Kitabı oku: «The Village Notary: A Romance of Hungarian Life», sayfa 25

NOTES TO VOL. II

Note I.
BUZOGANY

Among the characteristic weapons of the ancient Hungarians was the buzogany, a short staff, with a heavy knob of precious metal at the end. The buzogany is a symbol of command, and as such it is still found in the hands of the Indian Rajahs. In Hungary, it was usually hung by the side of the sabre. It still denotes military rank and authority. The lower classes have a similar weapon, the tshakany; a long stick, with a square piece of iron at one end, and a hook at the other. The fokosh is a stick, armed with an axe and spike. The tshakany and fokosh are dangerous weapons in the hands of the Hungarian herdsmen.

Note II.
TOKANY

Tokany is pork roasted with spices and scented herbs.

Note III.
SWATOPLUK

Swatopluk was a king of the Czechian empire in the days of Arpad, who first brought his warriors into the kingdom of Hungary. When Arpad approached the confines of the country, he sent ambassadors to Swatopluk, to ask him for grass from the Hungarian heaths, and for water from the Danube (a variation of the demand of "earth and water" of classic reminiscence); and in return he offered the Czechish king a white steed with a purple bridle. Swatopluk, who had no idea of the Oriental meaning of the demand, readily accepted the horse, and provided Arpad's ambassadors with a plentiful supply of hay and water. Upon this the Hungarians advanced on the great heath between the Danube and the Theiss (A.D. 889). Swatopluk would have opposed them, but they offered him battle, and routed his army. The king of the Czechs was glad to make his escape on the very horse which he had accepted in exchange for his kingdom.

Grotesque illustrations of this transaction are frequently to be met with in ancient Hungarian houses. The legend under the pictures expresses Swatopluk's astonishment and wonder at the sight of the white horse, for, as king of a pedestrian nation, he is profoundly ignorant of horses and horsemanship. He questions the Hungarian ambassadors, whether the horse is likely to bite, and what food will please this wonderful animal; and on the reply that the horse is in the habit of eating oats, the king replies, "By my troth, a dainty beast! Nothing will please him but my own food!" The Slowaks, in Upper Hungary, are descendants of the conquered race, and still addicted to the historical diet of Swatopluk, the prince, who sold a kingdom for a horse.

Note IV.
HUNGARIAN NAMES

In all Hungarian names the Christian name is put after the family name, as, Kossuth Lajosh, Lewis Kossuth; Teleky Shandor, Alexander Teleky; Gorove Ishtvan, Stephen Gorove.

Note V.
WIZARD STUDENT

The legend of Faustus has a natural foundation in the creative superstition of darker ages. Hungary, too, has its wizard student, and one who need not blush to be ranged with Faustus, Albertus Magnus, Michael Scott, and Friar Bacon, for his power was and is great. The wizard student is possessor of a dragon, which carries him through the air. He has an absolute control over hailstones and thunderbolts. He is an impertinent fellow, fond of mischief, of pretty women, and milk. It is therefore but natural that the women in the Hungarian villages should offer him jars of milk, to engage his goodwill and to prevent his devastating their harvests with hail and lightning.

Note VI.
TATOSH

This name belongs originally to the priests of the ancient Hungarians, and it is still given to soothsayers. Their characteristic feature is, that they are white-livered and gifted with second sight. But the name of Tatosh is likewise given to the magic steed of the Hungarian legend. The Tatosh is jet black, and so extraordinarily quick-footed that he will gallop on the sea without dipping his hoofs into the water. He is attached and faithful to his master, with whom he converses, and whom he surpasses in understanding.

Note VII.
KONDASH

This word stands for Kanaz, or keeper of swine.

Note VIII.
SCARCITY OF HANGMEN

Almost all the smaller Hungarian towns and boroughs had (before the Revolution) the right of judging and executing the persons who were within their jurisdiction. Capital executions were frequent, as is always the case when the power over life and death is given into the hands of small and close corporations; but still, though a large number of people were hanged each year, the executions which fell to the share of each individual town and borough were few and far between. In cases of this kind the poorer communities were frequently at a loss to find an executioner; for they could not afford to maintain one merely for the chance of employing him once or twice every three years.

The greatest difficulty was usually experienced in a case of Statarium; for if the sentence was not executed within a certain time, it was annulled, and the prisoner came within the jurisdiction of the common courts. There was, therefore, no time left to send for an executioner to one of the larger towns; and it was a common occurrence that a gipsy was induced, by threats and promises of reward, to discharge the odious functions of an executioner.

