barn, and wished to enter it. But they might quit their home for other scenes, and that would be also to go into the world. They had been willing to take service with people; now they would go and make people merry with singing and music,—would that be worse than service?
All that Venik now thought about was how he could get his clothes quietly into their wallet as Krista had done, and then they would be off. And they arranged between them that Krista should pass the night in the hollow tree, and keep watch over Venik’s violin, lest haply they should lose it just at the very time when they had most need of it. Then he was to bring his clothes there at night and they were to be off before the break of day.
The seed which is no longer sheltered by the husk is easily carried away by the wind: these children had lost the sheltering husk of home, and the wind carried them away. They quickly came to an understanding about a plan and the means of carrying it out.
When that day at even Venik drove his flock homeward, he drove them quickly, as he did on the day when he heard the funeral bell toll out the news of his father’s death. But he drove them with different feelings. For indeed the circumstances were differnt. Venik was in high spirits. To-day he longed for something to occur which should bring down upon him the wrath of the peasant Riha, his
