[24] Theodore.
"And yet such people live quite close to us. We need not think of the savage inhabitants of Oceania,—we can see enough of them and to spare in this very place. Your ladyship can hear from your balcony the melancholy songs of their pastoral flutes, especially of an evening, when the milch-goats are returning from the deep valleys.
"The herdsman here never sleeps beneath a roof either summer or winter; every spring he counts the goats of his master's herds and the half of every increase belongs to him; nobody enquires how he lives there among his herds in the lofty mountain-passes, how he defends himself against hurricanes and snow-storms, yes, and against the wild beasts of the forest, the bears and wolves—nobody troubles his head about all that.
"Such a goatherd is that same Juon whom your ladyship has learnt to know. Perhaps we shall hear something more about him some other time, for his life has been very romantic; now, however, I will only tell you of a single episode therein:
"There once lived near here in the district of Vlaskutza, a rich pakular[25] who had scraped together a lot of gold out of a mining venture at Verespatak, and therefore went by the name of wealthy Misule.
[25] Roguish speculator.
"He had an only daughter, Mariora by name,—and has your ladyship any idea of what Roumanian beauties are? A sculptor could not devise a nobler model. So beautiful was she that her fame had spread through the Hungarian plain as far as Arad, and whenever great folks from foreign lands came to see Gyenstar and Brivadia they would make a long circuit and come to Vlaskucza in order to rest at the house of old Misule, where the finest prospect of all was a look into the eyes of Mariora.
"This wonderously beautiful maiden loved the poor goatherd Juon, who possessed nothing in the world but his sheepskin pelisse and his alpenstock; him she loved and him alone. Wealthy old Misule would naturally have nothing to say to such a match; he had in his eye an influential friend of his, a gentleman and village elder in the county of Féhervár, one Gligor Tobicza,—to him he meant to give his daughter. Reports were spread that Juon was a wizard. It was Misule's wife who fastened this suspicion upon him, because he had succeeded in bewitching her daughter. She said among other things, that he understood the language of the brute beasts, that he had often been seen speaking with wolves and bears, and that when he spread out his shaggy sheepskin, he sat down at one end of it and a bear at the other. There was this much of truth in the tale, that once when he was tending his flocks Juon heard a painful groaning in the hollow of a rock, and, venturing in, perceived lying in one corner a she-bear who, mortally injured in some distant hunt, had contrived to drag its lacerated body hither to die. Beside the old she-bear lay a little suckling cub. The mother dying before his very eyes, Juon had compassion on the desolate cub, took it under his protection, and carried it to a milch-goat, who suckled it. The little wild beast thrived upon the milk of the tame animal and, softened by human fellowship, grew up much attached to its master. Bears, I may tell your ladyship, are not bloodthirsty by nature. Henceforth the bear went forth with the herdsman and the herds, helped to drive the goats together of an evening, and enlivened the long dreary days by turning somersaults—an art at which bears excel. At night it slept by Juon's side and made itself cosey by burying its snout in his bosom. When meal-time came, the bear sat down beside Juon, for he knew that every second slice of cheese would be his. He also fetched fire-wood to put under the pot in which the maize-pottage was boiling. Then, too, he explored the woods in search of wild honey and brought back his booty to share it with Juon. When it was very hot he carried his pelisse after him, a pelt more or less made very little difference to him. Juon had nobody to speak to but the bear, and if a man speaks quite seriously to the beasts they get to understand him at last. Moreover, in moments of ill temper the bear had learnt to recognize that Juon's fists were no less vigorous than his own paws, so that he had no temptation to be ungrateful.
"This, then, was the man beloved by Mariora.
"In our part of the country, my lady, there is an original popular custom, the maiden-market.