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Page 5
Also, Janci did not know that this little village of his home had
once been a flourishing city, and that an invasion of the Turks
had razed it to the ground leaving, as by a miracle, only the church
to tell of former glories.
The sun rose higher and higher. And now the village awoke to its
daily life. Voices of cattle and noises of poultry were heard
about the houses, and men and women began their accustomed round of
tasks. Janci found that he had gathered enough willow twigs by
this time. He tied them in a loose bundle and started on his
homeward way.
His path led through wide-stretching fields and vineyards past a
little hill, some distance from the village, on which stood a large
house. It was not a pleasant house to look at, not a house one
would care to live in, even if one did not know its use, for it
looked bare and repellant, covered with its ugly yellow paint, and
with all the windows secured with heavy iron bars. The trees that
surrounded it were tall and thick-foliaged, casting an added gloom
over the forbidding appearance of the house. At the foot of the
hill was a high iron fence, cutting off what lay behind it from
all the rest of the world. For this ugly yellow house enclosed
in its walls a goodly sum of hopeless human misery and misfortune.
It was an insane asylum.
For twenty years now, the asylum had stood on its hill, a source of
superstitious terror to the villagers, but at the same time a source
of added income. It meant money for them, for it afforded a
constant and ever-open market for their farm products and the output
of their home industry. But every now and then a scream or a harsh
laugh would ring out from behind those barred windows, and those in
the village who could hear, would shiver and cross themselves.
Shepherd Janci had little fear of the big house. His little hut
cowered close by the high iron gates, and he had a personal
acquaintance with most of the patients, with all of the attendants,
and most of all, with the kind elderly physician who was the head
of the establishment. Janci knew them all, and had a kind word
equally for all. But otherwise he was a silent man, living much
within himself.
When the shepherd reached his little home, his wife came to meet
him with a call to breakfast. As they sat down at the table a
shadow moved past the little window. Janci looked up. "Who was
that?" asked Margit, looking up from her folded hands. She had
just finished her murmured prayer.
"Pastor's Liska," replied Janci indifferently, beginning his meal.
(Liska was the local abbreviation for Elizabeth.)'
"In such a hurry?" thought the shepherd's wife. Her curiosity would
not let her rest. "I hope His Reverence isn't ill again," she
remarked after a while. Janci did not hear her, for he was very
busy picking a fly out of his milk cup.
"Do you think Liska was going for the old man?" began Margit again
after a few minutes.
The "old man" was the name given by the people of the village, more
as a term of endearment than anything else, to the generally loved
and respected physician who was the head of the insane asylum. He
had become general mentor and oracle of all the village and was
known and loved by man, woman and child.
"It's possible," answered Janci.
"His Reverence didn't look very well yesterday, or maybe the old
housekeeper has the gout again."
Janci gave a grunt which might have meant anything. The shepherd
was a silent man. Being alone so much had taught him to find his
own thoughts sufficient company. Ten minutes passed in silence
since Margit's last question, then some one went past the window.
There were two people this time, Liska and the old doctor. They
were walking very fast, running almost. Margit sprang up and
hurried to the door to look after them.
Janci sat still in his place, but he had laid aside his spoon and
with wide eyes was staring ahead of him, murmuring, "It's the pastor
this time; I saw him--just as I did the others."
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