Chapter 6. Two Famous Paedagogues

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER VI. TWO FAMOUS PÆDAGOGUES

The first of these famous pædagogues was the cantor, worthy Mr. Michael Kordé.

The second was the rector, Thomas Bodza.

Apart from the fact that he had an extraordinary liking for wine and never could quite distinguish the forenoon from the afternoon, Mr. Michael Kordé was a man of refinement to the very tips of his toes.

In his time he had worn out a great many stout hazel switches, it being the custom of his establishment to make each pupil provide his own rod. This was no doubt an extra item in the curriculum, but, on the other hand, there was something to show for it; all those who passed through his hands when they subsequently fell into the clutches of the Law could endure as many as five-and-twenty strokes from the hardest bludgeon without so much as wincing. They had been case hardened by their previous education.

The schoolhouse was the _vis-à-vis_ of Mr. Kordé's own private dwelling. It had never once been whitewashed since it was first built; but, on the other hand, it was richly adorned outside with the Christian names and the nicknames of all the urchins who had ever been inside its walls, names to which later generations of scholars had taken good care to add such distinguishing epithets as ass, swine, &c., &c. Those, moreover, who possessed a taste for art did not omit to paint on the wall, with red chalk, hussars, two-legged heads with six noses and one eye, large meerschaum pipes, &c., &c. Here and there, too, the remains of big black ink blots and red splodges, like hideous bunches of cherries, pointed to past combats in which inkpots had been hurled and fists used freely; these pictorial devices, however, were but fragmentary, as the various generations of students had from time to time dug large bits of mortar out of the walls with their nails to serve as sand for blotting their themes.

Inside the schoolroom the shapeless battered benches were also carved all over with names and emblems. The window panes had for the most part been broken to bits, and the gaps stuffed with closely written MS. torn out of old exercise books. Layers of dust met the eye everywhere, and there was a perfect network of dangling spiders' webs in all the corners.

Such, in all its beauty, was the academical emporium where Mr. Michael Kordé for thirty years had been in the habit of regularly dispensing science and slaps--with what result we shall see later on.

Worthy Mr. Kordé used regularly to return to his own honourable dwelling from the pot-house just when the night-watchmen were going home to sleep and the cocks were crowing in the morn, and at such times he would bellow forth ditties the whole way at the top of his voice to the accompaniment of the howling of all the watch-dogs in the village.

The object of this singing bout was to warn the honest tutor's better half that her lord was approaching, and give her time to open the street door for him.

On safely reaching home he would first of all knock his wife about a bit and break to pieces any odd articles which might stray into his hands, whereupon, after a little miscellaneous cursing and swearing, he would fling himself down upon the floor, light his pipe, fall asleep and snore like a wild hog.

Heaven only knows how it was that he did not burn his house over his head every day.

The following morning when the children assembled in the schoolhouse and began to kick up a most fearful din, the noble pædagogue would scramble to his feet, shake the straw out of his hair, smooth out his moustache, and gaze with a cannibalistic expression out of the attic window, not recognising for a moment exactly where he was.

After convincing himself by ocular demonstration that the schoolhouse had not taken wings unto itself and flown, but was still in the old place, he would shamble downstairs, stick a couple of canes under his arm, and go forth to teach.

His pupils meanwhile were engaged in frightful hand-to-hand combats with one another. There were scratched faces and bloody noses everywhere, and when the master entered he regularly found all the benches upset and everybody's hands tugging at his neighbour's hair.

The moment the facial portion of Mr. Michael Kordé stumbled against the door, the little rebels instantly disentangled themselves from one another and attempted to reach their proper places, whence the grand inquisitor hooked them out one by one, and thwacked the whole class in turn with his own honourable hand.

This little commotion used generally to chase slumber somewhat from his eyes, and when the lads had left off howling a bit, he would measure out to each of them a big slice of catechism, or a similar amount of Hübner's "Short questions in geography," to be repeated aloud till learnt by heart, whilst he himself adjourned to the pot-house. From this place of refuge he would send a message to the urchins later in the afternoon that they might go home.

Thereupon there was a general rush for the door (just as when a herd of swine reaches home, and every one tried to get through first) to an accompaniment of kicks, cuffs, and the tugging and tearing of clothes.

