Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/144

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138
AT DRENCOVA.

ing, as did this. His noble deportment, his thoughtful innocent countenance, were his best patent of nobility. He must become an officer; and I will do my little towards it; committing it, it is true, to the hand of chance. And here I make my bow to every noble, rich, Hungarian lady, who, by any chance, may read this book, and who, perhaps, for the “Improvisatore” and “The Fiddler,” may have a kindly thought; the poet beseeches of her—or if he have, unknown to himself, a wealthy friend in Hungary, or in Wallacia, he beseeches also of him, to think of Adam Marco in Drencova, and to help your little countryman forward, if he deserve it!



The Swineherds.


Before a cottage, plastered of mud and straw, sat an old swineherd, a real Hungarian, and consequently a nobleman.[1] Very often

  1. The number of indigent nobles in Hungary is very great, and they live like peasants, in the most miserable huts.