"Where is Lorand?" I inquired. "Has he not come?"
"He is coming behind us in a wagon," he answered, and his voice betrayed the greatest emotion. "He will soon be here. He does not like a coach. Remain here and wait for him."
Then he turned to his comrades who were buzzing around him.
"Let us go and wait inside, comrades. Let us leave these young fellows to themselves when they meet. You know that such a scene requires no audience. Well, right about face, quick march!"
Therewith he drove all the fellows from the corridor: indeed did not give Gyáli time to say how glad he was to meet me again.
The gathering became all the more unintelligible to me.
Why, if Topándy himself knew best what there was to be felt in that hour, what necessity had we to avoid him?
Now the wagon could be heard! The two steeds galloped into the courtyard at a smart pace with the light road-cart. He was driving himself.
I scarcely recognized him. His great whiskers, his closely-cropped hair, his dust-covered face made quite a different figure before me from that which I had been wont to draw in my album,—as I had thought to see, as mother or grandmother directed me, saying "that is missing, that feature is other, that is more, that is less, that is different," times without number we had amused ourselves with that.
Lorand was unlike any portrait of him I had drawn. He was a muscular, powerful, rough country cavalier.