Justice in a fix was the more prone to appeal to the help of the Bohemian population, from the vagrant habits of the gipsies, which prevented the man who volunteered as a hangman suffering from the odium which would have fallen to the share of a resident of the place, and from the fact that the extreme jealousy of the wealthier corporations made it by no means an easy matter to borrow a hangman. It is on record that the inhabitants of Kesmarkt, in the Zips, sent an envoy to the magistrates of the city of Lutshau to ask for the loan of their hangman, a request to which their worships gave an indignant refusal. "For," said they to the negotiator, "tell your masters we keep our hangman for ourselves and for our children, but not for the people of Kesmarkt!"

Note IX.
HASZONTALAN PARASZT

The phrase of "good-for-nothing peasant" was, at one time, frequently used by the privileged classes. M. Kossuth's party succeeded in turning the odium of that phrase against those who employed it.

Note X.
BATTLE OF MOHATSH

The city of Mohatsh, in Lower Hungary, was the scene of a terrible battle between the Hungarians and the Turks. Solyman the Magnificent succeeded his father Selymus on the Ottoman throne in the year 1520. After quelling an insurrection in Syria, and establishing his power in Egypt, he resolved to turn his arms against the Christian nations. His great-grandfather had endeavoured, without success, to obtain possession of Belgrade, – a city in which were deposited most of the trophies taken by the Hungarians in their wars with the Turks. The Sultan, having rapidly moved his army towards the frontiers, arrived in Servia before the Hungarians were even aware of his approach.

At this period the Hungarian power had greatly declined. The throne was occupied by Louis II., a young and feeble sovereign, who had no means of raising an army sufficient to contend against his powerful and ambitious enemy. "His nobility," says the quaint historian Knolles, "in whose hands rested the wealth of his kingdom, promised much, but performed, indeed, nothing. Huniades, with his hardy soldiers, – the scourge and terror of the Turks, – were dead long before; so was Matthias, that fortunate warrior: after whom succeeded others given to all pleasure and ease, to whose example the people, fashioning themselves, forgot their wonted valour."

Belgrade fell almost without resistance.

Solyman, having gained his immediate object, broke up his army, returned to Constantinople, and employed himself in fitting out a fleet for the conquest of Rhodes, which he also effected towards the end of the year 1522. Having devoted the three following years to the organisation of a large army, he resumed his designs against Hungary, taking advantage of the distracted state of Europe in consequence of the Italian campaign of Francis I. against Charles V.

The inroad of the Turks was sudden in the extreme. Before Louis had any knowledge of the intentions of Solyman, a Turkish army of two hundred thousand men had crossed the frontiers of Hungary. When the young monarch learned the peril to which his kingdom was exposed, he addressed applications for assistance to most of the Christian princes; but without success. He summoned the prelates and nobles of Hungary to his aid. They obeyed the call with great readiness; but the troops which they brought into the field were ill-appointed and inexperienced. They had been accustomed to triumph over the Turks, and therefore treated the coming danger with haughty contempt. Archbishop Tomoreus, in particular, who had had a few slight skirmishes with the Turks, boasted of his own prowess; and assured the army, in a sermon which he delivered, that the infidels were doomed to destruction.

The king's troops amounted to five-and-twenty thousand men, horse and foot. His old officers foresaw the result of a conflict which was about to be undertaken with such inadequate means, and they advised the king to withdraw from the scene of danger. They insisted on his retiring to the Castle of Buda. But to this proceeding the army objected; and declared that, unless they were led by their sovereign, they would not fight. Whereupon the king advanced with his army, and encamped at Mohatsh, at a short distance from the Turkish vanguard.

A body of Transylvanian horsemen having been expected to join the king, it was debated whether he should not defer giving battle until the arrival of a force so essential for his support against the enemy. The impetuosity of the Archbishop, however, unfortunately decided the councils of the day, and preparations were made for the encounter.

The vanguard of the Turks consisted of twenty thousand horsemen, which were divided into four squadrons, and which harassed the king's troops by skirmishes. So closely did they watch the Hungarian army, that no man could attempt to water his horse in the Danube. They were compelled to resort to digging ditches within the confines of the camp. In the mean time, Solyman arrived at Mohatsh with the main body of his army. The Archbishop Tomoreus arranged the order of the battle. He stationed the cavaliers at intervals among the infantry, fearing that the Turks might crush his line by flank marches, unless it were extended as far as possible. A small force was left in charge of the tents, which were surrounded with waggons chained together; and, next them, a chosen body of horse was placed in reserve, for the purpose of protecting the king's person, in case any disaster should occur.

