Chapter IV (2)

This occurred on the sixth day after the extermination of the Magyars at St Thomas.

THE ROBBER-CAPTAIN.

George took his dead child in his arms, carried her into the forest, dug a grave at the foot of a poplar tree, and laid her in it. He lacked the courage to throw clods upon her pale and beautiful countenance, but he plucked leaves and twigs from the bushes, laid them thickly over her, and then covered all with the black earth. When the grave was filled in, and whilst he was smoothing the green moss over the mound, anguish tore his heart; but, instead of soothing tears, the fire of hell gleamed in his eyes.

Then he took out his knife, to cut his child's name on the bark of the tree which was to be her living monument. But when the letters were complete, there stood, graven by his own hand, the name of BASIL. For he thought no longer of his daughter, but of her murderer. And more terribly significant than a thousand curses and vows of vengeance, was that name, graven in that hour and that place.

George rose from the ground, and wandered forth into the forest. He had walked some distance, when a longing desire came over him once more to gaze upon his daughter's grave. He turned to seek it, but the trees were all alike: in vain he sought the one beneath which his child lay buried, and at last night overtook him in the very heart of the forest. Still he walked on, whither and wherefore he knew not. The wood grew thicker, and the night darker; the birds, startled at his footsteps, flew screaming from their perch. At last he stumbled over a tree-root, and fell. Why should he get up again? As well there as anywhere. He let his weary head sink upon the ground, whispered a "good night" to his child, and fell asleep, and dreamed of burning towns and scenes of slaughter.

Towards midnight the neighing of a horse roused him from his restless slumbers. Near at hand he saw a saddle-horse, snorting and pawing the ground. Behind some bushes he heard a woman's plaintive tone, and the harsher voice of a man, mingled at intervals with the prattle of a child.

The man was a short spare figure, with flashing black eyes, long mustaches hanging down over his mouth, and black hair streaming on his shoulders. Energy was the characteristic of his features, and the sinews of his frame were like cords of steel.

In his arms he held a child, three or four years old. The child called him father, and clasped him affectionately with its little hands. A woman was also there, sobbing passionately, and wiping the tears from her eyes.

"Canst thou pray, my son?" said the man, seating the child upon his knee.

"Surely he can," the woman answered; "morning and evening he repeats his prayer."

"Grow up a good man, my son--not such a one as thy father. In another year put him to school, that he may learn something good."

"That will I, though it were to cost me my last florin!"

"And take him far hence! When he is older, never tell him what his father was. Conceal my name from him; never let him know that he is the son of Rosa Sandor the robber."[26]

"Ask thy father, child, when he will again visit us."

"I know not, my son. For me the morning never dawns of which I can say, this day is mine. Here to-day, to-morrow fifty miles off; after to-morrow, perhaps under the turf."

"Talk not thus! See, tears are in the child's eyes."

"So is it, my son, and not otherwise. The robber has none to whom to pray, early and late, for protection to his life."

"But you are no murderer, Sandor! You have no man's blood upon your hands!"

"Seek not to palliate my offence, dear wench! Sooner or later, the gallows and the ravens will claim me."

Again the woman began to sob; the child cried when it saw its mother weep; with deep feeling the robber caressed and comforted them.

"Go home, dear ones!" he said, "and be not uneasy. Tell no one that you have seen me. And His blessing be upon you, whose blessing I dare not ask!"

The woman and child departed. The robber sprang into the saddle, and, standing up in the stirrups, listened, as long as they were audible, to the infantine tones of his child. Suddenly an icy-cold hand was laid upon his. Startled, but without uttering a sound, he turned his head. A man stood beside his horse. It was the fugitive from St Thomas.

"Fear nothing from me, Rosa! Handle not your pistols. Mine shall not be the first blood you shed. Not to that end has your life been preserved through sixteen years of peril. Your destiny is not that of a common malefactor."

"You know me, then?"

"By report, as an outlaw, with a price upon your head. I know, too that you have a beloved wife and a darling child, to see whom once in every year you risk your life--here, where all know you, and any might betray you."

"Not a word of that! You are ragged and needy. Doubtless you would enlist in my band. Here, take this"--he offered him a pistol; "rather than do that, send a bullet through your head."

The fugitive from St Thomas looked earnestly in Sandor's face. Then he said quietly, almost carelessly, "Do my bidding, and the name of the Robber shall no longer be coupled with that of Rosa Sandor."

"Are you mad? Have I not done my utmost? and in every quarter? Let them pardon my past offences, and they would hear of no new ones. The traveller need no longer fear me. Have I not offered to compensate to the utmost of my power all those I have injured, and to build, out of my ill-gotten gains, a place of worship for that God whose commandments I have wilfully broken? All I ask is to be suffered to live amongst my fellowmen, and to earn my daily bread by the labour of my hands. They would never listen to my offers. There is no atonement I am not willing to make to the offended laws of God and my country. But they ever rejected and drove me forth. And thou--what wouldst thou with me?--betray me? Fly, wretch! Hitherto I have shed no blood."

"Henceforward thou shalt shed it, and thereby redeem thy crimes. Your country accepts what the law refused. Your country has foes; go, wash with their blood the stain from your name!"

"Tempt me not!" said the robber mournfully. "Ah, were it indeed granted me to die a happy and honourable death upon the battle-field!--"

"And if fame, instead of death, awaited you there? And if, on your return thence, the very men who now chase you from forest to forest, came forth to meet you with laurel crowns and joyous acclamations; and if, instead of "robber," hero and patriot were coupled with your name?--"

"Stop! befool me not! Oh, I could do much! A strong squadron could I bring into the field, composed of men who a hundred times have looked death fearlessly in the face; men inured to heat and cold, and to back a horse for three days and nights without dismounting."