On Sundays the lads did their best to ferret out where the Lutheran children were playing ball. Then they all consulted together, and set off for the same place with stout sticks in their hands and their pockets crammed full of stones, and a battle royal forthwith would ensue between the youths of the rival creeds. When, then, Monday morning came round again Mr. Kordé conscientiously administered a dose of birch, previously soaked in salt water, to each one of his pupils who appeared in class with a swollen face or a damaged noddle.

On Sunday, moreover, he twice took them with him to church where, during the sermon, they either caught blue-bottles under the seats, or played at knucklebones, or (but this was only when they were particularly well behaved) lay down on the floor of the pews and slept like Christians.

And when they grew up and became full-blown louts, their actions still testified to the influence of the school in which they had been reared. Whoever was the most skilful farmyard pilferer in the village, whoever was the most thorough-paced loafer in the county, could infallibly be regarded as an ex-pupil of Mr. Kordé's.

Whoever was regularly chucked out of the pot-house every Sunday evening, whoever brought a broken pate home with him the oftenest, whoever spent most of his time in the village jail, would be he, you might be quite sure of it, who had picked up the rudiments of learning at the feet of Mr. Kordé.

Whoever lied and perjured himself most frequently, whoever could swallow most brandy at a gulp, whoever knocked his wife about the oftenest, whoever turned his father and mother out of doors, whoever was most slothful in business, whoever had the filthiest house, whoever was cruel to his horse, whoever sat in the stocks habitually, would be he, you might safely rely upon it, who had learnt the philosophy of life in the school of Mr. Kordé.

Thus for thirty years had he spread the blessings of science in Hétfalu and its environs.

The second instructor of the people was Thomas Bodza, a panslavist incarnate.

He had but little mind yet much learning. He was one of those men who remembered all he read without understanding it, a semi-savant and one of the most dangerous specimens of that dangerous class. Of him, I shall have occasion to speak presently.

* * * * *

One day Mr. Kordé had drunk himself into an unusual state of fuddle.

When I say _unusual_, I mean, that as early as midnight he did not know whether he was boy or girl, and took the starry firmament for a bass-viol.

He had made a little excursion with his friend the magistrate, Mr. Martin Csicseri, to a little tavern in the outlying vineyards to taste the new vintages, and there the two gentlemen got so drunk that they would have found it difficult to explain in what language they were conversing.

Finally they set off homewards, leaning heavily for support on each other's shoulders. His honour, Mr. Csicseri suddenly caught sight of a broad ditch by the roadside. He swore by heaven and earth that it was a nicely quilted bed, and there and then laid himself down in it and fell asleep.

For some time Mr. Kordé kept on pulling and tugging at him to get him out, first by an arm and then by a leg. However, so far from giving his friend any encouragement, Mr. Csicseri only rebuked his wife for putting such a low pillow beneath his head, and then, without pursuing the subject further, went off as sound asleep as a humming top.

So the cantor found himself all alone in a strange world.

In front of him lay the high road, and the village was only three hundred yards further on; but wine is a bad compass in a man's noddle, and never points north in the same direction two minutes together.

He resolved, therefore, to return to the inn among the vineyards. Acting straightway upon this noble resolve, he stumbled along totally unknown paths up hill and down dale; plunged through field after field of Indian corn; pursued his endless way through hemp grounds and fallow lands; scrambled on all fours through hedges and ditches, and finally forced his way through a vast morass in which he wallowed freely. In a sober condition he would have come to grief twenty times over, but Fate always protects the toper.

Then he strayed into a vast forest; zig-zagged through fens and coppices like an old dog-wolf; tore himself almost to ribbons among the sloe and blackberry bushes, and emerged at last at a ramshackle forest-keeper's hut, the door of which stood wide open.

By this time he bore not the slightest resemblance to man or beast.

In the courtyard a big, shaggy, lazy mastiff was shambling about, who, on perceiving a strange unknown four-legged animal (Mr. Kordé had ceased for a time to belong to the category: man) thus approaching him, sidled up to him with incomparable phlegm, and began sniffing at him all round.

