The Village Notary: A Romance of Hungarian Life

Mr. Kenihazy's arrival, and the news that he had safely conveyed the prisoner to Dustbury, drew the attention of the several groups in the room to the worthy clerk, who gloried in the excitement which his presence produced.

"Heavy roads," said he, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. "Heavy roads, I assure you, gentlemen! I'd never have thought that we should have had so much trouble."

"So he did trouble you!" said Mr. Skinner. "Very well. I thought as much. You are so late, I am sure something came in your way."

"Came in my way with a vengeance!" said Mr. Kenihazy. "Luckily, I had the two haiduks. I could never have done without them."

"What the devil! Did the notary fight? Did they endeavour to rescue him?"

"No! not exactly!" said Mr. Kenihazy, reluctantly; for the general interest these questions excited made him loth to disappoint his audience, "we fell asleep on the road. They are doing something to the bridges. We were forced to leave the dyke. The carriage was almost swamped in the mud; and, as I told you, if the haiduks had not been with me, and if I and the notary had not put our shoulders to the wheels, bless me, we shouldn't have been here till to-morrow morning; in which case the brigand would have attempted to rob me of my prisoner. But I'd like to have seen them, that's all!" added he, shaking his fist; "I'd have taught them manners, dirty knaves as they are!"

This explanation of Mr. Kenihazy's late arrival was far too commonplace to satisfy the worshipful gentlemen; but still the principal interest remained concentrated on Tengelyi, and half-a-dozen voices asked at once:

"How did the notary behave?"

"What did he say?"

"Did he make any ill-natured remarks?"

"He did not do any thing," replied Mr. Kenihazy; "how could he? since the sheriff ordered me to treat him with the greatest leniency!"

Everybody was astonished, and the recorder exclaimed:

"Are you sure that the sheriff gave such an order?"

"Of course he did. I never saw him more energetic in my life than when he told me that he was convinced of Mr. Tengelyi's innocence – yes, innocence was the word! – and that we ought to avoid any thing which could possibly make his position more painful."

"Strange!" cried Shaskay, shaking his head.

"I thought it strange; but as the sheriff told me that to offend the prisoner was as much as an offence to himself – "

"It's quite natural! quite! you know," cried Mr. Skinner, when he saw and cursed his clerk for the effect which those words had on the company, but particularly on the recorder. "It's quite natural, you know. His son is in love with the notary's daughter; and now that Tengelyi has got himself into trouble, the sheriff must do something in the way of taking his part, for there is no saying what that hot-headed fellow Akosh would not do. But I am the man who knows the sheriff's real sentiments. Lady Rety told me to use all due diligence and severity in the trial of the offender, who has murdered her most faithful servant; and we know, gentlemen, that the sheriff never differs in opinion with his lady."

"If that is the case, I have been wrong in what I did," said Mr. Kenihazy, scratching his head; "after what the sheriff told me, I did not even offer to bind his hands and feet – indeed, I have treated him with great politeness. I wanted to converse with him, but he made no reply to what I said."

"Conscience! it's all conscience!" groaned Mr. Shaskay.

"That's what I thought when he refused to smoke a pipe, though I offered it over and over again."

"You might have let it alone, sir," said Mr. Zatonyi, with great severity. "In your relations with prisoners, your behaviour ought to be dignified, grave, and majestic: to show them that there is some difference between you and a vagabond."

"Never mind, Bandi," said Mr. Skinner, when he saw that his clerk smarted under the reproof, "never mind; you're over polite, you know. Tell them to send the prisoner up. We'll be grave enough, I warrant you!"

Mr. Kenihazy left the room; and a few minutes afterwards Tengelyi entered with an escort of four haiduks. Völgyeshy accompanied him. That gentleman had left the company, when he heard of the notary's arrival: he had gone to confer with him. The notary's face was serious, and his behaviour had that dignity, gravity, and majesty which the assessor advised Kenihazy to practise in his relations with culprits.

"How devilishly proud the fellow is!" whispered Mr. Skinner to Mr. Zatonyi: "but never mind; we'll get it out of him in no time."

"So we would if the sheriff did not protect him!" sighed Zatonyi.