"I will go and intercede for you."

"But what am I to thee? Who art thou? And why wouldst thou serve me?"

"Oh, I have my motives. I am one whom the Raitzen have driven from house and home, whose wife they have seduced, whose kindred they have slain. By flight alone did I escape with my life; and here, in this very forest, have I buried my only child, polluted and murdered. All these things have the Raitzen done to me. Now, tell me, if you war against them, you will give no quarter?"

"None."

"Then trust me that I will never rest until I bring your pardon, on the condition that you take the field against the Raitzen with your whole band. And may your happiness on earth be measured by the destruction you bring upon their accursed race."

"Clear me the path to the battle-field, and you shall have a mountain of your enemies' skulls."

"I _will_ do so. By all that is sacred, I swear. In a fortnight I bring your pardon. Where shall we meet?"

"We? nowhere. I trust no man. If you be sincere, come to Félegyház. There, in the tavern, sits each morning a wrinkled old beggar, his grey hair tied up in two knots. He has but one hand--thereby will you know him. Show him this pistol, and he will conduct you to me. Seek not to compel from him the secret of my hiding-place, for no tortures could wring it from his lips. Be not angry. I must be cautious. For sixteen years have I been hunted like a beast of prey. And now away, and keep to your right to find the path. An opposite road is mine."

He set spurs to his horse, and galloped off through the forest.

* * * * *

The fortnight had not expired when George entered the tavern at Félegyház.

In a dark corner, over a measure of wine, sat the grey-haired, one-handed beggar.

George showed the pistol. The beggar rose from his seat, drank off his wine, paid the tavern-keeper, and left the house. Not a syllable escaped him.

The two men stopped before a wretched hut, at the extremity of the village. The beggar went in, and brought out two powerful black saddle-horses. He signed to George to mount one, whilst he himself sprang upon the other, as actively as though he were a young man and had both hands.

Once fairly off, the old beggar became talkative. These horses, he said, were hacks of Rosa Sandor's, good beasts enough; but the Captain's favourite steed was far finer and better, and would let none but its master mount it, and would gallop for whole days together without rest, or food, or drink. It swam the Theiss thrice running, and watched its master's sleep like the most faithful dog, neighing when danger approached.

Till late in the evening, they rode on across the endless heath. No path was there, nor visible landmark; only at intervals a patch of stunted aspens, and now and then a hut, whence proceeded the hoarse bark of dogs, or a sheep-pen vacant until nightfall. There were fens overgrown with reeds and rushes, and swarming with white herons; and vast tracts of moor, grazed and trampled by every sort of cattle. Now and then, on the far horizon, the travellers caught sight of a steeple; or of a dark mass of wood, coaxed by toil and care from the ungrateful sandy soil.

At last night fell. All around grew grey, and then black; but still the old horse-herd kept steadily on his way. In the remote distance a red glimmer was seen: right and left flamed the fires of the shepherds.

"Yonder is Rosa Sandor," said the Betyár, pointing to the distant light: "there we shall find him."

Another hour brought them to the place. As they drew near, the horses that stood round the fire neighed aloud, and the figures of three men were visible. Their attitude was one of watchfulness and determination.

A peculiar whistle from the lips of the old Betyár warned them of the approach of friends.

One of the three men at the fire was the robber chief, Rosa Sandor.

"What bring you?" asked Rosa.

"Your pardon!" cried George; and, springing from his steaming horse, he handed a sealed packet to his interrogator. "Read and rejoice!"[27]

The robber turned to the firelight, and unfolded the document, which quivered in his hand as he read it. One tear and then another fell upon the paper; slowly he bent his knees, and turned his glistening eyes to heaven. "My Lord and my God!" he exclaimed, his utterance choked by sobs, "for sixteen years I have been hunted like a wild beast, but Thou vouchsafest to me to be once more a man!"

He turned to his companions. "To horse!" he cried; "let the troop assemble."

They sprang to their horses, and soon upon all sides the signal-whistle was heard. In ten minutes, a hundred and eighty men, well mounted and armed, mustered round the fire.

"Friends and comrades," cried Sandor, "that which we have so long desired has come to pass. We are no longer robbers--our country pardons us. It is granted us to atone our crimes by an honourable death. Is there one amongst you who does not repent his past life, and rejoice to be allowed to end it in honour?"

"Not one!" was the unanimous shout.

"Will you follow me to the battle?"

"Everywhere! To death!"

"Swear it."

The vow was brief. "We joyfully swear to shed our blood for our fatherland!"

"Add," said George to Rosa, "_and to give no quarter_!"

NOSTALGIA.

The soldier is dying of home-sickness.

On a sudden an epidemic broke out amongst the Hungarian troops stationed in foreign lands.

A mysterious man wandered from place to place, visiting the wine-houses frequented by the hussars, and joining in their conversation. The words he spoke, repeated from mouth to mouth, spread far and wide amongst the light-hearted soldiers, whose light-heartedness then suddenly left them. The stranger told them of things which had happened in their native land; and, when he departed, he left behind him printed verses and proclamations. These the privates took to their serjeants to have read to them. When they heard them read they wept and cursed, and learned by heart both verse and prose, from the first word to the last, and repeated them from morning till night.

Then many took to their beds, and neither ate nor drank; and when the doctors asked what ailed them, they pointed to their hearts, and said, "Home! home!--let us go home!"

