The Village Notary Part 69

"The consequences? Oh, I am aware that my conduct leads me to the scaffold!" replied the notary, pa.s.sionately. "Let them do their worst; and may my blood be on their heads! I am not their first victim, nor indeed the last."

"And your family!" cried Volgyeshy. "What is to become of your wife and children?"

Tengelyi covered his face and wept. At last he said, with a trembling voice:--

"What is it you wish me to do? Am I to kneel to Skinner? am I to bribe false witnesses? or have recourse to some equally infamous means? I know that these things have more effect in our courts than the musty legal remedies which they taught us at college. We adopt a h.o.m.opathic treatment to cure wickedness. If you are accused of a crime, you may save yourself by committing a crime. Our Dustbury magistrates wish to prove their oriental descent, by extorting presents from the suitors in their courts. I know it all; but how can you ask me to condescend to sue and to bribe?"

"My dear friend, you are unreasonable!" said Volgyeshy, seizing the notary's hand.

"Unreasonable!" cried Tengelyi. "I, of all men, have cause to be so. I commenced life as an enthusiast, I grant it; but were its lessons lost upon me? No! All I have latterly wished for was, to be a useful and humble member of the community, and to end my life in peace. But even this is denied me. My wife is not likely to survive my misfortune; my daughter's grief, though less avowed, is not less acute. My son has to enter life with a dishonoured name: and after all this, I am expected to abandon my principles! Is it not enough to drive a man mad?"

"No!" replied Volgyeshy; "for no honest man was ever in so distressing a situation, and without his own fault too. I admit all you complain of; but what I say is, that there is no humiliation in your asking the lord-lieutenant and Rety to adjourn the decision in your case."

The notary shook his head, and replied,--

"My asking them to delay the sentence, what is it but a confession that I doubt the justice of my own cause?"

"By no means. It is a proof that you do not consider the case ripe for decision. We cannot but admit, as it stands at present, that all the evidence is against us. Public opinion is in your favour. n.o.body doubts your innocence, though there is no evidence we can adduce in support of our statement of the case. If you were to be judged by a jury of your countrymen, I am sure I would not hesitate to appeal to their verdict.

But the judges cannot travel out of the record, and they cannot but decide against us. Time may do a great deal for us. That Jew is now dying of typhus fever; who knows but he may recover, and our promises may induce him to confess the truth? Perhaps we may find out Viola, and defeat the accusation by producing him; perhaps some circ.u.mstance may turn up----"

Here the advocate's argument was interrupted by Janosh, the hussar, who had quietly entered the room and listened to the latter part of the conversation. Yielding to the entreaties of his son, the sheriff had consented to let Janosh wait upon the notary in prison; a duty which the old trooper fulfilled with so much alacrity, that even Tengelyi was moved by the devotion and kindness of his new servant.

"I say, sir," said the hussar, approaching the table at which Volgyeshy and the notary were seated, "is it a fact that they cannot injure you if we manage to produce Viola?"

"Certainly!" replied Volgyeshy; "if Viola could be induced to appear and to confess that it was he who killed the attorney, there can be no doubt but that the decision would be in our favour."

"Then the great thing is to find him?" said the hussar.

"We have tried it in vain," replied the advocate, with a sigh. "We have sent orders to all the justices, we have written to all the counties, but nothing has come of it."

"Well, sir, no wonder he dodged you," said Janosh, shaking his head; "who the deuce thinks of sending a drummer to catch rats? Viola won't leave his address at a justice's, I promise you."

"But what are we to do? Do you know of any other way?"

"Of course I do! it's the only way to do the thing. If you hunt after your watch, some thief will tell you where it was last heard of. If you wish to find Viola, you had better speak to some of his cronies."

"We have asked the Liptaka, and Peti the gipsy?" replied the lawyer.

"Well, as far as the gipsy is concerned," said the hussar, "I'll be bound that cunning creature could give us a hint or two, if he thought proper. But who knows whether he was not a party to the murder of the attorney? Besides, he is Viola's sworn brother, and thinks, perhaps, they would hang him, if they had him fast and sure."