Mr. Kordé forthwith collared the neck of the huge dog and began kissing him all over. "Dear friend, faithful old comrade," he cried, "what a long time it is since last we met! What! don't you recognise your old schoolfellow?"--whereupon the big dog in his extreme bewilderment sat down beside the ex-cantor on his haunches and was so astonished that he forgot to bark.

At this Mr. Kordé was completely overcome. Once more he warmly pressed the head of his so unexpectedly recovered friend to his bosom, and then shambled along with him into the courtyard. He pathetically complained to him on the way that he had been chucked out of his employment and was now a fugitive on the face of the earth, whereupon he fell to weeping bitterly and dried his tears with the mastiff's bushy tail.

The poor dog was so utterly taken aback that it could not recover from its astonishment. Once or twice it showed its white teeth and growled at the stranger, but it did not venture to hurt him. No doubt it thought that this strange animal might perhaps be able to bite better than itself.

Thus the two quadrupeds strolled comfortably together right into the courtyard. The dog stopped before his three-cornered kennel which Mr. Kordé interpreted as an invitation on the part of his respectful host for him to go in first, and, accepting the offer in the spirit of true courtesy, and with the deepest emotion, he squeezed himself into the narrow dog-kennel, while the dispossessed bow-wow squatted down at the entrance of his house with the utmost astonishment, unable satisfactorily to explain to himself by what right this strange wild beast usurped his ancestral holding.

Mr. Kordé, however, soon began to snore inside there so terrifically that the scared dog ran out into the middle of the courtyard and fell a-barking with all his might and main, as if he had been offered pitch for supper instead of meat.

As to what followed, it is extremely doubtful whether Mr. Kordé saw it all with his own eyes, or whether it was the dream of a drunken brain impressed so vividly on his memory by his imagination that subsequently he fancied it to be true.

* * * * *

The moon had gone down and there was a great commotion in the courtyard surrounding the forester's hut.

A lamp had been lit in the shelter of a shed, and a group of men was standing round it--pale, sinister figures, putting their heads closely together and listening attentively to a lean, lanky man in a cassock, who was reading a letter to them.

The reader was short-sighted, and as he spelt out the letter he put his face so near it as to quite cover his features.

"What the deuce is all this about?" thought Mr. Kordé to himself as he peeped through the crevices of the dog's dwelling-place, "what is my colleague, the myoptic schoolmaster doing here, and why is he burying his nose in that bit of paper?"

"I hasten to inform you," so read the man in the cassock, "that the hostile armies are already on the confines of the kingdom. What the object of the enemy is you know right well. He is coming to ravage the realm, wipe out the landed gentry, and divide their estates among the peasantry. What then shall we do? Our peasants are wrath with us for we have treated them very badly, and you, sir, in particular, have no cause to trust them. When you had your house built, as you well remember, you made your serfs work three weeks running for nothing. When you were a young man you ruined the domestic happiness of many a married peasant; you appropriated the communal lands to your own uses; you never bestowed a thought upon the parish church; once you gave the priest a good cudgelling; you kept a poor fellow in jail for four or five years and beat and shamefully treated him. When a poor man wanted to build him a house, you never gave him clay to make bricks with, nor rushes for the thatching of his roof. When lots of planks were rotting away in a corner of your courtyard, and two poor young fellows stole just enough of them to make a coffin for their father, you tied the pair of them up tight in the burning sun and beat their naked bodies with thorny sticks; one of them died a week afterwards of sun-stroke. On one occasion you injured the thigh of a neat-herd on your estate and he is a cripple to this day. When your sheep died of the murrain you hung up their hides to dry--in the schoolhouse. If all these things should now recur to the minds of your tenants, you will have, I fancy, rather a bad time of it. But the rest of us are in the same boat. We never gave a thought to the education of our people. They grew up, they grew old, and all they have ever learnt to know of life is its wretchedness; not one of them therefore has any reason to love us now. What can we do if it comes to an open collision with them? Five hundred thousand gentry against twenty times as many peasants! Why not one of our heads would remain for long in the place where God placed it. We must defend ourselves with the weapons of desperation. It is too late now to try and entice the common folk over to our side, as some of our set want to do who are now distributing no end of wine and corn among their underlings, building sick-houses for them, and putting the priests up to preaching sobriety to them, and the fear of God and due respect for the squire and his family. It is too late now for all that I say. We should only raise suspicions. We must summon Death to our assistance. In order to keep the people down by terror, therefore, we have resolved, in a secret conference, to establish cordons in the various counties and send patrols of soldiers in every direction to search and examine everybody passing to and fro. In this way we shall prevent the people from going from one village to another in large bodies, in fact we must keep them down in every possible way. I, therefore, send you by the bearer of this letter, on whom I can thoroughly rely, a box of powder which you are to scatter about in the barns, the fields, the pastures where the cattle feed, and especially in the wells from which the herdsmen draw water. The county authorities will take care that where this simple method does not do its work, the parish doctor shall compel the peasants to take this powder by force. At the same time we mean to make a great fuss, and spread the rumour that the plague is spreading from the neighbouring states, and will be mortal to many. You, meanwhile, will enclose a large plot of land on your estates, and make a churchyard of it. You may safely make the peasants a present thereof, as it will be mostly filled by them. Take out, by the way, the tongues of all the church-bells, that the number of the dead may not cause any commotion. You might also have prayers said in the church to avert the calamity, and at the same time scatter the powder broadcast. A separate cemetery must be dug lest the plague spread among the gentry. In this way we shall kill two birds with one stone: in the first place the peasantry will be sensibly diminished, and, taking the whole thing as a Divine visitation, will not have the spirit to rise up; and in the second place, the enemy hearing that the plague has broken out among us will fear to pitch his camp here lest it fare with him as it fared with King Sennacherib, who lost his whole army in a single night, as the Bible testifies.