Many died, and no one could say what had killed them. The rough uneducated soldiers were pining away in home-sickness, like flowers transplanted to a foreign and ungenial soil.

An experiment was tried. Some of the sick men received leave to go home. The next day--they were well and hearty.

It became known that some one was at work secretly inoculating the soldier with this strange malady; but it was impossible to detect the person.

The soldiers!--oh, not one of _them_ would betray him; and all snares were laid in vain. With the officers he never meddled. The private soldiers were his men. With them he felt himself secure from treachery. And the seed he scattered abroad produced an abundant harvest.

The dejection of the troops became daily more striking. The soldiers grew wild and intractable. No longer, when riding their horses to water, did they sing, as had been their wont, joyous ditties in praise of wine and women. Their songs were now sad and strange-sounding; mournful words to yet more dismal tunes. They sang of their country, of their dear native land, and of strife and bloodshed, in dirge-like strains; and the burden of every couplet was "_Eljen Magyar!_" Like the last accents of a dying man were the tones they uttered, sinking deeper and deeper, and ending in piteous long-protracted cadences.

Still are such songs to be heard in Hungary's forests, and around her villages, in the silent night-time. Now, more than ever, do they sound like funeral dirges, and their long sad notes like wailings from the grave.

* * * * *

In a small Gallician town was quartered a division of hussars--splendid fellows, for whom the heart of many a Polish maiden beat quicker than its wont. The most beautiful woman in all the neighbourhood loved the best blade amongst the hussars--the Captain.

Countess Anna K--nsky, the lovely Polish widow, had been for six months betrothed to the bold hussar officer, and the wedding-day was near at hand. A single night intervened. On the eve of the happy day, the bridegroom went to visit his bride. He was a tall slender man, with the bloom of youth still upon his face; but his high forehead was already bald;--"Sun and moon together," as the Hungarian proverb says.

The bride was a fair and delicate lady, with abundant black locks, a pale nervous countenance, and blue eyes of that unusual lustre which one finds only in Polish blue eyes. At sight of her lover, her alabaster cheek was overspread with the roses of love's spring-time, and her eyes beamed like the rising sun.

The bridegroom would fain have appeared cheerful; but it is hard to deceive the gaze of love, which reads the beloved one's trouble in each fold of the brow, in each absent glance of the eye. Tenderly she approached him, smoothed his forehead's wrinkles with her hand, and imprinted a kiss in their place. But again they returned.

"What ails thee, dearest? How is this? Sad on the eve of our wedding-day?"

"I? Nothing ails me. But I am annoyed at an incident--a casualty--which I cannot postpone. The court-martial has condemned a man to death. I have just now signed the sentence. The man is to be shot to-morrow: just on our bridal-day! I would it were otherwise!"

"The man is doubtless a criminal?"

"According to military law. He has been debauching soldiers from their duty--exciting them to desert and return home to fight the Serbs. Death is the penalty of his crime."

"And you have signed the sentence? Are you not a Magyar? Love you not your native land?"

"I am a soldier before everything. I respect the laws."

"Impossible! You, who love so well, cannot be devoid of that most ennobling kind of love--patriotism."

"I can love, but I cannot dream. Of the maxims and principles of revolutionists, I understand not a word; but thus much I know, revolutions never end well. Much blood, little honour, eternal remorse."

"Say not eternal remorse, but eternal hope. Hope that a time _must_ come, which will compensate all sufferings and sacrifices."

The fair enthusiast quitted her bridegroom's side, seated herself at the piano, and played with feverish energy the well-known song,

"Noch ist Polen nicht verloren!"

her eyes flashing through tears. Her lover approached her, removed her hand, which trembled with emotion, from the keys of the instrument, and kissed it.

"Poor Poland! Well may thy daughters weep over thy fate; but alas! in vain. I was lately in Pesth. Passing along a street where a large house was building, I noticed amongst the labourers a woman, carrying stones to and fro upon her head, for the use of the masons. Twice--thrice--I passed before her. The sweat streamed from her face; her limbs could scarcely support her. She was no longer young, and the toil was severe. This woman once possessed a palace in Warsaw--far, far more magnificent than the house she was then helping to build. Its portals were surmounted by a prince's coronet; and many are the joyous hours I have spent beneath its hospitable roof.... When, at the sound of the noonday bell, she seated herself at her wretched meal, I accosted her. For a long time she would not recognise me; then she turned away her head and wept. The other women only laughed at her. I offered her money; she thanked me, and took very little. She, once the mistress of millions, besought me to send the remainder to her little daughter, whom she had left a dependant on a rich family in a distant town. I promised to seek out her daughter. When I had last seen her she was a lovely child, six years of age. Eight years had elapsed, bringing her to the verge of womanhood. I reached the house. In answer to my inquiries, a girl appeared--not that fair and delicate being whose sweet countenance still dwelt in my memory, but a rude creature, with hard coarse features and wild eyes. She did not recognise me, often though she had seen me. I spoke to her in Polish; she understood not a word. I asked after her mother; she stared vacantly in my face.... Truly, the fate of Poland is a terrible example of what a nation may expect from its neighbours when it engages in a struggle with one more powerful than itself; and woe to the Magyar if he does not profit by the warning!"

"Ah! it is no Magyar who can talk thus!"

"Anna! thy first husband fell in battle on the morrow of thy wedding day. Wouldst thou lose thy second bridegroom on its eve?"

