“Already a good many years. His wife dwells in the farm house, and about her Loyka says ‘Let her stop there, she merits it.’ ’Tis a strange and ludicrous affair.” So would run the discourse of the native of the place.
And so we see that even over his sufferings several years have flown and, before we had expected it, we are several years older, and with us Loyka and Frank and Staza and all the rest.
During this time, it is true, Joseph importuned his father to return home. He despatched servants after him with the assurance that he never dreamed his father would make such a fuss about the two chambers by the coach house and take the matter so seriously, and that if only he would return he might dwell in the pension house unmolested. But the servants who were sent with these messages never succeeded much, because on these occasions old Loyka behaved as though they wished to hale him to the butcher’s, stuffed his fingers in his ears, and took to flight. Moreover, at times, he sent strange messages to his son, though it is hard to say whether the servants delivered them just as he gave them.
But old Loyka took so violent an aversion, even to the servants from the farm, that if he came to a village, his first question was whether any one from Frishett’s was on the watch for him. And if he tarried several days in a village he posted guards
