"What is your name?--may I call you by your Christian name?" said the lesser child, timidly, and rather nestling to his protector, for such had the bigger boy constituted himself.
"My name is Victor," was the proud reply, "and you may call me Victor, because I love you; but the servants must call me Count, because my papa is a count; and I am not an Austrian count, but a Hungarian. Come and see my sword." So the two children were soon busy in an examination of that very beautiful, but not very destructive plaything.
They were indeed a strange contrast. Victor de Rohan, son and heir to one of the noblest and wealthiest of Hungary's aristocracy, looked all over the high-bred child he was. Free and bold, his large, frank blue eyes, and wide brow, shaded with clustering curls of golden brown, betokened a gallant, thoughtless spirit, and a kind, warm heart; whilst the delicate nostril and handsomely-curved mouth of the well-born child betrayed, perhaps, a little too much pride for one so young, and argued a disposition not too patient of contradiction or restraint. His little companion was as unlike him as possible, and indeed most people would have taken Victor for the English boy, and Vere for the foreign one. The latter was heavy, awkward, and ungainly in his movements, timid and hesitating in his manner, with a sallow complexion, and dark, deep-set eyes, that seemed always looking into a world beyond. He was a strange child, totally without the light-heartedness of his age, timid, shy, and awkward, but capable of strong attachments, and willing to endure anything for the sake of those he loved. Then he had quaint fancies, and curious modes of expressing them, which made other children laugh at him, when the boy would retire into himself, deeply wounded and unhappy, but too proud to show it. As he looks now at Victor's sword, with which the latter is vapouring about the hall, destroying imaginary enemies, Vere asks--
"What becomes of the people that are killed, Victor?"
"We ride over their bodies," says Victor, who has just delivered a finishing thrust at his phantom foe.
"Yes, but what becomes of them?" pursues the child, now answering himself. "I think they come to me in my dreams; for sometimes, do you know, I dream of men in armour charging on white horses, and they come by with a wind that wakes me; and when I ask 'Nettich' who they are, she says they are the fairies; but I don't think they are fairies, because you know fairies are quite small, and have wings. No, I think they must be the people that are killed."
"Very likely," replies Victor, who has not considered the subject in this light, and whose dreams are mostly of ponies and plum-cake--"very likely; but come to papa, and he will give us some grapes." So off they go, arm-in-arm, to the great banqueting-hall; and Vere postpones his dream-theories to some future occasion, for there is a charm about grapes that speaks at once to a child's heart.
So the two boys make their entrance into the banqueting-hall, where De Rohan sits in state, surrounded by his guests. On his right is placed Philip Egerton, whose dark eye gleams with pleasure as he looks upon his son. Who but a father would take delight in such a plain, unattractive child? Vere glides quietly to his side, shrinking from the strange faces and gorgeous uniforms around; but Victor walks boldly up to the old Count, and demands his daily glass of Tokay, not as a favour, but a right.
"I drink to Hungary!" says the child, looking full into the face of his next neighbour, a prince allied to the Imperial family, and a General of Austrian cavalry. "Monsieur le Prince, your good health! Come, clink your glass with me."
"Your boy is a true De Rohan," says the good-natured Austrian, as he accepts the urchin's challenge, and their goblets ring against each other. "Will you be a soldier, my lad, and wear the white uniform?"