“The North Wind would give me what for, if I woke him up a week early”, thought Havránek to himself and he looked down into the valley.
The church spire in Hrádek sparkled in the afternoon sunlight and the arms of the windmill at Uhelná were slowly turning.
“I see the farmers in the valley have almost harvested all the grain”, mumbled Havránek beneath his whiskers. Suddenly, something tickled him behind his right ear like when you stroke somebody with a spray of fern. This always happened whenever an injustice was being done somewhere in the Grabštejn Forest.
At the same time, the breeze brought the melody of the Count’s fanfare played on a French horn to his left ear and he could see the Count’s standard flying above the tower of the Grabštejn Château.
Havránek went to the hermitage for his double-barrelled rifle which he had received when he had served as the Grabštejn gamekeeper. He had not even had time to throw the rifle across his shoulder when there was a crackling and snuffling in the undergrowth and Štětina, the oldest and wisest bore in the entire forest, emerged to meet Havránek.
“Havránek, things are bad. You have to help! Count Tlučhoř has got it into his head to have all eighty oak trees in the Grabštejn Forest cut down. One week before the harvest! What will we do in winter when we don’t have anything to eat?”
“Don’t worry, Štětina, no stuffed shirt is going to make a mess of our forest! Even if it were the emperor himself”, roared Havránek with righteous anger, as he turned in the direction of Jitrava and blew his whistle for the second time. This time, however, he blew it slightly more strongly so that the note would reach the Jitrava Forest.
After a short moment, during which a pine cone would not even have had time to fall onto the ground from a tree, a slight jingling resounded through the forest. It was the hooves of Vápeník the white stag ringing out on the cliffs of the ridge that had been known as the Goat Ridges since time memorial. Once he arrived at the Crow Cliffs, he stopped and said:
“You don’t have to tell me anything Havránek. I have heard it all from Tonička the kestrel. Count Tlučhoř apparently stuffed himself so full yesterday evening that his bed broke beneath his weight. Apparently, he immediately ordered Halůzka the gamekeeper to fell all the oak trees so that he could choose the very best to be used to make him a new bed. One that would not break under his weight, even if he had eaten a whole wagon load of sausages!”
“We’ll see about that! Not even a sapling will fall in the forest to the Count's pompousness, let alone eighty ancient oak trees! Take me there, Vápeňák, so that we arrive before Halůzka and his gang of woodcutters.”
Havránek jumped on the stag’s back and they galloped down the Sheep Slope to the Nisa River. There, they headed upstream and forded the river at a shallow site, albeit carefully, of course, so that they did not frighten the trout under the water. They crossed the meadow and headed up the slope from the Gallas Fishponds, across the main Grabštejn road and on to the site of the eighty oak trees. They stopped by the large feeding rack that had stood there since the time when Štětina had been a little piglet.
From the feeding rack, they could see the gang of woodcutters approaching along the hillside. There was an even dozen of them. They carried saws and taxes across their shoulders and Halůzka the gamekeeper strode before them like some kind of general. If it were not for the pheasant’s feather in his hat, he would have been invisible in the long grass. He was more or less dragging his gun along the ground and with every step it poked him in his calf from behind so that he gave a little skip. In the meantime, the Count’s carriage bumped up from the main road and Tluchoř clambered out of it with difficulty onto the path.
Havránek emerged from beneath the feeding rack and called out in a deep voice:
“Stop! What kind of mischief are you up to here Halůzka. You’ll frighten all the animals!”
Halůzka the gamekeeper got such a fright that he sat down on a stump.
“I’m going to cut down some oak trees and there’s nothing you can do to stop me”, he barked back once he had recovered from his fright.
“I see you’re doing a great job looking after our forest, Halůzka. You have yet to plant a single tree and now you want to chop down eighty of them. Those are some crazy numbers!”
The gamekeeper pretended that he couldn’t see Havránek and began chalking marks on the oak trees to show which should be felled first and which would follow immediately afterwards. Meanwhile, Count Tlučhoř remained by his carriage, because he was frightened to go into the forest lest he should dirty his expensive silk clothes or any needles or dry leaves should fall into his white wig. Havránek acted as if he were unaware of the Count’s presence and said:
“Well, there’s nothing for it. I shall have to blow my whistle for the third time”. He turned towards Rooster Peak, took a deep breath and blew his whistle so strongly that it started the bell in the Bílý Kostel church spire swinging. At that moment, the sky above the Popov Cliff darkened and there was a rustle like when the geese migrate to warmer climes in autumn. Above the Nisa, it sounded happy, but it buzzed over the Gallas Fishponds like an angry wasps’ nest. The North Wind carefully combed the leaves of the hundred-year-old oak trees within a few seconds.
“Why won’t you let me sleep, Havránek?” roared the North Wind and he looked around.
Havránek told him what was happening and waited to see how the North Wind would respond. The wind stretched out under the carriage and first blew the Count’s wig off sending it into the blackberries. As the Count and the gamekeeper tried to free it, the North Wind blew even more strongly so that they both ended up sitting in a muddy puddle in the middle of the forest path. Count Tlučhoř’s chubby bottom displaced almost all the water from the puddle and he cried out in a shrill voice:
“Help me to my feet, gamekeeper. My back is completely frozen!”
This made all the woodcutters laugh so much that they fell about.
Meanwhile, the North Wind rose to the treetops and growled:
“Hide under the feeding rack with the stag, Havránek. As you have woken me up, we are going to start the acorn harvest early.”
He blew on the tops of the oak trees so strongly that all the ripe acorns began to fall onto the ground like a summer hailstorm. The horses with the carriage bolted and raced off towards Baker’s Peak. The Count covered his bare head with his hands and screeched:
“What kind of a wild cannonade is this, Halůzka? Get me out of the forest quickly or it will be the death of me!”
They both ran off to the chateau. They tripped over roots and, when they were nearly at the Grabštejn road, the North Wind blew strongly from behind them. They started running so quickly that they almost couldn’t stop and were at risk of falling into the Château Fishpond. Only then did the North Wind calm down and begin singing happily in the tops of the hundred-year oaks.
“Now that the harvest is done, I’m going to finish my sleep.”
Havránek thanked him and wished him pleasant dreams. The North Wind slowly returned to his abode under Rooster Peak. The woodcutters collected the acorns into sacks and stored them under the feeding rack for the winter. Then they went home happy, because they had time for more useful pursuits. Once the area was quiet, Vápeňák the stag tapped his hoof on the stony path so that the animals knew that they could return to their forest.
“I’ll take you back to the Crow Cliffs”, the stag offered Havránek.
“You’re very kind, but just drop me off at the lower saddle. I’m going to go and have a beer at Řeháček’s inn. Somehow, the laughter dried up in my throat during the harvest.