"I? With contrition I avow my culpable weakness; I love you more than my country, more than liberty. Until to-day, no man ever heard these words from a Polish woman. _I_ wish you to sacrifice yourself? Did you seek to do so, I should surely hold you back--which no Polish wife ever yet did to her husband. All I crave of you is to leave that man his life, whose patriotism was stronger than your own. On our bridal eve, I ask you for a man's life as a wedding-gift."

"And a soldier's honour!"

"Punish him otherwise."

"There is but one alternative. The man has instigated mutiny and desertion; the law has doomed him to death. I must execute the sentence, or fly with him to Hungary. And thence, I well know, I should never return. In a case like this, the judge punishes, or is an accomplice of the criminal. In one hand I have the sword of justice, in the other the banner of insurrection. Choose! which shall I raise?"

* * * * *

The sky was scarcely reddened by the dawn when the prisoner was led forth to execution. Silently, without other sound than that of their horses' hoofs, marched the square of hussars. In the centre, on an open cart, was the chaplain, a crucifix in his hand; and beside him, in a white shirt, bare-headed and with fettered hands, the culprit, George of St Thomas.

The sun rose as they reached the appointed place. The plumes of the hussars and the grey locks of the condemned man fluttered in the morning breeze. They took him from the cart: six hussars dismounted and unslung their carbines; the remainder formed up. The adjutant unfolded a paper and read, in a stern and merciless voice, the sentence of death passed upon George of St Thomas. According to customary form, a soldier stepped up to the adjutant, presented him with a wand, and thrice implored mercy for the condemned man. The third time the officer broke the wand in two, threw it at the criminal's feet, and said in solemn tones, "God is merciful!"

At these words the doomed man raised his head; his attitude grew more erect, his features glowed. He gazed around him in the faces of the assembled soldiers, then upwards at the purple clouds, and spoke in enthusiastic tones.

"Thank thee, O God!" he said; "and thanks also to you, comrades, for my death. Life has long been a burthen to me; death is welcome. I have lost everything--wife and child, house and home; my country alone remained to me, and her I could not free. I rejoice to die. You, comrades, bless God, that yonder, beyond the mountains, you have a mother, a beloved bride, a faithful wife, an infant child, waiting your return. Yonder beyond the mountains you have your homes, your cottages, your families. Pray to God that at your last hour you may welcome death as joyfully as I, who have nothing left upon earth." He paused, and sank upon his knees, as if power had departed from his limbs.

The soldiers stood motionless as statues. The adjutant waved the paper in his hand. Gloomily the six hussars raised their carbines.

Once more the adjutant raised the folded paper, when behold! a young non-commissioned officer dashed out of the ranks, snatched the fatal document from his hand, tore it, and threw the fragments at the feet of the firing-party.

Two hundred sabres flashed from their scabbards, and, amidst a cloud of dust, two hundred chargers scoured across the plain.

* * * * *

The wedding guests were waiting. The bridegroom was there in full uniform, glittering with gold, and the beauteous bride in her graceful robe of white lace. Yet a moment, and she would be his wedded wife.

The moment was very long.

The bridegroom awaited his adjutant's return from the execution. Until then, he would not approach the altar.

What if, at the very instant the solemn Yes! passed his lips, there reached his ears the rattle of the life-destroying volley, which he, the thrice happy lover, had commanded?

What if, whilst God's servant implored Heaven's blessing on their union, the angry spirit of the criminal, invoking vengeance on his judge's head, appeared at the footstool of the Almighty?

Still no adjutant came.

The bridegroom was uneasy. Yet uneasier grew the bride.

"Perhaps," she whispered, "it were better to postpone the ceremony."

"Or," he replied, "to hasten it."

A foreboding of evil oppressed them both.

And still the adjutant came not. Two, three hours elapsed beyond the appointed time. Noon approached; each minute seemed an eternity.

At last hoofs clattered in the court. Hasty steps and jingling spurs were heard upon the stairs. All eyes were fixed upon the door.... It opened, the adjutant appeared, pale, dusty, exhausted, the sweat streaming over his face.

"Remain without!" cried the bridegroom. "You bring a message of death--enter not here!"

"No message of death do I bring," replied the officer hoarsely, "but a hundred times worse. The condemned man has taken the hussars away with him, all, towards the Hungarian frontier. A couple of leagues off they released me to make my report!"

"My horse!" shouted the bridegroom, hurrying madly to the door. But he paused at sight of his bride, paler than ever and with terror in her glance.

"WAIT BUT A MOMENT, dearest love!" he said, clasped her to his breast, kissed her, and threw himself on his horse.

The animal reared beneath him and would not leave the court. The rider struck the spurs sharply into its flanks. Once more he looked back. There she stood, the beloved one, in her bridal dress upon the balcony, and waved her kerchief. "You will soon be back," she said.

She never saw him again.

* * * * *

Forward raced the hussars upon their rapid coursers, forward towards the blue mountains--ever forward.

Through forest wildernesses, over pathless heaths, up hill and down--ever forwards to the distant mountains.

Right and left steepled cities appeared and vanished; the vesper bells greeted them as they passed; loudly neighing, their horses swept along, swift and ever swifter.

Amongst them rode the gray-headed man, guiding them by untrodden paths, over swamp and moor, through silent groves of pine, forwards to the mountains.

In the evening twilight they reach the banks of a stream. Here and there on the distant hills glimmer the shepherds' fires; beyond those hills lies the Magyar's home, and in their valleys this stream takes its rise. Here, for the first time, they dismount, to water their horses in the wave whose source is in their native land.

Whilst the horses sup the cool stream, their riders strike up that gay and genial song, whose every note brings memories of home,--

"Hei! auch ich bin dort geboren,
Wo der Stern dort strahlt."[28]

Who ever rode so merrily to death?

