A Son of the People/Chapter 11

of the busiest times on the Hungarian lowlands is this gathering in of the second harvest, which has to be done quickly before the early autumn rains set in, leaving plenty of margin for threshing before the vintage time commences. Every year, at this time the fields round Kisfalu, teem with work. The hundreds of labourers, employed by the rich Kemény András, have little time for gossip and rest, for the eye of the master is everywhere, and it is pleasure to work under it, since he has a cheery word, a merry jest for all, which is encouraging when the sun, on the bare back, burns to the bone, and the muscles ache with the wielding of the heavy scythes.

But, to-day, a curious look of general idleness seems to pervade the atmosphere, and to have settled on the rich peasant-farmer’s fields, and he himself, riding from group to group, vainly tries, by encouragement or upbraiding, to keep his troop of mowers to the task. They stand about, their scythes lying idle at their feet, their pipes in their mouth, their gaze fixed on one particular point of the horizon, the other side of the plain, where a column of black smoke obscures the soft-toned purple line of the sky. With arms, feet, and torso bare, their legs encased in the loose lawn trousers of their national attire, they quietly allow the burning noonday sun to frizzle their backs, and smoke, gazing meditatively afar, or congregate, in eager, excited groups, to whisper whenever the master’s back is turned.

“Hej! you lazy, good-for-nothings,” says András, from time to time,“you need my late father’s heavy stick on your shoulders this morning. Here, Rezsö, take up your scythe. Miska, throw away that pipe directly. Come, all of you, and when I am back in half an hour, mind I see this field as level as the plain yonder, or I swear I will let some of you have a taste of my new knotted stick.”

Shamefacedly a group of idlers break up, thoughtfully one or two take up their scythes and draw them slowly aslant the waving corn.

“It is useless, András,” says one of them, with sudden resolution, as he once more throws his scythe down. “How can we toil on God’s earth, with our two hands, while the devil is at work, not four leagues away?”

“Hej!” says András, cheerily, “if my lord has engaged the devil to work for him, that is no reason why you should allow my corn to go to hell, for want of active cutting.”

“Why, you know well, András, that we will all work for you till our backs break, if need be, but, somehow, to-day, it is impossible. How do we know,” added the peasant, surlily, “that next year you will not also let us starve and employ the devil to do the work for you?”

“That’s well spoken, Rezsö,” said another, a young athlete, with muscular arms, and broad chest, that shone in the sun like dull ivory turned brown with age.

“Yes, there’s not much use toiling on the dear lowlands now, since the devil is to do the reaping; next year, I suppose he will do the sowing too, and we can all lie down, and wait till starvation overtakes us.”

“It is time the Tarna came and flodded [sic] us all, before the devil takes possession of our souls.” “Tut! tut! tut!” says András, impatiently, “what have we, at Kisfalu, to do with the devil of Bideskút? I think my lord is a fool with his machinery, but I think you are all fools to trouble your heads about him; ay, and knaves too if you steal my day, and do nothing for the wage I give you.”

“It is all very well, András, but you cannot employ every able-bodied man this side of the Tarna. I wish you could, for then my brother would not have to work for the lord of Bideskút, which he does, in fear and trembling, lest the devil should make a pick-a-back of him, every time he stoops down to mow.

“Yes, and there are both my younger brothers, driving those devilish contrivances, that reap and bind the corn all by the turn of a wheel The younger one, Laczi, told me,” added the peasant in an awed whisper, “that he distinctly saw a black man with a tail and long pointed ears, sitting between the horns of one of the oxen, that was, poor innocent thing, dragging the cursed machine. I tell you, Laczi nearly fell off his seat with fright.”

“With having had a draught too much of that wine your mother gave him before he started work in the morning,” said András, trying to laugh. But his laughter was forced and unnatural. All Pater Ambrosius’s teaching had not quite wiped the superstitions of his kind out of his head, and though he forced himself not to look that way, his eyes also instinctively wandered across his cheery fields, and beyond the sandy plain to that column of black smoke that he knew proceeded from the lord of Bideskút’s new building.

He had heard from Rosenstein that all the machinery necessary for converting wheat into hour, by the help of steam, was fixed ready inside the mill, and that my lord intended to begin work this day. Of course, Pater Ambrosias had thoroughly explained to him the uses of and powers of steam, but Kemény András in spite of his riches and in spite of these teachings, was still the peasant at heart, and he could not help shuddering, and looking behind him anxiously every time he caught sight of the clouds of smoke, which made an ugly blot on the vast horizon, that he had learnt to love and regard as his own.

