Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/50

 their lives had they marched so merrily from school.

On the Sunday our young musicians asked to be allowed to play and sing in chapel, and Lord! how completely people forgot to look at the altar and fixed their eyes upon the gallery.

When in days gone by they had sung and played thus in the chapel of their native village, people, when they talked about “these children,” were quite accustomed to them. Here people heard them for the first time, and also heard such playing and singing for the first time. That Sunday they might have selected whichever farm they pleased to sup at; places were laid for them at every house.

It was fortunate for these young souls, at this period of their lives, that strangers treated them as if they were of their own family and at home.

Possibly, if things had fallen out otherwise, they would have lost their way and ended in filth and obscurity, out of which there is no means of extrication. But as it was, they never stumbled on to the false track to ruin; their path led them other whither.

The fame of the young musicians spread rapidly. The young people of neighbouring parishes also desired to be accompanied to and from school with music; an invitation was sent, and when Venik and Krista departed from the place where they had begun their musical pilgrimage, young and old escorted