The Village Notary: A Romance of Hungarian Life. Eötvös József
with the labour, and consider that, besides a salary of from 100 to 150 florins per annum, a district justice must expect, after three years' impartial administration of his office, to lose it by the instrumentality of some powerful enemy, – whoever, I say, considers all this, must confess that there are in this country either six hundred living saints, or as many hundred thousand suffering citizens.
From what I have stated it is easy to see that there are two drawbacks to the office of a district justice, viz. too much work and too little pay. There are indeed some justices who endeavour to doctor their dignity, by neglecting part of it, viz. the work, – and who of the other part, – that is to say, of the pay, – take more than the law obliges them to take. But the more enlightened, scorning such petty improvements, advocate the principle of out-and-out reform in all that regards the faulty composition of their office. Most wisely do they accept of what the office yields with such profusion, (viz. work,) only when it promises to yield what they lack, viz. pay. Most wisely, I say; for how else could Spectabilis Paul Skinner rear his four sons to be pillars of the state? and how else could he possibly make the respectable figure which suited his office, and on the strength of which, whenever he, as chief dignitary, perambulates the happy meads of the district of Tissaret, he imparts a salutary quaking to the said happy meads? – of course I mean to their humblest part, – to the abandoned population which presumes to solicit a share of the most precious treasure of civil liberty, viz. justice, and for nothing too.
But even those who know nothing of all this cannot fail to feel, in Paul Skinner's presence, that sacred awe which is so necessary for the maintenance of order. His external appearance is calculated to frighten both the innocent and the guilty. Fancy a bony man, bilious, and wrinkled like a baked apple; add to these graces a black beard, a pair of large mustaches, green piercing eyes, which, it appears, are made to wound rather than to see, and the short pipe which sticks to him like any other member of his body, – fancy a tone of voice so shrill, so cutting, that it alone can frighten the whole population of a village, and you will confess that every body in the district (with the sole exception of the rogues) must tremble on beholding Paul Skinner. But never did Justice assume a more terrible shape than when she appeared in the guise of the said Paul Skinner travelling his circuit. Then might be seen the four horses with their postilion, furnishing a living demonstration of the rapid progress of Hungarian justice; behind the postilion, the county hussar with his feathered calpac; and – "post equitem sedet atra cura," – behind the hussar a bundle of sticks, reminding the lovers of antiquity of the old Roman lictors (thus named from their licking propensities); and behind the sticks the judge, always smoking and sometimes cursing, his feet stuck in a huge but empty sack, which, "quia natura horret vacuum," travels with its master that it may be filled. Even the boldest were frightened out of their wits by this gradation of terrors.
It is impossible to conceive the idea of a district justice without a clerk. Nature produces all creatures in pairs; and the Hungarian Constitution, proceeding from natural principles, and acting up to them, produces Justice only by the joint agency of two beings, viz. judge and clerk. After introducing my readers to Mr. Skinner, it is but just that I should recommend Mr. Kenihazy to their notice. That gentleman is at this moment engaged in an interesting conversation with one of the dogs, and in the joy of his heart – for that lucky dog caught the hare! – he has just uttered certain quaint imprecations, which a shepherd was fined at the last sessions for using. Andreas Kenihazy, or Bandi Batshi, as his most intimate friends are in the habit of calling him, is his master's right hand. He is not such a right hand as may sometimes be found among other assistants, who, according to the words of Scripture, unconscious of the doings of the left hand, that is to say, of the justice, do the very reverse of what he did. No! Bandi Batshi is a loyal right hand, co-operating to the welfare of the whole of which it is part. As a good Christian, Kenihazy practised the lesson about the smiting of cheeks. Whenever his superior was insulted (that is, when he was bribed, which is the greatest insult you can offer a judge), Kenihazy would hold out his hand also, nor would he be pacified unless he was exposed to a like indignity. Nevertheless, Kenihazy was not easy to be bribed. To insult him was a difficult and dangerous business; and those who had once witnessed the outpourings of disgust with which the honest man resented so gross an outrage, trembled when they offered their gift to that righteous judge, who, for all that, remained mindful of his oath, and who, to make matters even, showed himself most favourable to those who had tried his temper, unless, indeed, the other party gave still greater offence.
