The City of the Magyar, Or, Hungary and Her Institutions in 1839-40 (Volume 2)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1840 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XV. Sobri, The Bandit-chief--His Youth His Bravery--The Shepherd And His Master--The ExpediTion--The Young Farmer--The Peasant-army--Milfait--The Farmer Miska--The Robber-guests--The Threat--The Wife--The Forest-seeker--The Rencontre--The Bivouac Of The Band--The Spokesman--The Apparition--The Compact--The Magnate's Feast--Sobri At Supper--The Young Countess--Robber-gallantry--A March To Bakony--The Troop Surprised--Death Of Sobri The Fight--The Two Fugitives--The Burning Hut--A Scaffold Jest. The most celebrated robber-chief of modern times in Hungary, was a man named Sobri, the son of a shepherd of the county of Sopron, (Oedenburg, ) in the service of a landed proprietor called Prusinczky. His father, anxious to give him an opportunity of improving his condition, instead of making him his companion in the fields, sent him to school immediately that his age permitted him to do so; but the young Sobri had no taste for study. The woods were his books, and their recesses the pages over which he loved to pore. Even as a boy he loathed the authority beneath which he writhed; and as a youth he spurned it. Handsome in person, his vanity whispered to him soft tales to which he listened with a willing ear; high of heart, he never heard of any daring deed that he did not burn to rush upon its fellow; and brave as a lion, he never cared to remember that there would be danger in the path he longed to tread. He was barely on the threshold of manhood, when, disgusted with the flocks and herds by which his father was surrounded, he seized his rifle, and plunged into the recesses of the forest of Bakony, where, as the result proved, he was received with welcome. Erelong the adventures of the band with which he had allied himself became more daring and more romantic...