He made straight for Great Leta, now going on foot, now sitting on a wagon, now riding on an ass, according as opportunity offered. The young married couple must certainly be at Great Leta, thought he.
But at Great Leta the late pastor's widow received him with great lamentations. She had not set eyes on the young people. It was wrong, very wrong of them not to come, for all the new-born children in the place were being taken to the next parish to be christened; and still more scandalous, during the Leutschau fair last week, Protestant malefactors had to be accompanied to the scaffold by a Papist priest. Such things were no less than flagrant infringements of the Council of Linz, and had lost the parish four Kremnitz ducats.
Thence the learned gentleman proceeded to Zeb, where he inquired after Henry's father, old Catsrider.
No one had ever heard such a name at Zeb. The father and grandfather of Henry had always been called the vihodar, and that was all. Not even in the civic accounts was the name of Catsrider to be found. So they laughed the old man out of countenance with his Catsriders. They told him that people were making an April fool of him. But for all that he would not budge, but actually made a house to house visitation through the town of Zeb, to find out what had become of his son-in-law and his daughter.
Yet for all his learning and wisdom it never once occurred to him to visit the solitary house which stood without the city walls.
CHAPTER XII.
Consists of a very few words which are, however, of all the more consequence.
When Barbara Pirka visited the young woman next morning, she was greatly astonished to find her quite dressed. Michal had on the beautiful cornflower-blue silk dress of the beheaded Polish countess.
She drove out the housekeeper with her morning broth.