Saki (H. H. Munro, 1919) — two enemies make peace at last, and the forest answers them
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Saki tells this story in only a few pages, and everything turns on the last word. Read each part, pause for the discussion box, then continue. Do not skip to the ending — it must arrive in its own time.
In a forest of mixed growth somewhere on the eastern spurs of the Carpathians, a man stood one winter night watching and listening, as though he waited for some beast of the woods to come within range of his rifle. But the game for which he kept so keen an outlook was not such as the sportsman's calendar allowed. Ulrich von Gradwitz patrolled the dark forest in quest of a human enemy.
The forest lands of Gradwitz were of wide extent and well stocked with game; the narrow strip of steep woodland that lay on its outskirt was not remarkable for the game it harboured, yet it was the most jealously guarded of all his territory. A famous lawsuit, in the days of his grandfather, had wrested it from the illegal possession of a neighbouring family; the dispossessed party had never acquiesced in the judgment, and a long series of poaching affrays and similar quarrels had embittered the relationship between the families for three generations.
The neighbour feud had grown into a personal one since Ulrich had come to be head of his family. If there was a man in the world whom he detested and wished ill to, it was Georg Znaeym, the inheritor of the quarrel and the tireless poacher across the disputed border. As boys they had thirsted for one another's blood; as men, each prayed that misfortune might fall on the other.
On this wind-scourged winter night Ulrich had gathered his foresters to watch the dark forest, not in quest of the four-footed quarry, but to keep a look-out for the prowling thieves whom he suspected of being afoot from across the land boundary. Action and movement helped the long hours of waiting, and he strayed away by himself from the watchers whom he had placed in ambush on the crest of the hill. In his heart of hearts he hoped that he might come, in the dark glades of the forest, upon the man he had hated so long.
He stepped round the trunk of a huge beech and came face to face with the man he sought. The two enemies stood glaring at one another for a long silent moment. Each had a rifle in his hand, each had hate in his heart and murder uppermost in his mind. The chance had come to give full play to the passions of a lifetime. But a man who has been brought up under the code of a restraining civilisation cannot easily nerve himself to shoot down his neighbour in cold blood and without a word spoken, and before the moment of hesitation had given way to action, a deed of Nature's own violence overwhelmed them both.
A fierce shriek of the storm had been answered by a splitting crash over their heads, and ere they could leap aside a mass of falling beech tree had thundered down on them. Ulrich von Gradwitz found himself stretched on the ground, one arm numb beneath him and the other held almost helpless in a tight tangle of forked branches, while both his legs were pinned beneath the fallen mass. His heavy shooting boots had saved his feet from being crushed to pieces, but if his fractures were not as serious as they might have been, at least it was evident that he could not move from his present position till someone came to release him. A few yards away Georg Znaeym lay, just as helplessly pinned down, alive but obviously unable to stir.
Ulrich was the first to find his voice. He twisted his head until he could see his prisoner-companion.
"So you are not killed, as you ought to be, but you are caught anyway. Caught fast. Ho, what a jest, Georg Znaeym, snared in your stolen forest. There is real justice for you!"
"I am caught in my own forest land," retorted Georg. "When my men come to release us you will wish, perhaps, that you were not the one caught poaching on a neighbour's land. Shame on you."
"My men will be here first," said Ulrich, "and they will drag me out. When they pull you out from under these branches it won't need much clumsiness on their part to roll this mass of trunk right over on the top of you."
"It is a fine idea," answered Georg. "My men will be here first, and they will do that very same thing to you. We shall both wait and see whose men come soonest."
So the two enemies lay, hurling defiance at one another in spite of their helplessness. Each knew that it might be hours before his men found him or thought of searching in this dark corner of the woodland. After a while a strange change came over Ulrich. A thirst had begun to torment him, and with a struggle he was able to draw his wine flask from the pocket of his coat. Even that small act was a labour, and he had to wait through long spasms of pain before he could carry the flask to his lips.
Lying there with the pain numbed by the wine, and with the chill of the wintry night cooling his hatred, Ulrich von Gradwitz could not help feeling a throb of pity for the man who shared his trap.