He was evidently at a loss, how to quieten his workmen’s fears, since he was not very free from them himself. An anxious crowd had gathered round the master, all eager to gain some sort of comfort from him, for next to Pater Ambrosius, no one, not even my lord, was thought to possess as much learning as András; young men and old crowded round him, eager, excited, glad of a chance to pour forth their anxiety into their master’s ever-sympathising ears. Each had a tale to tell him of father, brother or son, who during the long hours of labour, close to the mysterious building, (which, surely was a place of worship dedicated to the devil,) had in some guise or other felt the presence of the Evil One, who now walked up and down the main road and called in at farm and inn, since my lord had invited him to earth. The women too had given up their work of binding, and they also had many a tale to tell. Angrily they stamped their tiny brown feet on the earth, and shook their fists at the distant column of smoke, which was the first sacrifice offered to Satan on the beautiful lowlands. In gaily coloured cotton petticoats, and full embroidered lawn shifts, their slim waists held in by a tight-fitting corselet, their heads protected from the burning sun, by a red or yellow kerchief tied in a becoming knot over the brow, they looked a very picturesque set of angry furies, enough surely to frighten the most enterprising devil from the neighbourhood. András felt that it was useless now to talk about work again.

“Erzsi, my pretty one,” he said merrily, “if you throw such burning looks across to Bideskút, you will surely bring the devil straightway here, he will think it is a spark from his own furnace.”

“Hey! leave me alone, with your jests to-day, András, my father is at work in that very mill of Satan. My lord offered high wages for the work, and threatened not to employ him at all this harvest time if he refused to do it; so he went to confession and communion this morning, and the Pater gave him a whole litre of Holy Water. But I tell you, my mother cried fit to break her heart, when he started to the godless work, and I do not think somehow that I shall ever see him again. Oh! why does not the devil take my lord away since he is so fond of his company?” and pretty Erzsi shook a menacing fist at the distant cloud of smoke.

“My son Imre has to do some work too, right inside the building,” said an older woman, in a voice choked with sobs, “I declare if any harm comes to him, I will …”

“Hush! hush! hush!” said András, “don’t let me hear that sort of language round Kisfalu. The lord of Bideskút is your master, you must work for him as he commands. The devil can have no power over you, if you do your duty.”

“It is not duty to serve one who is in league with the devil,” asserted Erzsi, hotly.

“No! that’s right!” murmured some of the crowd.

“I will not let Laczi work for him again,” said one of the men.

“He has no right to give over our souls to the devil,” said another.

“I believe he has promised the devil so many souls, in exchange for the work the Evil One does for him,” suggested an old wrinkled woman, whose sons were all employed at Bideskút.

“And we do not know which of ns may be carried off next.”

“It is a shame.”

“The lord of Bideskút will repent it,” came in what now had become threatening accents.

This handful of easy-going, somewhat lazy, always merry peasantry were gradually working themselves up to a state of hysterical excitement, caused by superstitious fear; and they absolutely refused to listen to András. He was doing his utmost to pacify the women, who made matters infinitely worse by sobbing and moaning, and calling on God to punish the miscreant who had brought the enemy of mankind to this beloved land of peace and plenty.

Suddenly a loud shriek from one of the women made all heads turn in the direction to which she was pointing, with long gaunt arm stretched out, and shaking like poplar leaves in the wind.

“Look! look!” she cried with trembling lips, “the fires from hell! Miska! Andor! Ivan my sons! they will be buried in the flames the Evil One has kindled! Help! help! I see them perishing before my eyes! Curse the lord of Bideskút! the fury of the devil is upon us!”

All looked horror-struck, trembling at the distant column of smoke, through which from time to time a shower of sparks appeared; these looked to the poor ignorant folk as the very fires from below, in which they and their families were about to be annihilated.

The women threw their arms up in the air, yelling out curses on the head of him, who had brought this evil in the land. Some had thrown themselves on the ground, and burying their faces between their knees, moaned and sobbed, while rocking their bodies to and fro, in an agony of grief. The men raised menacing fists at the distance, and cursed between their teeth, though no less bitterly.

