That Boy Of Norcott's

“He gave him a share in that new dock contract at Pola.”

“And he means to give him the directorship of the Viecovar line, if it ever be made.”

“He ‘ll give him Sara Oppovich for a wife,” said a third, “and that’s a better speculation than them all. Two millions of florins at least.”

“She’s the richest heiress in Croatia.”

“And does n’t she know it!” exclaimed another. “The last time I was up at Fiume, old Ignaz apologized for not presenting me to her, by saying, ‘Yesterday was her reception day; if you are here next Wednesday, I ‘ll introduce you.’”

“I thought it was only the nobles had the custom of reception days?”

“Wealth is nobility nowadays; and if Ignaz Oppovich was not a Jew, he might have the best blood of Austria for a son-in-law.”

The discussion soon waxed warm as to whether Jews did or did not aspire to marriage with Christians of rank, the majority opining to believe that they placed title and station above even riches, and that no people had such an intense appreciation of the value of condition as the Hebrew.

“That Frenchman who was here the other day, Marsac, told me that the man who could get the Stephen Cross for old Oppovich, and the title of Chevalier, would be sure of his daughter’s hand in marriage.”

“And does old Ignaz really care for such a thing?”

“No, but the girl does; she’s the haughtiest and the vainest damsel in the province.”

It may be believed that I found it very hard to listen to such words as these in silence, but it was of the last importance that I should not make what is called an éclat, or bring the name of Oppovich needlessly forward for town talk and discussion; I therefore repressed my indignation and appeared to take little interest in the conversation.

“You’ve seen the Fräulein, of course?” asked one of me.

“To be sure he has, and has been permitted to kneel and kiss her hand on her birthday,” broke in another.

And while some declared that this was mere exaggeration and gossip, others averred that they had been present and witnessed this act of homage themselves.

“What has this young gentleman seen of this hand-kissing?” said a lady of the party, turning to me.

“That it was always an honor conferred even more than a homage rendered, Madam,” said I, stepping forward and kissing her hand; and a pleasant laughter greeted this mode of concluding the controversy.

“I have got a wager about you,” said a young man to me, “and you alone can decide it. Are you or are you not from Upper Austria?”

“And are you a Jew?” cried another.

“If you’ll promise to ask me no more questions, I’ll answer both of these, – I am neither Jew nor Austrian.”

It was not, however, so easy to escape my questioners; but as their curiosity seemed curbed by no reserves of delicacy, I was left free to defend myself as best I might, and that I had not totally failed, I gathered from hearing an old fellow whisper to another, —

“You ‘ll get nothing out of him: if he ‘s not a Jew by birth, he has lived long enough with them to keep his mind to himself.”

Having finished all I had to do at Agram, I started for Ostovitz. I could find no purchaser for our wood; indeed every one had timber to sell, and forests were offered me on all sides. It was just at that period in Austria when the nation was first waking to thoughts of industrial enterprise, and schemes of money-getting were rife everywhere; but such was the ignorance of the people, so little versed were they in affairs, that they imagined wealth was to pour down upon them for the wishing, and that Fortune asked of her votaries neither industry nor thrift.

Perhaps I should not have been led into these reflections here if it were not that I had embodied them, or something very like them, in a despatch I sent off to Sara, – a despatch on which I had expended all my care to make it a masterpiece of fine writing and acute observation. I remember how I expatiated on the disabilities of race, and how I dwelt upon the vices of those lethargic temperaments of Eastern origin which seemed so wanting in all that energy and persistence which form the life of commerce.

This laborious essay took me an entire day to write; but when I had posted it at night, I felt I had done a very grand thing, not only as an intellectual effort, but as a proof to the Fräulein how well I knew how to restrict myself within the limits of my duties; for not a sentence, not a syllable, had escaped me throughout to recall thoughts of anything but business. I had asked for certain instructions about Hungary, and on the third day came the following, in Sara’s hand: —

“Herr Digby, – There is no mention in your esteemed letter of the 4th November of Kraus’s acceptance, nor have you explained to what part of Heydager’s contract Hauser now objects. Freights are still rising here, and it would be imprudent to engage in any operations that involve exportation. Gold is also rising, and the Bank discount goes daily higher. I am obliged to you for your interesting remarks on ethnology, though I am low-minded enough to own, I could have read with more pleasure whether the floods in the Drave have interfered with the rafts, and also whether these late rains have damaged the newly sown crops.

