Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/228

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On Condition: or Pensioned Off.

CHAPTER II.


IN Frishets they had a chapel, near which lay the old burial ground, but they had long ceased to bury the dead in it. The burial ground for the present defunct was distant about a quarter of an hour’s journey from the village, and almost in a deserted spot.

From Frishets to the west trended a low hill for a distance of two miles; it was tillage land on both its slopes and divided into fields, while along the ridge of the hill itself ran a carriage road. Half way along the hill and near the carriage road was the burial ground of the union—that is to say, Frishets and several other villages.

Four lofty walls, built in a quadrangle and whitewashed, proclaimed from a distance that they were the walls of a cemetery. High aloft and stretching to heaven in the centre of these four walls a ruddy-painted cross on which hung a white metal figure of the Christus confirmed it, while several lesser