Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/233

 when the neighbours held the horses Bartos crept under the carriage, arched his back against it, lifted it off the ground and upset it, so that the soldiers fell out of it and then the citizens were quit of them. Never in their lives had the 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.