Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/263

 Ernest the forester pulled him up sharp: ‘Cheer up, every one will get suspicious!’

They met the red-haired beater near the inn; he smiled a sly, knowing smile which wrinkled up his freckled face till it looked quite small; he winked, drew up a corner of his mouth which usually drooped with continual smoking, and said: ‘Sir, they are not tolling for old Novák.’ He fluttered the fingers of his right hand in front of his eyes, and the full flavour of his plebeian, satanic nature came out in his cackle: ‘it’s old Háta Látalová who is dead.’

What irony, spite and superiority there was in those words! How they pointed to the red-haired one’s past! They revealed all the cautiousness and danger of a poacher’s life, which is never safe for a moment, and yet he continually gets the better of his pursuers and daily has his laugh at them.

‘What is it to me who is dead? I don’t know Háta Látalová,’ curtly answered Martin and went into the inn.

When he bade good-morning to the inn-keeper, he found that his voice had regained its usual power. He ordered two glasses of beer for himself and drank alternately from both; he gave a penny to a poor child. Then