Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/257

 tolled the bell is dead and done for, and when I toll the bell for thee thou wilt be dead and done for.”

This speech and the manner in which it was spoken, not only convinced the neighbours, but it convinced Vena himself. He stopped, almost let fall his basket on the ground, and burst into tears. So that again in a little time he infected all the neighbours’ wives at all events with sorrow; until they were fain to wipe their eyes, and the neighbours said to one another, “Tis a poor fool, but he hath a good heart!”

After a few moments, Vena lifted the basket, took out a flask of rosolek and gulping down his sorrow, said to the neighbours and neighbours’ wives, “What’s to be done with the rosolek now that he is dead, now that he is nothing at all? Ah, neighbours! Help and drink it to his health!” He himself took the first pull and then offered it to the bystanders.

“What are you to do with him when he is a fool?” said they again to one another, half laughing, and in the meantime began to call upon the sexton to explain how it came to pass that old Loyka had died so unexpectedly.

“He dropped off! He dropped off!” said the sexton. “It came upon him just like a yawn—like a hiccup.”

“The Lord God be with us!” cried some of the neighbours’ wives, for it appeared to them that the sexton spoke as learnedly as a doctor.

“Frank, his younger grandson, was with him,” continued the sexton, “you know they loved each other truly and dearly. ‘Frank,’ he said, ‘when I die my watch will be thine. Besides this, what is in yonder drawers and chests is also thine, it is that same silver which I have collected for thee.’ Frank said, ‘Oh! grandfather, who, pray, would talk about death, and you so hale and hearty?’ and he wept. ‘Do you mean it?’ said old Loyka, ‘but I am old, within a little of a hundred years.’”

“A hundred years!” reiterated the neighbours, “that is a great age.”

The sexton proceeded: “‘Ah! Frank,’ says Loyka again, after a pause, ‘I feel constantly as though I had a clod of earth upon me. Boy! clear off this clod of earth!’” ‘You have not, grandfather', said Frank to this, and again wept. ‘You think not? Well, then lead me out on the balcony', and although in the morning he still walked like a stag, and was as fresh as a fish, now he leant upon Frank as though he could scarcely take a step forward.