There was I, with my tired horse, completely up a tree.  I thought to myself, I cannot stay in the street, so pushing my way through a sort of courtyard, I found out what appeared to be the stable.  This I took possession of, all the time making the most polite bows and gestures, for we hardly understood a word of each other’s language.  There was no help for it, I must make myself at home.  I put the horse up, I relieved him of his saddle and saddle-bags, and seeing a bucket and a well not far off, I fetched some water.  By this time the young woman had called in some neighbours, and I could see them watching me from behind the half-closed doors and windows.  I must observe I had lighted my own lantern that I always carried with me, so that my proceedings were made quite visible to the cautious spectators.  They never attempted to interfere with me, and I went on doing my work quietly and unostentatiously.  The position was ludicrous in the highest degree!

While I was yet foraging for my horse’s supper, by good-luck in came the postmaster.  He spoke German, and I was soon able to make all square.  He was as civil as possible, offering me at once the hospitality of his roof, which in fact I had already assumed.  I saw he was very anxious to remove the unpleasant impression of his wife’s mistake.  He bade me welcome many times over, he thanked me for the honour I did him in offering to sleep under his humble roof, and further persisted in calling me “Herr Lord.”  It was in vain that I corrected him on this point.  “I was an Englishman, therefore I must be a ‘Herr Lord,’ and there was an end of it.”

When Mr Boner was travelling in Szeklerland he was also, nolens volens, raised to the peerage, so I suppose it is a settled conviction of the people that we are all lords in Great Britain.

We had for supper a capital filet d’ours from a bear that had been shot only two days before.  I enjoyed my supper immensely; the wine was as good as the food.  My pretty hostess laughed a good deal over the false alarm my appearance had created.  Her husband interpreted between us, but I promised to learn Hungarian before I paid them another visit.  My host proved himself to be a very intelligent man; I had an exceedingly interesting conversation with him after supper.  He complained bitterly of the heavy pressure of taxation, saying that Government ought to manage things more economically, for that every year now there was a deficit.

“Yet your country is rich in natural resources, as rich almost as France, barring her advantages of seaboard.”

“Yes, we have wealth under the soil,” he replied, “and what we want is capital to develop our resources.  Herein Austria has stood in our way; you know the old policy of Austria, as far back as Maria Theresa’s time, which was to make Hungary Catholic, to make her poor, and to turn her people into Germans.  This last they will never do; but they have succeeded in their second project only too well.  They have made us poor enough, they have discouraged manufactures and industries of every kind.  We wish for free trade, but Austria is opposed to it.  The manufactures of Bohemia must be nursed, and accordingly we are made to suffer.  We want to be brought into contact with our customers in Western Europe; we want, in fact, to get our trade out of the hands of the Jews.”