The formal surrender of the prisoner was made, and Tengelyi expected every moment that they would take him to his prison; when Captain Karvay asked the recorder what kind of a chain the notary was to have.

Simple as this question was, it seemed to puzzle the magistrate, who was at length heard to say, that it would be better to wait for the sheriff's arrival, before any thing was decided on the point.

"Nonsense!" cried Mr. Skinner; "give him a chain of eight or ten pounds, and have done with it."

Before the recorder could make an answer, Völgyeshy interfered, saying, "that to chain the prisoner was useless and therefore illegal. No attempt had been made to escape."

"It strikes me," said Zatonyi, "that Mr. Völgyeshy is the advocate of every criminal."

"No, not of every one," replied Völgyeshy; "but I am proud to plead the cause of those of whose innocence I am convinced; and it is for this reason I have asked Mr. Tengelyi to put his case into my hands."

"Have we then the honour of seeing in you the advocate of Tengelyi?" said Mr. Skinner, with a sneer.

"Desperatarum causarum advocatus!" whispered Zatonyi. "If Viola had not escaped, you might have seen a practical illustration of the results of your defence."

"Whatever result my pleadings may have, does not depend upon me," retorted Völgyeshy. "All I say is, that I mean to do my duty to my client, and I know that our respected sheriff will take my part against you."

These last words told upon the recorder; and, after a short consultation, it was resolved to lock the notary up without chaining him.

Messrs. Karvay and Skinner were utterly disgusted with this resolution. The gallant captain complained of the unfairness of the court, who made him responsible for the safe keeping of the prisoner, and who yet refused to sanction the necessary measures of precaution. But a sheriff's influence is great, particularly immediately after the election; and all Mr. Karvay gained by his demurrer was a hint from Shaskay, to the effect that it was far easier to keep a prisoner in gaol than to confine certain people to the field of battle; and the homeric laughter which followed this sally drowned his voice, when he rejoined that great caution ought to be used with any deposits in a council-house, since certain monies, though wanting feet and though kept in irons, had been known to vanish under the hands of certain people. This brilliant repartee was utterly lost, and nothing was left to the gallant gentleman but to protest that it was not his fault, if he was unable to obey the sheriff's orders respecting the treatment of the prisoner; for since they would not allow him to chain the notary, his only way was to put him into the vaults.

This proposal filled the mind of Völgyeshy with horror, not indeed because the vaults of the Dustbury prison have any resemblance to those mediæval chambers of horror which the managers of provincial theatres expose to the horrified gaze of a sentimental public. No! The cellars of the Dustbury prison, though by no means eligible residences, were not half so bad as the most comfortable of the lath and canvass dungeons to which we have alluded. The door of these vaults, which opened into the yard, led you to twelve steps, and by means of these into a passage, lined with a score or so of barred doors. The whole arrangement was simple, safe, and useful. There are none of the paraphernalia of a romantic keep, no iron hooks, no trap-doors, no water-jars; on the contrary, if the prisoners have any money, they can get wine and brandy, and as much as they like, too. The Dustbury prisons are strangers to the nervous tread of pale and haggard men. It is true that the number of prisoners prevents walking; but there is a deal of merry society; there is smoking, idleness, swearing, singing, in short, there is all a Hungarian can desire. This shows that the lower prisons of Dustbury are very satisfactory places, at least for those for whom they were built. There were, indeed, some witnesses and a few culprits, who, though uninured to prison life and averse to its gaieties, were compelled to a protracted stay in these places, and who had the presumption to complain. But of what? Of nothing at all! there was no reason to fear that the gaoler would let them die of thirst, for on rainy days there was an abundant supply of water, which came in by the windows, and which was retained in its own reservoir on the floor of the prison. But they complained of the badness of the air, (and indeed the air was bad, at least it seemed so to those who were not used to it), which might perhaps have been the cause of the prevalence of scurvy and typhus fever.