But the vedettes make sudden sign that some one comes.

In the distance a horseman is seen; his steed vies in swiftness with the wind, his long plume and laced pelisse stream behind, the gold upon his schako glitters in the red sun-rays.

"The Captain!" is murmured around.

The hussars mount, draw their sabres, form line, and when their captain appears in their front, they offer him the customary salute.

Breathless with fury and speed, at first he cannot speak. Motionless in front of the line, his sabre quivering in his hand, he is at a loss for words to express his indignation. Before he can find them, four hussars quit the ranks; the youngest--the same who tore up the sentence--raises his hand to his schako, and addresses his chief.

"Welcome, Captain! You come at the right moment to accompany us to Hungary. Short time is there for deliberation. Decide quickly. We will seize your horse's bridle, and take you with us by force. Well do we know that you come willingly; but so will you avoid disgrace, should defeat be our lot. You must with us--by force. If we succeed, yours the glory; if we fall, the guilt is ours, since we compel you. Play your part! Defend yourself! Cut one or two of us from our saddles, the first who lays hand on your rein--see, I grasp it! Strike, Captain, and with a will."

He did as he said, and seized the horse's bridle; whilst, on the other side, an old serjeant laid hand on its mane. The horse stirred not.

The Captain gazed hard at them, each in turn; but he raised not his sabre to strike. Behind him his forsaken bride, before him the mountain frontier of his native land. On the one hand, a heaven of love and happiness; on the other, glory and his country's cause. Two mighty passions striving against each other with a giant's force. The fierce conflict went nigh to overpower him; his head sank upon his breast. Suddenly blared the trumpets in rear of the squadron; at the martial sound his eager war-horse bounded beneath him. With awakening enthusiasm the rider raised his head and waved his sabre.

"Forward, then," he cried, "in God's name!"

And forward he sprang into the river, the two hussars by his side; the cloven waters plashing in pearls around their heads.

Forward, forward to the blue mountains!

In lengthening column, the hussars followed across the stream--the horses bravely breasting the flood, the bold riders singing their wild Magyar ditty. But dark and gloomy was their leader's brow, for each step led him farther from happiness and his bride.

In the midst of the troop rode George of St Thomas, in his hand the banner of Hungary. His cheek glowed, his eye flashed: each step brought him nearer to revenge.

The troubled stream is once more stilled, the fir-wood receives the fugitives, their horses' tramp dies away in the darkness. Here and there, from the distant mountains, the herdsman's horn resounds; on their flanks the shepherd's fire gleams like a blood-red star.

Forward, forward!

* * * * *

Back to thy lair, bloodthirsty monster, back and sleep!

Let the forest-grass grow over the ensanguined plain.

How much is destroyed, how much has passed away.

How many good men, who were here, are here no longer; and how many who remain would grieve but little if they, too, were numbered with the dead.

The hero of battles is once more a robber and a fugitive. The iron hand of the law drives him from land's end to land's end.

In the mad-house mopes a captain of hussars, and ever repeats,--"WAIT BUT A MOMENT!" None there can guess the meaning of his words.

Only George of St Thomas is happy. He sleeps in a welcome grave, dreaming of sweet renown and deep revenge.

* * * * *

We have suppressed two chapters of this tale, both for want of space, and because they are unpleasantly full of horrors. They are chiefly occupied with the vengeance wreaked by George, who is frightfully mutilated in the course of the war, upon the Serbs, and especially upon his deadly foe Basil; and include an account of the capture by assault, and subsequent conflagration, of the town of St Thomas. They are in no way essential to heighten or complete the interest of those we have given; and _L'Envoy_ is as appropriately placed at the end of the third chapter as at the close of the fifth. The plot of the whole tale, if such it may be called, is quite unimportant; but there is an originality and a wild vigour in many of the scenes, which justify, in combination with other German translations from the Magyar that have lately reached us, an anticipation of yet better things from the present generation of Hungarian poets and novelists.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] _Schlachtfelderblüthen aus Ungarn. Novellen nach wahren Kriegs-Scenen._ Leipzig und Pesth, 1850. London: Williams and Norgate.

[20] See Schlesinger's _War in Hungary_, (English version,) vol. ii. p. 18-30, for a most interesting anecdotical account of this _beau ideal_ of light horsemen.

[21] _War in Hungary_, i. 206-7.

[22] Ibid. ii. 20.

[23] "Follow me!"

[24] The notes issued from Kossuth's bank-note press were, of course, worthless when the revolution was suppressed.

[25] The name of Raitzen is synonymous with Serbs. "Arsenius Czernojewic, under Leopold I., transplanted a large colony of Serbs from the ancient Rascia to Hungary. Hence the name Razen, Raczen, Raitzen.

"The Serbs first aimed the poniard at their German and Magyar neighbours.... Isolated scenes of murder, perpetrated by the Serbs against the Magyars and Germans, who inhabit that district, (the Bacska, or country of Bacs, between the Danube and the Theiss,) led the way to a series of sanguinary atrocities, such as our age had hoped never to see repeated. The commencement of hostilities is due to the Sclavo-Wallachian race; old, long-restrained hate, combined with an innate thirst for blood, marked the rising of the South Sclavonian races from the first as one of the bloodiest character, in which murder was both means and end. No revolution of modern times--the great French Revolution not excepted--is blackened with such horrible atrocities as this: the details may be found in the Serbian and Magyar journals; and one would fain have hoped that the accounts on both sides were exaggerated. Unhappily, such a hope is illusory; nor can the historian indulge it without falsifying the truth. Deeds have been perpetrated which call to mind the Hurons and Makis of the American forests. Like them, the Serbs were masters in the art of torture and murder; like them, they made their unhappy victims previously undergo all the dreadful steps of torment, prolonging the transition from life to death with a refinement of cruelty; like them, they vaunted the deeds of horror, and honoured their executioners as heroes.... Such unheard-of atrocities inevitably called forth retaliation. Magyars and Germans became savages among savages."--SCHLESINGER, Pulsky's edition, i. 22-24.

