Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/268

 soldiers suffered such a reverse, even from an enemy, as on this occasion.

In these parishes it was a custom to test the strength by charging at one another face to face. Folks only tried it once with Bartos—never a second time; at the second fling, he sent every one spinning, his opponent staggered backward and it was a wonder if he did not fall.

Also, “the hook” was a frequent mode of exercise. Two men clasped the bight of a large hook with the fingers and thumb and then pulled against one another across a table. Come and try “the hook”; no one tried against Bartos more than once. He always gave way the first time, but at the second bout he dragged along his adversary together with the table, then his adversary for a couple of days had to nurse his thumb in cold water.

As he was strong so he had artifice. Once he went homewards by night in winter wrapt in his cloak. There fell upon him four footpads, and in order that he should not escape they muffled him in his own cloak. But Bartos tore away from beneath the chain which served for a clasp at the neck—glided out of the cloak like an eel, and soon put all his enemies to rout.

In order that no one should be surprised that highwaymen should fall on a grave-digger, I must say at once that he was well-known to carry money about his person. In those days strong boxes and savings banks were not yet invented. People, therefore, who were possessed of wealth lodged their money with Bartos, because he dwelt in a cemetery, and because he was strong. It became the custom of the neighbourhood to have their money buried in the ground by Bartos at his abode. Thus Bartos seldom or never went to or from a village without carrying silver in his pockets, sometimes a hundred pieces or more. Just as any one wanted money or was flush of it, Bartos brought it or carried it away. Hence we may see also that people built on his tried honesty as on a rock.

If he went to more distant villages at nightfall, and had to go by a wood, and he was apprehensive of danger, he laid himself somewhere behind the bushes, teamed the money into his boots, and so slept till morning. Or if it was cold he laid himself somewhere beside a dunghill, thrust his feet into it, and slept thus.

Once they almost had him. Hereupon he turned round, and cried out, “If you do not decamp, I will plunge this knife into your