It is said that the gunners employed on the Turkish side, being, for the most part, Christians, purposely pointed the artillery so high, that their fire was altogether harmless. Nevertheless, at the first onset, the Hungarians were completely routed by the superior number of their antagonists. Tomoreus was among the first victims of that fatal day. His followers displayed their usual gallantry, but perished, in this unequal conflict, one after another; and, the horsemen once trampled down and killed, the camp remained open to the assault of the enemy. The garrison was too weak to make any defence, and the reserve force was called in to assist them. The king, seeing his army overthrown, and his guard engaged in a fatal conflict with the enemy, took to flight; but his horse, scared by the turmoil of the conflict, bore him into a deep morass, in which he was drowned. Solyman marched up to Buda, which he took by assault.

Note XI

For the meaning of Tshakany, see Note I.

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME

THE VILLAGE NOTARY.
VOL. III

CHAPTER I

If my readers had ever seen the inmates of the Castle of Tissaret, they would not be astonished to find that, after the first shock of the sudden death of Mr. Catspaw had worn off, the matter was thought of, and commented on, with utter indifference. The order and quiet of the Castle was quite restored, and the servants sat talking of the murder round a blazing fire in the kitchen. But although some of them were in the attorney's room almost immediately after the deed was perpetrated, nobody knew any thing about it. Everybody's statement differed. They sat talking until daybreak, and yet they were no wiser than when they began. They rose and separated with opinions as various as those entertained of Hannibal's passage across the Alps.

The greatest incoherence, however, was in the dying man's own statement. When they asked him who had done the deed, he distinctly mentioned the name of Tengelyi. But Mrs. Cizmeasz, who was an honest and truth-speaking woman, insisted on its being a request to see the notary, and protested that it had nothing to do with the murder.

Mr. Tengelyi had hastened to the Castle on the night of the murder, and on hearing that the dying man's last word was his name, he grew pale and agitated. This did not fail to produce its effects upon the observers.

As soon as he had caused the door of the room, in which the corpse of the attorney lay, to be sealed up, he left the Castle.

Mr. Skinner did not arrive before the next morning, though he had been repeatedly sent for during the night.

When his carriage at length drove up to the door, the cook ran out exclaiming, "Our attorney is murdered, sir!"

"Poor man!" said Mrs. Cizmeasz; "his last words were – "

"But we have found the murderer," said the cook with great joy.

"I found him!" cried the haiduk.

"Yes, in the chimney!" bawled the kitchen-maid.

"He got off!" cried Mrs. Cizmeasz, in a shrill voice.

"Yes, yes, we have him! It's the Jew – the glazier, sir; you know him," said the cook, who wished to be an important personage in the affair.

"He has made his escape," said the coachman, coming forward; "we followed him to the Theiss, when – "

"He is in the cellar," bawled the foot-boy; "I have bound him hand and foot!"

"Yes, sir," resumed the coachman, "we ran at his heels until we came to the thicket – "

"The door is duly sealed, sir, and I have the Jew under lock and key," said the cook, with dignity.

"It wasn't the Jew!" screamed Mrs. Kata.

"It was the Jew, sure enough!" said the cook.

"If it was the Jew, why did Mr. Catspaw shake his head?" urged the lady, shaking her head, in imitation of the attorney.

The dispute grew hot, and the clamour became deafening. Mrs. Cizmeasz protested that it was not the Jew, and the others swore it was the Jew.

"Are you people all gone mad?" thundered the justice, in the midst of the confusion; "it is impossible to hear oneself speak in such a Babel as this!"

In an instant the clamour ceased. Mrs. Cizmeasz fluttered and muttered still, and, turning to the person next to her, in whom she hoped to find a more patient listener, she declared, still shaking her head, that was the way in which Mr. Catspaw had shaken his when the Jew was brought before him.

"My dear friend!" said the justice at length to the cook, "is it not possible to get some breakfast? – it's bitterly cold!"

"Certainly, sir," answered the cook; "if you will go to my warm room, I'll get it as soon as possible." After a few minutes, some brandy and bread were brought until coffee was ready.

