Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 423, January 1851

"Away with him!" cried Basil. "Throw him into the garret, and put a sentry over him. To-day we have celebrated his daughter's wedding; to-morrow we will drink at his funeral. Good-night, friend George."

He was dragged up to the garret, and locked in. Where they threw him, there he lay, motionless upon the floor, as though all sensation had departed from both body and soul, awaiting the hour of death, and rejoicing that it was near at hand. For a while the dancing and singing continued; then the Serbs departed to sleep, and all was still. His eyes were unvisited by slumber. Yet a little while, he thought to himself, and eternal repose will be mine.

He lay with his senses thus benumbed, thinking neither of the past nor the future, when he heard a rustle at the garret window. Through the darkness he saw a white figure pass through the small opening, and grope its way towards him. Was it a dream? or a reality? The figure's steps were noiseless. But presently it spoke – in a scarcely audible whisper.

"Father! father!" it said.

"Lina!"

He looked up, seeking to discern the features of his visitor. She hurried to him, kissed him, and cut the ropes that bound his hands.

"My child!" murmured George, and clasped his daughter's tottering knees. "My dear, my only child!"

"Let us fly!" said the maiden, in faint and suffering tones. "The ladder is at the window. Quick, father – quick!"

George clasped his panting child in his arms, and bore her through the opening in the garret roof, and down the ladder, resting her head upon his shoulder and covering her cold cheek with his kisses. Near the ladder-foot, he stumbled over something. "What is that? A spade. We will take it with us."

"For a weapon!" said the father.

"To dig a grave!" said the daughter.

On the other side of the house was heard a heavy monotonous step. It was a Serb on sentry.

"Stay here! Keep close to the wall," said George to his daughter. He grasped the spade, and crept noiselessly to the corner of the house. The steps came nearer and nearer. George raised the spade. The Serb turned the corner, and – lay the next moment upon the ground, with his skull split. He had not time for a single cry.

George took the dead man's clothes and weapons, took his daughter in his arms, and left the town. The morning star glittered in the brightening sky. Towards daybreak, and without having exchanged a word, father and daughter reached the nearest village. George had many acquaintances there, and with one of them, he thought, he could leave his daughter. He found but a poor reception. Nowhere was he suffered to cross the threshold. None offered him so much as a crust of bread. All closed their doors, and implored him to depart, lest he should bring destruction on their heads. The villagers were neither hard-hearted nor cowardly; but they feared that if the Serbs of St Thomas heard of their sheltering a fugitive, they also would be murdered or plundered. With anguish in his soul, the wretched man again took his child in his arms, and resumed his journey.

For six days he walked on, over stubble and fallow, through storm and cold by night and parching heat by day – his child, his beloved child, on his arm. He asked not what ailed her; and she uttered no complaint.

On the sixth day the maiden died, of hunger, misery, and grief.

The father felt his burthen heavier; the arms that clasped his neck slackened their hold, and the pale cheek that nestled on his shoulder was chill and cold!

But the spires of Szegedin now glittered in the distance. George hurried on, and at last, exhausted by his speed, he reached at noonday the large and populous city. In front of it, on the vast plain, a great multitude was assembled: more than twenty thousand souls were gathered together, listening to the words of a popular orator, exalted upon a scaffolding in their midst. George made his way into the throng; the speaker was relating the incredible atrocities of the Raitzen. Several of his hearers noticed the weary, wild-looking, travel-stained man, carrying in his arms a pale girl with closed eyes, who stood amongst them like a fugitive from a mad-house.

"Whence come you?" they asked him.

"From St Thomas."

"Ha! Up! up with him on the scaffold!" cried those who heard his reply.

"A man is here from St Thomas. Up with him, and let him speak to the people!"

The crowd opened a passage, and George was hurried to the scaffold. When, from this elevation, his emaciated and ghastly countenance, furrowed by suffering and despair, his failing limbs, and the faded and ashy pale features of the child upon his shoulder, became visible to the assembled multitude, a deep shuddering murmur ran through its masses, like that the Platten Lake gives forth when tempest nears its shores. At sight and sound of the heaving throng, a hectic flush flamed upon George's cheek, an unwonted fire burned in his bosom; he felt the spirit of revenge descend upon his head like a forked and fiery tongue.

"Magyars!" he exclaimed in loud and manly tones, "I come from St Thomas, the sole survivor of all who there prayed to God in the Magyar tongue. My goods are plundered, my kinsmen slain. Have any of you friends there? – prepare your mourning, for of a surety they are dead. Of all I possessed I have saved but one treasure – my unhappy child. Approach! ye that are fathers, think of your virgin daughters, and behold what they have made of mine!"

As he spoke, he lifted his child from his shoulder; and then only did he perceive that she was dead. Until that moment, he had thought she was only faint and silent, as she had constantly been for six days past.

"Dead!" shrieked the despairing man, and clasped the corpse to his heart. "She is dead!" he repeated. The words died away upon his lips, and he fell, like one thunderstruck, headlong to the ground.

This tragical incident raised to a climax the excitement of the multitude.

"Revenge! – a bloody revenge!" thundered a voice; and the tumult that now arose was like the howling of the storm.

"To arms! To arms! all who are men!" was shouted on every side, and the people thronged through the streets and lanes of the city. "To arms! – to arms!" was re-echoed from house to house, and in an hour's time ten thousand furious men stood armed and equipped, and ready to set out for St Thomas.

Then there got abroad a sullen apprehension, speedily succeeded by a fierce resolve. Some one chanced to say: —

"But what if, when we march away, the Raitzen rise up and murder our children?"

The words passed from mouth to mouth.

"They shall die!" exclaimed many voices. "Let them perish, as our brothers perished at St Thomas! They must die!"

And with terrible ferocity the people turned against their own city, and like a mountain torrent, overpowering all restraint, poured into their neighbours' dwellings, and slew the Raitzen to the very last man.

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, 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.

"Noch ist Polen nicht verloren!"

"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!"