"Neighbour," he said presently, "do as you please if your men come first. It was a fair compact. But as for me, I have changed my mind. If my men are the first to come, you shall be the first to be helped, as though you were my guest. We have quarrelled like devils all our lives over this stupid strip of forest, where the trees can't even stand upright in a breath of wind. Lying here tonight, thinking, I have come to think we have been rather fools. There are better things in life than getting the better of a boundary dispute. Neighbour, if you will help me to bury the old quarrel I will ask you to be my friend."
Georg Znaeym was silent for so long that Ulrich thought, perhaps, he had fainted with the pain of his injuries. Then he spoke slowly and in jerks.
"How the whole region would stare and gabble if we rode into the market square together. No one living can remember seeing a Znaeym and a von Gradwitz talking to one another in friendship. And what peace there would be if we ended our feud tonight. And if we choose to make peace among our people there is none other to interfere, no interlopers from outside. You would come and keep the feast of midwinter beneath my roof, and I would feast with you on some high day at your castle. Ulrich, I will be your friend."
For a while both men were silent, turning over in their minds the wonderful changes that this dramatic reconciliation would bring about. In the cold, gloomy forest, with the wind tearing in fitful gusts through the naked branches and whistling round the tree trunks, they lay and waited for the help that would now bring release and succour to both parties.
Presently Ulrich broke the silence.
"Let us shout for help," he said. "In this lull our voices may carry a little way. Whoever's men come first shall be the party to bring aid to both of us."
So they raised their voices in a prolonged hunting call. From their lips broke a long-drawn halloo for help, and they waited, listening for an answering shout. Then they shouted again, and again, and at last an answering call seemed to come down the wind. It was Ulrich who first heard the approaching steps. He raised his voice in a glad cry.
"They are coming," he cried. "They are running down the hill towards us. I can see figures coming through the wood."
Georg lifted himself up eagerly to listen.
"Are they your men? Are they your men?" he asked. "How many of them are there?"
"Nine or ten," answered Ulrich, straining his eyes to make out the shapes that came hurrying down the slope.
"Then they are yours," said Georg. "I had only seven out with me."
"They are making all the speed they can, brave lads," said Ulrich gladly.
"Are they your men?" asked Georg once more. "Are they your men?"
"No," said Ulrich, with a laugh, the idiotic chattering laugh of a man unstrung with hideous fear.
"Who are they?" asked Georg quickly, straining his eyes to see what the other would gladly not have seen.
"Wolves."
Ten words from the story that carry their weight just as well in a modern conversation about conflict and reconciliation. Tap to reveal meaning and a usable example.
The whole story is engineered around a single reversal. Notice how Saki prepares it, and how he refuses to soften the blow.
| Device | What it does | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|
| Situational irony | The peace is granted just before it is made meaningless | Two enemies reconcile — then rescue turns out to be wolves |
| Atmosphere & foreshadowing | The wild, storm-torn forest hints that Nature, not men, holds the power | The falling beech; the wind "tearing in fitful gusts" |
| The abrupt one-word ending | Refuses comfort; leaves the reader to imagine the rest | The final line: a single word — "Wolves." |
The whole second half of the story is one long set of predictions: whose men will arrive, what they will do, what peace would bring. That makes it a perfect text for future forms — will, be going to, the present continuous for arrangements, and the first conditional.
Each man predicts the future and makes promises about it. "My men will be here first." / "They are going to roll the trunk over on you."
Use will for a prediction or an on-the-spot decision/promise. Use be going to for a plan already in mind, or a prediction based on present evidence.
1. "My men ___ (come) first," boasted Ulrich. (prediction / boast)
2. Look at those shapes on the hill — someone ___ (rescue) them at last. (prediction from evidence)
3. "I promise I ___ (help) you first, as though you were my guest," said Ulrich. (promise)
1. will come (a confident prediction / boast — also acceptable: are going to come)
2. is going to rescue (prediction based on what we can see right now)
3. will help (a promise made in the moment)
The reconciliation is built on first conditionals: "If you help me to bury the old quarrel, I will ask you to be my friend."
