Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian — John Shaqi
Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian
General
Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian
Short stories -- Translations into English
What a stir, what an uproar there was then in Nazareth! Women opened
windows, and peasants hurriedly left their houses carrying lights which
were put out when they reached the orchard, where, because of the snow
and the full moon, one could see as well as at midday.
Later, they gathered round Korneliz and Krayer, in the open space which
faced the inns. Several of them had brought pitchforks and rakes, and
consulted together, terror-stricken, under the trees.
But, as they did not know what to do, one of them ran to fetch the
cure, who owned Korneliz's farm. He came out of the house with the
sacristan carrying the keys of the church. All followed him into the
churchyard, whither his cry came to them from the top of the tower,
that he beheld nothing either in the fields, or by the forest, but that
around the farm he saw ominous red clouds, for all that the sky was of
a deep blue and agleam with stars over the rest of the plain.
After taking counsel for a long time in the churchyard, they decided to
hide in the wood through which the Spaniards must pass, and, if these
were not too numerous, to attack them and recover Petrus Krayer's
cattle and the plunder which had been taken from the farm.
Having armed themselves with pitchforks and spades, while the women
remained outside the church with the cure, they sought a suitable
ambuscade. Approaching a mill on a rising ground adjacent to the verge
of the forest, they saw the light of the burning farm flaming against
the stars. There they waited under enormous oaks, before a frozen mere.
A shepherd, known as Red Dwarf, climbed the hill to warn the miller,
who had stopped his mill when he saw the flames on the horizon. He bade
the peasant enter, and both men went to a window to stare out into the
night.
Before them the moon shone over the burning farmstead, and in its light
they saw a long procession winding athwart the snow. Having carefully
scrutinized it, the Dwarf descended where his comrades waited under the
trees, and now, they too gradually distinguished four men on horseback
behind a flock which moved grazing on the plain.
While the peasants in their blue breeches and red cloaks continued to
search about the margins of the mere and under the snowlit trees, the
sacristan pointed out to them a box-hedge, behind which they hid.
The Spaniards, driving before them the sheep and the cattle, advanced
upon the ice. When the sheep reached the hedge they began to nibble at
the green stuff, and now Korneliz broke from the shadows of the bushes,
followed by the others with their pitchforks. Then in the midst of the
huddled-up sheep and of the cows who stared affrighted, the savage
strife was fought out beneath the moon, and ended in a massacre.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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