Kitabı oku: «The Village Notary: A Romance of Hungarian Life», sayfa 28

CHAP. III

The notary's position was critical, his future doubtful, and his separation from his family painful in proportion. Tengelyi wanted all his strength of mind to speak words of consolation and hope to his weeping family. The despair of his daughter in particular filled his heart with the deepest, bitterest grief.

"Do not weep, dear girl!" said he, embracing poor Vilma, whose pallid face showed more than her tears what agonies she felt. "You know your father is innocent. Things will clear up, and I shall be allowed to return to you. Won't you be my good, happy girl, when I come back!"

"Oh, father!" cried Vilma, "to think that you should go to prison, to be confined with those wicked people though but for a day, though but for an hour! And to think that I am the cause of it, dear father, it drives me mad!"

"You, my daughter? What makes you think that your confession of Viola having been hid in the house can do any thing to make my case worse than it is?"

"Father!" said she, sadly, "don't talk to me in that way! I am undeserving of your love. Will they not say you were aware of Viola's being in the house, and that you wished to deny it? And even if this were not so, are not all our misfortunes owing to our having taken in Susi and her children? And that was my doing!"

"And since that is the cause of your misfortune," interposed Vandory, "I am sure God will not abandon you in your trials. His ways are indeed unaccountable; but I never heard of a good action having led a man to utter ruin!"

Tengelyi sighed, but Vilma felt comforted; and even Mrs. Ershebet's sobs ceased when the curate told her that this unjust accusation was possibly the means to defeat their enemies, and to lead to the recovery of the documents. The notary added to the comfort of his wife by assuring her that his incarceration was not likely to continue for any length of time, and that Vandory would be their friend and adviser during his absence.

Again Mrs. Ershebet entreated him to allow her and Vilma to accompany him to Dustbury; but the notary felt that he wanted all his strength for the moment in which he must cross the threshold of the prison; and, with Vandory's assistance, he prevailed upon his wife to desist, at least for the present.

"If my captivity were indeed to be of long duration," said he, "I would of course send for you. But in the first days I must devote myself exclusively to an examination of my position, and of my means of defence. Völgyeshy is an honest man. I intend to retain him as my counsel; and Akosh, I know, will find means of informing me how you are going on. Where is Akosh?"

Mrs. Ershebet replied, that he had left the room with the sheriff; and Tengelyi turned to arrange his papers and books, when the young man entered. He looked excited, and his eyes showed traces of tears.

"Have you spoken to your father?" cried Mrs. Ershebet.

"I have!" replied young Rety, with a trembling voice.

"And what does he say?" asked Ershebet and Vandory at once.

"Nothing but what is beautiful and edifying, I assure you!" said Akosh. "He wept; indeed he did! He embraced me! He called me his dear son! He told me he was convinced of Tengelyi's innocence; and his heart bled to think that so honest a man, and his old friend too, should be in such an awkward position; and Heaven knows what he said besides! He pleaded Tengelyi's cause admirably; but the end of it was that he refused to comply with my request. He said that fellow Skinner would not take bail, and he could not force him. In short, he said there was nothing to be done. But then, you know, he told us his heart was bleeding; can we ask for more?"

"I could have told you so!" said Tengelyi, quietly.

"No! no! You could not!" cried Akosh, passionately. "If an angel from heaven had told me that my father would reply to my entreaties in this manner, by Heaven I would not have believed it! Oh! you cannot know how I implored him. I wept! I knelt to him! I reminded him of my poor mother! I told him, if he had ever loved me, if ever he wished to call me his son, if he would not make me curse fate for having made him my father, he should grant me this one, this poor request! And he refused to grant it!"

Vandory felt hurt at the manner in which Akosh spoke of his father. He said: —

"Who knows whether he was not justified in saying that he could not comply with your request?"

But Akosh replied with increased bitterness: —

"Do you really think Skinner would have dared to resist my father if he had insisted on putting in bail for Tengelyi, or, at least, on having him confined in our own house? Oh, indeed, and what was His Excellency, the lord-lieutenant, likely to say to such an infraction of the rules? And perhaps the illustrious Cortes would not be pleased with his protecting the notary! Such are the reasons which induced my father to stifle his better feelings, and to spurn me, his only son, who wept at his feet!"

"Who knows," said Vandory, "how painfully he felt it that he was compelled to refuse you?"

"No matter!" said Akosh. "When I left the house, I saw Kenihazy busy with the carriage. We have not much time left; it were a shame to lose that time in a dispute about my father's character." And, turning to Tengelyi, he added, "Will you allow me to accompany you to Dustbury?"

The notary repeated to him what he had already stated to the other members of his family. He entreated him to bring him news of Mrs. Ershebet and Vilma; "and," added he, with a smile, "to recommend them to your protection is unnecessary!"

"All I wish is, I had a better right to protect them. I wish Vilma were my wife. What my father would not do for his son, he might perhaps be induced to do for the honour of his name."