Such places are unquestionably very disagreeable, for the prevailing prejudice forces magistrates and guardians to dispense medicines to each of the sick prisoners. And medicines are fearfully expensive! But this motive was scarcely powerful enough to induce the Cortes of the county of Takshony to build new prisons; for the gentlemen of the sessions adopted certain remedial measures against long druggists' bills. The prisoners were treated by a homœopathic practitioner, and this measure reduced the charge for medicines to a very low figure indeed. The construction of a new prison cannot therefore be ascribed to pecuniary motives. No! it was simply owing to the impossibility of confining more than a certain number of people within a prison of certain dimensions; and though one half of the culprits were always allowed to go at large on bail, yet the county was at length compelled to provide for the accommodation of a greater number of its erring sons. The new prison was built on the best plan, and fitted with all modern improvements. It contained eight good-sized rooms and a hall. Each of the eight rooms was inhabited by from twenty-five to forty, and the hall by from fifty to eighty prisoners. But, strange to say, the sanitary condition of the inmates of the new prison was as bad as that of the sojourners in the old vaults, and this extraordinary circumstance fully justified the opinion of some of the older assessors, that the frequency and virulence of disease had nothing whatever to do with the locality.

Such was the state of the gaol in which the people of Takshony confined above five hundred prisoners; and it is therefore but natural that Völgyeshy should shudder at the thought of Tengelyi being confined in the same room with the other criminals. Four small rooms were set apart for the reception of prisoners of a better class; and Völgyeshy insisted on his client's right to have one of those rooms.

"What next?" cried Zatonyi, laughing. "Did I ever! A village notary and a private room in a prison! It's too good, you know!"

"I say!" cried Mr. James Bantornyi; "Mr. Völgyeshy is right! Every prisoner ought to be locked up by himself, that's what the English call solitary confinement: each cell has got a bed, a wooden chair, a table to do your work on, and a Bible, or a crucifix if you are a Catholic. It's the best plan I ever heard of! I've seen it in England. Did any of you ever read the second report? I mean the Second Report on Prison Discipline?"

"Nonsense! I wish you'd hold your peace with your English tom-fooleries!" said Zatonyi. "We are in Hungary, sir!"

"But I say," rejoined James, "there is not a severer punishment than solitary confinement. Auburni's system, of which I saw the working at Bridewell, is nothing compared to it!"

"Of course! of course!" laughed Zatonyi; "you'll come to advise us to give our prisoners coffee, and sugar, and rice, as I understand people do in America. But now tell me, how can you confine each prisoner by himself, when there are five hundred prisoners and thirty-three wards? There's no room, my dear fellow; that's all."

"And why is there no room?" cried the Austrian captain, passionately. "Because, instead of hanging people, as our fathers did before us, we go to the expense of locking them up for so many months or years. If I had my way, I'd make room for you! Fifty stripes and the gallows! There's a cure for you; and all the rest is d – d nonsense!"

"I should have no objection to Tengelyi's having a separate room," said the recorder; "but really there is none. The four cells which are set apart for solitary confinement are taken."

"Then there are some rooms devoted to that purpose, are there?" cried Mr. James Bantornyi, eagerly. "Oh, very well! Did I not always tell you we'd come to imitate England? Solitary confinement is introduced for four prisoners! A beginning being once made, I have no doubt but the rest will follow."

"You are right!" said the recorder, in a mortal fear lest it should be his lot to have a description of the Milbank prison. "But, after all, who can help that we have but four rooms, and that they are all taken?"

"Taken? By whom are they taken?" inquired Mr. James, who took a praiseworthy interest in prisons and their inmates.

"One of them is retained by the baron," said Captain Karvay. "It's now three years since the poor gentleman was sent to prison, and I'll swear to it he's innocent."

"Is he indeed?"

"Nothing more certain!" said the gallant captain. "He's a capital fellow, but a little violent, you know: and it may have happened that he has ordered his servant to beat a man; indeed, I don't know, but perhaps he did it himself. It's what everybody does, you know, and nobody minds it. But the baron had ill luck. Thirty years ago, he knocked one of his servants on the head, and the fellow died in consequence of the blow. A prosecution was commenced and carried on, and while it was being carried on it was all but forgotten; when, as ill luck would have it, the poor baron chanced to get himself into a fresh scrape. He is fond of his garden. The peasants stole his fruit and flowers. So he swore the first whom he could lay his hand on should have forty stripes. It was a vow, you know. And what happened? The very next morning a young chap was caught stealing cherries. Of course the baron could not think of breaking his vow. The young fellow was not quite ten years of age; he could not stand forty blows, and he died before the thing was fairly over. There was another row, and the county magistrates could not but sentence the baron to be confined for six months; the upper court cancelled the judgment, and gave the poor man four years! Only fancy! and he's seventy years old. It's an atrocious cruelty, you know, to send such a man to prison, and for four years too!"

