n arriving in the yard to have a look at the
new priest; the women kept at a distance, and said: "Dear me! so young
and already in holy orders!"

The men went up and shook hands with him, saying, "God bless you! May
you be happy with us!"

An old woman called out, "May you be with us till your death!"

The older women admired his looks, and remarked how proud his mother
must be of him.

In fact the new priest seemed to have taken every one's fancy, and he
spoke a few words with them all, and then said he was tired, and went
across to the schoolmaster's, for he was to live there for a time till
he could get his own place a bit straight, and until he saw some signs
of an income.

Only a few of the more important villagers accompanied him to talk over
the state of affairs: Peter Szlavik, the sacristan; Mihaly Gongoly, the
nabob of Glogova; and the miller, Gyoergy Klincsok. He began to question
them, and took out his note-book, in order to make notes as to what his
income was likely to be.

"How many inhabitants are there in the village?"

"Rather less than five hundred."

"And how much do they pay the priest?"

They began to reckon out how much wood they had to give, how much corn,
and how much wine. The young priest looked more and more serious as they
went on.

"That is very little," he said sadly. "And what are the fees?"

"Oh, they are large enough," answered Klincsok; "at a funeral it depends
on the dead person, at a wedding it depends on the people to be married;
but they are pretty generous on that occasion as a rule; and at a
christening one florin is paid. I'm sure that's enough, isn't it?"

"And how many weddings are there in a year?"

"Oh, that depends on the potato harvest. Plenty of potatoes, plenty of
weddings. The harvest decides it; but as a rule there are at least four
or five."

"That is not many. And how many deaths occur?"

"That depends on the quality of the potato harvest. If the potatoes are
bad, there are many deaths, if they are good, there are less deaths, for
we are not such fools as to die then. Of course now and then a falling
tree in the woods strikes one or the other dead; or an accident happens
to a cart, and the driver is killed. You may reckon a year with eight
deaths a good one as far as you are concerned."

"But they don't all belong to the priest," said the nabob of Glogova,
smoothing back his hair.

"Why, how is that?" asked the priest.

"Many of the inhabitants