“If you choose to see Pesth and Buda, you will have time, for Count Hunyadi will not be at his chateau till nigh Christmas; but it is important you should see him immediately on his arrival, for his intendant writes to say that the Graf has invited a large party of friends to pass the festival with him, and will not attend to any business matters while they remain. Promptitude will be therefore needful. I have nothing to add to your instructions already given. Although I have not been able to consult my father, whose weakness is daily greater, I may say that you are empowered to make a compromise, if such should seem advisable, and your drafts shall be duly honored, if, time pressing, you are not in a position to acquaint us with details.

“The weather here is fine now. I passed yesterday at Abazzia, and the place was looking well. I believe the Archduke will purchase it, and, though sorry on some accounts, I shall be glad on the whole.

“For Hodnig and Oppovich,

“Sara Oppovich.

“Of course, if Count Hunyadi will not transact business on his arrival, you will have to await his convenience. Perhaps the interval could be profitably passed in Transylvania, where, it is said, the oak-bark is both cheap and good. See to this, if opportunity serves. Bieli’s book and maps are worth consulting.”

If I read this epistle once, I read it fifty times, but I will not pretend to say with what strange emotions. All the dry reference to business I could bear well enough, but the little passing sneer at what she called my ethnology piqued me painfully. Why should she have taken such pains to tell me that nothing that did not lend itself to gain could have any interest for her? or was it to say that these topics alone were what should be discussed between us? Was it to recall me to my station, to make me remember in what relation I stood to her, she wrote thus? These were not the nature I had read of in Balzac! the creatures all passion and soul and sentiment, – women whose atmosphere was positive enchantment, and whose least glance or word or gesture would inflame the heart to very madness; and yet was it net in Sara to become all this? Were those deep lustrous eyes, that looked away into space longingly, dreamfully, dazingly, – were they meant to pore over wearisome columns of dry arithmetic, or not rather to give back in recognition what they had got in rapture, and to look as they were looked into?

Was it, as a Jewess, that my speculations about race had offended her? Had I expressed myself carelessly or ill? I had often been struck by a smile she would give, – not scornful, nor slighting, but something that seemed to say, “These thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are these ways our ways!” but in her silent fashion she would make no remark, but be satisfied to shadow forth some half dissent by a mere trembling of the lip.

She had passed a day at Abazzia – of course, alone – wandering about that delicious spot, and doubtless recalling memories for any one of which I had given my life’s blood. And would she not bestow a word – one word – on these? Why not say she as much as remembered me; that it was there we first met! Sure, so much might have been said, or at least hinted at, in all harmlessness! I had done nothing, written nothing, to bring rebuke upon me. I had taken no liberty; I had tried to make the dry detail of a business letter less wearisome by a little digression, not wholly out of apropos; that was all.

Was then the Hebrew heart bent sorely on gain? And yet what grand things did the love of these women inspire in olden times, and what splendid natures were theirs! How true and devoted, how self-sacrificing! Sara’s beautiful face, in all its calm loveliness, rose before me as I thought these things, and I felt that I loved her more than ever.

CHAPTER XXVI. IN HUNGARY

It still wanted several weeks of Christmas, and so I hastened off to Pesth and tried to acquire some little knowledge of Hungarian, and some acquaintance with the habits and ways of Hungarian life. I am not sure that I made much progress in anything but the csardas– the national dance, – in which I soon became a proficient. Its stately solemnity suddenly changing for a lively movement; its warlike gestures and attitudes; its haughty tramp and defiant tone; and, last of all, its whirlwind impetuosity and passion, – all emblems of the people who practise it, – possessed a strange fascination for me; and I never missed a night of those public balls where it was danced.

Towards the middle of December, however, I bethought me of my mission, and set out for Gross Wardein, which lay a long distance off, near the Transylvanian frontier. I had provided myself with one of the wicker carriages of the country, and travelled post, usually having three horses harnessed abreast; or, where there was much uphill, a team of five.

I mention this, for I own that the exhilaration of speeding along at the stretching gallop of these splendid juckers, tossing their wild names madly, and ringing out their myriads of bells, was an ecstasy of delight almost maddening. Over and over, as the excited driver would urge his beasts to greater speed by a wild shrill cry, have I yelled out in concert with him, carried away by an intense excitement I could not master.