András was for once in his life quite at a loss for pleasant words, or merry laugh with which to cheer up his labourers, whom he loved as his friends and equals, into whose feelings and thoughts he always knew so well how to enter, since he was one of them, placed in no wise above them through his wealth. It almost broke his heart to see his sturdy lads, standing defiant, idle and cursing, so different to the usual, merry lightheartedness with which they invariably worked for him, and which is the essence of the Hungarian character. He had neither the learning, the eloquence, nor the conviction of Pater Ambrosius, which perhaps might have quietened these superstitious terrors, he had only a great fondness for his fellow men, and this he exerted heartily, and with many a: “Now then Panna, my soul I don’t take it to heart,” and “Erzsi, my pretty one, your father is quite safe. Come! come! take my word for it, no harm will come to any one. I do not understand the cursed things: but believe me the devil has nothing to do with the making of them! … Why; you all must remember the workmen coming from Budapesth to put up the machinery. They surely did not look like devils. It is all right … you will soon get used to seeing many things done by machinery, which you used to do with your hands. They are harmless enough, I know, and if the lord of Bideskút does not give you all enough wage to last you, through the winter, why I can always find work for those extra hands who do not want to remain idle. Now then all of you, look me straight in the face, instead of at that black smoke which is far away. Will you do your duty by me, and go back to your work? It is the best way I assure you to keep the devil from your doors.”

There was a long silence, while Kemény András stood between them, his merry brown eyes gleaming, forcing each head as by the magnetic current of his own kind heart, to turn towards those frank eyes of his so full of sympathy.

“We will try, András,” said one or two of the men, while the women began to wipe away their tears, and to bend once more to their work.

The groups gradually dispersed and found their way back to their task, whilst András, with a sigh and a shake of the head, mounted his mare and rode off to some further field, where he found the same idle groups of men and women, the same superstitious terror, the same menacing attitude. Till close upon noon he rode hither and thither, in spite of the fact that as the sun rose higher over his head, he could less and less shake off a feeling of dark presentiment which against his better judgment, gradually filled his mind; until at last he found that instead of upbraiding and cheering the superstitious or the discontented, he was listening with awe and in silence to the various tales of terror or of evil his own work-people were never weary to relate. Tired, enervated and anxious, he rode home at midday for his meal. The farmhouse of Kisfalu, was now exceedingly homelike and comfortable. András had built an outhouse to which he had relegated kitchen and wash-house, whilst the main little building, with a picturesque verandah running round it, covered with sweet-scented honeysuckle and jessamine was kept entirely for living rooms. The big sitting-room, cut the house as it were in half, from the front door which opened on to the verandah, to the two windows opposite, which looked out on the immeasurable puszta beyond. From it right and left opened four rooms, two at each side, which were the bedrooms, those on the left being; newly built, and beautifully papered and painted.

As András entered, the room was half in darkness, the rays of the sun being well-tempered by cool-looking green shutters. Close to the window, getting the only ray of daylight necessary for her work, sat old Kemény Etelka, at her spinning. Drowsily in the noonday heat, her bare feet turned the wheel, while in low soft tones, she hummed to herself snatches of melancholy Hungarian songs.

There was no beauty about the rugged face now; whatever charm of freshness it may have possessed in youth, was obliterated during the long years of patient slavery Etelka had undergone beneath the dreary roof, of her miserly lord. There were deep lines of humiliations and sufferings patiently endured, round the drooping mouth, and the eyes looked dull and lustreless from many shed and unshed tears. But at the sound of her son’s heavy tread on the verandah, the old face became radiant with a happy smile, and seemed suddenly transfigured: the eyes sparkled and the white teeth that peeped between the shrivelled lips, gave quite a renewed look of youth to the melancholy face.

“Isten hozta (God has brought you), my son,” she said, “you are earlier than I expected. Sári, Katinka,” she called loudly, “bring the gulyás (stew) at once, the master is home.” András had entered very dejectedly, he threw his hat on one side, then having kissed his mother:

“1 can do nothing with the fellows, mother, to-day. They seem unable to work; hardly is my back turned, when all eyes stare straight across the puszta to where a column of black smoke reminds them of that accursed steam-mill. I am thankful you have closed the shutters so that I can see nothing more of that invention of the devil.”

“I am glad to hear yon call it so, my son,” said Etelka with a sigh, “you know what I used to tell you, about it, when first Rosenstein said that my lord was going to grind his corn with the help of fire and smoke.”

“Mother, dear, yon are a saint, and as I am sure you must have been in heaven, sometime or other in your life, you must have learnt there, that the devil does not trouble himself much about our concerns.”

“Ay! but my son, how can you talk like that? Pater Ambrosius himself says the devil walks about the earth, trying to tempt souls to be wicked and to go to hell.”

“Yes, mother, but he does not get into engines and drive them, the steam does that, I have read about it in books; I do not understand the things, and I do not think I want to; I am sure my flour last year fetched a higher price than any in the country, and if it is every year as fine and white as last, I shall never want to better my farming.”

“And in the meanwhile, András, it is terrible to think that my lord’s folly drags so many of our dear friends at Bideskút into the clutches of Satan.”

