Page:Korolenko - Makar's Dream and Other Stories.djvu/232

208 motionless lips. The little Jews were crying and wriggling, and once more the miller seemed to see an alien presence in them weeping and praying for something unknown, long lost, and already half forgotten.

"Well, I must be going home," said the miller, collecting his wits. "And yet I wanted to pay Yankel a few copecks."

"That's all right. I can take them for him," said the servant, without looking at the miller.

But the miller pretended not to have heard this last remark. The sum was not so small that he cared to intrust it to a servant, much less to a vagabond soldier. With a sum like that the fellow might easily kick up his heels, as the saying is, and run away, not only out of the village, but even out of the District. If he did that, look for the wind in the fields, you would find it sooner than Kharko!

"Good night!" said the miller at last.

"Good night! And I'll take the money if you'll give it to me!"

"Don't bother; I can give it to him myself."

"Do as you like. But if I took it you wouldn't be bothered about it any more. Well, well, it's time to close the inn. You're the last dog that'll be round to-night, I'll be bound."

The servant scratched his back on the door post, whistled not very agreeably after the miller, and bolted the door on which were depicted in white paint