"As for the hanging part of the business," said Volgyeshy, "Peti knows very well that Viola is not to be tried by court-martial. A common court will not condemn him to capital punishment, since he is not guilty of any other great crime besides the a.s.sa.s.sination of Catspaw; and, especially, since he has once gone through his agonies."[30]

[Footnote 30: See Note II.]

"That's what the sheriff may say; but Peti won't believe it. A gallows is an ugly concern to joke with. But there are others--"

"Who?" asked Volgyeshy.

"Why, sir, any of the robbers that are now in gaol. An honest man does not know his fellow, but a robber does. For instance, there is Gatzi, sir, the Vagabond; give him leave of absence for two or three weeks. I will put on a peasant's dress and go with him, and I'll promise you I'll keep him safe. Now, I tell you, if he and I don't bring Viola to this place! you may call me a liar, even when I tell you that we beat the French at Aspern."

Volgyeshy, who was aware of the uninterrupted correspondence in which the captive robbers in Hungary stand with their comrades out of doors, volunteered at once to solicit the dismissal from custody of Gatzi the Vagabond, and he proposed that the two men should start early the next morning.

"We had better go this very night," said the hussar. "If any of the robbers see me leave this place with the Vagabond, I'll warrant you there's not a robber in the county but will know of it before to-morrow's sunset. They'll mistake him for a spy, and if they do, we may go whistling after Viola."

Volgyeshy was struck with the truth of this remark.

"And besides, sir!" continued Janosh, confusedly. "I beg you a thousand pardons; and I'm sure I'll do any thing I can for Mr. Tengelyi--any thing I'll do to get him out of this confounded place; but Viola is after all a fellow-creature, and his wife is the best woman I ever set my eyes on, and his children are so pretty,--they've called me Batshi, and plucked my moustache! You see, sir, it wouldn't be decent in me to twist a rope to hang their father with. Punish him as you please, sir; but as for death--you see it's a very queer thing!"

Volgyeshy repeated his former statements and promises; and the old soldier, who was well pleased with them, stroked his moustache, saying,

"Well, if that's the case, sir; and why shouldn't it be? especially since the sheriff has said so, and after all he is the man to say who is to be hanged; since that's the case, I'll be a rascal if I don't bring Viola along with me. It's much better for him, poor fellow, to get his punishment, and have done with it; and as for his wife and children, I'll be bound Mr. Tengelyi will do what is right by them. Let Gatzi go with me, and you'll see what we'll do. It's not the first time I've left my quarters with a queerish order; still no one can say but that I've always come back with credit to myself. The worst thing a man can do is to despair!"

CHAP. VII.

The month of March is notoriously fatal to the inmates of the Hungarian prisons. The typhus fever increases in that month to a fearful violence.

It is but natural that the year of Tengelyi's captivity should have exhibited the average amount of disease and mortality in the Dustbury county gaol. Nothing, indeed, appeared more natural to the Dustbury people. They looked upon the sufferings of their fellow-creatures with so much indifference that a stoic might have envied them; and as for the prison coffin, which was put in requisition more than once a day, it was to them a matter of light and fanciful conversation.

The medical inspector of the county of Takshony--and here our readers must pardon us a short digression on the merits of the Hungarian medicinal police, for the man who filled that important office, and whom we shall take the liberty of most particularly introducing to the public, had devoted his whole life to the elucidation and exemplification of that great official problem, how far it is safe, and even profitable, to neglect and disobey the orders of superior boards and committees?

It is now some years since a terrible disease prevailed among the cattle throughout the country. Pursuant to an order of the High Court, all communication was interdicted between the counties; the county of Takshony too was placed in a state of unenviable isolation, and a rigorous prohibition was published against the importation of foreign (that is to say, not Takshony) cattle.

And what was the consequence? One of the justices having bought some cattle in a neighbouring county, insisted on taking them to his estate.

