the country had for the last twenty-five years known as a freebooter of the worst kind, was a st.u.r.dy gray-haired man, while the fellow he addressed was young and--as Ratz Andor, for such was the elder robber's name, would have it--inexperienced.

"Go to the devil!" replied the young man. "Why do you talk to me of meat?"

"Wouldn't you like it? Now, I say, you would not mind having some tobacco, would you?"

"Curse you, and begone! Why should you talk of it, since there's neither meat nor tobacco!"

"I thought you'd like a bite or a whiff; don't you?"

"You're always joking," said the butcher. "We have not had any grub ever so long. I can't stand it. I'd rather be hanged than starved to death."

"Why don't you go for something?" sneered Andor.

"How can I? you know the bees are swarming. Hand me the culatsh, old fellow!"

"Take it."

"No, not this! It's full of water. Give me the other creature, hang you!"

"I'll see _you_ hanged, my boy, before I give it you. You've already more brandy in your head than good sense; and besides, it won't do to drink while you're fasting."

"Give me the bottle. I won't be fooled by you. I am my own master."

"You'd better be quiet," said the old robber, seizing the butcher's arm with an iron grip.

"I'll pay you out for it, you dog!" cried the butcher, as he sprang to his feet and seized his fokosh. "I'll teach you to bid me be quiet!"

Andor, who had watched his movements, rose with equal quickness, and seizing the young man's throat, thrust him into a corner.

"You must learn manners, my fine fellow! and if you don't, why you'll be stuck like a pig!"

Viola was all this while brooding over his own miseries, and the wretched lot of his wife. He knew nothing of the quarrel of his comrades, but their fight roused him.

"What is the row?" said he, rising.

"The boy wants brandy, and I want to give him a drubbing."

"Give him brandy, if there is any."

"No!" said Ratz Andor. "He shan't have it. He is more than half drunk as it is. He'll bring us into trouble!"

"But I am hungry!" cried the boy, appealing to Viola.

"Why did you come to be a robber? No one told you to come."

"And who told you?"

"My case is different!" said Andor, gloomily. "I am a deserter. I served the Emperor for ten years. I tell you, boy, I did my duty in the greatest war that ever was; and when we came home from our campaigns and they refused to let me go my ways, the devil put it into my head that I'd been a soldier overlong. So I flung my musket away, and here I am.

But, confound me! if I were a butcher's son, as you are, you would not find me in the forest; nor would you Viola, take my word for it!"

"I don't care!" said the butcher, unmoved by the old man's words; "a robber's life's a merry life. I want lush!"

"Give it him," repeated Viola. "Let him take his fill."

"Why, the fellow _is_ drunk," said Ratz Andor, doggedly. "There never was a gang of robbers but it was ruined by drink."

"We are safe for this night; though I trust Peti will come, and bring us meat from the Gulyash. The justice is at Dustbury; and as for the haiduks, they'd rather go out of our way than cross it."

"That's what you ought never to think," said Andor, shaking his head, "Ruin comes upon us when we least expect it. But if you must, you must,"

continued he, addressing the butcher; "so drink, and go to h--ll!"

The fellow seized the proffered bottle, and the three men were silent.

The two-fold darkness of the night and the fog was still more increased by the deep shades of the forest. The wind of autumn whistled among the dry leaves, and moaned in the upper air like a deep sigh of unspeakable woe. The hoa.r.s.e croak of the raven broke the stillness at intervals, and the birds that lived in the forest awoke and flapped their heavy wings.

Viola stood in the doorway of the hut. His soul was sorrowful, even unto death. The night, the silence, the loneliness of the place, the companions of his exile, all contributed to add to his grief. He thought of the days of his happiness. When the work in the field was over, when the long winter nights came on, he used to sit by his own fireside, fondling his boy on his knee, and gazing on Susi, who moved her spindle with untiring zeal. What though mists covered the land, hiding the manor-house, the huts, the church, and the banks of the Theiss,--he cared not. The powers of Nature cannot affect the happiness in man's heart: it is man alone who can destroy it. And his happiness was destroyed. "I was humble and inoffensive," said he; "and yet they did not spare me. I did my duty; indeed, I did more than my duty. I obeyed when they commanded; I took my hat off when I met them; I fawned upon them like a dog; I would have kissed their feet, to induce them to leave Susi and my child alone, to leave my house alone, and yet----" Viola remembered again all the insults he had suffered. He recollected how they would have forced him to leave his wife in her hour of sorrow; how they dragged him through the village; how Skinner gave orders to tie him to the whipping-post; how he seized the axe, and turned its edge against the head of a fellow-creature; and how the blood filled him with horror. He raised his hands to heaven.

"No!" cried he; "may G.o.d have mercy on me! but, whatever I may have done, I cannot repent it. If I were to live it over again, if I were to see them standing round me, and laughing and sneering, and if I were to see the axe,--I'd seize it again, and woe to the man that should come near me! But you, whom I never did any harm to!--you, who were the cause of my ruin!--you, who have caused my wife and children to beg their bread!--you, who made me a robber, who hunted me, who compelled me to herd with the beasts of the forest!--you, whose doings d.a.m.n me in this world and in the next,--you, attorney! and you, judge! take care of yourselves: as surely as there is a G.o.d in heaven I'll have my revenge, and a b.l.o.o.d.y revenge too!----"

At that moment there was a rustling in the wood. Viola leaned forward, and listened. The noise was as of the approach of men. There was a rustling of the dry leaves, a cracking of the branches; the ravens flew up from the trees. "Who can it be?" thought Viola. "Peti, perhaps, and the Gulyash; but how should they come from the St. Vilmosh side?"

A similar noise of approaching steps was now heard from the other side of the forest. "These are the steps of many men," said Viola; "they are in search of me." The very next moment he was fully convinced of it, for the low murmur of many voices was heard in the stillness of the night.