The Strange Story of Rab Raby Part 12

"I'm afraid," he announced to his fellow-councillors, "it won't avail us to dip in the little chest for this. We have a difficult customer to deal with. We must dive into the big one."

They talked the matter over, and determined that if necessary, they would sacrifice half the common wealth, and for this, bleed the treasure itself, to such an end. And Peter Paprika was entrusted to find out a new opportunity for proffering the bribe.

So the next day they sought out Raby, and put the whole thing before him. They hinted broadly enough that you did not muzzle the ox that trod out the corn, and that he who cut up a goose was justified in keeping the best bit for himself, and other like arguments, and finally laid on his table the sum of three thousand ducats.

Even to-day three thousand ducats are not a sum to be despised: in those days, indeed, they represented a respectable fortune. But Raby nearly drubbed the envoy who brought them out of the room. He was righteously indignant, and angrily showed the messenger the door.

"I never saw a man so angry," growled Peter Paprika, "I've heard men often enough refuse money in so many words, but they contrived to pocket the ducats discreetly, directly they have the chance." So they thought it might happen this time. A week elapsed, and people already began to smile knowingly at Raby when they met him in the street, saying to themselves, "He only wants a little bigger net, but he'll be caught in the end."

How greatly was popular opinion disconcerted, when in all the churches the following Sunday, a "command" from the Emperor was read to the effect "that the three thousand ducats which the wors.h.i.+pful town council had given to Mr. Mathias Raby for benevolent purposes, were to be divided among the inhabitants whose homes the preceding year had been destroyed by fire, and that each one would receive seventy-five gulden apiece."

What a procession it was that took its way to Raby's house. The unfortunate victims of the conflagration came with their children and chattels to thank their benefactor and to kiss his hand. The homes of many of them had still to be made good, and the help could not have come at a more seasonable time. But it set the officials against Raby. They could not tell the recipients of this bounty what had really happened.

But the latter guessed immediately that the town council had given Mr.

Raby three thousand ducats, not for any charitable ends, but in order to bribe him, and that he was making over to them these ill-gotten gains.

Well might the poor regard him as their deliverer!

Nevertheless, the councillors began to shake in their shoes. Judge, notary, and old Paprika hastened to the prefect, and announced with anxiety and horror that a dragon had been set on to them, who would not be pacified with the treasure itself.

"Well, we'll just fetch out a bigger one still to satisfy him."

What that greater treasure was, we shall in the course of events now learn.

CHAPTER XIII.

For some days the great circuit had been in full swing in the city. It was a new inst.i.tution, inaugurated by the Emperor Joseph, whereby the lord-lieutenant or his representative, annually had to make a tour through the county to procure information of all kinds, and refer the same to the district commissioner, of whom there were ten in all throughout the country.

The business was easily settled in some counties. But in that of Pesth, which is as large as a German kingdom, the number of official entertainments was so great that it demanded an ostrich's digestion.

These munic.i.p.al officials, like the lord-lieutenant himself, must eat and drink hard three or four days running, while, at the end, the whole burden of the work fell on the subst.i.tute, the eldest and best qualified magistrate. No one answered to this demand better than our old friend, Mr. Laskoy.

When the circuit came to Szent-Endre, it was naturally the turn of the prefect to give an entertainment. To this the imperial court secretary, Mr. Mathias Raby of Raba and Mura, received a formal invitation in due course.

As it was so great an official gathering, he put on his Viennese dress, and arrived at the prefecture by twelve o'clock, the hour appointed.

He was received by a lordly looking lackey, who discreetly gave him to understand that he was somewhat early, that the gentry were still in council, but that till dinner-time, he might, if he would, go into the garden where he would find Mademoiselle, the prefect's niece.

Raby instantly conceived a high opinion of the lady of the house, who, thus immediately preceding a great banquet, could find leisure to walk in the garden. She could not be wholly wrapped up in her housewifery.

But how find a garden he had never seen and seek out a lady who was a complete stranger to him? However, help was nigh. Just as if it had scented him, a black poodle came running down the corridor wagging his tail, as welcoming the guest, and finally took the end of Raby's cane between his teeth and drew him to the door that led into the garden.

