Page:Czechoslovak stories.pdf/269

 ﻿face had become grave and yet simultaneously there appeared a wild cast to his features which an artist might have caught, but which it is impossible to describe.

“What is that, Joseph? Is it really true? Some people said it, but I didn’t want to believe it!”

“And why didn’t you want to believe it?” young Nešněra braced himself as if for a fight. “Hold on there! Don’t get into that pose with me! You were still a lad looking for mushrooms when I was a comrade of your father’s,” neighbor Halama admonished Joseph. “But if you want to hear what I didn’t want to believe, I’ll tell you without stuttering. I couldn’t believe that a Nešněra would ever sell the estate on which the blood and sweat as well as the blessings and prayers of generations rest! Do you know, Joseph, what your ancestors suffered, what your father struggled through? And especially your grandfather, God grant him everlasting glory! The German lords were determined to possess your estate, saying it would just suit their needs. They made him offers—promises—but he never gave in. Then they worked up a plot making him out a rebel or something and put him in the dark dungeon of the castle. Each day they took him out to torture him, stretched him on the rack, and after each infliction of terrible physical suffering, they asked him, ‘Will you sell by fair means?’ But he always replied, ‘If you call these “fair means,” I’ll wait till there are fairer.’ And they