[26] Schlesinger describes Rosa Sandor as "a man about thirty-five years of age not very tall or stout, with fair hair, small mustaches and whiskers, and with nothing of the bandit in his appearance or demeanour," but mentions that he had a lieutenant of the popular bandit type, a broad-shouldered truculent personage with a formidable black beard, and long hair streaming on his shoulders. "A strange relation," he adds, "exists between the two men. The master was anxious, for reasons easy to conceive, that his person should not be generally known in the country; whilst the servant, on the contrary, had vanity enough to take pleasure in passing for the famous Rosa Sander. All the portraits of the latter which are circulated throughout the country are faithful likenesses of the lieutenant, and hence the common erroneous notion of the Captain."

[27] Rosa Sandor was less a highwayman than a cattle-lifter, and pursued his vocation in the neighbourhood of Szegedin. "He was never in prison," says Schlesinger, "but repented his misdemeanours of his own free will, and wrote to the magistrates stating that he would leave their cattle alone, if they would pardon him for the past and allow him to pursue the Austrians." The Hungarian Government granted his request, and he did good service, especially against Jellachich and the Serbs; and also repeatedly entered Pesth and Komorn with despatches, when those places were closely invested by the Austrians.--See Schlesinger, i. 226-8, for other particulars of this Hungarian Robin Hood, who was at the head of a band of three hundred men, and was further remarkable by his abstinence from bloodshed.

[28] "Ha! I too was yonder born, where brightly beams the star."

THE MESSAGE OF SETH.

AN ORIENTAL TRADITION.

BY DELTA.

I.

Prostrate upon his couch of yellow leaves,
Slow-breathing lay the Father of Mankind;
And as the rising sun through cloudland weaves
Its gold, the glowing past returned to mind,
Days of delight for ever left behind,
In purity's own robes when garmented,
Under perennial branches intertwined--
Where fruits and flowers hung temptingly o'erhead,
Eden's blue streams he traced, by bliss ecstatic led.

II.

Before him still, in the far distance seen,
Arose its rampart groves impassable;
Stem behind giant stem, a barrier screen,
Whence even at noonday midnight shadows fell;
Vainly his steps had sought to bid farewell
To scenes so tenderly beloved, although
Living in sight of Heaven made Earth a Hell;
For fitful lightnings, on the turf below,
Spake of the guardian sword aye flickering to and fro--

III.

The fiery sword that, high above the trees,
Flashed awful threatenings from the angel's hand,
Who kept the gates and guarded:--nigh to these,
A hopeless exile, Adam loved to stand
Wistful, or roamed, to catch a breeze that fanned
The ambrosial blooms, and wafted perfume thence,
As 'twere sweet tidings from a distant land
No more to be beheld; for Penitence,
However deep it be, brings back not Innocence.

IV.

Thus had it been through weary years, wherein
The primal curse, working its deadly way,
Had reft his vigour, bade his cheek grow thin,
Furrowed his brow, and bleached his locks to grey:
A stricken man, now Adam prostrate lay
With sunken eye, and palpitating breath,
Waning like sunlight from the west away;
While tearfully, beside that bed of death,
Propping his father's head, in tenderness hung Seth.

V.

"Seth, dearest Seth," 'twas thus the father said,
"Thou know'st--ah! better none, for thou hast been
A pillow to this else forsaken head,
And made, if love could make, life's desert green--
The dangers I have braved, the ills unseen,
The weariness and woe, that, round my feet,
Lay even as fowlers' nets; and how the wrath
Of an offended God, for blossoms sweet
Strewed briars and thorns along each rugged path:--
Yet deem not that this Night no hope of Morning hath.

VI.

"On darkness Dawn will break; and, as the gloom
Of something all unfelt before, downweighs
My spirit, and forth-shadows coming doom,
Telling me this may be my last of days--
I call to mind the promise sweet (let praise
Be ever His, who from Him hath not thrust
The erring utterly!) again to raise
The penitential prostrate from the dust,
And be the help of all who put in Him their trust.

VII.

"Know then, that day, as sad from Eden's home
Of primal blessedness my steps were bent
Reluctant, through the weary world to roam,
And tears were with the morning's dewdrops blent,
That 'twas even then the Almighty did relent--
Saying, 'Though labour, pain, and peril be
Thy portion, yet a balsam sweet of scent
For man hath been provided, which shall free
From death his doom--yea, gain lost Eden back to thee.'

VIII.

"Although thy disobedience hath brought down
The wrath of justice; and the penalty
Are pangs by sickness brought, and misery's frown,
And toil--and, finally, that thou shalt die;
Yet will I help in thine extremity.
In the mid garden, as thou know'st, there grows
The Tree of Life, and thence shall preciously,
One day, an oil distil, of power to close
Sin's bleeding wounds, and soothe man's sorrows to repose.

IX.

