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 Janci stares ahead of him without seeing what’s in front of him, then the whole village begins to wonder what’s going to happen, for Janci knows far more than all the rest of us put together.”

The smith’s grave, deep voice filled the room and the others listened in a silence that gave assent to his words.  He had scarcely finished speaking, however, when there was a noise of galloping hoofs and rapidly rolling wagon wheels.  A tall brake drawn by four handsome horses dashed past in a whirlwind.

“It’s the Count—­the Count and the district judge,” said the landlord in a tone of respect.  The notary made a grab at his hat and umbrella and hurried from the room.  “That shows how much they thought of our pastor,” continued the landlord proudly.  “For the Count himself has come and with four horses, too, to get here the more quickly.  His Reverence was a great friend of the Countess.”

“They didn’t make so much fuss over the pedlar and Betty,” murmured the cobbler, who suffered from a perpetual grouch.  But he followed the others, who paid their scores hastily and went out into the streets that they might watch from a distance at least what was going on in the rectory.  The landlord bustled about the inn to have everything in readiness in case the gentlemen should honour him by taking a meal, and perhaps even lodgings, at his house.  At the gate of the rectory the coachman and the maid Liska stood to receive the newcomers, just as five o’clock was striking from the steeple.

It should have been still quite light, but it was already dusk, for the clouds hung heavy.  The rain had ceased, but a heavy wind came up which tore the delicate petals of the blossoms from the fruit trees and strewed them like snow on the ground beneath.  The Count, who was the head of one of the richest and most aristocratic families in Hungary, threw off his heavy fur coat and hastened up the stairs at the top of which his old friend and confidant, the venerable pastor, usually came to meet him.  To-day it was only the local magistrate who stood there, bowing deeply.