"Is to obey me."
"My attachment"——
"Becomes importunate," broke in his master, "if my footsteps are to be thus dogged, and my solitude to be disturbed, fellow."
Farkas tossed his head, with a sigh, that perhaps might be more appropriately termed a grunt, and moved a few steps backwards; but then, as if unable to obey, he again lingered and returned.
"Master Otmar," he said, "call me rude, unmannered, disobedient. Bid me leave you—yes, leave you for ever, if you will. But, out it must, teremtette! in spite of all. I cannot see you thus, and quit you, without a word—you, your father's son. You, Master Otmar, whose heels I was the first to spur, whom I first set on horseback to gallop alone over the Puszta, whom I first taught a good round Hungarian oath. I could not do it, were I to know it were the last word I spoke."
"Speak then! What have you to say?" cried Otmar, in a tone of vexed impatience; but then, as he saw the eyes of the old man fixed in such mournful earnestness and solicitude upon him, he seemed to repent his harshness, and stretched out his hand, which his attendant took and kissed with reverence, according to the custom of the country.
"Speak!" he said more mildly; "I know you love me, although sometimes you show your love after a strange rude fashion, Farkas!"
"Are you a man, Master Otmar," began the old attendant, bluntly, "that you should be thus cast down because you have seen a pretty face that smiled upon you?" The young man showed evident marks of impatience at these words; but Farkas had seized his advantage, and continued, "Is a chitfaced woman's glance, seen only once, to break a man's bold spirit thus? You are in love, you will tell me. That's a boy's answer to all; but"—
"Peace, foolish man! what do you know of love?" said Otmar, impatiently.
"Foolish!" echoed the old man, with a toss of the head, as if he were for a moment inclined to argue which were the more foolish, he or his master. "Be that as it may. Perhaps I understand little of this love, at least now. But I remember the time I understood it better; and, teremtette! that was another sort of thing. When I was in love, I danced and sprang, and drank and swore, and flung up my cap on to the very horns of the young moon! There was some spirit in love then! But you have saved a fair lady from danger, as her unruly devils of horses were about to plunge her travelling coach from the bank into the broad stream of the Danube, and you are as cast down about it as if you had caused her death, instead of saving her from destruction. Eb adta! it is for her to whine and pine, and lament that she sees the bright eyes of her handsome deliverer no more; not for you, boy!"