The Yellow Rose Part 6

"Yes," said the overseer. "Just because I have a leaning towards the boy. I don't like the way he is going on--head over ears in love with that pale-faced girl at the Hortobagy inn. 'Tis a bad business. The girl has a sweetheart already. A csikos, who is away soldiering; and if he comes home on leave and the lads meet, it will be like two angry bulls who mean business. Much better that he should go away and take to some pretty little Annie up there, and forget all about his yellow rose."

In the meantime the veterinary had examined every beast separately, and had made out a certificate for each. Then the taligas marked the buyer's initials in vermilion on their hides--for all the herdsmen can write.

The clattering hoofs of the horse which carried the cowboy could now be heard. His sleepiness had vanished with the sharp ride, and the morning air had cleared his head. He sprang smartly from the saddle, at some distance from the corral, and came up leading his horse by the bridle.

"You rag-tag and bobtail!" called out the overseer from the front of the enclosure. "Where the devil have you been?"

Not a word said the lad, but slipped the saddle and bridle off his horse. It was white with foam, and taking a corner of his coat he rubbed its chest, wiped it down, and fastened on the halter.

"Where were you? by Pontius Pilate's copper angel! Coming an hour behind the gentry you should have brought with you. Eh, scoundrel?"

Still the lad was silent, fiddled with the horse, and hung saddle and bridle on the rack.

The overseer's face grew purple. He screamed the louder, "Will you answer me, or shall I have to bore a hole in your ears?"

Then the cowboy spoke. "You know, master, that I am deaf and dumb."

"d.a.m.n the day you were born!" cried the overseer.

"Do you think I invented that story that you should mock me? Don't you see the sun is up?"

"Well, is it my fault that the sun is up?"

The others began to laugh, while the overseer's wrath increased.

"Take care, you blackguard, better not attempt to trifle with me, for if I once lay hands on you, I'll mangle you like unbleached linen."

"I'll be there too, you bet!"

"Indeed you won't, rascal," exclaimed the overseer, who himself could not help laughing. "There! talk to him in German any of you who can!"

The manager of the stables thereupon thought he might have a talk with the herdsman in German.

"You're a fine strong fellow!" he said, "I wonder they didn't make an Hussar of you. Why did they not enlist you? What defect could they find?"

The cowboy made a wry grimace, for peasant lads do not much care for those sort of questions.

"I think they did not take me for a soldier," he answered, "because there are two holes in my nose."

"There, you see, he can't talk sense!" exclaimed the overseer. "Clear out, you betyar, to the watering--not there! What did I tell you? Are you tipsy? Can't you see the cows are all corralled, and who is to bring out the bull?"

It takes a man, and no mere stripling, to take a bull out of the herd, and this Ferko Lacza was a master of the art. With sweet words and caresses, such as he might use to a pet lamb, he coaxed out the beast which belonged to Mr. Sajgato, and led him in front of the gentlemen. A splendid animal he was too; ma.s.sive head, sharp horns, and great black-ringed eyes. There he stood, allowing the cowboy to scratch his s.h.a.ggy forehead, and licking his hand with his rough, rasping tongue.

"And the beast has only seen the third gra.s.s," said its owner. The herdsmen reckon the age of their cattle according to the gra.s.s, that is the summers they have lived through.

Meanwhile the painter did not let slip the opportunity of making a sketch of the great horned beast and its companion. "The cowboy must stand just like that with his hand on the horns." The lad, however, was not used to posing, and it injured his dignity.

When their models are restless, artists often try and amuse them with conversation.

"Tell me," asked the painter--the others were inspecting the cows--"is it true that you herdsmen can cheat about your cattle at the market?"

"Why, yes. The master has this very moment taken in the gentleman with the bull. He made it out to be three years old, and see, there is not an eye tooth left in its head!" He opened the animal's mouth as he spoke to prove the fact of the deception.

The painter's sense of honour was even keener than his pa.s.sion for art.

He immediately stopped painting. "I have finished," he said, and hastily closing his sketch-book, he departed in search of his friends, who were standing among the chosen cattle in the enclosure. Then he revealed the great secret. The manager of the stables was horror-struck. Opening the mouths of two or three cows, he called out:

"Look here, overseer! You warned us that cattle sellers like to 'green'

their customers, but I won't be done like this. Everyone of these cows is so old that there is not an eye tooth left in its head."

