Early the following day Juriga was off to the village. Besides the visit to the priest, he had several other things to attend to at his house there, but before doing anything else, he wanted to settle the matter with the priest, if it was what Lesina thought.
He found the old servant crying at the door of the chapel-house, and asked her what was wrong.
“Father Malina has passed such a bad night,” was her reply.
“What? And my boy was visiting him only last night.”
“Is Palko your boy? Father Malina thinks so much of him. Last night he went with Palko to the foot of the mountain, and when I met him on his return, he said that he expected you this morning, and told me to admit you at once. But, frankly, I don’t know that he is in any condition to see you today. The doctor has just left.”
“What has happened to him so suddenly?”
“He has had a terrible hemorrhage. His old aunt is in tears, and says it is a family infirmity, and that most of his brothers and sisters have died of the same thing.”
Juriga waited in the servant’s quarters until it was known whether he could see the sick man. At last the old servant returned to say that he could see her master, as the priest was very anxious to have an interview with Palko’s grandfather, but that he should make his visit as short as possible.
“I wonder what he can want with me, especially as he is so sick,” thought Juriga, as he drew near the priest’s bed, and pressed the thin hand held out to him.
“I am glad you have come so quickly,” said the sick man in a low voice, and Juriga could see that it was an effort for him to speak. “Did you not tell me one day that your friend Rasga was not Palko’s real grandfather, but that his daughter had found him wandering on the mountains when a very little child? Now Palko tells me that Lesina has a story that he could tell you, which I believe would clear up the mystery. Has Lesina ever heard Palko’s history as far as you know it?”
“No,” said the astonished old man, “for I’ve told it to no one except you.”
“Well, then,” said the priest, “your duty is clear, Juriga. You must tell the whole story to Lesina, and then I am sure that Palko will soon find his long-lost father and mother. Now, before you go — just one more request — I feel that I have but a few days more on this earth, for, as you see, I am a very sick man. Let Palko be with me for the few hours that remain to me in this life. We love one another very much, and it is he who has led me to my Saviour. Yesterday, as soon as he entered the room, I felt comforted and strengthened. You will be able to have his company for a long time yet in health and life. I beg of you, let me once more have his blessed companionship ere I leave this world.”
“I will send him at once,” answered Juriga, struggling to restrain his tears. The old man seemed as one in a dream when he left the chapel-house; as he passed through the streets of the village, he hardly noticed his neighbors. People, noticing his agitation, turned to look with surprise as he hurried up the mountain path. He seemed to see before him that pale noble face with its haggard drawn features, and to hear constantly that soft voice saying: “Let me have his company once more.”
“Just think,” he said to himself as he climbed the mountain, “sick as he is, his first thought was not of himself, but of Lesina and of Palko, and of all of us! It was for that he sent for me, I’m sure. He could hardly speak, but he summoned me to his bed of pain. And we — we have been denying him the boy. How is it that I have never told Lesina Palko’s story? Well, I must tell him without further delay.” Poor Juriga could hardly wait until he got home. He found Lesina alone near the hut. “Oh, Lesina, what do you suppose Father Malina wanted?” Juriga’s voice trembled as he spoke. “And we should remove our hats in speaking his name from this day.”
“For one thing,” said Lesina, “I suppose he wanted Palko?”
“Lesina, don’t look like that! I found him very, very ill, for he had had a terrible hemorrhage in the night. He told me that Palko was the one who had brought him to the Saviour, and that he wanted him near him.”
“And you’ve agreed?” cried Lesina harshly.
“Yes, my son, and I never go back on my word. We owe him infinite gratitude, and we can pay him but a small part of our great debt.”
“Your great debt? A few miserable crowns you have received in just pay, and you call that a great debt!” and Lesina sunk the hatchet he was using into a tree with all his strength.
“Leave your work, Lesina, and sit down here. I want to ask you something,” and Juriga eyed him so strangely that Lesina obeyed at once, in spite of his anger.
“What’s the matter with you, Juriga” he asked, “that you look like that?”
“Tell me, Martin Lesina,” said Juriga, “did you lose a boy once on the mountainside?”
“Did Palko tell you that?” said Lesina.
“Palko has told me nothing. But is it a fact?”
“Yes,” said Lesina, “but how did you know?”
“I didn’t know, I only surmised it from something that has just occurred at the chapel-house. In what year and what time of the year did your boy disappear?”
