Glancing back, I saw Stephen waving his cap, and Görgei with his hands behind his back and his head bent forward, already plunged in deep thought.
The weather was bitterly cold, and the roads were abominable; but we rode thoroughbred Magyar horses, which carried us at a rattling pace.
I was, in truth, rather miserable at leaving my brother; but the crisp, keen air, the sharp gallop, and the merry spirits of my companion soon chased away my melancholy.
"Wonderful man, Görgei," he said, when the horses, having settled down to a slower pace, made talking possible. "Kossuth did one good thing in giving him a high command. Hard as iron, and a born soldier."
"Has he ever seen service?"
"Only for a short time as a lieutenant in the bodyguard. But he has a spirit which nothing can break, an energy that never tires; and he can endure as much fatigue as any man in the country. I knew him and his brothers when they were youngsters; in fact, we were boys together. They were in good circumstances, but their mother brought them up to live hard. They learned early to take the rough with the smooth, and to laugh at hardships. They never felt the cold in the bitterest winter, and when the rain soaked them through, why, they just got dry again."
"Where are the others?"
"Don't know; but wherever the hardest work's to be done, you may be sure. Stephen will find his job tougher than ours."
"It will please him the more. By the way, I wonder if Count Beula escaped from Vienna?"
"Most likely. Bern did. Görgei told me they smuggled the Pole out, shut up in a coffin. That's how the story runs, whether true or not; but, at any rate, Bern's in Transylvania with 25,000 good fighting men."