'Why have you been beating my child?' repeated Bartek.
'I will beat you too, you low Polish scoundrel! I will show you who is master here. Go to the devil, go to the law,—begone!'
Bartek, having seized the schoolmaster by the shoulder, began to shake him roughly, crying in a hoarse voice:—
'Do you know who I am? Do you know who did for the French? Do you know who talked to Steinmetz? Why do you beat my child, you cursed Swabian dog?'
Herr Boege's protruding eyes glared no less than Bartek's, but Boege was a strong man, and he resolved to free himself from his assailant by a single blow. This blow descended with a loud smack on the face of the victor of Gravelotte and Sedan.
At that the man forgot everything. Boege's head was shaken from side to side with a swift motion recalling a pendulum, but with this difference that the shaking was alarmingly rapid. The formidable vanquisher of Turcos and Zouaves awoke in Bartek once more. Boege's twelve year old son, Oscar, a lad as strong as his father, ran in vain to his assistance. A short, but terrible struggle took place, in which the son fell to the ground, and the father felt himself lifted up into the air. Bartek, raising his hand, held him there, he himself scarcely knew how. Unluckily the tub of dishwater, which Herr Boege had been assiduously mixing for the pigs, stood near. Into this tub Herr Boege now capsized, and a moment later his feet were to be seen projecting from it, and kicking violently. His wife darted out of the house:—
'Help, to the rescue!'
The German colonists rushed from the houses near to their neighbour's assistance. Some of them fell on Bartek and began to belabour him with sticks and stones. In the general confusion which followed it was difficult to distinguish Bartek from his adversaries: some thirteen bodies were to be seen rolling round in a single mass, and struggling convulsively.
Suddenly, however, from out of this fighting mass Bartek burst forth like fury, making towards the hedge with all his might.
The Germans ran after him, but an alarming crack was heard in the hedge at the same moment, and Bartek's iron hands brandished a stout stick.