“Fetch me the gamekeeper”, ordered the Count one day.
At the time, Havránek was walking through the forest and looking for things to improve. He had a small notebook in his hand and a pencil behind his ear. He stopped walking every now and then to make a note:
“Repair the feeding rack by the eighty oaks, cut back the thicket around the Wenceslas Stream so that the sun can reach the water, cut down the dried-up spruce by the Gallas Fishponds …” He suddenly heard the bugler’s summons from the tower calling all the Count’s subjects to the courtyard.
“That can’t mean anything good”, thought Havránek to himself as he threw his double-barrelled rifle over his shoulder and set off for the château. The château scribe was standing in the middle of the courtyard, acting as if the entire Lusatian Mountains belonged to him and shouting so hard that his twisted moustache straightened:
“It is hereby announced that our lord Count will celebrate his birthday on Sunday. He hereby orders his subjects to celebrate this occasion with their work and to increase their efforts for the good of the Count’s treasury on this glorious day! As the celebrations will be attended by a large number of important people from near and far, all the Count’s subjects are hereby instructed to appear happy and optimistic throughout the day and to shout “Long Live his Excellency the Count” three times every hour on the hour! Those who fail to comply will be severely punished!”
Nobody was very happy about this, because they all knew that they could expect nothing good during the celebrations. Havránek stood in the courtyard and got to chatting with Otepka the farmer.
“Well, that’s just great”, said Otepka. “The last time they had a celebration, they cleared out my farm so that not even a single sack of flour remained and they took all the suckling pigs for the grand banquet!”
Havránek was nodding to show that he understood, when a window opened on the first floor and Count Tlučhoř leaned out of it and screeched:
“Come here immediately Havránek. I have something important to discuss with you!”
Havránek was thunderstruck. He suspected that some calamity was about to befall his forest, but what could be done.
When he arrived in the Count’s chambers, Tlučhoř was sitting on his ceremonial chair, swinging his legs and dictating something to the scribe, who had since returned from the courtyard.
“I have summoned you in person, gamekeeper, because I have an important task for you. My birthday celebrations will include a hunt. The cook will then use the hunted game to prepare the banquet for my guests.”
“But it’s March! Every little child knows that it is prohibited to hunt game in March”, objected Havránek.
“I don’t give a hoot about the month, there will be a hunt! And, as I have invited the Regional Administrator, we will prepare a little surprise for him. The highlight of the hunt will be a white 12-point stag that he will have the honour of shooting. Not even the Emperor himself has such a trophy!”
“But Vápeňák the white stage is a symbol of the local forest. Your beloved great-grandmother had him on her coat of arms! You cannot seriously want to shoot such a rare beast just for his antlers.”
“Oh yes I can! And you will organise everything. If that white stag does not come out of the thicket and onto the meadow in front of the hide at three o’clock on Sunday, I will strip you of your position and you can go and beg”, threatened the Count before sending Havránek away and making it clear that he wished to discuss the matter no longer.
Havránek felt great despair as he made his way home, but he knew one thing for sure: not a single shot would be fired in the forest because of the Count’s arrogance.
Tonička the kestrel was waiting for him at his cabin. He was sitting on a branch of a high spruce tree and twittering:
“You don’t have to tell me anything, Havránek, I heard everything through the open window!” Tonička soared high in the clouds and could see the whole forest, so he always knew about every slightest rustle. “What are you going to do, Havránek? If you don’t obey the Count’s command, Tlučhoř will dismiss you and you won’t have anywhere to rest your head!”
“Well, that doesn’t bother me at all, Tonička. The old hermitage on the Crow Cliffs is empty and you know me well enough to know that I would rather help the forest from the old hermitage than damage it from the gamekeeper’s cabin! Fly around the forest, please, and call all the animals to the clearing under the Popov Cliff. We’ll decide what to do there tomorrow at dawn.” Havránek then sat on a bench in front of the cabin, lit his pipe and pondered things. As the tobacco smoke rose to the heavens, it became increasingly clear to him that he would be moving to the Crow Cliffs by Sunday at the latest.
The preparations for the celebration were well underway, so Havránek had plenty of time to prepare his new home. He purchased a stove with a hotplate from the stove maker so that he would not be cold and so he would have something to cook on. Then, he knocked up a table, a chair and a bed from some rough-hewn boards. He padded the bed with soft fir branches. Once he had almost got the hermitage ready to live in, he sat in front of it on a rock and suddenly felt satisfied and began to really look forward to his new home.
“I’ll actually be better off here than in the Count’s cabin. I won’t have to obey any nonsensical orders and I won’t go hungry. The forest will provide. I like it and I’m sure it will take care of me”, he hummed contentedly beneath his beard and he was suddenly sorry that he had to go back to the gamekeeper’s cabin. But there was nothing for it. The next day was Sunday and he could not leave Vápeňák the stag to an uncertain fate.
There was an enormous commotion at the château and the bourg from the early morning on Sunday. Guests arrived, Count Tlučhoř welcomed them in the courtyard in his finest outfit and he acted as if he not only owned the Grabštejn Estate, but the whole world as well. Buglers played fanfares and the people cried out three cheers for his Excellency the Count every hour on the hour.
The last of the invited guests to arrive was the Regional Administrator. He had barely scrambled out of his carriage than he asked about the 12-point white stag. Count Tlučhoř bowed so low that his chin almost scraped the château paving and assured the Regional Administrator:
“Do not worry, honourable sir. Everything has been prepared to your utmost satisfaction. After some light refreshment, we will set off for the hide in the glade where the white stag likes to regularly graze.”
“I am very pleased to hear that, Count. I cannot wait to have such a trophy. It will make me the envy of everyone, even in Austria”, blustered the Regional Administrator and, once he had eaten his third roast chicken and twelve poppy-seed cakes and drunk his fifth jug of wine, he seized his pearl inlaid rifle and said, “Let us not delay any longer. I can hardly wait.”
The stablemen led out two saddled horses, one for the Count and one for the Regional Administrator. Once four servants had succeeded in lifting the two men onto their steeds, the pair set off in the direction of the hide. The knees of both horses buckled under the conceited gentlemen, because they had never borne such a weight before.
Where there had been a commotion at the château and everything had been abuzz like a beehive, the forest and everything around them was as quiet as the grave.
“I would like to know where all the game is. I’ll wager this is Havránek’s doing”, cursed the Count.
“If you are dissatisfied with your gamekeeper, send him packing. I’ll send you gamekeeper Halůzka. He is the best gamekeeper you could wish for. He does not understand the forest at all, but he will make your every wish come true”, the Regional Administrator offered the Count.
“You are too kind, sir. I have not even had a taste of roast boar since Havránek became gamekeeper”, said the grateful Count Tlučhoř.
Havránek was waiting when they arrived at the hide.
“Where is all the game?” barked the Count at him.
“I don’t know. They must have felt a storm in the air and gone into hiding”, said Havránek, even though he knew full well that almost every animal was hidden in a cave at the foot of the hill called Vápeňák after the white stag. Or maybe it was the other around and the stag was named after the hill? Nobody can really remember and it doesn’t matter anyway.
Count Tlučhoř began to climb into the hide. He made hard work of it and the ladder flexed under his weight and made ominous cracking sounds. Despite all that, however, the hide succeeded in bearing both his weight and that of the Regional Administrator.
“It’s not very comfortable up here, Havránek”, swore Tlučhoř.
“I know you would prefer to shoot from the chateau window, but I doubt that the stag would come and graze in the courtyard”, replied Havránek.
The Count shot him a dirty look and said to the Regional Administrator:
“I would be most grateful for that gamekeeper, my dear sir.”
“Don’t mention it. The main thing is that the stag shows up. I can hardly wait”, replied the Regional Administrator, as he eagerly scanned the clearing beneath the hide.
“Where on earth is that stag, Havránek?” grumbled Tlučhoř.
“It’s not yet three o’clock. Or did Your Excellency hear the clock in the Bílý Kostel spire strike the hour?” answered Havránek mockingly and he could not wait for what was about to happen.
Down in the valley, the wings of Tonička the kestrel fluttered as he sat on the top of the church spire, directly next to the gilded pennant. A snort arose from the thicket under the hide as a signal that everything was ready, but it was quiet so that neither the Count nor the Regional Administrator heard anything. At that moment, the bells in the spire rang out. Once they had struck three, Vápeňák the magnificent stag emerged majestically from the thicket at the lower end of the clearing. He stopped so that he was easily visible and looked at the hide as if to say, “OK, show me what you can do, you two hunters.”
When the Regional Administrator saw the stag, he got such a jolt that he almost forgot why he was sitting in the hide. Once he had recovered from his amazement, he grabbed his rifle and started to aim at the stag. At that very moment, Tonička the kestrel used his wing to turn the pennant against the sun so that the reflected light shone directly into the eye that the Regional Administrator was using to aim.
“Shoot quickly, sir, before that blasted stag changes his mind and disappears back into the thicket”, Count Tlučhoř urged the Regional Administrator.
“I would like to Count, but I cannot aim. Something is shining into my eyes so that I cannot see anything!”
“So let’s switch places. My place is in the shade of a larch branch”, offered the Count.
At the moment when the two were switching positions with some difficulty, there was a grunt from the thicket below them, then a snort and then Štětina, the biggest boar in the forest, suddenly appeared. He calmly walked up to the hide, leant his shoulder against it and started scratching. The hide swayed from side to side as a result. Count Tlučhoř had not been holding on to anything and so he lost his balance and fell, only to end up hanging from a branch by tail of his hunting jacket. The Regional Administrator got a fright, because he had never seen such a huge boar before. He dropped his gun and, when it hit the ground, it let off bang like a cannon and shot his hat off his head. The Regional Administrator could not understand what was happening and so he hung on to the hide for dear life and babbled incomprehensibly.
“Get us down at once, Havránek. You’ll pay for this”, screeched Tlučhoř as he swung on the branch by his coat tail.
Havránek looked up at the two stuffed-shirts with amusement and said, “Let the new gamekeeper get you down. I am no longer in your service.”
Vápeňák the white stag came over to the hide, because he did not want to miss the amazing show.Havránek got on his back like a horse and said to him, “Let’s go home, Vápeňák!”
“Just you wait. You’ll pay for this when you get back to the gamekeeper’s cabin”, screamed the Count from his branch.
“Don’t look for me there, Count. I don’t live there anymore”, laughed Havránek and he rode up to the Crow Cliffs with the stag.
“Don’t forget to tell the animals that they can go home, Vápeňák. I’m just sorry that I couldn’t do everything I promised.”
“What do you mean? After all, everything turned out well and those two “hunters” won’t ever forget it”, said Vápeňák to Havránek with surprise.
“But I promised that no shot would be fired and one was”, laughed Havránek. “The one that shot the Regional Administrator’s hat off his head!
