Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/265

 Novák, and his conscience had been cleared; as though because Háta had died he had never shot a man, nor felt the desire to murder Flandara!

The weary sadness which had made him go to the village, accompanied him through many days, and roused him from his sleep with the monotonous call: ‘You have killed a man!’

His companion’s reiterations of the stories of poachers killed with the butt end of a rifle and burnt, did not contribute to his happiness.

Three bad weeks passed; Martin was suffering. The red-haired beater kept an obstinate silence. He sometimes eyed Martin with a half respectful, half ironical look, as though he were about to tell him the remaining chapters of the story, then turned away as if he had changed his mind, and said nothing.

‘Were you going to speak to me?’ Martin would ask in a dull tone of voice

‘I? Not at all. What could I have to tell you, sir?’ the beater would answer in feigned astonishment.

Martin went to Zbozi on his own account. He went into the inn, and on entering the parlour said: ‘Good-morning,’ in a general way. A guest was sitting at a table in the