An ample supper was brought in; pieces of beef were served in a great cauldron, from which every guest fished out his portion with a pocket-knife, and ate it with bread soaked in the gravy. Wine was served in large wooden bottles. After supper cards were produced and high play for golden ducats followed; then more dancing, and the countess tripped it with the liveliest until morning. She had danced eighteen czardas in all with the principal brigand. Her companions fearfully expected some tragic end to the festivities. When daylight came, the horses were put to the carriage and the guests were suffered to depart with compliments and thanks for their condescension.
The betyars were not equally affable to all. They waged perpetual warfare against Jews and priests, and all who were thought to be unduly rich and prosperous, whom they constantly captured, robbed and maltreated, inventing tortures and delighting in their agonies. The wretched prisoners were beaten unmercifully, were crucified, shod like horses, tied by the feet to a pendent branch of a tree, or buried up to their necks by the road-side. A Jew was once taken when on his way to market with honey. His captors stripped him naked, anointed his whole body with the honey, rolled him in feathers and drove him in front of them to the gates of the nearest town, where the dogs worried him and the people jeered.
Hungary produced many notable brigands, whose names are as celebrated as the German “Schinderhannes,” or “Fra Diavolo,” or “Jose Maria” in southern Spain. One of the most famous of these men was Sobry, who haunted the great forest of Bakony, the chief scene of action for Hungarian brigands. It was a wild district, its vast solitudes sparsely occupied by a primitive people cut off from the civilised world. The men, mostly swine-herds locally called the kanasz, were thick set and of short stature, the women well-formed, with red cheeks and dark eyes. Pigs roamed the forest in droves of a thousand, their herds consorting with the vagabonds and refugees who hid in the woods, and were the spies and sentinels of the brigands, who in return respected the swine. The kanasz, or swine-herds who do business on their own account, are very expert in the use of their favourite weapon, a small hatchet which they carry in the waist-belt and prefer to a gun, and with which they hunt and slay the bear of Transylvania.
The great brigand Sobry was said to be the head of a noble family who had wasted his patrimony in riotous living and disappeared. By and by he returned to his ancestral castle with a fortune mysteriously acquired. Again he ruined himself, and again disappeared, to turn up later with a large sum of money, which he left to his people. Sobry’s exploits filled all Hungary. As became an aristocrat he had most polished manners, and treated his victims with the utmost consideration. Once he made a descent upon a castle in the absence of its rich owner, who had left his wife alone. Sobry hastened to the lady, disclaiming all idea of doing her injury, but begged her to invite him and his companions to dinner, as the table was reputed to be the best in Hungary. Twenty-four covers were laid, and Sobry escorted his hostess to the cellars, where she pointed out the best bins of Imperial Tokay. At dinner the countess presided, with Sobry at her right hand. The brigand proposed many toasts to his hostess, kissed her hand and departed without carrying off even a single spoon.
The following incident is related: A gentleman was driving into town in a superb carriage, on the box of which sat a police pandour. A beggar with a venerable white beard came up asking alms, and was invited to get into the carriage. “I will give you a new suit of clothes from the best tailors,” said the gentleman. Ready-made clothing was chosen and put into the carriage, the old beggar being left in pledge for the goods. The gentleman, who was Sobry, was then driven away, and never returned.
The affair with the archbishop was on a larger scale. His Grace enjoyed princely revenues, and kept up great state. His coffers were always filled to overflowing, and he had immense possessions in flocks and herds. One day a letter was received from Sobry, announcing an early visit and the intention to drive off His Grace’s fattest cattle. The archbishop declined to be intimidated, armed his servants and prepared to give Sobry a hot reception. The fat cattle were to be sold at once to the butchers, and a summons was sent forth inviting them to come and make their bids. One butcher, a well-to-do respectable burgher, insisted upon transacting his business with the prelate in person, and after much parley he was introduced into His Grace’s study. Presently he left the room, telling the servants that he had completed the bargain, but that the archbishop was somewhat fatigued and was lying down on the sofa, having given orders that he was not to be disturbed. So long a time elapsed before His Grace rang his bell that the servants, risking his displeasure, went to him and found him tied, hand and foot, and gagged. The story he told, when released from his bonds, was that his visitor had been Sobry, disguised as a butcher, and that he had suddenly drawn a pistol and pointed it at the prelate’s breast exclaiming, “Utter one cry and I fire! I have come to fetch the 60,000 florins you have in the safe, which will suit my purpose better than your finest cattle.” The archbishop surrendered at discretion and after this His Grace kept the body-guard in close attendance at the palace, and never drove out without an escort of pandours.
Two other brigands of a more truculent character than Sobry were Mylfait and Pap, who never hesitated to commit murder wholesale. On one occasion, Mylfait had reason to believe that a certain miller had given information to the pandours, and having surrounded the mill with his band, he opened fire upon the house, killing every one within,—the miller, his wife and children, and all of the servants. He showed a certain grim humour at times. A Jew once lost his way in the forest and fell in with Mylfait’s band, who were sitting around a fire where a sheep was being roasted. He was cordially invited to join the feast, accepted gladly, and made an excellent meal washed down with much wine. Then he rose abruptly, eager to take himself off. “Without paying for all you have eaten and drunk?” protested Mylfait. “How much money have you got about you? Hand it over. Thirty florins? No more!” he exclaimed. “Here,” to an assistant, “take his gun from him and make him strip off his clothes. We will keep them until he chooses to redeem them with a further sum of thirty florins.” The Jew, in despair, begged and implored for mercy, crying bitterly and shaking in every limb.
“You are feeling the cold, I am afraid,” said the pitiless brigand. “You shall dance for us; that will warm you and will afford us some amusement.” The wretched Jew pleaded that he did not know how to dance the czarda. “But you must give us some compensation. Go and stand with your back against that tree,” Mylfait insisted. “I am going to see what your gun is worth and whether it shoots true. I shall aim at your hat. Would you prefer to have your eyes bandaged?” The Jew renewed his piteous lamentations in the name of his wife and children. But Mylfait was inflexible, and slowly taking aim, fired, not at the hat, but a branch above. The ball broke it and it fell upon the Jew’s head, who, thinking himself killed, staggered and dropped to the ground. “Be off, you cur;” cried the brigand-chief, “you are not fit to live, but you may go.”
These notorious characters were usually adored by the female sex. Every brigand had a devoted mistress, who prided herself on the evil reputation of her lover, whatever his crimes, even when he had many murders on his conscience. A strange flirtation and courtship was carried on for years in one of the principal prisons of Vienna. It was conducted through a clandestine correspondence; many ardent letters were exchanged, and the parties were betrothed long before they had actually seen each other. The letters that passed were models of style and brimful of affection. One, which had been concealed under a stone in the exercising yard, and was impounded, ran as follows: