The Pobratim Part 66

"_Bog me ovari!_ what is to become of me now?"

"Pooh!" said the wife, shrugging her shoulders; "she deserves her fate; as we make our bed, so must we lie."

"Yes," quoth the smith, "but if they find out that I've strangled her, they'll hang me."

"And who'll find you out?" said she. "Let's put a potato in her mouth and lock up the cupboard again; they'll think that she choked herself eating potatoes."

The smith followed his wife's advice, and early on the morrow the priest came again and asked for his press.

"Talking the matter over with the cook," said he, "I've decided not to have my cupboard repaired, so I've come to take it back."

"Your cook is right," said the smith's wife; "she's a wise old woman, your cook is."

"Very," said the priest, uncomfortably.

"There's more in her head than you suppose," said the wife, thinking of the potato.

"There is," said the priest.

"Give my kind respects to your cook," said the wife as the men were taking the cupboard away.

"Thank you," said the priest, "I'll certainly do so."

About an hour afterwards the priest came back, ghastly pale, to his nephew, and taking him aside said:

"My dear nephew--my only kith-and-kin--a great misfortune has befallen me."

"What is it, uncle?" asked the smith.

"My cook," said the priest, lowering his voice, "has--eating potatoes--somehow or other--I don't know how--choked herself."

"Oh!" quoth the smith, turning pale, "it is a great misfortune; but you'll say ma.s.ses for her soul and have her properly buried."

"But the fact is," interrupted the priest, "she looks so dreadful, with her eyes starting out of their sockets, and her mouth wide open, that I'm quite frightened of her, and besides, if the people see her they'll say that I murdered her."

"Well, and how am I to help you?"

"Come and take her away, in a sack if you like; then bury her in some hole, or throw her down a well. Do whatever you like, as long as I am rid of her."

The smith scratched his head.

"You must help me; you are my only relation. You know that whatever I have 'll go to you some day, so----"

"And when people ask what has become of her?"

"I'll say she's gone to her--her niece."

"Well, I don't mind helping you, as long as I don't get into a sc.r.a.pe myself."

"No, no! How can you get into trouble?"

The priest went off, and soon afterwards the smith went to his uncle's house, and taking a big sack, shoved the cook into it and tied the sack up, put it on his shoulders and trudged off.

"Here," said the uncle, "take this florin to get a gla.s.s of wine on the way, and I hope I'll never see her any more--nor," he added to himself--"you either."

It was a warm day, and the cook was heavy. The poor man was in a great perspiration; his throat was parched; the road was dusty and hilly. After an hour's march he stopped at a roadside inn to drink a gla.s.s of wine. He quaffed it down at a gulp and then he had another, and again another, so that when he came out everything was rather hazy and blurred. Seeing some carts of hay at the door which were going to the next town, he asked permission to get on top of one of the waggons. The permission was not only granted, but the carter even helped him to hoist his sack on top. The smith, in return, got down and offered the man a gla.s.s of wine for his kindness. Then he again got on the cart and went off to sleep. An hour or two afterwards, when he awoke, the sack was gone. Had it slipped down? had it been stolen from him?--he could not tell. He did not ask for it, but he only congratulated himself at having so dexterously got rid of the cook, and at once went back home.

That evening his children had hardly been put to bed when the door was opened, and his uncle, looking pale and scared, came in panting.

"She's back, she's back!" he gasped.

"Who is back?" asked the astonished smith.

"Why, she, the cook."

"Alive?" gasped the smith.

"No, dead in the sack."

"Then how the deuce did she get back?"

"How? I ask you how?"

"I really don't know how. I dug a hole ten feet deep, half filled the hole with lime, then the other half with stones and earth, and I planted a tree within the hole, and covered the earth all around with sods. It gave me two days' work. I'll take and show you the place if you like."

The priest looked at his nephew, bewildered.

"But, tell me," continued the smith, "how did she come back?"

"Well, they brought me a waggon of hay, and on the waggon there was a sack, which I thought must contain potatoes or turnips which some paris.h.i.+oner sent me, so I had the sack put in the kitchen. When the men had gone I undid the sack, and to my horror out pops the cook's ugly head, staring at me with her jutting goggle-eyes and her gaping mouth, looking like a horrid jack-in-the-box. Do come and take her away, or she'll drive me out of my senses; but come at once."

The smith went back to the priest's house, tied the cook in the sack, and then putting the sack on his shoulders, he carried his load away.

He had made up his mind to go and chuck her down one of those almost bottomless shafts which abound in the stony plains of the Karst.

He walked all night; at daybreak he saw a man sleeping on the gra.s.s by the highway, having near him a sack exactly like the one he was carrying.

"What a good joke it'll be," thought he, "to take that sack and put mine in its stead."

He at once stepped lightly on the gra.s.s, put down the cook, took up the other sack, which was much lighter than his own, and scampered back home as fast as his weary legs could carry him.

An hour afterwards the sleeping man awoke, took up his sack, which he was surprised to find so much heavier than it had been when he had gone off to sleep, and then went on his way.

That evening the priest came back to his nephew's house, looking uglier and more ghastly, if possible, than the evening before.

Panting and gasping, with a weak and broken voice:

"She's back again," he said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

The smith burst out laughing.