On the second day of the journey we left the region of roads, and usually directed our course by some church spire or tower in the distance, or followed the bank of a river, when not too devious. This headlong swoop across fields and prairies, dashing madly on in what seemed utter recklessness, was glorious fun; and when we came to cross the small bridges which span the streams, without rail or parapet at either side, and where the deviation of a few inches would have sent us headlong into the torrent beneath, I felt a degree of blended terror and delight such as one experiences in the mad excitement of a fox-hunt.

On the third morning I discovered, on awaking, that a heavy fall of snow had occurred during the night, and we were forced to take off our wheels and place the carriage on sledge-slides. This alone was wanting to make the enjoyment perfect, and our pace from this hour became positively steeple-chasing. Lying back in my ample fur mantle, and my hands enclosed in a fur muff, I accepted the salutations of the villagers as we swept along, or blandly raised my hand to my cap as some wearied guard would hurriedly turn out to present arms to a supposed “magnate;” for we were long out of the beat of usual travel, and rarely any but some high official of the State was seen to come “extra post,” as it is called, through these wild regions.

Up to Izarous the country had been a plain, slightly, but very slightly, undulating. Here, however, we got amongst the mountains, and the charm of scenery was now added to the delight of the pace. On the fifth day I learned, and not without sincere regret, that we were within seven German miles – something over thirty of ours – from Gross Wardein, from which the Hunyadi Schloss only lay about fifty miles.

Up to this I had been, to myself at least, a grand seigneur travelling for his pleasure, careless of cost, and denying himself nothing; splendid generosity, transmitted from each postilion to his successor, secured me the utmost speed his beasts could master, and the impetuous dash with which we spun into the arched doorways of the inns, routed the whole household, and not unfrequently summoned the guests themselves to witness the illustrious arrival. A few hours more and the grand illusion would dissolve! No more the wild stretching gallop, cutting the snowdrift; no more the clear bells, ringing through the frosty air; no more the eager landlord bustling to the carriage-side with his flagon of heated wine; no more that burning delight imparted by speed, a sense of power that actually intoxicates. Not one of these! A few hours more and I should be Herr Owen, travelling for the house of Hodnig and Oppovich, banished to the company of bagmen, and reduced to a status where whatever life has of picturesque or graceful is made matter for vulgar sarcasm and ridicule. I know well, ye gentlemen who hold a station fixed and unassailable will scarcely sympathize with me in all this; but the castle-builders of this world – and, happily, they are a large class – will lend me all their pity, well aware that so long as imagination honors the drafts upon her, the poor man is never bankrupt, and that it is only as illusions dissolve he sees his insolvency.

I reached Gross Wardein to dinner, and passed the night there, essaying, but with no remarkable success, to learn something of Count Hunyadi, his habits, age, temper, and general demeanor. As my informants were his countrymen, I could only gather that his qualities were such as Hungarians held in esteem. He was proud, brave, costly in his mode of life, splendidly hospitable, and a thorough spoilsman. As to what he might prove in matters of business, if he would even stoop to entertain such at all, none could say; the very thought seemed to provoke a laugh.

“I once attempted a deal with him,” said an old farmerlike man at the fireside. “I wanted to buy a team of juchera he drove into the yard here, and was rash enough to offer five hundred florins for what he asked eight. He did not even vouchsafe me an answer, and almost drove over me the next day as I stood at the side of the gate there.”

“That was like Tassilo,” said a Hungarian, with flashing eyes.

“He served you right,” cried another. “None but a German would have offered him such a rudeness.”

“Not but he’s too ready with his heavy whip,” muttered an old soldier-like fellow. “He might chance to strike where no words would efface the welt.”

Stories of Hunyadi’s extravagance and eccentricity now poured in on all sides. How he had sold an estate to pay the cost of an imperial visit that lasted a week; how he had driven a team of four across the Danube on the second day of the frost, when a heavy man could have smashed the ice by a stamp of his foot; how he had killed a boar in single combat, though it cost him three fingers of his left hand, and an awful flesh wound in the side; and numberless other feats of daring and recklessness were recorded by admiring narrators, who finished by a loud Elyen to his health.

I am not sure that I went away to my bed feeling much encouraged at the success of my mission, or very hopeful of what I should do with this magnate of Hungary.