Mrs. Cizmeasz went fretting and grumbling to her room, leaving the kitchen-maid to prepare the breakfast.

The cook was happy. He had the justice now all to himself, and was busily engaged in explaining his own conviction of the murder, and in trying to persuade Mr. Skinner to believe the same. According to his opinion, there could be no doubt that the murder had been committed by the Jew, who, on hearing the approach of footsteps, had hid himself in the chimney, which also accounted for his not stealing any thing.

"The thing is too plain," added he; "a person with the smallest particle of sense could see through it; every murderer, when found in the act, hides himself behind the door, in a cupboard, or squeezes himself up a chimney! Oh, I have read of such stories over and over again. That silly woman fancies she is very wise, but she knows nothing about it."

"You are quite right," said the justice, in a fit of abstraction, and filling his glass for the third time; "you are quite right, the matter is very clear. As clear as can be."

"Did I not say so?" rejoined Mr. Kenihazy; nodding his head with great satisfaction.

"What did you say?" asked the justice, who wished to remind Mr. Kenihazy that he had had great difficulty in rousing him from sleep.

"I said that the man who had done this was certainly a great scoundrel."

"I remember you did say so; but I never should have thought this Jew had such audacity. Poor Catspaw! he was a very good man."

"And what a hand he was at tarok, the other day!" said Kenihazy; "twice he bagged the Jew; and with five taroks he won Zatonyi's ultimo. And now this Jew!"

"But the rascal denies it all!" said the cook, entering with the coffee. "Suppose you can't succeed in making him confess?"

"Succeed!" said the justice, casting a contemptuous look at the cook. "Not succeed with a miserable Jew! I have done twenty years' service in the county, and never failed in any thing I wished to accomplish!"

"Yes, sir, everybody knows that," replied the cook, with great humility; "but Hebrews are sometimes very stubborn."

"Well, if he won't confess, he'll squeak!" said Mr. Skinner, pushing his empty coffee-cup aside.

"He will have Skinner before him, a haiduk in the rear, and me at the table; we'll show you sport, my boy!" said Mr. Kenihazy, with great glee. "And once in the midst of us, he'll confess, I'll answer for it."

The breakfast was over; and Kenihazy, wondering how any one could have the bad taste to drink coffee when such delicious wine and brandy could be got in Hungary, drank off a glass of brandy to wash the coffee down.

The justice rose and lighted his pipe, which he had laid aside during breakfast. He stalked up and down the room, trying the condition of his voice. He ordered the haiduks to be ready, and the prisoner to be brought before him at once.

The cook, to whom these orders were given, very curious to see the examination of the Jew, lost no time in executing the justice's mandate.

Mr. Kenihazy sat mending some pens; and his face was radiant with joy at having picked up a piece of coarse paper, on which he thought to take down the evidence, and by this means save the better paper allowed him by the county.

Mr. Skinner's manner of treating persons whom he suspected, was simple in the extreme. His inquisitorial powers vented themselves in abuse, imprecations, and kicks. Peti, the gipsy, and the treatment which he received at the justice's hands on the Turk's Hill, are by no means an unfavourable specimen of that worthy functionary's summary mode of dealing with the lowly and unprotected; and in the present instance, the poor Jew learned to his cost, that the worthy magistrate's jokes had lost nothing of their pungency, and that his kicks retained their pristine vigour. But if the justice was violent, the Jew was stubborn. Neither Mr. Skinner's stunning rejoinders, nor the striking arguments of the haiduk, whose stick played no mean part in court, could convince the culprit of the propriety of making (as Mr. Kenihazy said) "a clean breast of it." Nothing can equal Mr. Skinner's disgust and fury. He stamped and swore – as indeed he always did – but to no purpose.

"Dog!" cried he; "I'll have you thrown into the wolf-pit. I'll have you killed!" And kicking the Jew, he sent him staggering and stammering out his innocence against the wall. "Innocent!" cried the justice, with a savage laugh, "Does that fellow look as if he were innocent?"

Mr. Kenihazy and the cook stood laughing at the culprit, while the big tears ran down his cheek from his one eye.

There was nothing, however, in the Jew's appearance that could impress one with an idea of his innocence. His red hair, matted and wet from the damp of the cellar, hung longer and straighter down his forehead than usual. His dress and beard were in great filth and disorder. His ugly features were wild and haggard from the pain of his bonds, and the ill-treatment he had received from the justice and Mr. Kenihazy; in short, he looked like one of the coarse woodcuts of Cain in the story-books.

