This remark appeared extremely personal, and they began to gesticulate against Vena; but some recognized that what he had said was at least true as regarded the Loykas.
Here one man said, “Only what surprised me is that old Loyka was so contented when he fared so ill as a pensioner.”
“Ah! well! well!” said the mayor, in elucidation of the mystery. “It is easy to be content when one has the wherewithal. He had good reason to be content. He had money enough for himself alone, about which he was wont to say, ‘While that exists, I need never beg anything of any one.’ And well that he had it, and not well that he had it. Well, because his son, the hospodar, frequently kept back his pensioner’s share of the crop, and the old man might have been reduced to real distress if he had been kept waiting for it; not well, because, on the other hand, old Loyka, when the law bore him out, forced his son to pay every quarter of grain due. From this money sprang their differences. And then all that he could spare was laid by, and now old Loyka’s Frank gets it all.”
“That boy will cut a figure in the world”, said some one. “He quite hung on his grandfather, and was at his house all day and all night long, until even his mother was angry with him for it. I maintain that he loved his grandfather more dearly than he loved either his father or his mother.”
“And where, pray, will you find children who do not love their grandfather and grandmother more dearly than they love their parents”, suggested others again. “You have at once his elder brother Joseph”, responded the former speaker.
“Faugh! he, indeed, why he never loved any one in his life.” The opinion thus pronounced apparently expressed the general sentiment, for no one contradicted it.
At this moment a heart-rending wail resounded from the farmyard, and attracted the attention of all the neighbours present. They peered through the half-opened gate and said to one another, “’Tis Frank; we might have known it.”
Frank ran out on to the village green, his hair dishevelled, his face wet with tears, his eyes still filled with tears, and sobbed forth amid sighs and gulpings, “We have lost grandfather, our people drive me from him-oh! unhappy that I am!” And he cried until he choked.
During this outburst of sorrow the neighbours were silent. Only Vena took upon himself the task of continuing the conversation. “Ah! we know why they have driven thee out. They want to grab! They are grab, grabbing!” and he began to represent
