Miklós Bánffy - They Were Found Wanting

Young Margit saw this and felt sorry for her, so she got down from the American chariot and went over to greet her. This was partly because Margit was by nature good-hearted and partly, perhaps, because she had remembered that Dodo owned some property near Tohat, where Margit and Adam would soon be living, and, if they were good friends, then maybe she and Adam could lease it from Dodo on favourable terms.

All at once everyone’s attention was drawn to a commotion from two different directions. From the Tarcsa road Joska Kendy arrived at speed, driving his familiar long farm wagon behind four raging dapple-grey horses. Cracking his whip like a circus-trainer he drove like a storm into what until then had been a peaceful gathering of horses and carriages, many of which had now to move swiftly out of his way. With a shrill whistle Joska’s war chariot stopped beside Ambrus’s little encampment, the greys rigid as if carved from stone. Once again Joska cracked his whip, this time just over the horses’ heads, but they did not move knowing that this was just Joska’s way and was no signal for them.

Pipe in mouth, Joska spoke up. ‘Well, I see you’ve got a tavern! Is no one going to offer me a drink?’ And he looked around him with a sharp all-seeing glance from his small slanting eyes. This glance was directed, not at the girls in the carriages, but at all the horses gathered there at the meet. Joska was only happy when buying or selling a horse and he wanted to see at once what horses were present on which he might do a profitable deal. He had come alone to the meet, accompanied only by a single groom who now jumped down from the folding seat at the back and went up to hold the heads of his master’s greys.

Simultaneously, and of even more stormy appearance, there pranced forward ten whinnying stallions on the road from the Hubertus House to the north. As if on parade they came, side by side, right across the full width of the road, ridden by ten young infantry officers from the garrison at Szamos-Ujvar, who were no doubt anxious to show what good horsemen they were and so rode to the meet in strict military order. Their steeds were servicing stallions from one of the state stud-farms and every year some thirty of them were lent to the hunt so as to try them out in the field. As a rule only three or four of them came out at once and then just for the whips or some specially chosen hunt member. Then, even if full of go from their diet of oats, they could be placed in front or kept to the sides of the field. But today, ridden straight into the centre of a group of desirable mares, they caused no end of a furore, rearing and screaming and kicking out at each other and any other animal that came near and generally making it quite clear to everyone that they were all too ready and willing to get on with their principal function.

This was far more serious than Joska’s four-in-hand, since for him it was only necessary to give way while from the new arrivals one had to get clear without delay. Even so there were some mares who seemed rather too interested, while the stallions could not abide the geldings.

The newcomers did their best to jump about in every direction but their riders remained unperturbed. The band of young officers stayed close together making a perfect circle round the meadow; and, no matter how restive their mounts, carried themselves as uniformly upright as Army Regulations required. The dust had hardly settled and peace been restored after their arrival when the hounds arrived.

They were led in by the Master, old Bela Wesselenyi, who himself had founded the Hunt and who after so many years remained its guiding spirit. He was riding a magnificent thoroughbred, tall, glossy and well-groomed, and his short stirrup leathers made him seem even shorter than he was in reality. His forty-year-old red coat, cut in the short style of the sixties, had faded from scarlet to pink and his face too shone red under the black velvet hunting cap. His snow-white moustaches and square-cut Franz-Josef beard gleamed white in the sunshine. All around the Master milled the hounds. Long-eared and spotted, they kept closely together, pressing up against his horse’s legs and sometimes looking up as if to make sure their master was still there. A hound on its own so often seems lost since for countless generations they had been accustomed to live always in a pack and always under human guidance. Hounds are never therefore alone and should one lose its way it can be for ever, so frightened and forlorn do they become when bereft of their master and companions. It is only when actually in full cry in the hunting field that such dogs lose their timidity and dependence.

Close behind the hounds rode Istvan Tisza, the second Master, dressed in a dark green, almost black coat which suited his swarthy complexion.

He had bred his own horse which, though it was over sixteen hands, seemed smaller, for Tisza, unlike the Master, rode with long stirrups in the old style of the Spanish Riding School. And his seat never altered, whether on the flat or clearing the highest fences. Always he sat completely upright and never lost his calm.

A little further back rode the two Whips, Gazsi Kadacsay and the younger Aron Kozma, a grandson of the Kozma who had once been agent to the Abadys at Denestornya. Later he had made a fortune on his own account and this had been increased by his sons who were as intelligent and industrious as himself. They worked in perfect harmony and followed a policy of acquiring land from the former aristocratic owners who, through their own fecklessness, arrogance and disdain for the sources of their worldly position, had fallen on bad times. The Kozma brothers then re-divided the land, rationalized its use and brought it back into useful and profitable production. The third generation were equally industrious and sensible and because they, unlike their fathers, had been brought up with money under their belts, felt themselves free to indulge their inclinations by being active in local affairs and taking part in those sports hitherto only open to the gentry. This younger Aron had been recruited by Balint to help in his co-operative schemes and was now his right-hand man in the Mezoseg district. He planned now to hunt the first of the four days at Zsuk, return to his place some eighty kilometres away to look after urgent business, and drive back on the evening of the third day so as to be in the saddle again for the last meet of the season. He was a slim young man with the Tartar features more common in the Crimea.

Baron Gazsi was riding a thoroughbred mare of impeccable breeding, still in racing condition without an ounce of fat on her. He had bought her two months before straight from the racecourse; and he had bought her cheap as she by no means deserved the gentle name of ‘Honeydew’. The mare was so nervous and bad-tempered that in spite of her good points and marvellous turn of speed the trainers had found it impossible to get the best out of her. There were times when she would suddenly stop and throw her rider, or when she would start bucking as in a Wild West show, keeping it up until she had succeeded in getting rid of her jockey. She would even throw herself backwards and had already killed one and crippled two others.

Gazsi had been fascinated with the challenge she presented and was now applying all the psychological horse-sense he knew in an attempt to break her in properly. Today he sat in the saddle as gently as if it were a basket of eggs.

Gazsi’s own contact with her mouth was so light that one might almost say that he was not using the bit at all but guiding her by balance alone. The effect was immediate: after throwing her new master twice, she had settled down and slowly allowed herself to be tamed. Kadacsay was extremely pleased with himself and it was not long before he went so far as to take her out with the hounds. Somehow Honeydew had been made to understand that the whip was for the hounds, not her, and though she still sometimes gave a little buck in protest Gazsi merely stood up in his stirrups, as if in courteous salutation, thereby making it even easier for her to buck as much as she wished. And very soon she gave it up altogether, no doubt thinking it hardly worthwhile if her rider did not resist. Nevertheless she never lost the habit of folding her ears back close to her head and woe betide any other mount who came within kicking distance — for then she struck out like lightning.