CHAPTER XXX
"Kyrie eleison."
But the daily routine of everyday life went on at Marosfalva just as it had done before the double tragedy of St. Michael's E'en had darkened the pages of its simple history.
The maize had all been gathered in—ploughing had begun—my lord and his guests were shooting in the stubble. The first torrential rain had fallen and the waters of the Maros had begun to swell.
Gossip about Erös Béla's terrible end and Leopold Hirsch's suicide had not by any means been exhausted, but it was supplemented now by talk of Lakatos Pál's wealth. The old man had been ailing for some time. His nephew Andor's return had certainly cheered him up for a while, but soon after that he seemed to collapse very suddenly in health, like old folk do in this part of the world—stricken down by one or other of the several diseases which are engendered by the violent extremes of heat and cold—diseases of the liver for the most part—the beginning of a slowly-oncoming end.
He had always been reputed to be a miser, and those who were in the know now averred that Andor had found several thousand florins tucked away in old bits of sacking and hidden under his uncle's straw paillasse. Pali bácsi was also possessed of considerable property—some land, a farm and the mill; there was no doubt now that Andor would be a very rich man one of these days.
Mothers with marriageable daughters sighed nevertheless in vain. Andor was not for any of them. Andor had eyes only for Elsa. He had become an important man in the village now that his uncle was so ill and he was left to administer the old man's property; and he took his duties very earnestly in the intervals of courting Kapus Elsa.
As to this no one had cause to make any objection. They had loved one another and been true to one another for five years; it was clearly the will of the good God that they should come together at last.
And now October was drawing to its close—to-day was the fourth Sunday in the month and one of the numerous feasts of our Blessed Lady, one on which solemn benediction is appointed to be sung in the early afternoon, and benediction is followed by a procession to the shrine of the Virgin which stands on the roadside on the way to Saborsó some two kilomètres distant from Marosfalva. It is a great festival and one to which the peasantry of the countryside look forward with great glee, for they love the procession and have a great faith in the efficacy of prayer said at the shrine.