The real brigand, known by the name of betyár, is, so to speak, born to the business and takes to it from sheer liking. He is a constant marauder, a thief on a large scale, prepared to break into great houses, to invade the castles and residences of noble proprietors and extort considerable sums. He is described by one author in graphic terms: “His enormous hat, his black hair falling in long curls upon his square shoulders; his thick eyebrows, his large ferocious looking eyes, his face burned by the sun, his massive chest seen through his tattered shirt, all combine to give him a wild and terrifying look. He carries a whole arsenal with him—a gun, pistols, a hatchet and a loaded stick, though he very rarely commits murder. He wages war also with the gendarmerie. A horse that he covets he is not long in appropriating. As cunning as an Indian, he gets into the pasture at night and carries off, without making the slightest noise and with an incredible dexterity, the horse or the sheep that he is in want of. Should it be a pig that he has set his eyes on, he entices it to the edge of the forest by throwing down ears of maize to tempt it, and then suddenly knocks it on the head with a blow of his club.”
The betyars, armed to the teeth, ranged the country with the utmost effrontery, daring riders mounted on good horses, accustomed to the saddle from their earliest youth. They did not hesitate to attack houses even in the largest villages, ransacking the places and carrying off horses and spoil of all kinds. In 1861 a party encamped near a town where great fairs were held, and levied contributions on all who approached, stopping sixty carts in succession and appropriating a sum of 15,000 florins in all. Eight of them once surrounded a house in Transylvania, but were foiled in trying to break in the door, so attempted the windows, where they were met by the proprietor who opened fire on them. The brigands began a regular siege, which ended in a parley. It appeared that hunger was the motive of the attack, and the assailants withdrew when supplied with food and drink.
A country gentleman was driving home in the dead of night, when his horses became frightened and were pursued by wolves. Ammunition was soon expended and escape seemed hopeless when a large party of mounted men came to the rescue and drove off the ravenous brutes. The grateful traveller, mistaking them for local police, thanked them warmly for their timely help. “Man is bound to assist his fellow man,” was the quiet reply, “but we want something more than thanks. We are not pandours but gentlemen of the plain in search of horses and any money we can pick up. You have not recognised us, but we know you and cannot allow you to run the risk of going home with wolves prowling round. You must be our guest for a time.” They took him to a neighbouring farm, gave him supper and a bed and made him write a letter to his wife saying he was detained by highwaymen who would not part with him until she had paid over ten thousand florins as his ransom. The money was duly handed over and the gentleman released. But he was not content to submit.
Upon reaching home he raised a hue and cry against the betyars, and they were unceasingly pursued and driven from that part of the country, to which they did not dare to return for a long time. Fifteen years later, they swooped down upon the proprietor whom they thought had betrayed them, and burned his residence and his well-filled granaries to the ground. In explanation, the following letter reached him: “We betyars never forget or forgive. We owe our expulsion from this district to you, and we swore to take our revenge when we were next in your neighbourhood. That vow was fulfilled last night! Let this be a lesson to you never again to break a solemn promise given to a betyar.”
The brigands often descended upon their victims with dramatic suddenness. Their information was always accurate and excellent. Tucker in his “Life and Society in Eastern Europe,” describes the startling appearance of a much-dreaded betyar at a historic castle in Transylvania.
“The noble count was at table with his guests, doing justice to a sumptuous supper, when the doors were thrown open and gave admission to a tall, dark, handsome, fiery-eyed man, who advanced with a profound obeisance and said, ‘I do myself the honour of paying my respects to your excellencies,’ upon which he approached the countess with martial step and clanking spurs and raised her trembling fingers to his lips. No thunderbolt from heaven, no special apparition from beyond the grave, could have terrified, stupefied, stunned the convivial assemblage more effectually than the sudden entrance of this stranger.
“His appearance was indeed striking,—in person tall and majestic, of fierce look, defiant and resolute, despite his fascinating smile. His brow was exceedingly swarthy, his eyes large and luminous, whilst his huge jet-black moustache, trimmed in true Magyar fashion, added even more ferocity to this undaunted robber of the plain. His attire was picturesque, fantastic, gaudy, unique. In his small, round black Magyar hat was stuck a long white feather. His tightly fitting vest was of crimson satin, on which there flashed and glittered two long rows of large and handsome buttons. The sleeves of his shirt were extremely wide and open, falling in ample folds and disclosing his brawny and sinewy arms.... His legs were incased in highly polished boots reaching to the knees, while a pair of glittering silver spurs adorned his heels. Encircling his waist in many folds was a crimson scarf, terminating in broad, loosely hanging ends. Within the folds were stuck three daggers, the hilts and shields elaborately studded with costly gems and pearls, and two handsomely mounted horse-pistols lay half-concealed beside them. A kulacs or flat wooden flask, gaily painted in floral designs, hung at his side, suspended from his shoulder by a leather strap. In his left hand he held the pkosch,—a stout stick headed by a small instrument of solid steel, representing on one side a hatchet and on the other a hammer.”
The count put the best face he could on the matter, asked how many betyars there were, and gave entertainment for the men and horses, some forty in all. The supper was relinquished, so that a new meal might be set before the uninvited guests, and those present were dismissed with a plain warning that no one was to go in search of aid. The forty betyars then came in to devour the feast with keen relish, after their long night’s ride. Healths were drunk in copious drafts, cigars produced and the chief proceeded to serious business. He reminded his host that the maize harvest which had just been gathered had been bountiful, and a substantial sum had been paid in by the Jews for the purchase of the crops. Forty-seven thousand florins were in the safe, but this money was pledged to pay off a pressing mortgage and ought not to be disturbed, the betyar chief generously admitted; but there was a further sum nearly as large which the robbers declined to forego. To have seized the mortgage money would have led to the betrayal of the fact and an active pursuit would have been organised by the police, feeble though it was, which might have led to an encounter and blood-shed. But there was no lien upon the rest of the money, so the robbers might safely take possession of it.
There was no thought of resistance. The betyars might have been outnumbered but they were well armed, while the residents and servants in the castle had few, if any, weapons, and a conflict started would have ended only in butchery, with the burning down of the house and outbuildings, together with all they contained in corn, cattle and machinery. It was better to stand the first loss,—no more than many a Magyar magnate would waste at the gambling table in a single night.
Maurice Jokai, the Hungarian novelist, tells a story, founded on fact, of an adventure of a great lady with the brigands, in which she came to no harm through her calm self-possession and courage. She was on her way to a ball at Arad and, as she was obliged to travel through a dense forest, she halted over night at an inn which was really a den of robbers. There happened to be a great gathering of them there dancing. Undaunted, she entered the ball-room,—a long room, filled with smoke, where some fifty rough brigands were leaping about and singing at the top of their voices. They stopped the dance and stared open-mouthed at the audacious lady who dared to interrupt their revels. They were all big, fierce looking men, and armed, but the beautiful countess cowed them and imposed respect. One, the leader of the band, approached, bowing low, and asked whom she was. He gallantly invited her to dance the czarda or national step, which she did as gaily and prettily as on the parquet floor of the casino at Arad.