Raby, seeing the dog wanted to play with the cane, let him have it, whereupon the cunning little beast seized it in the middle and preceded Raby down the garden path where Fraulein Fruzsinka was to be found. The garden was laid out in the prevalent mode, in a maze composed of trees, among which one had vainly sought for an outlet. There, indeed, Raby had never found the lady on his own account, for she had ensconced herself in the innermost recess and was reading, seated on the mossy bank.

She was no longer the Hungarian amazon who had worn the riding gear we met her in, earlier in this story. She was now the Viennese "elegante,"

whose toilette proclaimed her the lady of fas.h.i.+on, with her walking-stick, her elaborate coiffure, and lace ruffles, all irreproachably correct. Nor were cosmetics and patches wanting that the mode demanded, and she answered Raby's greeting with the prescribed German formula: "Your servant, sir."

The poodle broke the ice, by running up with his cane and laying it at his mistress' feet.

But Fraulein Fruzsinka picked it up gently and gave it back to Raby. She held a richly bound book, Wieland's "Oberon," which she showed to her guest.

Now with ladies who read Wieland you can talk of something else besides ordinary themes. And in the first quarter of an hour of his conversation with her, Mathias Raby discovered that his hostess was a highly cultivated woman who could discuss the French philosophers as an ordinary provincial belle might the latest fas.h.i.+on in head dresses, and speak German fluently.

And her eyes, how marvellous they were!

They came out of the maze pursuing the talk on literature, and bent their steps towards the flower garden. Pa.s.sing the flower-beds, Fraulein Fruzsinka betrayed also her knowledge of that "language of flowers"

which just then was the rage in Vienna. The young lady broke off a twig of evergreen, and gave it to Raby, who well recollected the couplet which set forth its symbolism:

"The evergreen is always green, although it blossoms never, So may the friends.h.i.+p 'twixt a man and woman last for ever."

But there was nothing of the coquette about her; she made no advances whatever.

The sound of the dinner-gong here breaking off their talk, his hostess accompanied Raby back to the house, where the company were impatiently awaiting them. The dinner was already on the table.

The Fraulein presented Raby to the other guests who all greeted him warmly.

The meal threatened to be interminable, as course succeeded course, till at last someone threw out a hint to the effect that a little exercise would be good for the diners, who had a game of skittles awaiting them.

"Skittles," indeed, was as it were the word of dismissal, and the suggestion nearly spoiled the proposal made by another guest that after dinner they should have a song from Fraulein Fruzsinka on the clavichord.

But the skittle players were in the majority though there was a keen opposition.

Finally matters were compromised by settling that they should have their hostess' song first, and then the skittles. At first a few of the guests loitered round the clavichord, at which Fraulein Fruzsinka, with her really sweet voice, was commencing a ditty. But you could not well smoke there, so one by one they stole out into the garden where the skittles were already in full swing.

Meanwhile, Fraulein Fruzsinka remained at the clavichord alone with Mathias Raby, who from his knowledge of music could turn over for her at the right moment.

The singer soon shut the music book, and rose impatiently from the instrument.

"What people these are!" she exclaimed with a little irritated gesture of her hands. "Not a lofty idea, not a n.o.ble aspiration among them, as far as one can judge. And that is our world!"

Raby, who had the instincts of a courtier, sought to excuse his fellow guests.

"Their own official concerns fill their minds entirely."

"Their official concerns indeed! Yes, I should think so! Did you hear the anecdotes with which they regaled each other at table? Quite frankly, with the most shameless cynicism. Yet they were all true. Among such people as ours, ignorance, idleness and greed counter-balance one another. Not one of them knows his business: each neglects his duty. But see if there is anything to be got out of any official function, and everyone is ready to seize it for himself."

Raby held a brief for the accused.

"With us, offices of that kind are ill-paid. The official's salary is scant; he has, too, a house and family to keep up."

Fruzsinka laughed aloud. "There is not a married man among all of them.

They are all a penniless lot who come to pay their court to me. Each of them would marry me, were they not all afraid of me!"

"Afraid of the Fraulein? You must make a strange impression on them."

"Yes, think of it! Can you believe that anyone is frightened at me because I wear a fas.h.i.+onable gown, read novels, am clever at music, but indifferent to kitchen and cellar; thereat the wooer shudders. He says to himself, 'he cannot possibly tolerate that,' and takes himself off forthwith."

"On the contrary, dainty toilettes and culture bespeak wealth, and that alone should be one more spur for the suitors, surely."