"That promise hath been since a star of light,
When stumbled on the mountains dark my feet;
Hath cheered me in the visions of the night,
And made awaking even to labour sweet;
But now I feel the cycle is complete,
And horror weighs my spirit to the ground.
Haste to the guarded portals, now 'tis meet,
And learn if, even for me, may yet be found
That balsam for this else immedicable wound.

X.

"Thine errand to the Angel tell, and He
(Fear not, he knows that edict from the Throne)
Will guide thy footsteps to the Sacred Tree,
Which crowns the Garden's midmost space alone:
Thy father's utmost need to him make known;
And ere life's pulsing lamp be wasted quite,
Bring back this Oil of Mercy;--haste, be gone;
Haste thee, oh haste! for my uncertain sight,
Fitful, now deems it day, and now is quenched in night."

XI.

Seth heard; and like a swift, fond bird he flew,
By filial love impelled; yea, lessened dread
Even of the guardian Fiery Angel knew--
And through the flowery plains untiring sped--
And upwards, onwards to the river-head--
Where, high to heaven, the verdant barriers towered
Of Eden; when he sank--o'ercanopied
With sudden lightning, which around him showered,
And in its vivid womb the midday sun devoured.

XII.

And in his ear and on his heart was poured,
While there entranced he lay, an answer meet;
And, gradually, as Thought came back restored,
Uprising, forth he hied with homeward feet.
Sweet to the world's grey Father, oh how sweet
His coming on the nearest hill-top shone!
For now all feebly of his heart the beat
Returned; and of his voice the faltering tone,
Meeting the listener's ear, scarce made its purpose known.

XIII.

"Beloved father!" thus 'twas through his grief
Impassioned spake the son, "it may not be,
Alas! that, for thy misery's relief
Wells now the promised balsam from Life's Tree.
And must I say farewell--yea, part with thee?--
Droop not thus all despairing: breath may fail,
And days and years and ages onward flee
Ere that day dawn; but Thou its beams shalt hail,
And earth give up its dead, and Life o'er Death prevail.

XIV.

"Astounding are the visions I have seen:
The clouds took shapes, and turned them into trees
And men and mountains; and the lands between
Seemed cities, dun with crowds; and on the seas
Dwelt men, in arks careering with the breeze;
And shepherds drave their flocks along the plain;
And generations, smitten with disease,
Passed to the dust, on which tears fell like rain;
Yet fathers, in their sons, seemed age grown youth again!

XV.

"And the wide waters rose above the tops
Of the high hills, and all looked desolate--
Sea without shore! Anon appeared the slopes,
Glowing with blossoms, and a group elate
Eying an arch, bright with earth's future fate,
In heaven; and there were wanderings to and fro;
And, while beneath the multitudes await,
Tables, by God's own finger written, show
The Law by which He wills the world should walk below:

XVI.

"And ever passed before me clouds of change,
Whose figures rose, and brightened, and declined;
And what was now familiar straight grew strange,
And, melting into vapours, left behind
No trace; and, as to silence sank the wind,
Appeared in heaven a beautiful bright star,
Under whose beams an Infant lay reclined;
And all the wheels of nature ceased their jar,
And choiring angels hymned that Presence from afar.

XVII.

"And then, methought, upon a mountain stood
The Tree, from which, as shown to thee, should flow
That Oil of Mercy--but it looked like blood!
And, to all quarters of the earth below,
It streamed, until the desert ceased to know
Its curse of barrenness; the clouds away
Passed in their darkness from the noon; and lo!
Even backwards flowed that brightness to this day,
And, Father, showed me thee, encircled by its ray:--

XVIII.

"It showed me thee, from whom mankind had birth,
And myriads--countless as the sere leaves blown
From wintry woods--whose places on the earth,
Even from the burning to the icy zone,
Were to their sons' sons utterly unknown,
Awakening to a fresh, eternal morn:
Methinks I list that glad Hosannah's tone,
From shore to shore on all the breezes borne!
Then, Father, droop not thus, as utterly forlorn;

XIX.

"A long, long future, freaked with sin and strife,
The generations of the world must know;
But surely from that Tree--the Tree of Life--
A healing for the nations yet will flow,
As God foretold thee."
"Freely then I go,
For steadfast is the Lord his word to keep,"
Said Adam, as his breathing, faint and slow,
Ceased; and like zephyr dying on the deep,
In hope matured to faith, the First Man fell asleep!

THE VOICE OF NATURE.

'Twas in a lone sequestered dell,
And on a summer's eve;
The sun's last glances ling'ring fell,
As loath the spot to leave:

For never sun more blithely rose
To light a scene more fair--
Day never had so sweet a close,
Or night a charm so rare.

And I have climbed the rocky steep
That cuts the vale in twain,
And gaze adown the lonely sweep
That seeks the vale again.

I gaze on many a stately dome
Of high imperious name,
On many a low and humble home
Unglorified by fame:

But all are wrapt in deep repose,
And not a sound is there
To tell how swift the River flows
Between the banks of Care.

Unmarked, the stream of life glides on
To that Eternal Sea,
Where earthly sun hath never shone,
Nor aught of earth can be.

And this, to me, is as a spell
That binds me to the night--
That bathes each wild untrodden dell
In waves of mystic light.

There are who say this wondrous world
Is but the work of chance;
That earth, like some huge scroll, unfurled,
And wrought its own advance;

That senseless atoms blindly grew
Into a world of light;
That creatures no Creator knew--
That death's eternal night!

O Man, with aspirations high,
_Is_ this the end you crave?
Oh Man, with soul that cannot die,
And perish in the grave--

Are all the wonders prophets told
But wild delusive dreams?
And can it be that human mould
Is but the clay it seems?