The overseer stroked his moustache, and answered with a broad grin, "Yes, I know that joke; it came out in last year's calendar. The General who was cheated in the Franco-Prussian War through not knowing that cattle have no eye teeth."

"Haven't they?" asked the manager in surprise, and when the doctor a.s.sured him that it was so, he said petulantly, "Well, how should I know about a cow's mouth? I am no cattle dentist. All my work has lain among horses!" But he must needs vent his anger on somebody, so he flew upon the painter for having led him into such a trap. "How could you?" he demanded. The painter, however, was too much of a gentleman to betray the cowboy, who had first taken him in. At last the taligas put an end to the dispute by respectfully announcing that breakfast was waiting.

The taligas is cook on the puszta. All this time he had been preparing the herdsman's breakfast of "tesztas kasa," or meal porridge. Now, bringing out the pot, he set it on a three-legged stool. The guests sat round it, and to each he handed a long tin spoon with which to help himself. "Excellent," p.r.o.nounced the gentlemen, and when they had eaten, the overseer and the herdsmen devoured what remained. The sc.r.a.pings of the pot fell to the taligas. Meanwhile, Mr. Sajgato was in the kitchen preparing the "Hungarian coffee," which all who have been on the puszta know so well. "Hungarian coffee" is red wine heated up with brown sugar, cinnamon, and cloves. It tastes most delicious after such an early outing on the plains.

Then the taligas took the pot, rinsed it, filled it with water, and hung it over the fire. The gulyas stew would be ready when the gentlemen returned from their walk. They would then taste something really good!

Ferko Lacza showed the company round, pointing out to the strangers all the sights of the puszta, such as the wind shelter and the railed-in burying place for cattle.

"In the good old days," he explained, "if a beast died, we just left it where it fell, and the vultures came in flocks and picked it clean. Now, since this new order has come out, we have to inform the vet over at the Mata Farm, who comes and inspects it, writes down what it died of, and bids us bury it without fail. But we are sorry to see so much good meat wasted, so we manage to take a chunk or two, which we cut up small, cook, and spread out in the sun to dry. This we stuff into our bags, and whenever we want gulyas, why we throw as many dried handfuls of meat into the pot as there are men to eat it."

The painter looked the cowboy hard in the face, then turned to his master.

"Does this worthy herdsman of yours ever happen to speak the truth, overseer?"

"Very rarely, but this time he has, for once in his life."

"Then thank you very much for your delightful gulyas."

"Oh don't be alarmed!" said the overseer, "there's nothing bad about it.

Since G.o.d laid out the flat Hortobagy, that has always been the custom.

Look at those lads, can you desire healthier or stronger fellows? Yet they have all grown up on carrion. The learned professors may talk as much as they like, it doesn't hurt us Hungarians."

The manager, however, listening to this revelation, strictly forbade his Moravian drovers to touch the dish.

"Though who knows," said the painter, "whether the old humbug has not invented the whole story to scare us from the feast, and then have a good laugh at us!"

"We'll see," rejoined his comrade, "whether the vet eats it or not, for he must know all about it."

And now came the mirage, that seems like the realisation of a fairy dream.

Along the horizon lay a quivering sea, where high waves chased each other from east to west, the real hills standing out as little islands in their midst, and the stumpy acacias magnified into vast forests.

Oxen, grazing in the distance, were transformed into a street of palaces. Boats which appeared to cross the ocean turned out on reaching the sh.o.r.e to be nothing but some far off horses. The fantastic deception is always at its height directly after sunrise, when whole villages are often raised into the air, and brought so close that, with a gla.s.s, the carts in their streets can be distinguished, their towers and houses being all mirrored upside down on the billowy fairy sea. During cloudy weather, however, they remain below the horizon.

"Let the Germans copy this," exclaimed Mr. Sajgato to the admiring group, while the painter tore his hair in despair.

"Why am I compelled to see things I can't put on canvas? What _is_ this?"

"Why the mirage," said the overseer.