"Believe me, my dear brother-in-law,
"Always affectionately yours,
"AMBROSE LIGETI."

"The letter is addressed to the noble Benjamin Hétfalusy."

"Horrible, horrible!" cried two or three of the men, while the rest remained speechless with amazement.

"Softly, my friends!" said the rector soothingly. "We must do nothing hastily. So much is certain, however: they have designs upon our lives, and would wipe us clean out."

"Not a doubt of it, else why should they be so friendly towards us? Why should they distribute among us such a lot of food? We have never yet asked an alms from our masters, and hitherto they have snatched the food from our very mouths. If they caress us now it is because they fear us."

"Yes, they would destroy us. The other day they gave me a glass of brandy to drink at the tavern. I saw at once that it was not the usual sort of stuff, and, to make certain, I dipped a bit of bread in it and threw it to a dog, and he would not eat it."

"And why do the parsons preach so much about the scourge of God, the pestilence? Why we have never had a better promise of harvest than now. How do they know when Death will come? Only God can know beforehand whom He will destroy and whom He will keep alive."

"Suspend your judgments, my good friends," resumed the rector, with an affectation of benevolence, "you can see that the hand of God is over us all. He can work great wonders, and it is not impossible that these wonders will come. You can perceive from the signs of Heaven that great changes are about to come on the earth. On Good Friday a bloody rain fell near the hill of Mádi; not long ago a flaming sword was visible in the sky three nights running; everywhere about curious big fungi have shot up from the ground, which turn red or green immediately they are broken. Earth and sky seem to feel that the hand of God is about to press heavily upon us."

("Deuce take this instructor of the people for befooling them so!" thought Mr. Kordé in his dog-kennel.)

"Did you notice, my brothers, how the rats roamed all about the roads in broad daylight a fortnight ago, how they scuttled away from our landlords' granaries, and set out for another village, and how they stiffened and died in heaps on the way?"

"There you are!" shouted one wiseacre, "the corn in the granary was poisoned!"

("Plague take thee, thou clodpole!" growled the cantor in his hiding-place; "it was the rats that were poisoned, not the corn.")

"And we borrowed of that very corn a fortnight ago to last us till harvest time."

"Then now we'll pay them back with interest!" bellowed one of the rustics, fiercely flourishing a pitchfork.

("I'll swear that's one of my pupils, he is so pugnacious," thought the cantor to himself.)

"And I have already eaten bread made of that very corn, God help me!" cried another; "it is as blue as a toadstool when you break it in two."

("Lout! Tares and other rubbish were mixed up with it, and that made it look blue!")

