Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/247

 might have need of. But we must not blind ourselves to the fact that he also laid himself open to the charge of eccentricity, and in sooth, just for these his good doings. He only took scavenger’s lads into his house, and he only turned out young wherrymen. This fact now hung about his neck like a characteristic label, and people, though applauding his doings, also added, “Tut! tut! Poldik, if a German mouse [i.e. a rat] were to come to him from a scavenger and begged for help because it wanted to set up among sand wherrymen, Poldik would give it shelter.” “And,” pursued others, “any one could swindle him who chose. Let the first idle vagabond come and say, ‘I don’t want to be a scavenger, I want to be a wherryman', and Poldik would open his house and heart to the fellow.” But then, on the other hand, they all concluded their conversation with, “But, pray, who would swindle him, where will you find the heartless rascal to do it?”

In one of these summers it came to pass that Francis died. His boat was capsized by a paddle-wheel, he himself was drawn under the wheel, swam to shore indeed, but took such a chill that he never again rose from his bed. Malka was left with a little chap about six years old. It was a cruel blow to Malka. There on the water which she loved best of all things, where, too, she had found the man of her choice, she must see him perish. And when she took stock of her means she found that the unexpected blow had left her without money for the funeral.

It was, too, an uncommonly hard trial to Poldik, but in a different way. His instinct prompted him to go to her, and then again it whispered to him, “Never mind her, she has ruined thee with her cold-heartedness, let her have her trials also. Pray, why have a heart?” But he mastered himself, went to her, and said, “Oh! Malka, you have much sorrow and anxiety, I will look after the funeral for you. People would cheat you who are a woman, a man is not so easily defrauded.”

It was a heavy stone which fell from his heart at these words. And he looked after the funeral very decently, and took care that all who wherried sand on the Moldau and all who carted it away from the shore should take a part in the last sad rites.

When Poldik came home after the funeral he said to himself, “Poor Malka! nowhere any one to turn to! and her boy on her hands! Where is she to work? What wages can she earn?” And he wished to set off at once and say to Malka that she had better give her boy to him, that he would take him like any other boy, and that he would relieve her of all anxiety. He would have gone: