Page:Korolenko - Makar's Dream and Other Stories.djvu/303

Rh "You are right, Olena; he is worse than a Jew."

"At least the Jew was a decent fellow; he let the girls alone and lived with his Sarah."

The devil actually jumped in his tracks.

"Thank you, thank you, my birdies, for your friendly words. Isn't it time for you to be going on?"

With that he threw back his head like a cock that intends to give an extra loud crow, and burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. He laughed so loud that all the evil spirits on the bed of the river woke up, and circles began spreading across the surface of the pond. But the girls shied away from him like a flock of sparrows into which some one has thrown a stone, and vanished as if the wind had suddenly blown them off the dam.

The goose-flesh ran up and down the miller's back, and he stared down the road that led to the village.

"The best thing for me to do," he thought, "is to make off after those girls as fast as my legs will carry me. I used to be able to run with the best."

But at that moment he suddenly felt relieved, for he saw some one coming toward the mill-dam. And it wasn't just any one, either, but his own servant Kharko.

"A miss is as good as a mile!" he thought. "There is my man!"