402

DOMESTIC MANNERS OF TUE PKUSSIANS.

sound of tlie crisp cuttlng of the grass. The cottagers' child-ren are out in tlie field, shouting and laughing as they tossthe green blades into lieaps, and tlie brown cattle are grazingpeacefnlly under the trees, whilst the air is laden with thesmell of new-made hay and the fumes of burning weedsfrom tlie neiahbourina; meadow.

At the end of the pathway Stands a cotter's house; twochubby-cheeked cliildren are playing in the sun upon tlie door-step, and tlie mother is spinning close beside them.

Slie quits her wheel and comes forth to point out to us thespot we are in quest of, saying, " Johann Huss bei der dickerBaum auf der linkster Seid, gebrennt wur ;" and as she speaksthe words she directs our attention to a leafless stump of atree, not a hundred yards from her door.

The mower, who has been watching us since be noticed usgo by, now joins the woman, and says he has lived hardby all his life, and that people cannot teil the precise siteof the burning; they only know that Huss was executedsomewhere in the field called the " Brühl."

But let us follow worthier guides than rustic gossip.

" At ten o'clock of the 6th July, 1415 — the same day ashe had been publicly condemned in the Cathedral"—says thelearned Professor Eiselein, " they led forth the martyr (whomnothing could shake, and who kept chanting hymns by theway) from the Cathedral porch, through the town-gates, to-wards the ' Brühl'"*■ —as indicated by the dotted line in thesubjoined wood-engraving.

* Th(s word Brühl is thought by some to be a derivative of the Frenchlirtiler; so that the present name of tlie field would have been given to it, notonly subsequent to, but in consequence of, the martyrdom. A better originfor the title, however, is that which makes it a mere corruption of " das Prügli"—literally, the place of the stake.