Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/299

 This altercation was sufficient for the first time. Motes seemed to flicker before Loyka’s old eyes, and after a considerable pause, he said, “Wife, lead me to bed.” He did not even trust himself to go alone.

And the young folks took up their abode in the dwelling which had been previously occupied by their grandfather, which was called on the farm “the pension house” [na vejminku: i. e. on condition], and to which we will give the same name; the old people dwelt in the house they had hitherto occupied, which was called the farmhouse [na statku], and which we also will so name.

In the farmhouse the Loykas were to be hospodar for six years.

When harvest time drew near the farmstead filled with harvesters and harvest women. It was gay in the court-yard below. Scythes and sickles clashed, rakes were being mended, everywhere there was a sound of hammering—just as if a clock was striking in the court-yard. Old Loyka, who had scarcely spoken five words since his son’s wedding-day, grew young again at the season of harvest. He was so accustomed to those two chambers by the coach-house, he used always to find there some wayfarer with whom he gladly conversed, and since his son’s wedding-day these chambers had been empty. And it oppressed him to have no one to converse with. But at harvest time the farmstead filled with people, moreover, harvestmen and harvestwomen filled the two chambers, and so Loyka felt as though he had come to himself again. Now once more people went to and fro, the court-yard was full of voices and the noise of preparations—so old Loyka was once again contented. Often at early morning he might be seen pacing to and fro the court-yard, pleased with the flavour of his pipe, and with a settled smile upon his face.

During the few Sundays which had elapsed since his son’s wedding-day several years seemed to have settled upon his head; to-day he felt as though in the flight of time those few years had been recalled. The harvesters and harvestwomen saluted him, smiled upon him, conversed with him, inquired of this and that, and old Loyka loved to converse. To-day he had been talking since early morning, he wished to compensate for the silence of several past weeks.

The harvesters were glad to go and seek employment at the Loykas’s; here they halted first when they came to the village—Loyka might choose the stoutest of them all. Also to-day he