All that had been heretobefore began to crumble beneath the children’s feet: with their father perished even their home. It was unloving words which they now heard, and loveless home is no home at all. They listened like frightened birds, and longed to flee away to the hill-side.
“You Venik,” said Riha, “can’t you leave that precious violin to be a violin? A great boy like you and nearly grown up to go mooning about the hill-side; what a pretty affair it is! Thy father was too good-natured to thee, and when he saw thee and thy violin together, he thought—God knows what he thought. But what will become of the house and farm, I wonder, if you treat it like that? Until harvest you shall still pasture the sheep. When harvest comes I will take a turn with thee in the field myself, and after harvest I will find some one to put you in the way of things.”
“And thou,” said Riha’s wife, turning to Krista, “don’t let me see thee running out of the house any more after Venik. A girl like thee, who could already be in service, to go prowling and howling in the woods! Once I miss thee from the house and I make short work of all thy caterwauling! Just remember that thou hast but a slippery foothold in this house and that we can manage to do without thee. Thy howlings won’t make the cottage bloom, and we cannot have thee here to be muffled in cotton-wool for the sake of thy singing. Mercy on us! I suppose thou thinkest thyself a cut above all our peasant girls.”
It is possible that many of these words were true, but they were all ill-timed. At that moment it was cruel to scourge hearts already in any case bowed with grief. I have already said that Venik and Krista did not fully understand all they heard; only so much as this, they felt that every word inflicted a wound upon them, and that each wound smarted.
That day, at even, maybe by accident, Venik and Krista met at the hollow tree on the hill-side. Krista was already there, and Venik came somewhat later.
“I am come to say good-bye”, said Krista, and flung herself on the little grave which three years before they had dug for his mother.
“And I came to say farewell to the hill-side and my violin”, said Venik plaintively.
“And I to say adieu to thee, dear Venik”, added Krista. “Ah, heavens! I mustn’t dare to be beside thee any more. I mustn’t
