little that it would not be
noticed."

"Gypsies?" exclaimed one man scornfully. "It doesn't have to be gypsies,
we've got enough tramps and vagabonds of our own. Didn't they kill the
pedlar for the sake of a bag of tobacco, and old Katiza for a couple of
hens?"

"Why do you rake up things that happened twenty years ago?" cried
another over the table. "You'd better tell us rather who killed Red
Betty, and pulled Janos, the smith's farm hand, down into the swamp?"

"Yes, or who cut the bridge supports, when the brook was in flood, so
that two good cows broke through and drowned?"

"Yes, indeed, if we only knew what band of robbers and villains it is
that is ravaging our village."

"And they haven't stopped yet, evidently."

"This is the worst misfortune of all! What will our poor do now that
they have murdered our good pastor, who cared for us all like a father?"

"He gave all he had to the poor, he kept nothing for himself."

"Yes, indeed, that's how it was. And now we can't even give this good
man Christian burial."

"Shepherd Janci knew this morning early that we were going to have a new
pastor," whispered the landlord in the notary's ear. The latter looked
up astonished. "Who said so?" he asked.

"My boy Ferenz, who went to fetch him about seven o'clock. One of my
cows was sick."

Ferenz was sent for and told his story. The men listened with
great interest, and the smith, a broad-shouldered elderly man, was
particularly eager to hear, as he had always believed in the shepherd's
power of second sight. The tailor, who was more modern-minded, laughed
and made his jokes at this. But the smith laid one mighty hand on the
other's shoulder, almost crushing the tailor's slight form under its
weight, and said gravely: "Friend, do you be silent in this matter.
You've come from other parts and you do not know of things that have
happened here in days gone by. Janci can do more than take care of his
sheep. One day, when my little girl was playing in the street, he said
to me, 'Have a care of Maruschka, smith!' and three days later the child
was dead. The evening before Red Betty was murdered he saw her in a
vision lying in a coffin in front of her door. He told it to the sexton,
whom he met in the fields; and next morning they found Betty dead. And
there are many more things that I could tell you, but what's the use;
when a man won't believe it's only lost talk to try to make him. But
one thing you should know: when