Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/263

 to himself, “Who knows whether the mayor will not select me to be a witness, and if not, what matters it? I shall be a witness all the same.”

Even the neighbours’ wives hurried after the neighbours into the court-yard. Only that here in the court-yard the male element detached itself from the female; the neighbours following the mayor up the staircase into the pension house, the neighbours’ wives remaining below in the court-yard.

In the meantime, that is to say, while Frank ran out on to the village green and the neighbours betook themselves to the pension house, Loyka’s son and Loyka’s son’s wife laid out the corpse of the defunct on the bed, and the following conversation passed between them.

“Thirty years have we carried hither his pensioner’s share of the crop, and at last we ourselves are free to enjoy the pensioner’s portion”, said Loyka’s wife.

“We have wronged him grievously”, said Loyka, the hospodar, and clasped his hands.

“We him! he us much more! It is pretty late in the day to call black white now that he is dead, when it was allowed to be black during all his lifetime.”

“He hath his dismissal; who knows what awaits us?”

“A pleasing spectacle, truly! to see you begin now to condemn what you approved for thirty years. We lay down a burden with him in the tomb; do not prevaricate, you know it as well as I do.”

“I would far sooner that I did not know it.”

“Oh! you men, you men! ye fear not the living, and as soon as their eyes are closed in death you grow timorous. Why should not I feel light-hearted to-day? I never feared him while he was alive. I tell him even now that he is dead-I feel the lighter for his loss. I should like to know the farm where they would not breathe free again when the pensioner on their bounty was taken from them, and such a one, too.”

“He was my father.”

“And went to law with you about every measure of his pensioner’s share of the harvest. He never wanted for anything, he had already laid by so much for himself, and he kept back from us enough for ten people to have lived upon, and then he went to law with his son.”

“But I lived with him before in peace and happiness, even now I feel sorry for it all.” Rh