"And after I had eaten it I felt like to bursting."

("Naturally, for your wife did not bake it sufficiently, and you stuffed it into your greedy jaws while it was still hot.")

"Yes, not a doubt of it, we have all been poisoned, we have eaten of Death."

"My friends, allow me to put in a word," said the benign rector. "You know that I have always desired your welfare; but look now! this mortal danger has appeared in other districts also, possibly it may be a Divine visitation. There are villages in which two or three deaths have occurred in every house, there are other places in which whole families down to the very last poor member thereof have followed one another to the grave. I know of a man who a short time ago had nine sons, now he has nine corpses with him in the house."

"The gentry have killed them also I'll be bound."

"It is so! What would God want with so many dead men?"

"Have patience for a moment, my friends. I don't want to defend the gentry, but I would not condemn anyone unjustly. If there be any truth in this fearful accusation, it will see the light of day sooner or later, and then the arm of God will not be straitened."

"Thanks for nothing, by that time the whole lot of us will be under the sod."

"Produce the fellow who brought this letter!"

Two stalwart rustics thereupon brought forward upon their shoulders a young fellow, bound and pinioned like a trapped wolf, and put him down in the midst of the mob.

"This is the bird who was carrying about the message of death!" cried the rebels, surrounding the poor wretch. And then one pulled his hair, and another tugged at his ears, and a third tweaked his nose, and everyone of them was delighted to have found a fresh object on which to wreak their furious cruelty.

And all the time the fellow ground his teeth together and said nothing.

It was poor Mekipiros. It was his mauled and bruised shape, his half-bestial face that they were torturing and tormenting. There is no sight more terrible than that of a tortured beast that cannot speak.

One of those who had brought him thither was the headsman's apprentice.

This fellow whispered some words in the ear of the rector, and then placed himself behind the back of the fettered monster. His face assumed an expression of cold pitilessness, he bit his lips as if he wanted blood, and screwed up his eyes.

"Harken now, my dear son!" said the rector in a gentle voice; "don't fancy we want to do you any harm, for of course how can you help what is written in this letter; but if you want to escape scot free, answer truly and without compulsion to the questions that I am about to put to you."

The headsman's 'prentice with twitching features gazed fixedly at the interrogated wretch.

"Who gave you this letter?" asked the rector.

Mekipiros sat there tied with cords so as to be almost bent double with his head between his knees, and did not seem to be aware that he was spoken to.

"Do you hear?" whispered the headsman's apprentice hoarsely, at the same time giving him a vicious pinch.

The monster set up a howl, which lasted only for an instant, then he was silent again, and his face did not change.

"Is it not true now, my dear son, that a gentleman gave you this letter?" asked the rector, giving the question another turn.

Mekipiros made no reply.

"I'll make you speak!" yelled his chief persecutor with gnashing teeth, and seizing his head between his muscular fists he shook it violently backwards and forwards. "I'll bring you to reason!"

The monster kept on howling so long as his hair was being tugged; his eyes vanished completely, his head seemed to have grown broader than it was long; but when they let his head go again he only grinned derisively and said nothing.

"My son, bethink you that we do not want to do you any harm if you confess everything, but, on the other hand, we shall have to chastise you unmercifully, as you well deserve, if you stubbornly remain silent--who gave you this letter?"

"Speak, you wretched dog! What were you told to say? Who gave you this letter?" hissed the headsman's apprentice in his ear.

"You gave it to me!" cried the wretch defiantly.

"Scoundrel!" thundered the other furiously, at the same time giving the prisoner a kick; "so you want to palm it off upon me, eh? Hie, there!--a rope!" The fellow's face was as white as the wall, perhaps with fear, perhaps with anger. The rector also grew pale for a moment.

"Yes, you put it into my hand and told me that I was to----"

"Hold your tongue, you wretched creature! Here we have a peasant cub just as ragged as anyone of us, and yet he takes it upon himself to ruin his own kith and kin; I caught him in the act of sprinkling a white powder in a well, and the water of that well is still bubbling and boiling from the virulence of the poison, and yet, as you see, he has the face to deny it all."

"It was you who put the powder in my pocket."