"I am innocent – I am not guilty!" blubbered the Jew. "I implore you! I intreat you, Mr. Skinner, and Mr. Kenihazy, and Mister Cook, who knows well – "

"Yes; I know you, you villain!" said the cook. "You have always robbed me when I employed you – "

"Oh, I humbly entreat you! Oh, no, I never cheated any one!" sobbed the Jew. "The panes of glass in the saloon were very dear, and I – "

"You dirty dog!" cried the justice. "You want to shift the question, do you? I ask you again, and for the last time, why you murdered the attorney?"

"I did not kill him," answered the Jew, sobbing; "what should I have killed him for? He was my best friend; and if he were living now, he would not see me used thus."

"Very possible, if you had not killed him!" quoth Paul Skinner.

"I never killed him," persisted the Jew. "When Mister Cook took me to the attorney, and asked him if I had stabbed him, he shook his head, you know he did, Mister Cook."

"That's true!" said the other, turning to the justice. "When I took the knave to the bed-side, and asked the attorney if he had done it, he shook his head."

"But who knows? Perhaps he didn't understand me, or he had lost his senses, or he was so disgusted!"

"Oh, no!" said the prisoner, eagerly. "He hadn't lost his senses, or he wouldn't have shaken his head twice again afterwards, when you asked him if I had stabbed him."

"That's what Mrs. Cizmeasz said, I'm sure," said Mr. Kenihazy.

"Yes," said the Jew; "Mrs. Cook and everybody in the house were in the room, and saw how poor dear Mr. Catspaw shook his head when I was brought in. He did nothing but shake his head while I was in the room."

"Call the cook!" said Mr. Skinner, recollecting her extraordinary and energetic behaviour on his arrival.

"It's a great pity," protested the cook, "that your worship should fatigue yourself with the gibberish of that woman, who is as blind as a bat in the matter. It was the Jew, and nobody but the Jew, that committed the murder."

"I know all that," said the justice, with dignity; "but it's necessary to observe certain forms." And again he desired the haiduk to call the cook.

Catharine Cismeasz, or Mrs. Kata, as she was usually called, (for who, as she often and justly remarked, will give a poor widow her due? and even her Christian name is shortened, as if she were a mere kitchen-maid), – Mrs. Kata, I say, had meanwhile addressed her own partizans, to whom she complained of the stupidity of the judge, who would not condescend to listen to a reasonable woman. "I am sure," said she, "that fellow, the cook, will lead him astray; he's a treacherous knave, so he is, and he's always getting my lady out of temper with everybody; and I'm sure, sirs, he'll say it was the Jew, and yet he's as innocent as an unborn babe, for when they took him to Mr. Catspaw's bed, he – "

Here she was interrupted by a haiduk, who informed her that she was wanted; whereupon her complaint was suddenly changed into high praise and admiration of the justice, who, she said, was a proper man indeed.

After Mrs. Cizmeasz had spent a short time in dressing her head and making herself spruce before a piece of glass which hung at the window, she set off, with great consequence, to see the justice; declaring, at the same time, that the truth should and would now be known.

She had never been in a court of justice. When Mr. Skinner asked her what her name and occupation were, two things she thought the whole world knew, she became much embarrassed; and when the judge inquired her age, the cook could not refrain from tittering. "Forty-two," said she, in so low a voice that it could scarcely be heard. And when the justice warned her, in a very solemn manner, to speak the truth, for that what she was about to say would all be taken down, and that, if she deviated from the truth, a severe punishment would be inflicted upon her, she was induced to believe that the whole was planned and got up by the cook to pique her. In order, therefore, to thwart him, and in reply to Mr. Skinner's exhortation, she said she really could not say exactly how old she was, as she had lost the certificate of her birth; but she believed she was younger than forty-two. The cook and Mr. Kenihazy laughed outright; and the justice assured her, with a smile, that he was not particular about the truth on that point, but he hoped she would be more accurate in her evidence; upon which she took the opportunity of assuring him that she always gave people to understand she was older than she really was.

The questions, Whether she had known Mr. Catspaw? If she had ever seen the culprit before? What she knew of him? &c. &c. put Mrs. Cizmeasz in better spirits, and indemnified her for the disagreeable impression which the first part of the examination had made on her mind.

She was one of those women who will neither hide in the earth nor wrap in a napkin the loquacious talent with which Nature has endowed them.