"Yes, I remember," said James Bantornyi. "I heard it talked about when I returned from England. But I thought he had got over it. Some time ago I saw him on his estate."

"Why," replied the recorder, "if we were not to give him a run now and then, his manager would play the devil with his crops and cattle."

"The second room," continued the captain, "is inhabited by an attorney: he was sent here for forgery. And in the third room lives an engineer, who is likewise accused of forging bank-notes."

"And did it ever strike you," asked Mr. James, with great anxiety; "did it ever strike you that solitary confinement exerts a salutary influence on the prisoners?"

"It certainly does. Ever since the baron has lived with us, he's grown fat; he never complains of any thing except of his ill luck at cards, and that he cannot get any wine which is strong enough for him. He's blunted, you know."

"Wine and cards are not fit agents to carry out the purposes of solitary confinement: but, after all, the English too have, of late, relaxed the former rigour of their system. But how do the others go on?"

"The attorney acts as middleman between the borrowers and lenders of money, and the engineer is always writing and sketching. I suppose you saw his last quodlibet with the sheriff's portrait, and the autographs of all the magistrates, and with a few bank-notes mixed up with them. It was remarkably well done, especially the notes."

"Capital!" said James. "Occupation is the life of prison discipline. It improves the criminals, you know."

Völgyeshy, who had scarcely kept his impatience within bounds, interrupted this conversation.

"One of the cells is untenanted," said he; "why don't you put Tengelyi in that?"

"Impossible!" said the captain, dryly. "The worshipful magistrates have resolved that one of the rooms must be kept empty, to provide for an emergency."

"But is not this an emergency?" asked Völgyeshy.

"I don't care whether it is or not!" said the captain, twisting his moustache. "All I say is, that the worshipful magistrates have instructed me to keep that room empty. I have my orders, sir. Besides, we cannot put the notary into that room to please anybody; for Lady Rety has used it as a larder these three years, and she keeps the key."

Still Völgyeshy persisted; but the recorder interfered, saying, that the mildness which the sheriff had recommended could not, by any means, be carried to the bursting open and disarranging the larder of the sheriff's wife. And when Völgyeshy told them that, at least, an arrangement might be made by confining two of the three prisoners in one room, and assigning one of their cells to his client, his proposal excited a violent storm of indignation.

"I wish you may get it!" cried Captain Karvay. "I wonder what the baron would say if I were to force somebody upon him! And I don't know what he would say if I were to tell him it was to make room for a village notary."

But the decision of the affair was, as usual, brought about by Mr. Skinner's energy. That great lawyer protested that he could not think of fighting or squabbling for such a self-evident point; that Mr. Völgyeshy had a right to defend the notary as much as he pleased; but that the worshipful magistrates had an equal right not to care for Mr. Völgyeshy or his defence.

The matter being thus settled to the satisfaction of all but the notary's counsel, the recorder said to Karvay: "But you'll put him somewhere where the crowd is not too great!"

"Of course. I'll send him to No. 20., – as sweet a room as you'd like to see, and with but five people in it. There's the old receiver; a murderer; a man confined for horse-stealing; and two children convicted of arson."

"Very good," said the recorder. "Whatever he wants, he must have; for the sheriff wishes us to treat him kindly."

With a heavy heart did Völgyeshy follow the captain to the hall, where Tengelyi was awaiting the close of the discussion.

"It's rather strange that they should leave me without chains," said the notary, as they descended the steps to the vaults. "I am in the power of these people; and, I assure you, they'll give me a taste of what they can do."

"I'll make an end of it!" cried the advocate. "I'll go and talk to the sheriff. He cannot mean – "

"He does not mean any thing!" said Tengelyi, with bitterness. "It's a pity that you should trouble yourself; not only because you'll lose your labour, but also because, in my position, a man gets blunted to smaller sufferings."

