instruction. The horrible death of Nešněra had so reacted on the minds of all that not a single inhabitant of the village arrived to register in the new school.
Schlosser tried to compel his employees, but they all threatened that they would rather bang themselves. And from that time he had a horror of hanged persons. Often in his dreams he saw the apparition of the old man whom he had driven to death. Schlosser’s wife paid for that deed in the loss of her health. She nearly lost her life also, but as it was, the life of her child which came into the world prematurely was the price paid.
And it was this woman, broken until the end of her days, who had been accustomed to look upon the laboring class contemptuously and without sympathy, who now implored her husband with clasped hands not to force his workmen into the German school.
Finally, even Schlosser himself began to believe, although he would never acknowledge it, that fate had avenged itself on him.
But things went harder with Joseph, whom no one addressed otherwise than as “Schuldiener.” He seemed to have lost wife, children and love of life. He gave himself up to drinking and whenever he was much intoxicated he cursed and reviled himself, the German “master,” the church and even the school. Often he threatened that he would settle his score with Schlosser.
But Schlosser one day just before he departed with
