Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/312

 still no one brought the key, Loyka turned, caught up a cleaver from somewhere in the yard, and battered in the doors of the two chambers. When they cracked, it seemed as if the whole building would tumble down, and when at last the doors gave way and the two chambers were free of access and Loyka stood like a conqueror at the threshold leaning upon his cleaver, and shouted that he was still master in his own house and so let his friends make themselves at home—then, to his astonishment, he became aware that he was addressing people who were no longer there. For the kalounkar was already far away from the court-yard, and Frank had vanished with him. After this a discordant din of voices reached his ears from the balcony above—the voices of the young folks, to whom Loyka replied throughout the whole dialogue from the court-yard, frequently threatening them with the cleaver which he held in his hand.

And this time Frank vanished from the farm for good. When several days elapsed and he did not reappear, the Loykas thought that it was one of his usual rambles, and that they need only send to Bartos at the cemetery to inquire for him, and they would get Frank home again. And when he still did not come after several days they sent a message to Bartos just to say that Frank had still not returned. After this old Loyka went himself to the cemetery, but when he saw the grandfather’s grave, he knelt beside it and prayed a thousand times for forgiveness. He almost forgot exactly why he had gone there. And it was Bartos who first reminded him. “You are looking for Frank, I dare say? Certainly he is not at his home, for it is now a week since he has been at our house.”

It was exactly a week since Frank had quitted his home.

“But I heard say that he had gone with the kalounkar [tape-pedlar], and that he was walking the world with him”, said Bartos to the astonished parent.

“With the kalounkar? Going all over the world with him?” said Loyka, repeating the words of the grave-digger.

When he returned home he told his wife what he had heard, and they dispatched Vena to look for the kalounkar and bring Frank home from him.

Vena departed and came back after several weeks with the news that Frank had tramped it with the kalounkar, but then, so it was said, he had met with a harper, had quitted the kalounkar, and gone with the harper.