Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/54

 piece of the way, as if the two wanderers had been their own children.

Just before bidding adieu, Venik and Krista struck up the “Orphan Child”, and the procession was drowned in tears. Then Venik struck up a lively tune, and the parting was a merry one. Their kind friends embraced them, and promised them whenever they chose to revisit the village, to receive them with open arms.

So they separated. In the next village the young people were all expectancy, and Venik and Krista were welcomed as brother and sister.

All marched together to the accompaniment of music to and from school, then to the different houses in the village; and on the way there was a repetition of what took place in the first parish the two children had entered. The whole village went into raptures, and when the “Orphaned Child” was played people were drowned in tears.

This song had everywhere the power of enchantment. People were quite beside themselves, and yet they could have listened to it till nightfall and beyond. They scrutinized Venik and the strings of his violin, to see whether the instrument really was the source of what they heard issue from it. But the music must have been there evolved, although to them it appeared exactly as though the music came from Venik himself. As to Krista it was easier to satisfy oneself, she obviously spoke with a real mouth, and so it was easier to believe in her heart.

On Sunday afternoon, young and old disported themselves on the village green, and there, too, Venik performed and Krista sang. All the youth of the village were soon in a ring round them, and behind the young people came the old, and then I really do not know who remained at home. Then might wicked people have gone from house to house and walked off with everything. No one would have prevented them, for no one was left at home to prevent them. But those wicked people who had slipped out to pilfer, hearing Venik and Krista, would have left off thieving, and would have gone and listened like the rest. Then Venik and Krista made a grand display of their stock of songs, playing what they just remembered and what they knew; they even sang and played masses, and people said that they never before felt so festive even on a Sunday.

Their fame increased. Scarcely had they begun to feel somewhat at home here, before invitations came from two—from five villages all at once, begging them to come and delight the in-