Pattern: If + present simple, will + base verb. (A real, likely future condition and its result.)
1. If you ___ (help) me, I ___ (be) your friend. (Ulrich's offer)
2. If my men ___ (arrive) first, you ___ (be) the first to be helped.
3. If we ___ (make) peace tonight, the whole region ___ (gabble) about it tomorrow.
4. If no one ___ (come) soon, the cold ___ (finish) us both.
1. help / will be
2. arrive / will be
3. make / will gabble
4. comes / will finish
We use the present continuous for arrangements that are already settled between people. Imagine the two men, newly reconciled, planning the feasts they describe.
1. "You ___ (come) to my castle for the midwinter feast," said Georg — they had agreed it.
2. "And next high day I ___ (feast) with you under your roof."
3. The two families ___ (meet) in the market square next week to announce the truce.
1. are coming
2. am feasting
3. are meeting
will vs going to vs present continuous: Use will for predictions, instant decisions and promises ("I will help you"). Use be going to for plans already decided or predictions from present evidence ("those shapes are going to reach us"). Use the present continuous for fixed arrangements with other people, usually with a time or place ("we are meeting next week"). All three point to the future — the difference is how settled, and how evidenced, the future feels.
Four moves to spot. They are the reason this story still ambushes readers more than a century after it was written.
For the whole second half we wait, with the two men, for rescue and for the new friendship to begin. Saki grants them everything — the truce, the warmth, the vision of feasts to come — and then the rescue itself turns out to be the death that ends them. The ending ironises the peace: the kinder the men become, the crueller the timing feels.
From the first paragraph the forest is wild, storm-scourged, and faintly hostile. The wind "tearing in fitful gusts through the naked branches" and the beech that crashes down on both men foreshadow a power far larger than the human quarrel. Saki builds an atmosphere in which we half-expect Nature to have the final word — and it does.
Saki ends on a single word — "Wolves." — and stops. He compresses the entire catastrophe into one syllable and withholds the aftermath, leaving the reader to supply the horror. The very abruptness is the technique: a longer ending would let us recover.
The men spend the story believing the interloper is the other family — the outsider with no right to the land. The closing word reframes the title entirely: the real interloper, the force that intrudes where it was not invited and settles everything, is Nature itself. Saki recasts a human feud as a small, foolish thing beneath an indifferent sky.
Now move to the next tab. The technique work above feeds directly into the three speaking tasks.
Do all four. Each one builds on the last. The timer is for your benefit — it forces you to fill the time rather than escape it. Use future forms and effect verbs from the previous tabs.
Before we discuss it, tell the story back to me as if I had never read it — in your own words, not line by line. Aim for about eight to ten sentences.
As you go, use at least five words from the Vocabulary tab and keep the events in order using future forms and predictions from the Grammar tab. These beats will help you: two men whose families have feuded for generations hunt each other in a winter forest · they meet face to face, each ready to shoot · a great tree crashes down and pins them both, helpless, side by side · lying trapped, they reconcile and vow friendship · they shout together for help and see figures running toward them.
Think of a disagreement that has run on for a long time — between two colleagues, two departments, two neighbours, two countries, or two members of a family. Describe three things, in order:
Use at least two predictions ("I think they will…" / "this is going to…") and at least one first conditional ("If neither side gives way, …").
Choose a situation that is unresolved right now — in your work, your city, your industry, or the wider world. For three minutes, predict how it will play out over the next year.
Make at least three clear predictions. For each one, say how confident you are and what evidence it rests on — use will for the things you feel sure of, and be going to for the ones you can already see coming in present signs.
Like Ulrich, imagine you have decided to end a quarrel and offer friendship. Picture the person you would say it to — real or imagined.
Spend the first two minutes saying, in their presence, what you would say to bury the old quarrel. Then spend two minutes making concrete promises about what will happen next: what you will do, what you are going to change, and what the two of you are doing together soon to mark the peace.
Use a first conditional ("If you accept, I will…") and at least one present continuous arrangement ("Next month we are…").