Part 77 (1/2)

”Take him up!” cried she. ”Why don't you take him to the village?

There's life, and hope, and help! Come along, some of you, and carry him to my house!”

”Leave me alone, coz!” said Viola, drawing his breath with great difficulty; ”leave me alone! Nothing can do me good. It's over with me, and it serves me right. There's blood on my hands, and I pay for it with my own blood. Heaven is just, coz! But since die I must, let me die here in the free air of heaven, and in the warm rays of the sun.”

His voice grew fainter and fainter.

He moved his hand.

The Liptaka, obedient to his wish, knelt down by his side.

”Go to Susi, coz!” said he; ”tell her I implore her pardon for having deceived her when I left my home. Tell her I could not help it. I could not abandon my benefactor in his distress; and if I had told her what I was going to do----”

The words died on his pale lips. Once more did he open his eyes on the clear blue sky, on the distant village, and the people around him. He closed them again. A strange smile pa.s.sed over his face, and with his last breath he whispered,--

”_Susi!_”

”May G.o.d have mercy on every sinner!” said the old peasant. ”He has much to answer for!”

”His sufferings were great!” said Vandory. ”May the earth be light to him, after the struggles of this life!”

CONCLUSION.

It is scarcely necessary to detail the results of Viola's last confession. Tengelyi's liberation and the alliance of his house with the Retys, and of the Retys with the Kishlakis, by means of Kalman and Etelka, were its first fruits. The happy consummation of the wishes of the young people, and the heartfelt contentment which expressed itself in the faces of all around him, sufficed to rouse Mr. Rety from the gloomy lethargy into which the events detailed in this history, and especially the death of his wife, had sunk him. He did not, indeed, feel at ease in his official position, which he resigned, under the pretence of ill health; nor at Tissaret, for the place reminded him of many things which he wished to forget; but he sought and found all his heart longed for in his dignified retirement at Dustbury. He was respected by all factions, for he never opposed any, and he was the favourite of the ruling party, whatever it might be, for his political opinions were always exactly those of the majority. Some people believed that he intended to remove to Pesth. They were mistaken. Rety was the first man in Dustbury: he did not care to follow, since he might lead. Besides, he became, in course of time, sincerely attached to old Kishlaki, who disliked Pesth, and who preferred Dustbury, his pipe, and the frequency of his intercourse with his son, Kalman, and his daughter-in-law, Etelka, to all the capitals of Europe. It need hardly be said, that Mr.

Kishlaki was not any longer, nor did he ever intend to act again as, president of a court-martial.

The notary was moody and depressed for many months. Misfortunes are apt to spoil the most facile temper, and Mr. Tengelyi's temper was _not_ facile. His wife's entreaties could never induce him to inhabit the Castle of Tissaret, and to join the family circle of Akosh and Vilma Rety. But the happiness which surrounded him, the beneficial influence which he, the father-in-law of the lord of the manor, exercised over the condition of the inhabitants of Tissaret, and the conversation of his friends, Volgyeshy and Vandory, conquered his habitual ill-humour, and made him, in course of time, an agreeable and even indulgent member of the circle in which he moved.

As for Mr. Paul Skinner, his fate was simple in the extreme. An unfortunate mistake which he committed, by compelling the peasants of Garatsh to repair his house instead of the roads, caused the High Court to deprive him of his office, and, with it, of all the means he possessed to attract attention or merit public reproof. If he is still a tyrant--for nothing is known of his present doings--he must confine his oppression to his family circle, where it is but too likely that he will at length meet with opposition.

Susi was anxiously waiting for her husband's return when the news of his death reached her. It came upon her like lightning: she fell, and lay in a death-like swoon. When she returned to consciousness, she arose and went to the graves of her children, which were for the first time covered with the fresh verdure of spring. She knelt down and took her leave of all that remained of her loved ones; and, having done this, she consented to accompany the Mother Liptaka to Tissaret. She asked, as a favour, that she might be allowed to live in the house which she and her husband formerly inhabited. Akosh Rety had the house repaired, and everything arranged as it was when Viola was an honest and thriving peasant. It was there Susi lived, lonely and solitary, speaking to no one, and never leaving her room except by night. After sunset she would go to the Turk's Hill, where she remained till morning dawned on the far plain.

Some months pa.s.sed in this manner. Akosh and Vilma (now his loving wife) were walking on a fine evening in June to the Turk's Hill, when they were startled by a female voice, singing the words of the psalm:--

”Oh that to me the wings were given, Which bear the turtle to her nest!

That I might cleave the vaults of heaven, And flee away, and be at rest!”

Vilma knew the singer.

Early next morning, when the peasants went to their work in the fields, they found a woman lying on her face, close to the Turk's Hill, on the spot where Viola had breathed his last.

They tried to wake her, but they could not. Susi slept, never to wake again!

My work is done; and nothing now remains but to say adieu to my readers.

But before I close this book, let me turn to the boundless plain of my country, and to the scene of the joys and sorrows of my youth, to the banks of the yellow Theiss! There is a beauty in the mountains; there is a charm in the broad waters of the Danube: but to me there is a rapture in the thought of the pride of Hungary,--her _green plain_! It extends, boundless as the ocean; it has nothing to fetter our view but the deep blue canopy of Heaven. No brown chain of mountains surrounds it; no ice-covered peaks are gilded by the rays of the rising sun!