"But the additional straw which – "

"I am no camel, my dear sir. – Stop here. I will not allow you to accompany me farther." And, turning round, the notary followed his gaoler.

Völgyeshy left the place sadly and reluctantly. At some distance from the council-house he met Kalman Kishlaki, who had just come from Tissaret to inquire for Tengelyi. The news of the notary's confinement in the vaults struck young Kishlaki with angry surprise. He hastened to the place where he had left his horse; and, without giving the poor beast time to rest, he rode back to Tissaret to appeal to Akosh, and, through him, to the sheriff.

CHAP. IV

The last rays of the setting sun shed their brightness on the roofs of Dustbury, when Tengelyi entered his prison. As he paused on the fatal threshold, his heart ached within him, to think that this was his farewell to the free light and air of heaven. The prison was dark. The dirty panes of glass in the windows, the rough paper which, pasted over the frames, supplied the want of them in more than one place, added to strong bars of iron which protected the windows, created a dim twilight even in the midst of the gladness and brightness of day; but to those who entered the place in the afternoon, as Tengelyi did, it appeared as dark as night, until their eyes became accustomed to the darkness. This circumstance, and the murky and fetid air which he breathed, unnerved Tengelyi so much, that he paid no attention to the words of comfort which the turnkey addressed to him. That meritorious functionary, who gloried in the military rank of a corporal, considered every new prisoner in the light of a fresh source of income to himself; and his politeness to the notary was not only unbounded, but even troublesome. He bustled about the prison; selected the most comfortable place for the new comer; deposited the notary's luggage in what he called a snug corner; and exhorted the other prisoners, rather energetically, to be civil and polite to their guest. He asked Tengelyi whether he had any commands for the night. The notary asked for some bedding.

"We'll find it for you," said the corporal. "Of course I must borrow it from some other man; and I don't know what he'll want for it a day; but if you'll pay the damage, we'll find it for you, that's all."

Upon the notary declaring that he was willing to do so, the corporal continued: "We find you every thing for your money. You can have meat, brandy, wine, whatever you like, if you've got some money. I say," added he, in an under tone; "it would make matters pleasant if you were to send for a drop for these chaps. When they get a new companion, they want to drink his health, you know; and these here fellows are dreadfully put out, because they've been disturbed in their places. You ought to make things pleasant, you know; for they will be mischievous unless you do."

The notary declared his readiness to "make things pleasant," as the corporal called it.

"I say!" cried that person; "this gentleman is a real gentleman, and nothing but a gentleman. He means to give you wine and brandy to drink his health in; so don't trouble him!"

Saying which, and while several voices expressed their joy, the corporal left the cell and locked the door. Tengelyi sat down on his luggage, and leaning his face on his hand, he gave himself up to his gloomy thoughts; but he had scarcely done so, when a voice from the other side of the place disturbed him.

"Don't be sad, comrade!" croaked the voice. "This cursed cellar is awfully cold. If you're once sad, you're done for!"

The place was so dark that Tengelyi could not distinguish the speaker's form; but the cracked voice, and the gasping and coughing of the man, showed him to be old and decrepit.

"What's the use of being mum?" continued the voice. "Take it easy! People who live together ought to be cronies! Besides, we are much better off here than you or anybody would think – ain't we, boys?"

"Yes! yes!" replied two voices, which evidently proceeded from a man and a boy.

"We're snug and comfortable! There are some drawbacks, you know. My poor Imri here has a whipping on every quarter day, and Pishta is going to lose his head – that's all. It's a bore, you know."

"What the devil makes you talk of it?" said the man's voice, trembling.

"Never you mind! Who knows but you'll get off for all that? Why, you were not even twenty when you did for that Slowak; by the same token, you were a jackass to kill that fellow of all others for the miserable booty of ninepence which you found in his pockets. As for me, I've twice been under sentence of death, and you see I'm none the worse for it. But if they will chop your head off, why, it's some comfort to think that they hanged your father before you. Never mind, boy, you're as likely to dance on my grave as I am on yours! When a man has lived up to ninety-three years – "