King Matthias and the Beggar Boy Part 6

CHAPTER VI.

I AM THE KING'S PAGE!

Soon after the conversation recorded in the last chapter, Miska was sent back again to Visegrad to take his place, and learn his duties as king's page; and the king had bidden him be diligent and learn all that he could, promising to do something more for him as soon as he could read and write.

As to what had been done with Mr. Samson, and whether his little friend Miss Esther had been released from captivity, he heard nothing, though he often thought and wondered and wished; and if he had dared, he would have asked to be allowed to go back to the castle and show her that he had not forgotten his promise.

Before setting out for Buda, he had shown his friend the Jew the secret way in and out of the castle; and as Mr. Samson had the keys of the various gates upon him, the king's soldiers would of course have no difficulty in getting in and surprising the garrison at any time. If only he had been a soldier, he might have gone with them; and even without being a soldier, he might have gone with them to act as guide, if only the king had thought of it. He had not dared to venture back after his capture of Mr. Samson, for fear he should not be allowed to get out again and give his report to the king; and now no doubt the Jew, who did not care anything at all about it, would be sent in his place.

Well, it did not much matter after all, so long as Miss Esther were set free, and that the king had promised she should be.

So now Miska was in Visegrad again, not a little proud of his smart livery, and greatly enjoying his comfortable quarters after the rough, hard life which he had led. But these, after all, were very secondary matters; the great thing was that he was in the king's service, and must do all that lay in his power to please him.

"I am page to King Matthias," said he to himself over and over again.

"The king called me his 'little brother' and 'gossip,' and the king will be ashamed if his gossip is a donkey and does not know the A B C. Ah, you just wait, gossip-king! for I will distinguish myself. I will make you open your eyes and your mouth too!"

Miska was a gay-tempered fellow, as lively as gunpowder, and it was vain to expect from him the sober, plodding diligence which belongs to calmer and tamer natures.

If the truth must be told, Miska did not care very greatly about his reading and writing for their own sakes. He did his best with them to please the king, but he was glad enough when his time for study was over for the day, and enjoyed the few hours he was able to spend in the riding-school much more than he did the daily appearance of his wearisome teacher, who came as true to his time as the most obstinate of fevers.

When the king's riding-master clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Michael, you are a man! 'Raven' or 'Swan' carried you well to-day, and couldn't manage to throw you," he was pleased indeed; but he was much more glad when his teacher said, "Come, Mr. Michael, I declare you are getting on like pepper! If you go on like this, I shall come to you for a lesson in a couple of months' time."

Miska could read, and write a very fair hand, before he knew where he was; but though writing rather amused him, he took no pleasure or interest in the books in which he learned to read. It always cost him a struggle to keep his temper during lesson-time, and occasionally he felt such an irresistible inclination to go to sleep, that his teacher was obliged to rouse him by a friendly twitch or two.

There were some Italian servants in the stable-yard here, very lively fellows, whose sprightliness Miska found so attractive that he was quite vexed at being shut out from their society. They were constantly laughing and in good spirits; but when Miska wanted to join in the laugh, they would say in broken Hungarian, "How could they tell all over again what it was they were laughing at so much?" "You learn Italian, _mio caro_, and then you can laugh with us."

"Good!" thought Miska. "If these whipper-snappers, whose mouths are always pinched up like funnels, can learn a few words of Hungarian, I'll soon learn their language. Why," reasoned Miska, "I was only a year old when I began to learn Hungarian, and they say I could talk like a magpie by the time I was two; and now--when I am eighteen, and have got a little down shading my upper lip--can't I learn Italian, when these whipper-snappers could talk it when they were three years old?"

Miska's reasoning was somewhat peculiar, but it was not altogether amiss after all. He began by asking his friends what to call the objects about him; and his good memory served him so well that in a short time he knew the names of most of the implements and different sorts of work which he had to do with.

Six months pa.s.sed away; but Matthias had a good many other and more important matters to think of than the beggar lad, and he had not once been in Visegrad since Miska had been there.

"So much the better," thought Miska; "he will come some time, and then I shall know all the more. If only there were not this learning! But it is no good; it has got to be. And yet why? A little page like me is as wise as an owl if he can read and write, and what does he want with more? I can read and write too.--Hm," he thought to himself, "the man who invented writing--what the thunderbolt did he invent it for? What good could it do him? Well, it made him able to read books."

And then presently he muttered, "Donkey! If the king were to hear that now! Well, to be sure, as if there _were_ any books when n.o.body could write! Then they invented it that they might write--that is more reasonable; but what is the use of writing when a man does not know how to write books?"

Miska battered his brains in vain to try to make out why it was necessary for him to learn to read, and what good his wisdom would do him.

One day the governor put a book in his hands. "Here," said he, "little brother Michael, you know how to read now, and the king's reader is ill.

Suppose you were to try and get his place; it would be a fine thing for you."

