Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

Adrienne did not laugh, nor was she angry or even seem surprised. She looked at them both with total seriousness and understanding and then she put up both her hands and pulled down Adam’s head and kissed him on the forehead as a sign that he had her blessing. He had never achieved anything like that during his long courtship of her.

Adam blushed deeply and tried to think of some beautiful and romantic words with which to thank her; but nothing came because just then little Margit squeezed his hand with more force than he could ever have imagined she possessed.

This strong grip, though Adam never knew it either then or afterwards, was to be symbolic of their future together.

The next day the news was all over town. Old Rattle was summoned by telegram. He was delighted by his new role as Father of the Bride, embracing everyone he met, even total strangers, and shouting, every five minutes, despite floods of tears, ‘Oh, my poor wife Judith! Why couldn’t she have lived to know such joy?’ while the tears flowed down his cheeks even when his sorrow had turned to guffaws of delighted laughter.

Count Akos at once started a round of visits, mainly to the houses of old ladies of his acquaintance where such scenes were repeated several times a day, and to the Casino. He would even stop people in the street to laugh and cry and tell them of his great happiness and, of course, of his great sorrow.

THE COUNCIL OF WAR was held in front of Balint’s tent. Balint himself sat on his shooting stick, ‘Honey’ Andras Zutor, the head forest guard, sat on the ground in front of him while Geza Winckler, the young and fully qualified forest superintendent who had been engaged by Balint to replace Nyiresy, sat close by on a tree trunk.

Below them the meadow on the Prislop sloped gently down towards Feherviz — the White Water. With small groups of trees the meadow almost looked like a park consciously laid out by garden experts. To the right of the little group of men were the steep slopes of the Munchel Mare, planted with a mixture of beech and pine trees, while to the left and behind them the forest was formed solely by dense plantations of pine trees. In front the view was closed by the peaks of the Humpleu range, which at this time in the late afternoon, with the sun behind it, was in deep shadow. High above was the crater-shaped rocky summit of the Vurtop whose chalky whiteness gleamed softly behind the inky shadows of the tree-capped mountains in front.

Balint loved this place and had always camped here since he had started coming to the mountains. Recently he had had a shelter for the horses built in the corner of the meadow, together with a long log cabin for the men who came with him. Nearby was a spring of fresh water; Balint’s own tent was always pitched some sixty yards away, a little higher up, partly because he liked to be alone and partly because he felt in some way mentally refreshed by contemplating that wild stretch of mountain and forest. From where he would sit, in front of his tent, Balint was conscious that the stream from the spring in the meadow below ran its course, unseen, through the great valley that was concealed from him by the trees until eventually it flowed into the main stream of the Szamos. Here all was peace and quiet, and the silence, in that landscape of sombre trees and jutting rocks, was that silence only to be found in the mountain forests.

Now it was the end of July, when the grass and the leaves on the trees were at their most lush and at their greenest.

At this moment the three men were listening to a report by a fourth, the forest guard Juanye Vomului, who stood before them at a respectful distance.

The gornyik Juanye was a stocky man, powerfully built and broad in the shoulder. He held his eagle’s beak of a nose high and he stood there proudly as befitted a man who was no tied peasant bound to his master but a freeholder, well-to-do and independent, who served the Abady family of his own free will. Everything in his demeanour and dress drew attention to his pride and importance, and even the broad belt studded with copper nails was as imposing as any on the mountain. His cotton shirt and trousers were clean and new and his huge fur hat was large enough to make a waistcoat. This last he had politely placed on the ground beside him and he stood there bareheaded, his shoulder-length black hair so heavily greased that it was barely ruffled by the strong wind. During the previous year Vomului had taken over responsibility for guarding the parcel of land on the Intreapa where control of the felling needed a man with courage and authority.

The gornyik explained his problem. Two hundred acres had been felled and by the end of spring all the wood had been carted away. In May the land had been replanted, at considerable cost and trouble. By the middle of June the grass had grown but as soon as it had been high enough the men of the nearby village had driven their cattle there to graze, eating the young trees along with the grass. He, Vomului, was powerless to stop the villagers not only because the 200-acre plot marched with the village common lands but also because each time he tried to confront them he was menaced by axes and, when he protested, threatened with being beaten to death. Not only that but alone he could hardly drive off so many animals and hold them hostage. Now the villagers brought in their cattle when they wished and the whole 200-acre parcel was likely to be destroyed.

Vomului spoke well and in a well-mannered fashion. He stood erect, his weight on one leg, the other stretched out in front of him. When he was asked a question he would first change legs to show that he never spoke without prior thought and reflection. And when he wanted to emphasize a point he would spit sideways as if a gob of spittle would be the seal of his honesty.

The council lasted for some considerable time until they unanimously decided what to do. Firstly all sixteen of the Abady forest guards would be mustered and together they would be strong enough to drive away the invading cattle. To achieve this the new superintendent would go down to the little town of Beles, round up the men and, making a wide detour, come through the Gyero-Monostor forests by night and be on the Intreapa by dawn. Balint himself, with four men and Honey Zutor, would start off early, and at daybreak rendezvous with the others on the boundaries of the village lands. In this way the villagers would not be forewarned of their arrival and would have no time to drive their cattle away from its illegal grazing.

By five o’clock the sun, though still high in the sky, had begun to disappear behind the high mountains to the west. The valley in front was in deep shadow, while, to the north, the bare peaks of the Munchel Mare shone golden with the late afternoon light. A light breeze rose from the valley as invigorating as sparkling wine.

Balint took his sporting rifle, though he had no intention of shooting anything, slung his bag over one shoulder and started off into the forest, intent only on watching whatever wild life he might encounter. At first he followed an old cart-track, now carefully seeded with grass since some order had been restored to the Abady forestlands. He did not have far to go before arriving at the hide he had had constructed high in the trunk of a giant fir. The tree stood at the edge of a precipitous drop, below which there was an immense clearing in the form of a semi-circular sea-shell, which reached as far as the slope up to the ridge opposite. Through the clearing ran countless little rivulets of water that united only by some rocks where they combined to form the start of a stream that would eventually find its way into the White Water far below. From Balint’s hide could just be heard the splash of the water as it fell into a cleft beyond the rocks.