András was about to reply, when his mother placed a warning Anger on her mouth. The two pretty peasant girls came in who did Etelka’s household work, two little orphan girls, who had lost their father and mother a few years back, in the last cholera epidemic, and whom Etelka had brought to Kisfalu, and taught to cook, to wash and to spin. They were bringing in the steaming gulyás (stew), the roasted potatoes and baskets of melons and peaches for dinner, carrying the heavy dishes on their small heads, and supporting them with one graceful curved arm, while the other was placed akimbo on the hip.

András jumped up merrily.

“Eh! mother dear, there is nothing like a good dish of gulyás to make one forget one’s troubles; here Sári my pretty one, give me a kiss and the biggest jug you have in your kitchen so that I may go and draw the wine; we shall all want plenty to drink, for it is hot out in the fields, I can tell you.”

While András went to draw the wine in the brick cellar which he had built on the shady side of the house, Sári and Kati, spread the substantial fare; on the oak table, polished till it shone like a mirror, they had placed the savoury stew, the potatoes and fruit. At the head of the table came the mistress armchair and next to it the master’s. They themselves had their places at the bottom of the table, While waiting for her son, Etelka had distributed the gulyás in heavy glazed earthenware plates, and as soon as András came back with his jug in his hand, all fell to with spoon and knife, while the master poured the wine out in mugs for everybody.

But the meal was not as merry as usual. Both Etelka and András were anxious and silent, and the two little maids dared not chatter. They felt awed and sad, for they had never seen the master so quiet. One of them dropped a few tears in her plate; she thought something dreadful must have happened.

When each had finished her mug of wine and Etelka having risen, the plates and dishes were removed, András again was once more able to speak on the subject that was so near to his heart.

“Mother, I have been thinking the last half-hour, while eating the gulyás, that I am very lazy, and good-for-nothing not to try and see whether I cannot even at this last moment persuade my lord to give up his obstinate ideas about that cursed mill. I cannot help thinking Rosenstein must have been only half-hearted when he told my lord for me of all the evils, which I know will come, if he will go on irritating the peasants with those new-fangled notions of his.”

“Rosenstein declared that my lord would not listen to any talk. He has set his heart on those cursed mills.”

She had resumed her spinning, and the drone of the wheel made a gentle accompaniment to their talk. András felt enervated, still vaguely anxious; he was walking up and down the long narrow room, and every now and then, impatiently, he pushed aside the shutters, and gazed with a deep frown between his brows at the cloud of black smoke which still rose out there, far ahead.

“I wonder if Pater Ambrosius ever spoke about it to my lord?” he mused aloud.

“The kind Pater would not dare say much, for fear of irritating my lord against him, and then he would have to leave his church of Árokszállás where he has been over forty years. This would break his heart. No! no!” added the old woman, “the Pater would not dare speak.”

“Well, then, mother, I will dare,” said András resolutely. “It is not too late, and I am sure I shall find the right words in my heart, with which to persuade my lord of all the unhappiness his folly is causing, all the anxiety and the fright He must be a kind man, he will listen to me. After all,” he added, throwing his head back and standing very erect, “I employ as many hands as he does; I have lent him enough money, to give me the right to speak to him, if I want to. I can buy his whole cursed mill from him, and then destroy it if I choose, and I would do it whatever price he may ask for it, sooner than see all the men surly and defiant, and hear the women cry as I did to-day. Give me your blessing, mother, I will ride to Bideskút at once, it is not too late yet, to drive the devil to the other side of the Tarna.” “God bless you, my son,” said Etelka, but she shook her head. “The lord of Bideskút is a proud man, he will not listen to a peasant,” she urged.

“A peasant! who could buy every foot of land he owns, even after he had lent him the purchase money twice over already,” retorted András proudly. “Mother, do not discourage me. The lord of Bideskút owes me much; he must be grateful, if he is a man, for the loan of my money, which he has almost got at a gift, and which keeps him out of the clutches of the Jews. He must render me service for service and sell me his fad, so that I may destroy it. Send word round to the fields that the men can go quietly back to work. To-morrow we will begin to pull down that mill of the devil, and send the machinery back to hell.”

He was quite happy now and his mother heard him singing all the way to the stables, and talk merry nonsense to his mare as he stroked her sleek neck, and whispered to her, whither he meant to take her. Two minutes after that Etelka, having raised the shutters looked out on to the plains, as her handsome son galloped past, swinging his hat in wild delight. She watched him until he and his mare were but a mere speck on the blue horizon, then she again shook her head, but there was a proud look on her face, and a tear of joy in her eye, as she once more settled down to her spinning.