Hungarian Sketches in Peace and War Part 39

Clouds of dust and smoke again veiled the combatants, and nothing could be seen but the two banners--now pressing forward, now r.e.t.a.r.ded, but slowly approaching, and cutting a deadly pa.s.sage towards each other.

Old Gergo was engaged with two cuira.s.siers, his ardour unmingled with the impetuosity of youth; and even in the midst of the fray he found time to instruct the young recruit, ill.u.s.trating his theory by many a prompt example.

A troop of hussars now dashed forward and were met by an equal number of cuira.s.siers; their leaders, being on the right of their troops, had not yet met face to face, but, foremost to the charge, they showed a good example, while each man fought as if he alone were responsible for the honour of his party. The right flank on either side pressing back the foe's left, they both turned round the centre, like a stiff axle--the hussars occupying the place of the cuira.s.siers, and the latter that of the hussars.

In the heat of the action, their leaders recognised each other--Laszlo and Gejza! But the discovery produced no wavering--both were determined to conquer or to die.

Meanwhile another troop came up to the a.s.sistance of the cuira.s.siers, and the hussar captain was obliged to cut his way out from between two fires, and thus came face to face with his antagonist.

"Surrender, comrade!" cried Laszlo.

"Never!" cried the hussar, as he galloped to the charge.

The sword of death was raised in either hand, their glances darted fire; for a moment they remained motionless, as if spell-bound, their swords still raised--the next both turned with one accord upon the nearest foes. Laszlo's sword pierced the heart of a hussar, while Gejza dealt such a blow on a cuira.s.sier's helmet that he fell without a groan, and then, without turning, he cut his way through the enemy's ranks--"Hurrah! hurrah!--rajta!" And the battle-cry mingled with the clash of swords and the groans of the dying.

Meanwhile a division of cuira.s.siers marched rapidly through Szolnok to take the hussars in the rear.

Suddenly, at the turn of a street, two hundred red-caps stood before them. Both parties were taken by surprise at the unexpected encounter.

It was but a moment. The next, an engagement took place of which we find few instances in history, namely, infantry attacking cavalry. The two hundred red-caps suddenly fired on the cuira.s.siers, and then, shouting wildly, rushed upon them with their bayonets; and the veteran troops, who had stood so many fires, whose valour alone had turned the day at Mor, were obliged to retreat before the fearful attack.

This circ.u.mstance occurred but twice during the whole campaign.

Gorgei was the first who attempted it, with the Inczed battalion, at the time of his first retreat; that same battalion (eleventh) which so gallantly defended the bridge of Piski,[60] where more than half their number fell.

[Footnote 60: In Transylvania.]

An old Polish soldier who witnessed the combat, made the following remark:--"I have seen the battles of the _ancienne garde_, and fought with the Polish legion, but I never saw men fight like the red-caps!"

By this attack the cuira.s.siers were cut off from their head forces, and, pressed by Vecsey on the opposite side, they retreated hastily, without having time to save their cannon or destroy the bridge after them.

The imperial forces, thus pressed between two fires, were obliged to evacuate Szolnok, and retreat among the Zagyva mora.s.ses.

After their desperate conflict with the red-caps, the cuira.s.siers were again routed by a fresh regiment of hussars, and driven into the Zagyva; but few of the weary horses had strength to struggle through the water, and their heavy armour prevented the men from swimming: thus many sank in the stream.

It was evening when the battle was over. Horses without riders were galloping about the plain, while here and there a wounded steed neighed mournfully, as if searching for his master. Powder-waggons and cannon lay overturned on the field, which was strewed with the dead and dying.

The trumpet sounded the retreat, and the hussars a.s.sembled from every side, their horses rearing and prancing as if they had come out for the first time that day.

An hour afterwards, the sound of music was heard in every _guinguette_, and the hussars' spurs clinked to the gay cymbal and clarionet. The battle was forgotten; it was now the time for mirth.

Old Gergo treated his comrades. He was rich enough--for he had killed an officer of rank; and though his pupil the recruit could scarcely keep his feet, he continued to treat him in spite of his resistance.

"But if we drink it all now, corporal, we shall have nothing left for to-morrow."

"Don't argue with me, but drink; that's the order now, and to-morrow will take care of itself;" and the soldiers drank on, while their companions danced and shouted to the gay sounds. All was feasting and revelry within the town.

But without, upon the battle-field, what painful sounds hailed the fall of evening?--it was the fearful groans of the dying! What sad thoughts called forth those sighs from the parting spirit! Home, glory, mother, and beloved ones,--never to meet again! The evening breeze bears them away: whither?

An officer of hussars went over the field with a military surgeon, while his soldiers bore the wounded away on their arms.

The young officer turned mournfully from one sad spectacle to another.

