g to wreck and ruin. The relations of the dead priest had
taken away every stick they could lay hands on, and had only left a dog,
his favorite. It was a dog such as one sees every day, as far as his
shape and coat were concerned, but he was now in a very unpleasant
position. After midday he began to wander from house to house in the
village, slinking into the kitchens; for his master had been in the
habit of dining every day with one or other of his parishioners, and
always took his dog with him.

The dog's name was Vistula, but his master need not have gone so far to
find the name of a river, when the Bjela Voda flowed right through the
meadows outside the village. (The Hungarian peasants generally give
their dogs the name of a river, thinking it prevents hydrophobia.) The
dog had already begun to feel that he and the priest together had been
better received than he alone, though, until now, he had always
imagined, with his canine philosophy, that his master had in reality
been eating more than his share of the food. But now he saw the
difference, for he was driven away from the houses where he had once
been an honored guest. So altogether he was in a very miserable, lean
condition when the new priest arrived. The sacristan had shown him his
new home, with its four bare walls, its garden overgrown with weeds, its
empty stable and fowl-house. The poor young man smiled.

"And is that all mine?" he asked.

"All of it, everything you see here," was the answer, "and this dog
too."

"Whose dog is it?"

"It belonged to the poor dead priest, God rest his soul. We wanted to
kill the poor beast, but no one dares to, for they say that the spirit
of his old master would come back and haunt us."

The dog was looking at the young priest in a melancholy, almost tearful
way; perhaps the sight of the cassock awoke sad memories in him.

"I will keep him," said the priest, and stooping down he patted the
dog's lean back. "At all events there will be some living thing near
me."

"That will be quite right," said the sacristan. "One must make a
beginning, though one generally gets something worth watching first, and
then looks out for a watch-dog. But it doesn't matter if it is the other
way about."

Janos Belyi smiled (he had a very winning smile, like a girl's), for he
saw that old Vistula would not have much to do, in fact would be quite
like a private gentleman in comparison to his companions.

All this time people had bee