Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/240

 ground stood several pear trees which belonged to the neighbours of Frishets, but they allowed Bartos to take the fruit in requital for his various services, so that Bartos might say the pears were his. Once, on a Sunday afternoon, thinking that Bartos was not at home, two lads climbed into a pear tree and shook off the fruit into bags. But, as it fell out, Bartos approached. The lad who saw him first jumped down and cried out to the other to make haste for Bartos was coming. But the other one dawdled. Just as he was about to spring down Bartos run under him, caught him by the collar, so that the lad found himself treading the air with both feet. While continually threatening him with the whip, his captor only said “I’ll teach thee to dawdle another time,” and then he let the lad go scot-free.

Just as people told stories about Bartos as the country Hercules, so also they had to tell about him in his character of sexton. More than once they had seen him weep while he dug a grave, and more than once they heard him hold mysterious communication above an open grave. More than once had seen him sitting on a grave as though he were holding intercourse with the dead. But not perhaps with this or that dead man, but with all whom he had known.

He used to visit them in succession or according as he missed them, and felt sorry for them. “I must go to Klimoff.” he would say, “just now I feel