Hungarian Sketches in Peace and War Part 3

And now we must beg our readers to draw on their three-leagued boots, and step into the neighbouring county. Here, too, the roads lie deep in mud; for the rain continues during seven weeks in these districts, as it does in the East Indies. Here, too, are villages on the highroad, and houses with open doors, and travellers hastening towards them. But now it is question of a house whose doors are shut, and of travellers who do not stick in the mud.

A handsome carriage, drawn by four spirited grays, was driven by a young gentleman, while the smart-liveried coachman sat beside him.

The youth was slightly flushed with the exercise: he wore a low-crowned hat, and light summer dolmany, while his embroidered fur cloak lay across the seat. Guiding the horses dexterously over the difficult roads and rickety bridges, he finally turned aside about half way through the village, and drove rapidly towards a dilapidated house, before which he was obliged to rein up his horses, as the _porte-cochere_ was closed.

"Hej! ho!" cried the coachman, leaping from the box, and knocking at the door.

"Go in at the side-door, and open the _porte-cochere_ yourself, Matyi; but take the whip with you, or else the dogs will tear you to pieces."

The coachman did as he was desired. No sooner had he reached the court, than a terrible encounter took place between the dogs and Matyi, who swore and lashed away with his whip until he had succeeded in opening the gate.

The tumult brought out a buxom dame, whose appearance betokened somewhat more than a cook, and somewhat less than the lady of the house. Standing at the entrance, with her arms a-kimbo, she exclaimed in a sharp, shrill voice: "What diabolical noise is this, I should like to know? are the Turks or the French coming, eh?"

Meanwhile, Matyi having opened the _porte-cochere_, the carriage drove into the gateway; and the young man, leaping from the box, and throwing the reins to the coachman, stepped up to the dame, who eyed him askance, with an expression of dried plums, as if doing her best to make herself as disagreeable as possible to the new-comers.

"Ah! my sweet Boriska," said the young man gaily, "how handsome you have grown since we last met! I thought you were to be married that carnival; but I suppose it was premature, eh?"

"Well, you have grown ugly enough yourself, Master Karely, since I saw you last: you were a pretty child, but I should not have known you again."

"Thank you, Boriska, dear. Is my uncle at home?"

"Where else should he be?"

"Because I have come to see him, with my mother and sister."

"What! are they here too?" said the dame, fixing her sharp eyes on the carriage, like a two-p.r.o.nged fork. "Well, I can't understand how folks can leave home, and wander abroad for weeks."

"Call my uncle, there's a dear girl, and you can help one another to scold."

The beauty cast another sour glance at the vehicle, and disappeared into the kitchen. Karely, meanwhile, opened the carriage door, and the mud being deep in the gateway, he lifted out the two ladies in his arms. One was his mother--a calm, ladylike person about forty, with a sweet, melancholy expression: the other was his sister--a merry, mischievous looking little fay of about twelve, with bright sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks, and a constant smile on the never-closed lips.

"Welcome kindly! We will not wait for them," said Karely, laughing, as he lifted them out and opened the door, which Boriska had shut behind her.

Our readers having had a slight glance at the travellers, I must inform them that the lady who has just arrived is Mrs. Erzsebet Hamvasi, sister of Abraham Hamvasi, to whose house they have come, and which had been left equally to the lady and her brother by their parents--although Erzsebet Hamvasi, subsequently Tallyai, had left her brother in undisturbed possession, only desiring an occasional reception when _en route_.

As Karely opened the door, Boriska appeared at the farther end of the room, calling into the stove: "Come out; you have guests here." To which a voice from within responded: "Let them wait." After a few minutes, a door opened behind the stove, and a man of spare bent figure advanced towards the travellers. His face was disfigured by small-pox, and rendered grotesque by a pair of stiff gray moustaches, which grew straight forward from under the nose, leaving only the extremities of the lips visible, and giving him very much the appearance of an otter. He wore an old stuff coat--too cool for winter and too warm for summer--the sleeves of which were turned up to the elbow; for he had just come out of the stove, which he had been plastering, and both hands were covered with mortar.

To judge by his countenance, he certainly did not seem endeavouring to look pleased to see his dear relations; and though the lady greeted him amiably, he did not seem much inclined to open the other side of the door at which she was standing, waiting for her brother's welcome.

"What! so many of you!" he exclaimed, pus.h.i.+ng open the door with his elbow; "where the tartar are you all going?"