Here lay a young soldier in the bloom of youth, the point of a sword had pierced through his cuira.s.s and come out behind; and from whose hand had that thrust come? a little farther, lay another, whose face was so cut, and disfigured by the dust, that none could have recognised it! and now his eye rested on a young hussar who lay on his back, his outstretched arm still grasping his sword, over which the fingers were closed so stiffly that it was impossible to release it; near him an old soldier had died, with his arm around the neck of his horse, which had been killed along with him, like two old comrades whom death could not part.

The young officer carefully surveyed the field, and his quick eye pa.s.sed none over. He had reached a little knoll, where, half concealed among some bushes, a white form seemed to move. It was a young cuira.s.sier officer, who lay with his face buried in the long gra.s.s.

The hussar knelt down to raise his head, and called for a.s.sistance.

"Thanks, comrade!" said the dying youth faintly, as he turned his face towards him.

The last rays of the setting sun shone on the handsome, pale countenance, the closing eyes, and the deep wound just below the heart.

"Laszlo!" groaned the hussar, "is it thus we meet?"

"Lay me on the gra.s.s, brother; I am dying," said the cuira.s.sier faintly. "Alas! my bride will wait in vain!"

The surgeons examined the wound, and p.r.o.nounced it mortal; he had but a few moments to live.

"Tell my bride," said the young man, in scarcely audible accents, "that my last thought was of her--and bury me where she may come and"--

The young hussar sobbed bitterly beside his dying friend. "Alas! that we must part--that one of us must die!"

"G.o.d bless you, brother--be happy!" murmured Laszlo, convulsively grasping Gejza's hand; "poor Aniko!" and his head sank on his comrade's breast.

The sun's last rays had set, and the pale moon rose, shedding her quiet beams on the closed eyes and silent lips!

The long-looked-for day had come and gone; that day so full of hope and fear for the young sisters.

It had brought grief and joy; but the joy was not for the hopeful, nor the tear for the trembling heart, though one stood at the altar, and the other at the lonely grave; and one indeed wore the white and the other the black dress, but neither wore that which she had prepared.

THE BREWER.

Nature had endowed Vendel h.o.r.n.yicsek, the brewer of B----, in the county of Raab, with five hundred and seventy nine pounds of standard weight; and he was not the man to turn tail before a stuffed lamb and any given quant.i.ty of beer.

His head was a complete circle, a worthy rival for any pumpkin produced on the sunniest plain; and Mount Ararat itself might have blushed in the vicinity of his nose. He had only one eye, which you might have suspected he had borrowed _ad usum_ from some misanthropic mole--it was small, green, and peculiarly adapted to sleep; but mother Nature was not unjust, and what she curtailed in one feature she amply refunded in another, by bestowing more than ordinary proportions on the mouth, into which capacious aperture the four-quart tankard would certainly have disappeared altogether had it not been held fast by its two handles. Except, however, to receive the contents of the tankard, the good man seldom made use of this feature. It is true that he could speak nothing but the German and Bohemian languages, in which he had been born and bred; for though he had lived thirty years in the county of Raab, he had never been able to make himself understood in the Hungarian language, and certainly he found no living creature, unless it were those travelled gentlemen, the storks, to address him in his native tongue. Moreover, Vendel h.o.r.n.yicsek gazda[61] was not a lover of great commotion; he was by no means ambitious. He would sit quietly in the chimney-corner from morning till night, replenis.h.i.+ng his interior with ample potions of the genuine barley-bree, and turning in his mind some philosophy peculiarly his own. He never dined at regular hours, or rather he dined at every hour of the day; it was a continual, unwearied struggle with his appet.i.te--that invincible Antaeus, who, as often as he was overcome, rose with redoubled strength to renew the attack; and these struggles did not cease with the day, like the labour of ordinary mortals, but he was accustomed to wake at night and strive to satisfy the cravings of the voracious monster. A pitcher of unusual dimensions was regularly placed by his bedside, just within comfortable reach of his hand; for it was his firm belief that whoever goes hungry to bed dreams of being devoured by Pharaoh's lean kine; it was probable, however, that he would have despatched the whole seven had they come to an actual encounter.

[Footnote 61: The common name for host or master.]

In the village of B---- they still exhibit as a relic his flannel stockings, each of which would have contained at least a Presburg peck of anything you liked to put into it; while a wandering Sclavonian family might have harboured snugly in his sleeve.

There was not a vestige of a beard on the broad expanse of face, which was naked as the moon, and blooming as the Pacha's rose. The corners of his mouth extended upwards, as if they were amusing themselves at the expense of the eye placed over them, and there was not the slightest rumour of anything like brow or lash to crown the eyelid. As an indemnity, however, for such dest.i.tution, the chin was doubled and trebled; indeed, it would have been difficult to decide where it began and how it ended; and a few orphan hairs endeavoured to keep their ground on the vast and sterile heath above his ears.