In sorrow the guests attended the corpse of their best friend back to Csakathurm. Only the bald head took another direction.

"That is just what I said," he muttered to himself, "one needs his life for something more. Well, what matters it? there are still people elsewhere; I'll go to the next country."

So died Nicholas Zrinyi, the younger, the greatest writer and the bravest fighter of his fatherland. So died the man, who had been the favorite of fortune, the darling of his country, its protection and its glory. In vain would you look now for the hunting-lodge or the castle;—all is gone—the name, the family of the hero, even his memory. The general and the statesman have fallen into oblivion; one part only of the man is left, one part only lives forever,—the writer.

CHAPTER II
THE HOUSE IN EBESFALVA

We now move forward one country;—one country forward, and four years backward. We are in Transylvania in the year 1662. Before us is a dwelling, plain but of the nobility, at the lower end of Ebesfalva, almost the last house in the place. The building was planned more for convenience than for fancy; on both sides are stables for horses and for sheep, built partly of stone, partly of plaster and partly of wood; sheds for wagons, poultry-yards, open barns, high-gabled sheep pens covered with straw; in the rear is a fruit garden where one catches sight of the arched top of a beehive, and finally, in the middle of the courtyard stands the whitewashed dwelling of one wing, with shady nut-trees under which is a round table improvised out of a mill-stone. A stone wall separates the court of the dwelling from the threshing floor, where are to be seen piles of hay and great heaps of grain, from the top of which a peacock utters his disagreeable cries. It is evening; the men have returned from the fields; the oxen are loosed from their heavy wagons loaded with corn; the sheep come with tinkling bells from the meadow; the grunting swine hurry through the open gate each to his own trough; the cocks quarrel together on the nut-trees where they went to roost at sunset; in the distance is heard the sound of the evening bell; and from still farther away comes the sound of the village maidens going to the fountain. The men look after the cattle, one brings a great bundle of fresh-mown grass, and another carries in a large pail of fresh milk, fragrant and foaming. From the kitchen comes the gleam of a blazing fire, over which a maiden with round red cheeks is holding a great pan that gives out the fragrance of food, soon to be placed on the heavy green earthenware. The farm hands sit round the mill-stone table, eating heartily, while the patient house-dogs watch them with thoughtful attention. Then the dishes are cleared away and the ears of corn are taken from the wagon and put under cover. The peasant maidens of the neighborhood gather for the husking; the more timid are frightened for their lives by the mischievous lads who hollow out ripe pumpkins, cut eyes and mouth and set a burning light inside to use as a lantern. The more clever of the lads, seated on upturned baskets, weave long garlands of the corn husks; and over their quiet work ring out jolly songs, and fairy tales are told of golden-haired princesses and waifs. Here and there a game is played, not without kisses proclaimed to all the world with loud shrieks. The children make merry if they chance to find a red ear in the corn. And so they sit and sing and tell stories and laugh over trifles until the heaps of corn are all gone. Then come the long farewells; down the length of the street they sing on their way home, partly in joyousness of spirit and partly to keep up their courage. Each one goes to his house, locks the door and puts out the fire; the shepherd-dogs throughout the village answer one another, the moon rises and the night watchman begins to call off the hours in measured rhythm, while the other villagers sleep unmindful of the golden proverbs of his song.

Only in one window of the manor house is there still a light: there only they have not yet gone to rest. The watchers are an old maidservant, grown grey in service, and a younger one. The old woman is reading laboriously something from the Psalter that she already knows by heart from beginning to end. The young maid has sat down to her spindle as if she had not done enough through the long day, and is drawing the long threads of the silken flax, which yesterday she combed and to-day carded.

"Go to bed, Clara," said the old woman kindly, "if I sit up, that is enough. To-morrow you will have to get up early just the same."

"Surely I could not go to sleep before the return of our noble lady," replied the other, continuing her work. "Even though the men are all at home I am afraid while she is not here; but when once the noble lady comes I feel as safe as if castle walls surrounded us."

"You are right, my child, she is worth more than many men, poor soul! For many years all the cares that belong to a man have rested on her shoulders. She has to look out for everything; and as if that were not enough she has leased beside the estate of her sisters, Madame Banfy and Madame Beleky. How many lawsuits she has had to carry on with this and that neighbor or kinsman! but they meet their match in her! She goes herself to the judge and the courts and is so clever that an advocate might learn of her. Once, when my lord Banfy came to play the gallant with her, thinking our gracious lady one of those grass-widows, how quickly she showed him the door; the good man hardly knew which foot to put first and yet he is one of the royal judges. To pay for that he quartered on us the head collector with a mixed crowd of troopers. You were here then, weren't you, when our noble lady had them driven out of the village? How they took to their heels when they saw that our noble lady herself stood there with her gun."

"If they hadn't," boasted the excited maiden, "I would have struck them over the head with my oven-cloth."

"You see, Clara, when a woman is compelled to take care of a house alone for so long a time, to defend herself and her family with her own strength, she comes to feel just like a man. That is why our lady has that determined look, as if she had not been a maiden of high birth."

"But tell me, Aunt Magdalene," said the girl, drawing her stool nearer, "are we really never to see our gracious master again?"

"God only knows," replied the old woman, with a sigh, "when the poor man will be set free. I have a sure presentiment which I have told, but nobody listens to me. When the late Prince George became dissatisfied with his own country and set out to conquer Poland with the best Hungarian nobility, our Master Michael went with him. How hard I tried to keep him back, and so did his noble lady; for they had been married then but a short time; and the good master himself had no wish to go, he had much rather sit in the house and read books or build mills and take care of his trees, but honor bade him go. However, I insisted that he should at least take my son Andy with him; surely God ordained it wisely that he should go with him, otherwise we never should have heard anything more of our gracious master. For when the prince saw the beastly crowd of Tartars drawn up against him in the field he hurried home, while all the nobility were taken prisoners by the heathen Tartars and carried off to Tartary to bitter bondage. My son Andy begged so hard that they finally let him come home, especially as he had a wound that made him