Lesina began to tremble at hearing Juriga’s words, but he answered roughly: “Why ask such a question?”
“Oh, nothing!” said Juriga, coughing, “only your poor wife, if she should meet your son on the mountainside, would she know him?”
“Know him? No!” groaned Lesina, “and how could she know him? She forgets everything else when the thing comes over her, and she wanders away crying his name on the mountainside, seeking for a little lad of a year and a half, dressed only in a little shirt; and today the boy would be nine years old.”
Juriga coughed again, and tried to speak, but he seemed to have something in his throat.
“Listen, Lesina! I’ve never told you the details of Palko’s history. All you know is that my friend, Rasga, left his boy with me two years ago, but I didn’t tell you his story.”
Poor Lesina sat spell-bound, as Juriga began to talk, but when he came to the finding of the child on the mountainside Lesina leapt to his feet staring wildly at the old man, and, as he finished and the full truth dawned upon him that Palko was his own son, he threw himself on the ground crying and laughing like a woman, and then finally lay quite still.
Juriga rose and left him alone. Starting down the mountain path with his hat in his hand, and his eyes lifted reverently heavenwards, he went in search of Palko to send him to the chapel-house, for he had not forgotten his promise. Juriga thought it best that Palko should go away to the village, and give Lesina time to break the news to his dear wife in the easiest way possible, for he was afraid a sudden shock would be too much for her.
He found Palko and Lesina’s wife with Dunaj, busy as usual among the strawberries. “Palko mine, you must hurry down to the chapel-house. Father Malina is not at all well, and is calling for you. You, my daughter, come home with me. It is time to prepare the dinner.”
“Grandfather!” said Palko, “you have been to the chapel-house already this morning?”
“Yes, my son, the priest wishes to see you at once. He is very ill, and I have promised him that you would stay for a little while at his side. We shall manage without you for a time.”
“Dear Grandfather,” and Palko joyously kissed his grandfather, who this time took him tenderly in his arms, as he said good-bye to him.
“Now go, and take good care of him.”
He was about to leave when Lesina’s wife caught hold of him.
“Where are you going? Where are they sending you?” asked the poor woman anxiously.
“Don’t keep him, my daughter,” said Juriga, “he will soon be back.”
“Are you leaving me again, Palko?” she asked nervously.
“Auntie, it will be all right,” said the little boy tenderly to the poor distracted woman.
“Yesterday,” she cried, “you went away. I don’t know where! Your presence is so necessary to me! If you go away again, I fear you will never come back like my poor Mischko!”
“No, no, never fear, Auntie! Let me go this once, for Father Malina needs me so badly. After that we shall be together always.”
“Hurry now, Palko.” Poor old Juriga could hardly control his tears. Palko was away like the wind!
“Let us go, my daughter, and get the dinner ready, for Martin will soon be coming home.” And Juriga led her gently up the mountain.
“Why have you sent Palko away?” groaned the poor woman, beside herself. “Don’t you know I cannot live without him?”
Suddenly an idea shot into the old gentleman’s mind, and he turned on the poor woman saying: “Why do you want to keep him here, seeing you do not care for him?”
“Care for him! Care for him! Who told you such a thing?” she cried.
“If you truly cared for him so much, you would stop looking for your own child on the mountain! Palko is mine! and you — you had better look for your Mischko!”
“Oh, give me Palko! Give him to me!” cried the poor woman, stretching out her arms.
“Well, then, if I give Palko to you it will be on condition that you stop looking for Mischko. Do you understand? If I give you Palko, will you stop forever these useless searchings of yours?”
“Yes, oh yes, I will, I will,” sobbed Lesina’s wife. “If Palko is to be mine forever, I will cry no more for my poor Mischko!”
“Well, here we are home and here comes your husband for his dinner,” Juriga said, as Martin Lesina appeared round the corner of the hut at that moment.
“Martin!” cried his wife on seeing him, “just think! Palko’s grandfather has given his boy to us! He has had to go down to the village for a day or two — but,” she beamed at her husband, “he says he’ll soon be back!”
Lesina bent and kissed his wife tenderly.
“Juriga has done well to send him away this time, my dear Eva, and truly he’ll soon come back, and he shall be ours, and we shall keep him forever. But we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the priest. Oh, that the boy may be able to pay something of it for us!”