Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/408

 had been, and old Loyka felt as though someone was planting a new heart in his breast and in his head the song of the laverock once more resounded.

Then the old kalounkar said, “I think, pantata, if you would be so good as to suffer us to stay here sometime under this roof, that the Lord God would reward you for it on the other side.”

Old Loyka said, “When I see you here I can believe that I am here—just as if you had been my roots and I could again anchor myself here by you.

They were in very truth his roots, and old Loyka anchored himself here by them.

After this his neighbours from the village came and welcomed old Loyka. They declared that they were interested about the construction of some public gardens, and that they only waited for his advice before beginning to lay them out.

In a word, every one treated old Loyka just as though there had never been a period when he was a fugitive from his home, just as though this day was a continuation of the brighter happier days of old. Not, perhaps, that Loyka should no more remember what had been. By no means. He very well remembered that but yesterday he was a wanderer in the world, but at the same time there emerged in him to-day a fresh consciousness that, perhaps, there might be an end of this wandering.

And so Bartos’ plan succeeded. Those spiders’ webs which had obscured old Loyka’s mind, dissi-