The Strange Story of Rab Raby Part 6

"They were for the gracious favour which the young gentleman has been so kind as to show me."

"I have shown you no kind of favour. You wanted justice and you have obtained it. Take back your gold!"

"Why should I take it back? Hasn't the young gentleman deserved it for all his trouble? Did he not get the dot put on the 'i'?"

"I will not accept a handful of gold for a dot over an 'i.'"

"But it's worth it to me? It's not a bit too much. The young gentleman needn't take offence. He can pay his debts with it."

"I have no debts."

"Oh, you have no debts, do you say? Don't tell me a Viennese dandy has no debts. You owe neither the tailor nor the host anything? What, don't you want to make your sweetheart a present?"

"I have none."

"Who could ever believe it? How you blush. Well, take it, make merry with it, gamble it away with good comrades. For I won't have it back."

"I drink no wine, I don't gamble, I have no good comrades; this money you will take, for it hurts me to receive it. Those I serve pay me for what I do. He who does such work as mine asks for no reward but his master's, and can take no bribe from another. Take your gold back."

"As you will, Mr. Raby," said the Jew, and he put the ducats in his pocket.

CHAPTER VII.

"Very good then, Mr. Raby," pursued the Jew. (He no longer thought of him as "young Mr. Matyi.") "But before I leave this place, nay, before you send me packing, I must needs have three words with you."

"All right, out with them!"

"Now the first is this: since I first weathered winter's snow and summer's dust on this good Mother Earth of ours, I never before met a man who was frightened at money. I see him for the first time to-day.

You were positively averse to keeping my gold. Nay, I believe that you wanted to break my head on account of it. And now I find you have no sweetheart, you neither drink nor gamble; you fraternise with no one.

That again is something quite unheard-of. And finally, a man will not dot the 'i' of another person's writing, that also is something out of the common, let me tell you."

"Well for one word I think that is long enough--what else?"

"The second concerns myself. As truly as that I yesterday was 'Rothesel,' and to-day am 'Rotheisel,' so surely is it that Rotheisel won't neglect a treasure which Rothesel has discovered. I know of a treasure, in fine, for the carrying off of which, as in the fairy tales, only clean hands can avail."

"I don't understand what you are talking about."

"Well, I do. There is a treasure lying buried in a certain place, a solid heap of more than a hundred thousand ducats, on the track of which I would set a champion."

"I still do not understand. To whom does this goodly h.o.a.rd belong?"

"This money has been wrung from the sweat and blood of the poor and the oppressed, nay, squeezed out of ragged and hunger-bitten wretches, moistened by the tears of widows and orphans, purloined, and concealed from the Crown. It is the people of your native town, good sir, whose misery has augmented this treasure, and who starve and complain for the lack of it, while beggars swarm throughout the country. If this sort of thing goes on, the whole State must go to the dogs. I know what I am talking about, and will gladly lead you to the h.o.a.rd. When you are in a position to rescue it from the dragon's clutches, two-thirds of it will go back to the poor wretched folk it was wrung from, and a third to enrich the man who restores it."

"But if you know all this, why not do it yourself?" questioned his listener.

"Tut, tut, my most respected sir, have you then studied to such little purpose as not to know the laws of your native land? Does it not stand written that the plaintiff must be a Christian? The Jew can do nothing.

And, moreover, were I as good a Christian as the zealous old sacristan who opens the church every morning single-handed and shuts it at nightfall, I should not be the man for this business. For it is just such a man as you is wanted, my respected sir, a man who, once he has set his hand to the work, will not allow himself to be beaten out of the field. For as long as the seven-headed dragon that guards the treasure sees that no one attempts to raise it, he'll wag his seven heads more boldly than ever. As soon as the delegates who are told off to take charge of it, notice that by chance ten or twenty heaps of ducats have been left perhaps on the table, they go back and verify that all is in good order. They will resent the adventurous knight's interference, and will give him his _quietus_ if he is not wary. He must press on against all foes, even if help fail him. How should a poor insignificant mortal like myself be fitted for such an undertaking? For such a quest, a powerful chivalrous man is needed, who has the _entree_ at Court, who is likewise a n.o.ble himself, and can wield the pen as well as the sword, in fine, one who has a heart open to the cry of the poor and oppressed, and the faculty of sympathising with the people. They are not my people--I am only a foreigner here, but it goes to my heart when I see how the harrow tears and the clods are broken, how for others is the sowing that these may reap. Then I thank G.o.d that He has not given me a portion in this land, but that I am a stranger here. Believe me, Mr. Raby, the n.o.bles always know how to oppress the va.s.sals. The Turkish pacha at most, has shorn his subjects: the Magyar landlord has fairly plucked his, but the Szent-Endre council flay their victims of hide and hair alike. So that's my third word!"

"All right, just give me more precise details over all this, and come and look me up at my lodgings; there we can talk it over; I shall be at home the whole evening."

So at the appointed time, Abraham went to discuss matters with Raby, and did not get home till morning. He literally talked the whole night long.

Yet when he at last took leave, he bound his friend on his honour:

"That you never betray how you knew all these things. The Spanish Inquisition was mere child's play compared to what those good people would do to me, if they knew that it was I who had made it so hot for them."

CHAPTER VIII.

Mr. John Leanyfalvy was a narrow-minded man. He was the postmaster of Szent-Endre. He neither paid nor received visits; he had but one hobby, and that was gardening. This he rode with a persistency worthy of a Dutchman. He grew flowers of which no one had ever heard before--exotic blooms almost extinct, but for the fostering shelter his garden walls afforded.

He was specially celebrated for his melons. At the time of the melon-harvest, two great mastiffs guarded the melon-plot over which his bedroom window looked. In this garden all his spare time was spent. He was so busy one afternoon over his melon-beds, that he did not observe how his mastiff, who by day was chained up, was growling at a man who stood before the garden gate. He only became aware of the new-comer when the latter wished him good day. He looked round and saw a stranger dressed in the latest modish costume of Vienna, and finally, he recognised in the apparition his nephew, young Matyi.

"Why bless me if it isn't my nephew Matyi. I hardly recognised you in this fas.h.i.+onable coat, I declare. But very welcome you are all the same."

And the old man embraced his nephew heartily.

"Ay, but you've become a man since I saw you last. You only want a moustache," and he looked at Raby's smooth-shaven face critically. "But you are not in a hurry to be back in Vienna, I hope?"

"Well, unless you want to send me away, I needn't be in a hurry to go back, as I could stay here all the winter," answered Raby.

"Well, don't talk to me about sending you off. I know well enough you are under someone else's orders."

"Yes, uncle, under orders to stay here for some time."

"Oh! I take it, you are here then for the taxation commission?"

It was an office which had at that time but an unenviable reputation in Hungary.

"More pressing business still," answered the young man with a smile, as he whispered something in the old gentleman's ear, which was evidently an important disclosure.

The features of the old man relaxed.

"Now that's something like; that's capital! Now I can reckon you a man.

Only don't neglect the work."

"Trust me!"

"And then don't begin among the lesser folk, but get hold of the great people. Go straight to the prefect himself; he's the one to tackle. Ay, I could give you some good advice. Hear all, see all, and hold your tongue, as the saying goes. But you know all about that, and have no need of a plaster over your mouth."

"Yet if I find the guilty, I shall not spare them, I warn you, whoever they be."