Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/286

 And thus in a brief space of time were banished from the estate after the musicians, the kalounkar, the cloth pedlar, and the rest. At a moment which is the sweetest in human life, at a moment which every family scores in letters of gold on the page of its domestic history—at that moment in sorrow left this house several people who by right of dear custom considered that it was in part their home.

“Pray, where are the pedlar and the kalounkar being banished,” said old Loyka, seeing from the window how they were trailing across the courtyard with their wares.

“I have purged the chambers of them also,” said Joseph in elucidation. They were no better than the musicians, they had no right to hang about the place. If we young people have to take up our abode in the pensioner’s house we shall want these chambers for ourselves, and not for all sorts of underlings. It would be quite a sin if we were to tolerate them any longer.”

There cannot be a severer blow for an old man than to hear his past life and actions condemned in a single word; and this happened when Joseph declared Loyka’s previous system of hospitality to be a sin. And if there was anything praiseworthy at the Loykas’ it was, perhaps this, that their courtyard opened freely to shelter any who wished to enter it.