Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/232

 of the tinned figure of the Christus, the flittering of the bats, the desolateness of the bone-house and similar things.

By a strange coincidence it happened that the gravedigger was the Hercules of the neighbourhood, Bartos, about whom whole books might be written. If Bartos had ever said, “I will give battle to a ghost,” everyone would have wagered that Bartos would get the best of the encounter—such a man and no other was cut out to be a gravedigger in a lonely cemetery. So then, perhaps, it came to pass that the popular logic argued backwards, as thus: because the present gravedigger, Bartos, was the Hercules of the neighbourhood, it followed that only a Hercules was fit to be a gravedigger in that spot.

How many a story of his strength was recounted by credible eye witnesses. Once on Sunday, when Bartos was on the spree, there drove into Frishets a drag full of soldiers on leave, and in their insolence they chivied the people hither and thither and struck at everyone who approached their vehicle. Hereupon arose a panic in the village, people ran out of the ale-house and among them Bartos. Bartos seized hold of the horses, held them back, and held back even the vehicle. But, thereby, he effected but little, because he could not approach the carriage, seeing that the soldiers struck out at everyone. “Come and hold the horses! come and hold the horses! shouted Bartos to his neigbours. And