"I understand you!" said Tengelyi; "but, thank God! I want no protection to prove my innocence. I have nothing I can leave my daughter but an honest name; and until the honour of that name is restored, I cannot consent to your marriage."

Akosh would have replied; but the carriage, which drove up that moment, diverted his thoughts into another channel. Tengelyi embraced his wife and daughter, seized his bunda, and stepped into the carriage, which Rety had sent, to the great vexation of Mr. Skinner, who intended to convey the notary in a peasant's cart. Mr. Kenihazy seated himself beside the prisoner, two haiduks occupied the rumble, and the unfortunate notary thanked heaven when the carriage drove off, and withdrew him from the gaze of his despairing family.

The county gaol at Dustbury was, in those days, free from the prevailing epidemic of philanthropical innovations, which a certain set of political empirics are so zealous in spreading. The ancient national system of Austrio-Hungarian prison discipline was still in full glory; but as coming events cast their shadows before, so this venerable and time-honoured system was every now and then attacked by the maudlin and squeamish sentimentality of modern reformers. Nay more, a committee was appointed to inquire into the condition of the prisons and their inmates in the county of Takshony; and though the keeper of Dustbury gaol allowed each prisoner on the day of the inquest full two pints of brandy; though they were ordered to play at cards, and be merry, the gentlemen of the committee insisted on giving a libellous account of Captain Karvay's mode of treating his prisoners. The established prison discipline suffered a still ruder shock, when, in the gaol of a neighbouring county, no fewer than six prisoners were dull enough to permit their feet to be frozen by the cold; and though the county magistrates gave them the full benefit of their attention, though their feet were amputated with a handsaw, though only one of the patients survived, and though such things were known to have frequently happened without any one being the worse for it, yet (so great is human perversity) a cry of indignation was got up against the worshipful magistrates of the said county, for all the world as if those honourable gentlemen had made the cold.

And besides, at the very time that the prisoners' feet were frozen in the lower gaol, there were no fewer than eighty prisoners confined in one room in the upper part of the building; and these eighty men, though they disagreed and fought on the slightest provocation, were still unanimous in their complaints of excessive heat. This circumstance shows that malicious persons will complain of any thing, if they can but hope to bring their betters into trouble. But the committee of inquiry could not continue for ever, and the cry of indignation became hoarse from its very excess. The new instructions, which government was weak enough to publish during this crisis, were put on the shelf, and Mr. Karvay returned to his Austrio-Hungarian management, of which the excellence was clearly proved by the yearly increasing number of its pupils– pupils, we say, for what is a prison but an academy for grown-up boys and girls?

The council-houses in Hungary serve likewise the purposes of county gaols. The council-chambers, the court, and the prison are under one roof. This system has its merits on account of its compactness. The council-houses, which, though not exactly built by the nobility, are built for their exclusive use (always excepting the prisons, of which the nobility leave a small part to the peasantry,) are not only used for quarter sessions and the like; no, they are also made to serve purposes of a more social nature.

The hall, for example, with its green table, resounds in the morning with the shrill tones of Hungarian eloquence, or it is hushed by the gravity (it is well known that this inestimable quality is greatly aided by the smoking of strong tobacco) with which sentences of death are passed, and criminals sent off to instant execution. But whatever want of measure and order a man may detect in the debate of the morning, he will find it brought to its level in the ball of the evening, when a hundred couples move to the sounds of harps and violins. Among the miscellaneous uses to which the county-house is put, one of the most important is that it serves as a place of rendezvous for the assessors and other officials. They meet in every room, and show a wonderful activity in conversation, and a no less wonderful energy in smoking their pipes, which pursuits are notoriously conducive to despatch and accuracy in business. The Hungarian nobility resemble the Romans in more than one respect. That classic people had an innate desire to pass their time in the forum; the Hungarian assessor exults in his council-house. In it he passes his life. It is here he works, eats, smokes, sleeps, and gambles. In the county of Takshony, this laudable custom was of course in a high state of perfection. It is therefore but natural that Mr. Skinner should have left Tengelyi's house only to proceed to the council-house at Dustbury, where he spread the news and surrounded himself with a chosen body of his friends, who, with him, were eagerly looking for the arrival of the prisoner. We find them in the recorder's office, where Mr. Shaskay condoled with the assessor Zatonyi about the depravity of the world; while James Bantornyi, holding the recorder by the button, informed that worthy magistrate of all the forms and observances of the English trial by jury; and an Austrian captain, who spent his half-pay at Dustbury, held forth at the further end of the room, assuring some of the older assessors that this shocking increase of crime was solely owing to the flagitious mildness of the penal laws, a proposition to which his hearers gave their unconditional assent by sundry deep sighs and significant exclamations against the scandalous scarcity of capital executions and the jeopardy into which this ill-advised leniency put the lives and limbs of the well-clad and bean-fed among the Takshony population. Völgyeshy, though generally averse to large assemblies, had joined and indeed scandalised the party, by protesting his conviction of Tengelyi's innocence.

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."