Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/253

 He had his eyes particularly on Flandara, a cunning poacher, who considered the forests his private property, and resented all punishment as an injustice. Whenever he was sentenced to a few months’ imprisonment, he would sigh and say: ‘All right! I shall saw logs for the magistrate during the winter and read the Bible from cover to cover. Then I shall go home.’

And when he went home he continued to poach and steal wood. Martin, when he met him, would say to him: ‘Your neck has grown quite crooked with looking for crooked firs.’

When you looked for Flandara in the woods, he would be fishing in all the weirs with his flat-bottomed boat full of fish. When you looked on the river-banks he was shooting cartloads of hares in the woods. The Archduke himself once watched him at the station, sending off a consignment of hares. He said ironically that he hoped Flandara had at least shot half of that waggon-load himself.

And Flandara bowed respectfully and said: ‘Begging your Grace’s pardon, but half of them have been eaten by the magistrates. I had shot twice as many.’

This facetious poacher annoyed Martin, and