[77] Great master, Little master, Dear master; these being titles carefully distinguished from each other by the peasants.
The cause of the feasting and merriment was Andras's wedding with Panna, the little girl for whom he had fought with the hussar; which solemnity was celebrated jointly with the retreat of the French; and now that there was Vendel-gazda's miraculous return to rejoice at besides, the festivities were kept up till late next morning.
Thus ended the trials and adventures of the brewer of B——; and from this day forward, Heaven showered her blessings upon him; sons and daughters grew up around him, some fair, and some dark, but all fat, and each one finer and prettier than the other.
THE SZEKELY[78] MOTHER.
[78] Szekely (Szekler in German), the inhabitants of the border districts in Transylvania, said to be one of the most ancient tribes of the Magyar race, who came over still earlier than Attila.
The cannons were silent, the battle was over—the brave had fallen.
The field, which so lately had been the scene of wild and desperate contention, was now silent as the grave; only the thunder of heaven and the moaning of the breeze were to be heard, while the lurid lightning gleamed across the plain, as if the spirits of the dead had begun a new and inexorable strife on high, to guard the gates of heaven, as, an hour before, they had defended the frontiers of their country against their foes.
In the churchyard, before the gates of Kezdi-Vasarhely, the Szekely women anxiously awaited, not the return of the beloved, but the news of the victory.
They sat in groups on the gravestones and green mounds, listening all day to the cannon, and trying to distinguish the distant sounds.