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.”      

       “Shepherd, the inn-keeper wants to see you, there’s something the matter with his cow.” Count —— a young man, came from the other direction and pushed in at the door past Margit, who stood there staring up the road.     

       Janci was so deep in his own thoughts that he apparently did not hear 

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