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Updated: May 18, 2025
There were any amount of them in the weedy courtyard of the Presbytery; they came out of the holes in the damp walls of the old church. "Where shall I put the child?" repeated Mr. Billeghi, but as he received no answer, he deposited her gently on the small veranda.
The priest stood with his eyes fixed on the ground; it seemed to him as though the earth, with the houses and gardens, Máté Billeghi and the basket, were all running away, and only he was standing there, unable to move one way or the other.
His heart was beating fast with a kind of presentiment that he was to hear bad news. He opened the door and stepped out. "Here I am, Mr. Billeghi; what have you brought me?" But Mr. Billeghi had left the window and gone back to the cart, where he was unfastening the basket containing little Veronica and the goose.
Who was calling him Jankó? It seemed to him as though it were one of his old schoolfellows, from whom he had just parted in his dream. He jumped out of bed and ran to the window. "Who is it?" he repeated. "It is I," was the answer, "Máté Billeghi from your old home. Come out, Jankó, no, I mean of course, please come out, your reverence. I've brought something." The priest dressed hastily.
The priest took a step toward the cart, where Billeghi was still struggling with the knot. The words, "if your mother were alive," had struck him like a blow, his head began to swim, his legs to tremble. "Are you speaking of my mother?" he stammered. "Is my mother dead?" "Yes, poor woman, she has given up the ghost. I've brought your reverence's little sister; where shall I put her down?"
There must be something serious the matter to induce it to lie down in harness, for a horse has a high sense of duty. Máté Billeghi now turned round and saw the priest standing near him. "Hallo, Jankó! Why, how you have grown! How surprised your mother would be if she were alive! Bother this rope, I did make a firm knot in it!"
Father János still gave no answer, did not even notice what was going on around him, and the horses were moving on, Máté Billeghi walking beside them, for they had to go uphill now, and the good man was muttering to himself something about its being the way of the world, and only natural that if a chicken grows into a peacock, of course the peacock does not remember the time when it was a chicken.
"Well," he said, "if you take your wheat there, you may as well take the child to her brother. Glogova must be somewhere that way." "Not a bit of it," was the answer, "it is in a totally different direction." "It must be down that way if I wish it," thundered out the judge. Billeghi tried to get out of it, saying it was awkward for him, and out of his way.
"Until I deign to give orders to the contrary," answered the judge shortly. And so things went on for ten days, until Máté Billeghi decided to take his wheat to Besztercebánya to sell, for he had heard that the Jews down that way were not yet so sharp as in the neighborhood of Haláp. This was a good chance for the judge.
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