The sanitary commissioner and the border guards protested; and the justice, who was accustomed to have his oxen and sheep in the fields of his neighbours, was now precluded from taking them to his own fields.

But a state of things which involved so gross a violation of the laws of property, could not possibly last. For the medical commissioner of the county remarked with great fairness, that the order of the High Court stated expressly that no _foreign_ cattle should be allowed to enter the county, but that it was perfectly ridiculous to suppose that any oxen belonging to a county magistrate could be _foreign_ cattle. Some few months after this lucid decision, which, strange to say, did _not_ obtain the unqualified approval of the High Court, this meritorious servant of the public proposed to an a.s.sembly of magistrates to prohibit the transit of cattle for the term of one month, since it was proved by the experience of years that the disease among the cattle had always broken out in this particular month, just about the time of the Dustbury cattle market. There was not at the time any disease among the cattle in the neighbouring counties; but one thing is certain, viz., that the landed proprietors of Takshony realised enormous sums by the sale of their oxen. A variety of other measures might be adduced to prove that the medical commissioner was fully deserving of the high degree of popularity which he enjoyed. It now remains to be told how it happened that this deserving patriot was elected to the important post of a county commissioner of public health.

When his predecessor, the late commissioner, died,--the worthy man was notorious for killing pheasants and larks with the same sized shot, and drugging all his patients with the same modic.u.m of pills,--the lord-lieutenant and the Estates of Takshony had a tussle on the appointment of a medical officer. The lord-lieutenant promised the place to a distinguished young man of excellent conservative principles. He was a Roman Catholic; he had a diploma; he had been tutor to a magnate, and he had written several poems and charades. But the Estates of the county of Takshony laughed at his Excellency's recommendation, and, insisting on their right of election, they chose another man, and one of whose abilities the county was utterly ignorant. But it was said of him that he knew French, English, and the breeding of silkworms, that he was an honorary member of sundry foreign agricultural societies, that he had studied medicine and law at the university of Sharosh-Patak, and that he was a Calvinist. But the election was annulled; the county was divided into two hostile camps, and the contest lasted above a twelvemonth, when the rival candidates were forced to withdraw from the field, and the hostile factions united in favour of a third party; the reigning medical commissioner of the county. He was a Lutheran, and as such he was agreeable to his Excellency, who hated the Calvinists, and to the Estates, who bore an equal hate to the Romanists. The successful candidate was not of the conservative nor indeed of any other party; he had never been a tutor; he was ignorant of foreign languages, and of the breeding of silkworms; he was not a member of any learned society either at home or abroad; and he was therefore agreeable to all parties, and (as Kriver said) a born angel of peace for the county of Takshony.

Dr. Letemdy, the medical commissioner, was a great man. He treated every one of his patients according to the very system which that individual patient preferred to all others. This accommodating temper of his was, like virtue, its own reward. If the patients had the worst of it, the fault was their own; and besides, Dr. Letemdy had a number of champions on his side. The h.o.m.opathists said it served the patient right, for the fool insisted on being treated allopathically; and when the patient refused to be bled, the allopathists raved about the fatal theories of the h.o.m.opathists. Add to this that he advised the old bachelors to marry and the young ladies to dance; that he sent the married ladies to the watering-places, and that he indulged his male patients with tobacco, gulyashus, tarhonya, and wine; and it is but natural that Dr.

Letemdy was held in great veneration, not only in his own county, but also in the districts and "demesnes that there adjacent lay."

An epidemic disease is the touchstone of a physician. It is here he has to prove not only his skill, but also his courage, his devotion, his philanthropy. The typhus fever which raged in the Dustbury gaol gave Dr. Letemdy a favourable opportunity to display his brilliant qualities; and candour compels us to state that he did display them to a most dazzling extent; for, considering that the great duty of a medical commissioner consists in preventing the extension of an infectious disease, and considering that he was in daily communication with the first families of Dustbury: he made an heroic sacrifice of his feelings, as a physician and a man of science, by never once crossing the threshold of the infected place. The prisoners were thus left to their fate and to Nature; the druggist's bill was remarkably moderate, and Dr.