Mrs. Cizmeasz had, all her life, talked with ease from morning till night; and it could not be expected that now, perhaps for the first time in her life that she spoke from duty, she should stint her hearers, especially since Mr. Skinner had particularly cautioned her to tell all she knew.

Mrs. Cizmeasz had a powerful memory at times, and, on this occasion, remembered everything. She told where she had formerly lived; how she had come to the Castle; what had happened since her first quarrel with the cook; how the Jew (pointing to him) had stolen a florin and twenty-four kreutzers from her when she sent him to the Debrezin fair to buy twelve yards of calico: in short, the good woman left nothing untold that she could remember.

At length the justice jumped up, and paced the room in a state of great perplexity; and the clerk, who did not mean to write a book, laid his pen aside. The cook cast a triumphant glance first at the justice, and then at Mr. Kenihazy; as much as to say, "There, was I not right? Did I not say it was no use to examine this woman?"

Paul Skinner could restrain his impatience no longer; he exclaimed, "What, in the name of God, woman, do you mean by all this? Do you take me to be your confessor, or your fool, that you pester me with your d – d history?"

"I humbly beg your pardon," said Mrs. Kata, greatly astonished that any one should not take an interest in what she had related; "but your worship told me to tell everything and forget nothing, and that it would all be written down, because a man's life depended upon it – "

"That you should forget nothing relating to the murder, were my words."

"Exactly," resumed the lady; "but when you ask me about my name and occupation, and I answer that I am a widow, I must also mention my husband, and how long we lived together, and I assure you, your worship, we were very happy together, and when he died, and of what he died, and – "

"Well, well," interposed the justice, heartily wishing her eloquence anywhere but there; "now tell us, in a word, is it true that when the cook took the Jew to the death-bed of Mr. Catspaw, he shook his head?"

"It is true, your worship," answered she, with a glance of defiance at the cook; "he did shake his head; if your worship could only have seen how he shook his head! Since I stood at the death-bed of my husband – poor man! God rest his soul, he was a cook – "

"Yes, we know all about it," said the justice, interrupting her; "he died of dropsy. But tell us, young woman, is it true that my poor friend, Mr. Catspaw, shook his head the second time when the cook asked him?"

"He did shake his head! Your worship cannot think how he shook his head! for all the world like my poor dead husband! God rest him! The last fourteen days I never left him, day or night – "

"Who knows," observed the cook, "but perhaps he shook it with disgust?"

"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Cizmeasz, "my husband shaking with disgust? My husband was happy to the last moment. He lost his speech, poor man; he understood no one but me, and whatever he wished – "

"Who the devil speaks of your husband?" interposed the justice; "God give him peace! he must have had little in this world. The question is, whether Mr. Catspaw was in his senses or not when he shook his head?"

"Out of his senses!" said Mrs. Cizmeasz. "I beg your worship's pardon, nobody can say that but such a fool as – " here she darted a look at the cook that left no doubt of its meaning – "he who doesn't understand a man unless he speaks. When the water came into my husband's breast he couldn't speak, but I understood him to the last; and he used to throw such sweet melancholy looks at me, as if he would say, 'Thank you, my sweet dove!'"

But here she came back to the point, seeing the justice get very impatient. "How could poor Mr. Catspaw be wandering in his mind when he answered questions which were put to him?"

"He spoke? and what did he say?" inquired the justice, very eagerly.

"He didn't say much, it is true, but it was distinct," answered the woman. "Everybody in the room heard him say 'Tengelyi,' when he was asked who had stabbed him; and then the rattles came into his throat."

"Tengelyi?" cried the justice and Kenihazy, in utter astonishment. "Most extraordinary!"

"Why does your worship listen to such nonsense?" interposed the cook, impatiently; "this woman would bring her father to the gallows!"

"Nonsense, is it?" cried Mrs. Cizmeasz; "then why does the justice listen to it, and why does Mr. Kenihazy write it down? Well, I don't care! I don't want to speak; if I had not been asked I would have said nothing; I never would have spoken to any one about it."

Mr. Skinner shouted at the top of his voice that she must not confound the evidence, but tell him if her memory was quite clear – if she was quite sure that Mr. Catspaw had mentioned the name of Tengelyi?

"Why should I not remember!" cried she, amidst a clamour of voices. "The attorney spoke as well as we do now. Everybody was in the room, and everybody heard him say, 'Tengelyi.'"