Shall love and virtue live on earth,
And with the earth decay?
Shall faith, and hope, and stainless worth,
Pass like a dream away?

Come forth, thou false and subtle sage!
Creation read aright!
Cast off the gathering mists of age,
And clear thy clouded sight!

Throw down, throw down the guilty pen--
Break off the stubborn mask:
The creed thou dar'st assert to _men_,
Its truth of _Nature_ ask!

At morn, at noon, or sacred eve,
On land or on the sea,
The lightest sound thy step may leave
Shall breathe "Eternity!"

Come tread with me this dizzy height,
And, through this waste of air,
Gaze out upon the forms of night--
What is thine answer there?

The moonlit fields of waving corn,
That ripening harvests fill--
The bubbling springs where lakes are born,
To man subservient still--

All speak of HIS unbounded love
Who caused those streams to flow,
Who fed those fields from founts above,
And made the harvest grow.

And wheresoe'er the broad moon's rays
In matchless beauty fall,
They mirror forth to thoughtful gaze
The Hand that fashioned all.

There's not a plant upon the earth,
There's not a tree nor flower,
But bears the stamp of heavenly birth,
The proof of heavenly power.

The very leaf on which you tread
Was wrought with wondrous hand,--
A fragment of a volume dread
That speaks to every land:

A book unchanged from age to age--
The same since time began:
For Nature is a living page
That preaches God to man!

CHARLES WILTON.

BRITISH LABOUR AND FOREIGN RECIPROCITY.[29]

We hear a great deal at the present day, not only from pretended philanthropists, but from well-meaning and conscientious people, about the "Rights of Labour." In fact, the term has become so hackneyed that very rarely is any popular speech delivered from a hustings, or elsewhere, without its occurrence as a marked and leading principle, which the speaker is determined to uphold.

But general terms are almost always susceptible of wide and contradictory construction; and when we come to analyse this phrase, "the rights of labour," and to consider the different interpretations which have been passed upon it, we are forced to arrive at the conclusion, that very few of those who use the words have any distinct idea of the meaning which they ought to convey. One man considers "the rights of labour" as identical with the operation of the maxim which exhorts us "to buy in the cheapest, and to sell in the dearest market." Another defines those rights to mean, "a fair day's wage for a fair day's labour." And so the term is bandied about among us, repeated and reiterated, until it has fairly lost the semblance of anything like clear significance.

Meanwhile labour, in this country at least, is loudly calling for the recognition of its rights, whatever those rights may be--not for the shadow, but the substance; not for the name, but for the reality. Labour in Ireland is struck down and paralysed--paralysed in its first natural function and duty, the production of food, although millions of acres, capable of yielding large returns of cereal produce, are either unbroken or withdrawn from the tillage of the plough. Labour in Scotland is becoming daily less remunerative; the northern population is driven to emigrate by thousands, or to take refuge in the cities and towns already redundantly supplied. Wages are decreasing in the Lowlands; the poor-rate is multiplying fast; and the greatest source of our wealth, the iron trade, is in a state of lamentable prostration. Labour in England, by far the richest country of the three, is scarcely better remunerated. In the rural districts, we hear of lowered agricultural wages and growing discontent; in the towns, we are told of mills closed or put upon short time; and, from the metropolis and the larger cities, we have accounts of misery and destitution which, did they reach us from missionaries in a heathen land, would fill our souls with horror, and our hearts with righteous indignation.

To that call, proceeding from the labourers themselves, we cannot and we dare not turn a deaf ear. We must listen to it, appalling as it is; and examine into the cause of it, if we wish society to remain as it has been. We must allow no preconceived ideas or impressions, generated, perhaps, by the delusions of the last few years, or of many years, to stand in our way when so frightful a calamity approaches as the destitution and demoralisation of the working and producing classes of this mighty empire; for we may as well expect a fabric to stand after its foundations have been worn away, as suppose that a state can exist without the support of those who are, in reality, the artificers of its whole wealth and produce.

Would to heaven we could persuade men to throw aside, not for a time, but for ever, their party notions, and, what is still more difficult, their selfish interests; and induce them to look this great question broadly and fairly in the face! They will not find it treated of in their politico-economical treatises--those wretched collections of sophisms compiled by the dullest and most blear-eyed of mankind, which have been accepted in our day as monuments of transcendent wisdom. They will not find the question mooted at all in the tomes of their conceited statists: but if they step beyond that dreary range, and go forth into the scenes of busy life, they will hear it discussed, always eagerly, sometimes ably, sometimes incompetently, in the workshop, the forge, the factory, the cottage, and the mine; and they may then form some idea of the importance which the working-classes attach to that much-abused term--"the Rights of Labour."

The mere general discussion of such a point implies that there is something amiss, either in our social or in our commercial and national system. With regard to the first, we think there can be no argument. Unless some totally new evangel has been reserved for these latter days, Socialism, as it is understood on the Continent, and even partially among ourselves, is a wild and miserable delusion. It has been tried, over and over again, under circumstances far more favourable for its development than any which are likely to occur again, and has invariably failed. Nay, the tendency of Liberalism has been to sweep what modified Socialism might exist in a civilised community away. Guilds, corporations, the chartered privileges of burghs, have all vanished, or been reduced to shadows, and nothing is now permitted to stand between the employer and the employed. Socialism, through the law, can have no existence. It may, indeed, lawfully rear and extend itself, if it can, on its own simple merits; but, tried by that test, it simply resolves itself into a new form of labour, liable to competition as before, and powerless to affect prices, by which labour must ever be estimated.