"Reader!" said Miska. "Do I want his place? What should I gain by it? It would be a great deal better if I could go out hunting sometimes; my eyes see green when the horns are sounded, and here I have to be 'selling acorns.'"[8]

[Footnote 8: Sticking at home.]

"That will come, too, in time, Michael," said the governor; "but now give your attention to this book. There are some very fine stories in it, and I should like, when His Highness the King comes, to have some one who can read well and intelligently to him; for His Highness says that I read like a Slovack clerk, and yet none of my family were ever Slovacks, or ever lived on _kasa_."[9]

[Footnote 9: _Kasa_, the chief food of the Slovack peasants, is made of millet or potatoes boiled in milk.]

What was to be done? At first Michael read the book with reluctance, and merely because he was obliged to do so; but later on he became more and more interested. Presently he felt as if at last he knew what was the good of writing and reading.

When he had read the book to the end, he actually asked for another; and at last, whenever he had any spare time, he crept away and seated himself in one of the pretty arbours of the castle garden, and read as hard as if he were to be paid for it.

If Miska had been like many another lad, he would have seen pretty well the whole of his career by this time. There was nothing more to be done; for a page who can read and write, and swallows books as eagerly as a pelican does fish, already knows more than enough for his position. For these things are often rather a hindrance to his riding and other duties, and it is not his business to give an account of the books he reads, but of the work entrusted to him to do. The governor trusted all sorts of things to Miska, however.

"Eh," Miska began to think to himself, "I am not cut out for a page now.

These second-rank pages are really not much better than grooms, and the governor still expects me to clean the king's two favourite horses.

Why, I'm sure I know as much as Galeotti himself by this time, and I can speak Italian too."

But still the king did not come, and Miska went on learning; for ever since he had taken to reading books, his mind had begun to grow and had gone on growing, and he saw a good many things in a very different light now from what he had done formerly. Now, indeed, if the king asked him again, he could say that he should like to be something better than he was.

For a long time he went on racking his brains trying to make up his mind what he should do; and at last one day, when he had faithfully done all his duties, he sat down and wrote a letter to the king as follows:--

"MR. KING, YOUR HIGHNESS,--I can read and write, and I can jabber Italian too, when necessary.

"Please, Your Highness, to have the horses in my charge brought to Buda; for I'm sure you never rode such--they have improved so in my hands.

"May G.o.d bless you! Come some time to Visegrad, and let me kiss your hands and feet.--Your poor, humble servant,

TORNAY MICHAEL.

"_P.S._--Brave Mr. King, if Your Highness could find a place for me in the Black Legion, I would thank you indeed, and you would not regret it either."

When King Matthias read this letter, he laughed aloud, well pleased.

"See," said he, showing the letter to those who were standing near him.

"This was a ragged beggar lad--perhaps by this time I should have had to have him hanged. As it is, I have gained a man in him.--Zokoly," said he to the young knight who was just then with him, "fetch the boy here; and if he is up to the mark, put him into a coat of mail and then bring him to me. But I will answer his letter first, for he might abuse my father and mother for my bad manners if I were to leave it unnoticed."

The king wrote as follows:--

"All good to you from G.o.d, Miska. As you can read and write, I meant to make a precentor of you, good boy; but if you wish to join the Black Legion instead, no matter. Mount one of the horses you have had charge of, and lead the other hither. Mind what you are about, and don't get drunk.--Your well-wisher,

"KING MATTHIAS."

No first fiddle, no Palatine even, in all this wide world could think himself a greater man than Michael did when the king's letter, written with his own hand, was given to him.

He threw himself into the governor's arms in a transport of joy, and then, when he had made himself clean and tidy and put on his best clothes--well, then, there was no keeping him. He would neither eat nor drink, and in a little while he was off, riding one of the horses and leading the other; and as he went he said, "G.o.d keep King Matthias!"

repeating the words over and over again. "Let him only get into some great trouble one day, just to let me show that there is a grateful heart under this smart dolmany."

When Zokoly presented the lad to the king clad in the stern, manly garb of the Black Legion--wearing, that is to say, a network coat of black mail, with a heavy sword by his side, and a round helmet on his head--Matthias was quite surprised.

The king, as has been said, possessed the rare gift of being able to read men, and seldom made a mistake in his choice of those whom he took into his service. And now as he cast a searching glance at the boy's n.o.ble countenance, and noticed the open, honourable expression of his piercing eyes, and above all the broad forehead which was so full of promise, the great king--for great he was, though not yet at the pinnacle of his greatness--the great king felt almost ashamed to see the lad standing before him in the garb of a common soldier, as if he were merely one of the ordinary rank and file. The jest with which he had been about to receive him died away unuttered on his lips. But he welcomed his man good-naturedly, and said,--

"Michael Tornay, from this day forth you are enn.o.bled. I will give you the parchment to-morrow, and I will make a landed proprietor of you."

The lad believed in King Matthias as if he had been some altogether superior being; he was ardently, pa.s.sionately attached to him, but he said nothing.