whether you speak the truth.” And Loyka looked out of the window at the court-yard.
“I wonder who that is standing in the court-yard?” he said. “If I am not mistaken, it is the old harvester.”
“He has been already waiting two days to see you and to have a talk with you”, they said.
“Well, let him come and say his say”, responded Loyka. “I always gladly talk with him.”
They called to the harvester and he came. “I am come to you, pantata, to inquire whether you will require the services of the old harvester this summer? Because they are ready to engage us in Časlavsko, and I said that we would go if our old pantata Loyka did not require our services.”
“Have you spoken to the young folk?” inquired Loyka.
“They told me that everything depended on you”, answered the harvester.
“Well, if they said that to you, come all of you to our harvesting. To be sure, where else would you go, when we need your services here?”
“We will be here on call early to prepare ourselves”, said the reaper and took his leave.
Old Loyka turned to his friends and said, “I know very well that Joseph will not be pleased, but why should I not exasperate him a little? Just let them come. Of course, I shall still employ them.”
After this he said, “Still, Joseph does not come hither to drive me away?”
“He is not coming”, said Frank.
“Then if he is not coming, let me go into the court-yard”, and they led him into toe court-yard.
In the court-yard the servants of old Loyka saluted him, called him “pantata” and, in general, behaved towards him very respectfully. Old Loyka inspected the field implements, inspected the house, and was evidently well pleased.
He went to the chambers by the coach-house, there all was just as it had been in his time. The family of the kalounkar, only a few inches taller and perhaps with one or two additions to its numbers; the cloth-pedlar, a little shrunken, and the harpers and fiddlers with the same instruments, only that, perhaps, they too were already a little shrunken. All welcomed old Loyka with smiles and pretty speeches, and one of them said that now all was once more just as it used to be in the old days.