Letemdy could not, in justice, be accused of having adopted a false treatment in the case of any of the many deaths which were daily reported to him, and which he, excellent man! entered, though with a bleeding heart, on the register.

The majority of the Dustbury prisoners were not generally discontented with their involuntary place of residence. Cheerful society, wine, brandy, gambling, singing and laughing, indemnified them, especially in winter, for the pleasures of liberty; and, indeed, there were some of the n.o.ble and ign.o.ble inmates of the place who strove hard in autumn, and would not be satisfied till they were safely housed in what they considered their winter quarters.

But in the month of March of the year 18-- the Dustbury gaol was a place of howling and gnashing of teeth.

There was a sick ward in the prison. The Estates of the county, obedient to superior orders, had one room and six beds prepared for the sick among the prisoners. And although there were only five hundred people in the gaol, it so happened that the sick ward was always full; nor was it possible, during the prevalence of the epidemic, to separate the infected from those who were in health; each remained on the spot where the hand of disease struck him. The upper rooms had from thirty to eighty prisoners, and from two to three corpses daily. Many of the vaults were absolutely emptied by the death of their inhabitants.

The prisoners were moody and desponding. Even the boldest shrunk from the sight of death in its ghastliest form; and the very haiduks who did the service of the prison, spoke of the scenes which they witnessed with pity and even with tears. The cells which once resounded with riotous laughter and wild songs, were now silent as the grave; but when night came on, the slow measure and the lugubrious sound of hymns was heard to rise from the loopholes which led to the streets. The sound was like the groaning of a vast mult.i.tude. And at night, too, the sentinel on his lonely post listened to the prayers of the prisoners, to the confused and earnest murmur which rose on the air and was hushed in silence. The prisoners conversed but little, and always in whispers. When the haiduks entered the gaol in the morning, to take them to their usual exercise in the yard, they found the wretches clinging to the iron railings of their cells, each crying out and entreating them to open his cell first, that he might not lose any of the precious moments of air and sunshine. Some who were struggling with the disease, and who could not stand or walk, crept up the steps and lay on the pavement of the yard, happy to breathe the fresh air of the morning and to see the bright sun before they died.

Among the prisoners in the cell next to the steps were two brothers.

They were herdsmen, and the sons of honest parents. An hour of youthful frolic had brought them into the hands of the justice, and from thence to gaol. The younger of the two, a mere child, was the first to fall ill, and his brother tended him as a mother would her infant. It was he who had persuaded his younger brother to do the deed for which they were imprisoned; and was he to see that brother die? He implored the haiduks to send for a doctor, or to procure his brother's release. He said he would willingly suffer the punishment for both. "Let them keep me here two years instead of one! let them keep me here for ever, but let that poor boy go! He is innocent! I told him to do it!" cried he, wringing his hands, and entreating the corporal of the haiduks. Even the eyes of that hardened man filled with tears as he replied, that the entreaties of the prisoner were of no avail, the county having resolved to confine all the inmates of the prison to its precincts to prevent the disease from spreading. As the days wore on, and when there was no hope of the lad's recovery, the unfortunate young man spoke to no one. At the hour of recreation he seized his brother's wasted form, took him to the yard, sat down by his side, and taking the poor boy's head in his arms, remained quietly sitting there during the short half-hour which they were allowed to stay out. One day a haiduk said to him: "Why do you drag him about with you? Don't you see he is dead?" The prisoner shuddered.

He looked at the body which lay by his side. He kissed it--but there was no breath! He put his hand to its heart: it had ceased to beat! He stared into its eyes, they were fixed and glazed! its limbs were stiff and cold. "He is dead!" cried the prisoner, with a broken voice, as he reeled and fell. They took him back to the cell, but he never regained his consciousness. He, too, fell a victim to the epidemic.