"Very good, I suppose you'll say next that I put this purse of gold in your pocket also? You are surprised, eh? You had better say you got it from me, we shall all believe you, of course. Naturally I have sacks and sacks of gold under my bed. The executioner pays his 'prentices with gold, of course, of course."

"You accursed villain!" cried an old peasant, "let him have the rope! String him up and let him swing!"

"No, my friends, we must not kill him, we have need of him, he must live because he knows so much."

"Then let him out with it."

"Oh, he will talk presently," said the headsman's 'prentice, and folding his arms he stood right in front of the defenceless wretch. "My lad," said he, "you know, don't you, that I have been the headsman's assistant these six years? You know, don't you, that I am accustomed to torture and kill man and beast in cold blood? You know the sort of smile with which I am wont to reply to the agonised despair of my victim, and the memory of it ought to make your brain freeze in your skull. Very well! Let me tell you that I am prepared to practice upon you all the refinements of my infernal handiwork if you do not say all I want you to?"

"I know nothing."

"Nothing?"

"I have forgotten all you taught me."

"You lying serpent! Do you mean to say, then, that I taught you anything? You can see, all of you, that this ripe gallows-tree blossom is determined at any cost to saddle me with his sins. I'll refreshen your memory for you," murmured the headsman's assistant, grinding his teeth. "Carry him over yonder under that plank. You must put out the lamp, for perchance anyone who caught sight of his face might feel sorry for him. Lay him on that block. Where is the rope? A bucket of water here in case he faints..."

From that moment the cantor saw nothing for the darkness, but all the more horrible, therefore, were the pictures which his imagination painted for him as it laid hold of the fragments of words and sounds which reached him at intervals from the outhouse.

The cold-blooded murmuring of the headsman's assistant.

The inquisitorial procedure of the rector.

The frantic cursing of the bystanders.

And from time to time a despairing howl uttered by the tortured monster, a howl which set the terrified dog a-barking, and made him scratch up the ground beneath the gate in order to make his escape.

The cantor began to shiver as with ague.

"The horrible beast won't confess," he heard a couple of furious voices say quite close to him.

"Don't howl like that, but answer my questions," hissed the rector, evidently losing patience.

"The wretched creature tires me out," grunted the executioner. "He bites his lips and smiles right in my face when his very bones are cracking."

"Speak the truth, and you shall be free. We will let you go."

"He's still laughing at me."

Then for some time could be heard a great bustle and clatter in the shed out yonder. There were sounds of hasty, yet cold-blooded preparations for completing something which ought to have been finished long before. There was a sound of running to and fro, of panting and puffing and straining.

And all this time the monster kept on laughing defiantly, though now and then he set up an unearthly howl, and then the whole assembly cursed him for an obstinate gallows-bird.

"Red-hot irons here!" yelled at last a voice of malignant fury, and immediately three of the boors set off running towards the stable. A few minutes later the cantor saw them hastening back to the shed, carrying flaming red objects, which scattered a long trail of sparks behind them.

"Will you confess?" sounded from within.

The monster yelled in the most ghastly manner, and then could be heard a savage gurgling sound For a few seconds the people inside the shed were silent, and then they could be heard whispering to each other with mingled surprise and amazement: "If the cub has not bitten his own tongue out!"

The cantor took advantage of the general consternation to crawl forth from his hiding-place in the darkness, slipped out through the hole scratched by the dog beneath the gate, and then set off running like one who runs down a steep mountain-side; he ran with his eyes fast closed, and early next morning he was found huddled up on the threshold of his own house in a state of collapse.

When he came to himself he sent for some worthy men of his acquaintance whom he could trust, and told them privately what he had seen, frequently hiding his face during his narration, as if to shut out the spectacle of the monster's bloody face.

But his acquaintances, after listening to his tale, only shook their heads, and remarked to one another, what a horrible thing it is when a man is so fond of wine that it takes more than three days to make him get sober again.

It occurred to nobody that there might be some truth in the matter after all. It was not the first time that Mr. Kordé had had visions of copper-nosed owls and other horrors.

"As if a man could believe everything that Mr. Kordé said!" _

Read next: Chapter 7. A Man Of Iron

Read previous: Chapter 5. The Unbeloved Son

Table of content of Day of Wrath


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book