Jozef saw the soldiers march off from Tabor with a look of peculiar resolve in their eyes, and heard mothers and fathers whisper with their good-bys:
"You know your duty to your native land." When later he heard of patriotic soldiers shot because refusing to go forward; of Czech and Slovak soldiers branded as traitors because they deserted to the Allies and, reforming in their ranks, fought their real enemies, the Germans of Germany, the Germans of Austria, and the Magyars of Hungary, he understood better what a big and splendid thing this duty was.
For a while, work in the school continued, but everything seemed different. Patriotic songs with their beautiful melodies were no longer allowed to be sung; the old school books with their brilliant, romantic, yet true recitals of Bohemia's wonderful, heroic past, were replaced entirely by newly written books full of praise of the Hapsburg rulers and of Germany. Jozef and the other pupils rejoiced in one thing: they still had the same teacher. But this rejoicing did not continue long. One day they found the school doors closed and learned that the teacher had been taken to prison accused of disloyalty because he had allowed a ten-year-old pupil to walk home humming the national air, "Kde domov muj" (Where is my home?).
"Where is my home,
Where is my home?
Waters through its meads are streaming,
Mounts with rustling woods are teeming,
Vales are bright with flow'rets rare,
Oh, Earth's Eden, thou art fair!
Thou art my home, my fatherland,
Thou art my home, my fatherland!"
News of still more imprisonments and executions followed daily. The older daughter of Prof. Masaryk was imprisoned, mainly as a punishment to her father, who was working so hard against the Central Powers abroad. Machar, one of the greatest poets of Bohemia, shared the same fate because of a poem published in the United States, without the poet's consent—a poem passed many years before by the Austrian censor!
Strange rumors spread. Once Jozef and his particular friend, Jaroslav, walked out of the city in the direction of Blanik, a mountain around which are clustered many traditions. They were overtaken and offered a ride by a very old man.
"Who are you and where are you going?" he asked.
"We're students in the Lower Gymnasium," Jaroslav answered. "We're only out for a walk, for there is no school. We're going toward Blanik, but don't expect to get so far."
"Better not," said the old man sternly. "Who knows but the old tale may be true that the Taborites never died but are hidden, as is said, in a cave there. They were to reappear at the time of Bohemia's greatest peril, you know. This may be it. There're lights in that mountain, I tell you; don't breathe a word of it; but also don't go there."
Here he let the boys alight, and they walked on speculating on the tradition and as to just what the man meant by his last words.