The Pobratim Part 59

In the present case, where notice was brought to the police of facts that had happened, and aid was requested, steps had to be taken to secure the person of the offender, and, therefore, to have Radonic arrested at once for manslaughter.

Friends, however, came at once to inform Radonic of what had taken place, advising him to take flight, and put at once the border mountains of Montenegro between himself and the Austrian police.

The officials gave themselves and, what was far worse, everybody else no end of trouble and annoyance with Vranic's case. They went about arresting wrong persons, as a well-regulated police sometimes does, and then, after much bother and many cross-examinations, everyone was set free, and the whole affair dropped.

Milena, who was slowly recovering from her long illness, was the first to be summoned to answer about her husband's crime. Bellacic was after that accused of sheltering the murderer, and threatened with fines, confiscation, imprisonment and other such penalties; then he was also set free. The twenty-four men of the jury were next summoned; but, as they had only acted as peacemakers on behalf of Vranic, they, too, were reprimanded, and then sent about their business.

After this Vranic's partisans dwindled every day, till at last he found himself shunned by everyone. Even his customers began to forsake him, and to have their clothes made by a more fortunate compet.i.tor. At last he could not go out in the streets without having the children scream out after him:

"Spy! spy! Austrian spy!"

The clergy belonging to the Orthodox faith looked upon the new law against the _karvarina_ as an encroachment on their privileges. A t.i.the of the price of blood-money always went to the Church; sundry candles had to be lighted to propitiate, not G.o.d or Christ, but some of the lower deities and mediators of the Christian creed. The law, which took from them all interference in temporal matters, was a blow to their authority and to their purses. Even if they were not begged to act as arbitrators, they were usually invited as guests to the feast, so that some pickings and perquisites were always to be got.

Vranic obtained no satisfaction from the police, to whom he had applied; he was only treated as a cur by the whole population, was nearly excommunicated by the Church, and looked upon as an apostate from the saintly customs of the Iugo Slavs.

Taunted by his own family with having made a muddle of the whole affair, treated with scornful disdain by friends and foes, the poor tailor, who had never been very good-tempered, had got to look upon all mankind as his enemies.

Thus it happened, one day, that Bellacic was at the coffee-house with Markovic and some other friends, when Vranic came in to get shaved.

"What! do you shear poodles and curs?" he asked.

The loungers began to laugh. Vranic, whose face was being lathered, ground his teeth and grunted.

"I say, has he a medal round his neck?"

"What! do they give a medal to spies?" asked one of the men.

"No," quoth Bellacic; "but according to their law, no dog is allowed to go about without a medal, which proves that he has paid his taxes."

"Keep quiet," said the barber and _kafedgee_, "or I'll cut you!"

"Do government dogs also pay taxes?" said another man, smiling.

"Ask the cur! he'll tell you," replied Bellacic.

"Mind, Bellacic!" squeaked out Vranic, who was now shaved; "curs have teeth!"

"To grind, or to grin with?"

"By St. George and St. Elias! I'll be revenged on all of you, and you the very first!" and livid with rage, grinding his teeth, shaking his fist, Vranic left the coffee-house, followed by the laughter of the by-standers, and the barking of the boys outside.

"He means mischief!" quoth the _kafedgee_.

"When did he not mean mischief," replied Markovic, "or his brother either?"

"Don't speak of his brother."

"Why, he's dead and buried."

"The less you speak of some dead people, the better," and the _kafedgee_ crossed himself.

"He's a sly fox," said one of the men waiting to be shaved.

"Pooh! foxes are sometimes taken in by an old goose, as the story tells us."

Everybody knew the old story, but, as the barber was bent upon telling it, his customers were obliged to listen.

Once upon a time, there was a little silver-grey hen, that got into such an ungovernable fit of sulks, that she left the pleasant poultry-yard where she had been born and bred, and escaped on to the highway by a gap in the hedge. The reason of her ill-humour was that she had seen her lord and master flirt with a moulting old hatching hen, and she had felt ruffled at his behaviour.

"Surely, the only advantage that old hen has over me," she soliloquised, "is a greater experience of life. If I can but see a little more of the world, I, too, might be able to discuss philosophical topics with my husband, instead of cackling noisily over a new-laid egg. It is an undeniable fact that home-keeping hens have only homely wits, and c.o.c.ks are only hen-pecked by hens of loftier minds than themselves, and not by such common-place females who think that life has no other aim than that of laying a fresh egg every day."

On the other side of the hedge she met a large turkey strutting gravely about, spreading out his tail, making sundry gurgling noises in his throat, puffing and swelling himself in an apoplectic way, until he got of a bluish, livid hue about his eyes, whilst his gills grew purple.

Surely, thought the little grey hen, that turkey must be a doctor of divinity who knows the aim of life; every word that falls from his beak must be a priceless pearl.

The little silver-grey hen looked at him with the corner of her eye, just as coquettish ladies are apt to do when they look at you over the corners of their fans.

"I say, Mrs. Henny, whither are you bound, all alone?" said the old turkey, with his round eyes.

"I am bent upon seeing a little of the world and improving my mind,"

said the little hen.

"A most laudable intention," said the turkey; "and if you'll permit me, young madam, I myself will accompany, or rather, escort you in this journey, tour, or excursion of yours. And if the little experience I have acquired can be of some slight use to you----"

"How awfully good of you!" said the gushing little hen. "Why, really, it would be too delightful!"

As they went on their way the old turkey at once informed the little hen that he was a professor of the Dovecot University, and he at once began to expatiate learnedly about adjectives, compounds, anomalous verbs, suffixes and prefixes, of objective cases and other such interesting topics. She listened to him for some time, although she could not catch the drift of his speech. At last she came to the conclusion that all this must be transcendental philosophy, so she repeated mechanically to herself all the grave words he spouted, and of the whole lecture she just made out a charming little phrase, with which she thought she would crush her husband some day or other. It was: "Don't run away with the idea that I'm anomalous enough to be governed by objective cases, for, after all, what's a husband but a prefix?"

"And are you married?" asked the little hen, as soon as the turkey had stopped to take breath.

"I am," said the old turkey, with a sigh, "and although I have a dozen wives, I must say I haven't yet found one sympathetic listener amongst them."

"Are they worldly-minded?" asked she.

"They are frivolous, they think that the aim of life is laying eggs."

"Pooh!" said the little hen, scornfully.

As they went along, they met a gander, which looked at them from over a palisade.

"I say, where are you two off to?"

"We are bent upon seeing the world and improving our minds."

"How delightful. Now tell me, would it be intruding if I joined your party? I know they say: Two are company, and three are not, still----"

"They also say: The more the merrier," quoth the little hen.