The lady shook her head placedly, and pointing to her brother's dirty hands--"How now, dear brother!" she said, in a half reproachful and half jesting tone; "must you really do such work yourself?"

"It is no shame to work," replied her brother; "never trust to others what you can do yourself."

"I would kiss your hand, dear Uncle Abris, if you would put on gloves," said Karely, laughing.

"Easy enough for fine gentlemen like you to speak, but a poor man must do what he can.--Boris! bring me a bowl of water to wash my hands, for these gentle folks are ashamed to stand in the room with me."

"Dirty the dishes, indeed!" cried Boris sharply; "there is the tub."

Master Abris went and washed in the tub; then, lifting up the bed-quilt, he wiped his hands and face in the sheet, with so many grimaces, that it was evident he was undergoing an unusual penance.

The guests meanwhile entered the sitting-room. Every room has its own peculiar perfume. On entering some apartments an agreeable friendly odour, which we cannot account for, greets the sense, while others are so close and so unpleasant that we involuntarily retreat. The apartment of Uncle Abris was among the latter. The walls were soiled and daubed with pencil scrawls of several years' standing; there was a thick carpet of straw and feathers beneath the beds; the furniture was an inch deep in dust, and it was impossible to see out of the windows, which had cobwebs in every corner.

The lady sighed deeply as she entered this apartment; one could almost read on her countenance, that she was recalling brighter days, when everything in the house looked very different from what it did now.

Uncle Abris, having very coldly kissed each of the party, endeavoured to smile a little; but not succeeding, he gave it up, and his features resumed their usual hard, anxious expression.

His guests would gladly have taken off their cloaks, but where should they put them down? It would have been ruin to clean clothes to come in contact with anything in the room.

"I should like to sit down somewhere, Uncle Abris," said Sizika, looking round her with innocent scrutiny.

"Well, my dear, here are plenty of chairs, and a sofa," said Uncle Abris.

"What! _may_ I brush off all this pretty dust?" asked Sizika roguishly. "I thought it was put here to dry."

Karely laughed; while his mother put her finger to her lips, and shook her head; and Uncle Abris answered quietly, "Dust we are, and unto dust we must return, and therefore we need not despise dust;" and, in order to strengthen the golden precept, he lifted the flaps of his coat, and, wiping three chairs for his guests, seated himself on a fourth.

The lady placed herself down opposite to her brother. One was silent, the other did not speak; and so they remained nearly an hour.

Occasionally one or other would sigh deeply, "Heighho!" on which the other would reply, a quarter of an hour after, "Ay, ay!"

Karely having gone out to look at the horses, Erzsike went to the window, and, wiping one of the panes with her pocket handkerchief, tried to look through it. You must not be perplexed, dear readers, at our having first called this merry little fairy Sizika, then Erzsike; both denominations come from the same source, and there is perhaps no name in the Hungarian language which admits of so many variations to represent the various gradations from the utmost refinement to the greatest coa.r.s.eness; hence the tender, caressing Siza, the gay, roguish Erzsike, the robust, noisy Erzsu, and the dirty, untidy Boske.

It never entered Uncle Abraham's head to ask his guests if they wanted anything; he only sat and sighed. Matyi, the coachman, a smart lad from Lower Hungary, now entered; he had been a csikos,[6] and was an inveterate specimen of cleverness and roguish insolence.

[Footnote 6: _Csikos_, who take care of the horses and studs of the vast meadows or heaths, called _puszta_.]

"Is there any hay to be sold here, sir?" he asked, saluting the master of the house.

"Hay! hay! for whom do you want hay?"

"Not for myself, sir, but for my horses--that is, not for my horses, but for my master's."

"Well, let's see; I believe I can give you a little," said Hamvasi, weighing each word, as he took the key of the barn from his pocket, and went out. The guests could hear the murmurs of Boris outside the door:--"The tartar take them all! to come to an honest man's house with four horses, just that they might devour more hay, as if two were not enough!"

Master Abraham gave the key to Matyi, making him promise not to drop any of the hay about, because it was dear; and, after watching till he had returned, he re-entered, and resumed his seat without speaking.

In a few minutes, Matyi came in again: "Where shall I find a tavern sir?"

"A tavern! what do you want a tavern for?"

"Not for the horses, sir, but for myself. I want to get a gla.s.s of wine."

"Well, I will give you one just now," said Uncle Abris, and taking the key of the cellar, he went out, desiring Matyi to wait at the entrance.

Boriska stormed and dashed about, scolding and holding forth to herself.