will find the Sclaves and their language.  Czernavoda is Sclavic, and means black water; in Turkish, kara su; even as Tzernebock means black god; and Belgrade, or Belograd, means the white town; even as Bielebock, or Bielebog, means the white god.  Oh! he is one great ignorant, that Valter.  He is going, they say, to write one history about Napoleon.  I do hope that in his history he will couple his Thor and Tzernebock together.  By my God! it would be good diversion that.”

“Walter Scott appears to be no particular favourite of yours,” said I.

“He is not,” said the Hungarian; “I hate him for his slavish principles.  He wishes to see absolute power restored in this country, and Popery also—­and I hate him because—­what do you think?  In one of his novels, published a few months ago, he has the insolence to insult Hungary in the presence of one of her sons.  He makes his great braggart, Coeur de Lion, fling a Magyar over his head.  Ha! it was well for Richard that he never felt the gripe of a Hungarian.  I wish the braggart could have felt the gripe of me, who am ‘a’ magyarok kozt legkissebb,’ the least among the Magyars.  I do hate that Scott, and all his vile gang of Lowlanders and Highlanders.  The black corps, the fekete regiment of Matyjas Hunyadi, was worth all the Scots, high or low, that ever pretended to be soldiers; and would have sent them all headlong into the Black Sea, had they dared to confront it on its shores; but why be angry with an ignorant, who couples together Thor and Tzernebock?  Ha!  Ha!”

“You have read his novels?” said I.

“Yes, I read them now and then.  I do not speak much English, but I can read it well, and I have read some of his romances, and mean to read his ‘Napoleon,’ in the hope of finding Thor and Tzernebock coupled together in it, as in his high-flying ‘Ivanhoe.’”

“Come,” said the jockey, “no more Dutch, whether high or low.  I am tired of it; unless we can have some English, I am off to bed.”

“I should be very glad to hear some English,” said I; “especially from your mouth.  Several things which you have mentioned, have awakened my curiosity.  Suppose you give us your history?”

“My history?” said the jockey.  “A rum idea! however, lest conversation should lag, I’ll give it you.  First of all, however, a glass of champagne to each.”

After we had each taken a glass of champagne, the jockey commenced his history.

CHAPTER XLI

The Jockey’s Tale—­Thieves’ Latin—­Liberties with Coin—­The Smasher in Prison—­Old Fulcher—­Every One has His Gift—­Fashion of the English.

“My grandfather was a shorter, and my father was a smasher; the one was scragg’d, and the other lagg’d.”

I here interrupted the jockey by observing that his discourse was, for the greater part, unintelligible to me.

“I do not understand much English,” said the Hungarian, who, having replenished and resumed his mighty pipe, was now smoking away; “but, by Isten, I believe it is the gibberish which that great ignorant Valther Scott puts into the mouths of the folks he calls gypsies.”