Page:Korolenko - Makar's Dream and Other Stories.djvu/279

Rh was as dark as a tomb. The miller's heart was as full of darkness as the deserted Jewish khata.

"I didn't save the Jew," he thought. "It was I who made his children orphans, and now what dreadful things am I plotting against the widow's daughter?"

"Would it be right for us to do it?" he asked of Kharko.

"Why not? Of course there are some people who won't eat honey. Perhaps you are one of them."

"No, I'm not one of them, but still—well, good-bye!"

"Good-bye!"

The miller started down the hill, and once more Kharko whistled after him. Although he did not whistle as insultingly as he had the year before, it flicked the miller on the raw.

"What do you mean by whistling, you rascal?" he asked, turning round.

"What, mayn't a man even whistle?" Kharko retorted crossly. "I used to whistle when I was orderly to the Captain, and yet I mayn't do it here!"

"After all, why shouldn't he whistle?" the miller thought. "Only why does everything happen just as it did that evening?"

So he walked away down the hill and Kharko went on whistling, only more softly. The miller passed the garden where the cherry trees grew, and once more what seemed to be two great birds rose out