Page:The grandmother; a story of country life in Bohemia.pdf/274

268 shall be taken. Do not fear for me, I know every path and I shall get to Kladran, where I can hide. I beg you, come on a pilgrimage to Vamberitz; there we shall meet!'

"Before I could collect my thoughts, he was gone. I hastened to his mother to tell her what had happened, then we both went to my father's house. And now it seemed as if we had lost our senses. Every noise frightened us. That officer sent out his soldiers on all the roads; he did not know George, but he thought he was from some village near by and that they would capture him; but he escaped out of their hands. I avoided the officer as much as I could, but when he could not revenge himself in any other way, he slandered me in the village as if I had been a girl of loose morals. Everybody knew me, so he was not successful in that. Fortunately, orders came that the soldiers should depart, as the Prussians had crossed the frontier. Nothing at all came from this war. The farmers called it the 'kolach war,' because after the soldiers had eaten all the kolaches in the villages, they returned home."

"And what became of George?" asked Christina, who had been listening with breathless attention.

"We heard nothing of him till spring, for in those stormy times there was little travel.

"We were full of anxiety. The spring came, still no news. I prepared to go on the pilgrimage as I had promised George. Several of the villagers were going, I joined their party, and as the leader had been at Kladran several times, he promised my father that he would take me there.