But while János was occupied in listening to voices from a better land, Máté was getting tired of waiting, and muttering something to himself about not getting even a "thank you" for his trouble, he prepared to start.
"Well, if that's the way they do things in these parts, I'll be off," he grumbled, and cracking his whip he added, "Good-by, your reverence. Gee-up, Sármány!"
Father János still gave no answer, did not even notice what was going on around him, and the horses were moving on, Máté Billeghi walking beside them, for they had to go uphill now, and the good man was muttering to himself something about its being the way of the world, and only natural that if a chicken grows into a peacock, of course the peacock does not remember the time when it was a chicken. When he got up to the top of the hill he turned round and saw the priest still standing in the same place, and, making one last effort to attract his attention, he shouted:
"Well, I've given you what I was told to, so good-by."
The priest's senses at last returned from the paths in which they had been wandering, far away, with his mother. In imagination he was kneeling at her death-bed, and with her last breath she was bidding him take care of his little sister.
There was no need for it to be written nor to be telegraphed to him; there were higher forces which communicated the fact to him.
János's first impulse was to run after Máté, and ask him to stop and tell him all about his mother, how she had lived during the last two years, how she had died, how they had buried her, in fact, everything. But the cart was a long way off by now, and, besides, his eyes at that moment caught sight of the basket and its contents, and they took up his whole attention.
His little sister was still asleep in the basket. The young priest had never yet seen the child, for he had not been home since his father's funeral, and she was not born then; so he had only heard of her existence from his mother's letters, and they were always so short. János went up to the basket and looked at the small rosy face. He found it bore a strong resemblance to his mother's, and as he looked the face seemed to grow bigger, and he saw the features of his mother before him; but the vision only lasted a minute, and the child's face was there again. If she would only open her eyes! But they were firmly closed, and the long eyelashes lay like silken fringes on her cheeks.
"And I am to take care of this tiny creature?" thought János. "And I will take care of her. But how am I to do it? I have nothing to live on myself. What shall I do?"
He did as he always had done until now, when he had been in doubt, and turned toward the church in order to say a prayer there. The church was open, and two old women were inside, whitewashing the walls. So the priest did not go quite in but knelt down before a crucifix at the entrance.