We are sure to meet Kenihazy again, and we will not therefore expatiate on his blue jacket, which once upon a time boasted of a dozen buttons, – or his waistcoat, which owes its present colour to the sun, – or the time-honoured neckcloth, which gave the wearer a hanging look – and much less on his grey pantaloons. We mention his round hat and his boots and spurs merely in order to say that Kenihazy is the very picture of seedy gentility; and, having said thus much, we turn to a certain prejudice, which, though luckily obsolete in life, is generally accepted in theory. The prevailing opinion of the venality of judges is, I protest, utterly groundless. It has no foundation but those feelings of envy, which low people are wont to indulge in with respect to their betters.
Not to mention the fact, that according to our laws – and according to laws of which the boldest innovator dare not say that they are obsolete, inasmuch as their antiquity makes them venerable – our judges are allowed to accept presents: we need only point out the high estimation in which gratitude was held by all nations, both ancient and modern. To be good, a man ought to be grateful; and is it not therefore very wrong to insist upon a judge showing himself insensible to kindness? We are told we ought to do by others as we wish them to act by ourselves. Supposing now A., the judge, to be in the place of him from whom he accepts a present; that is to say, suppose A., the judge, were to plead a cause, about the justice of which he entertained some modest doubts, would not A. be very happy if the learned gentleman who sits on his case were to take a present and pronounce judgment accordingly? – and this being the case, ought not A. to deal with his fellows as he wishes to be dealt with by them?
It is a legal maxim that the judge ought to consider and weigh the proofs which are preferred in the suit. Supposing now the proofs of the claimant and those of the defendant are of equal merit, or nearly so, and supposing the claimant adds a few bank-notes to the legal documents, without the adverse party making a rejoinder to a plea of such universal power; what, in the name of fair dealing, can the judge do, but give judgment for the best pleader?
Returning to the party on the hill, we find Kalman eagerly disputing with Vandory. Their conversation was, of course, of the merits of hare-hunting. Tengelyi and Akosh took no part in it; – the former because he protested that the subject was one about which on consideration there could be but one opinion, while every body would at times act in opposition to that opinion; and Akosh declined to second his friend's argument, because his mind and heart were hunting on another track. He inquired of old Tengelyi how his daughter Vilma was, and his blushing face showed that he thought more of Vilma than of all the hares in the world. Tengelyi gave him but short answers, and even those reluctantly. Paul Skinner and his clerk conversed about the election, and of the means of gaining the public confidence. The names of certain villages occurred frequently in their interesting dialogue; and when Mr. Skinner, brightening up, murmured, "Ten butts, one dollar," Kenihazy was heard to respond with, "That will do to keep us in!" and, giving vent to his satisfaction, the worthy clerk, knocking his spurs together, blew an immense column of smoke from his pipe. In fact, he smoked with such violence, that one might have likened him to a steam-engine, but for the indecency of comparing a vulgar working machine with an Hungarian gentleman.
The party were about to leave, when their attention was suddenly directed to something which was going on in the plain below. Two men on horseback, and one on foot, were seen approaching over the heath; and it was remarked that the individual, whose means of locomotion were so unequally matched with those of his companions, walked in front of the horses, and sometimes even between them. The servants of the party, nay, the very justice, were in doubt as to who or what they were; whether Pandurs or robbers, for at that distance it was quite impossible to make out the difference, which doubtlessly does exist, between brigands and the familiars of the Hungarian Hermandad. On a nearer approach, however, all doubts were removed by the considerate manner in which the cavaliers sought to divert the attention of the pedestrian from the length