"Peace and blessing be upon this house!" said the unknown in a voice full of tender unction.
"Amen, amen!" the headsman hastened to reply.
"Heaven's blessing descend upon thy heart, my son!" said the youth to the old man raising his hand in blessing.
"He is a pastor, a priest," said the headsman to himself, "he has all the appearance of it."
Peter Zudár stooped down towards the youth's hand and kissed it. He durst not touch it with his own hand but with his lips only.
"A priest in my house, forsooth! My child! take the gentleman by the hand and lead him to the arm-chair, make him sit down! Thy hands are clean, they may touch him. Oh! a man of God in my house! I never dared to hope so much."
"I come from afar," said the unknown youth, sitting down in the arm-chair provided for him, while the old executioner stood before him bare-headed, with his large muscular arms folded across his bosom. The little girl wound her hands round his arm and stood beside him.
"I come from afar, I say. I do not belong to your nation, though I understand your language well enough to be able to converse in it intelligibly. In olden times the Apostles of our Holy Faith received direct from Heaven the gift of tongues, we, their unworthy successors, must, with great labour and weariness, acquire the languages of those to whom we have to preach the Gospel. I am the member of an English religious society whose mission it is to seek out those who are suffering, in whatever rank of life they may be, and endeavour to administer to them, so far as we are able, those divine consolations which God so freely distributes to the broken-hearted. We have our special missionaries for every section of humanity, and we send them forth continually to minister to their sufferings, and bring them peace and healing. Some of us are sent to the palaces of the mighty, others to the hovels of the poor. For everyone on earth has his own particular sorrow, and everyone finds his own sorrow very hard to bear. Some of us have chosen the dungeons and jails as our spheres of consolation, others prefer to comfort the secret woes of family life, others again visit the needy masses of the work-people. To me has been assigned the task of ministering to those terrors of evil doers, the public executioners."
At these words the youth looked steadily at the face of the man, who was standing there before him, with downcast eyes and quivering lips.
"For the last nine years I have been going about in this strange world of mine," continued the youth. "I have learnt something of the deepest wounds and of the sublimest woe. All the suffering in this department of sorrow is very much alike. Some can hide their wounds better than others—that is the sole difference. There are amongst these headsmen cold impenetrable natures, hearts closed against the world, whom it is very difficult to get at. And then again there are devil-may-care, extravagant, passionate dispositions who fancy they can find oblivion in wine, excitement, and other external delights. And then, too, there are defiant, haughty souls, who mock and jeer at those things which ordinary people are afraid of—but at the bottom of all their hearts it is the same worm that is ever gnaw-gnawing. Some of them die young, others grow grey, and have a late old age before them. And it is the selfsame worm which kills the one and will not let the other die. I have known among them men who, drink as they would, could never get drunk. I have known others who loathed the sight of wine and yet have been haunted by phantoms in broad daylight. The evil was always one and the same. Yes, and the mercy of God is always one and the same likewise."