Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/422

 market places like a beggar, because they tormented him under his own roof. There will be no need that the vejminkar should make his last will before she sets foot in his house, because afterwards he will be worried out of his five senses. And with such good qualities as she possesses Staza will need many wagons to carry all easily.”

Perhaps Vena would have declaimed at yet greater length had not the march of events deadened the effect of Kmoch’s insolent remark.

From the cemetery, whither Frank had driven to claim his bride, his best man rode at a gallop, and said that the happy pair would be at the village in a trice, that old Bartos had joined their hands by the graves of Staza’s mother and Frank’s grandfather, and said “Your love grew out of the grave, may it last beyond all graves.”

At this moment Vanek began to ring the bell in the chapel, and outside the village resounded the fiddles of well-known fiddlers, who were assisted by musicians from the whole surrounding district.

The neighbours on the village green flocked into the green arcade which formed an alley as far as the chapel, and awaited the young bride and bridegroom, only Kmoch turned away in another direction.

Here I must touch off a good side in the neighbours of Frishetts, namely, that they awaited the young couple in perfect good faith. Frank, by his behaviour towards his father, had so firmly installed