The Village Notary Part 44

"The key of the granary," continued the hussar, "is in your lady mother's hands, and it's you who'll get it for us?"

"Of course."

"That's all we want. To-night, when they are all asleep, we go to the granary, walk through the door to the steward's loft, and from thence to the chaff-loft. That loft is, as it were, glued to the house; the wood-work consists of thin planks. Peti, the gipsy, knows it to a nicety. We remove a couple of planks, put a ladder through the hole, and Viola gets up by it, and out by the door of the granary. Once in the open air, he's saved. Peti is gone after your wors.h.i.+p's Gulyash, who is to send his horse. I tell you, sir, they may whistle for him when Viola has once got a horse between his legs!"

Kalman clapped his hands with joy, and Volgyeshy himself commended the arrangement and its details; but he remarked that there were a thousand chances for or against its execution.

"Never mind," said Janosh; "if you put Viola into that loft, and the key of the granary into my hands, I'll be hanged if we don't do them!

There's no window to the loft, consequently no one can look in from without; and when they're once asleep, we have it all to ourselves."

"But what will you do with the sentinels? And besides, there's the steward close by you. He's likely to hear the noise, and to alarm the house."

"I'll pocket the sentinels," said the hussar, contemptuously. "The inspector is a-bed with his wounds; if you make the justice and that fellow Kenihazy drunk, to prevent them from going their rounds,--and nothing is more easy than to make _them_ drunk,--and if you do your duty as a landlord to the sentinels, and make them drunk, too, I do not care for the steward's noise. But I don't think he'll make any. When he's once in bed, it's no small matter will get him out of it. The key is the great thing, and Viola must be put into the chaff-loft."

"If that's all," cried Kalman, "you need not care!" and, accompanied by Volgyeshy, he returned to the dining-room, where they found Vandory, the curate of Tissaret, who had informed the court of his request, and who was just in the act of replying with great warmth to the objections of Zatonyi and Baron Shoskuty. The a.s.sessor appealed to the ancient custom of keeping culprits under the sentence of a court-martial in the open air; Baron Shoskuty protested that it was wrong to abuse Lady Kishlaki's hospitality for the benefit of so arrant a knave as Viola undoubtedly was; but the curate's request was so energetically supported by Kalman's father and mother, that the interference of the two young men seemed likely to do more harm than good.

"I do not, indeed, see the necessity of placing the prisoner in a room,"

remarked Mr. Catspaw, very politely. "The provision in the articles is confined to the winter months, and I dare say that Viola ought, by this time, to be accustomed to the night air."

"Never mind his catching a cold in his throat," cried Mr. Skinner; "to-morrow morning we'll give him a choke."

"None of your jokes, sir," said Mr. Catspaw, who remarked the unfavourable impression which the justice's words made on the company.

"This is no laughing matter," continued he, with a deep sigh. "As I said, I do not indeed think it necessary, and I protest it is not even legal to give the prisoner houseroom: but if it can relieve our dear hostess's tender mind, I will not oppose Mr. Vandory's request, provided always that the place be safe, that the windows have bars, and the door bolts and locks, and that sentinels are duly placed before it."

"If your wors.h.i.+ps please," said the steward, who had followed Vandory into the room; "I know of a place with no window at all."

"Ay, the cellar!" said Zatonyi. "Yes, that's right. It struck me from the first that was the place."

"No! not by any means!" protested the steward; "there's lots of wine in the cellar, my master's property, and entrusted to my care. n.o.body is imprisoned in the cellar, if I have my will! But there's the chaff-loft at your service; it has a lock and a key, and no window; and if you put a sentinel before the door, the prisoner is as safe as any state prisoner at Munkatsh."

Vandory, and especially Lady Kishlaki, resisted this proposal because no fire could be lighted in the place; but on Kalman's protesting that nothing could be more futile than this objection, the resolution was carried by acclamation, and Messrs. Skinner, Kenihazy, and Catspaw accompanied Vandory to the steward's house, for the purpose of inspecting the place, and witnessing the removal of the prisoner.

Volgyeshy and Kalman followed at a distance.

"Be careful!" said the lawyer. "Did you remark Catspaw's stare, when you told them Viola could do without a fire?"

"Yes, I did. I see it's no good to be too clever. But I'll make up for it. I'll object to the room--I'll----"

"Worse and worse!" said Volgyeshy. "Leave them alone, and believe me, if that loft is the worst place in the house, they'll put him there, and nowhere else."

The truth of Volgyeshy's words was borne out by the event. Mr. Catspaw indeed made some curious inquiries about the solidity of the building, but he was quickly put down by the steward, who replied with great dignity, that Mr. Kishlaki, his master, was not in the habit of constructing his houses of mud. The attorney, thus rebuked, turned away, and the place was forthwith furnished with a table, a stool, and a heap of straw.

Mr. Kishlaki, pretending to suffer from a headache, retired to his room, whither his wife followed him. Zatonyi and the Baron walked in the drawing-room, and laughed at the ridiculous sentimentality of their host, at Vandory's still more ridiculous philanthropy, and at Volgyeshy's impertinence. They interrupted this charitable conversation at times with deep sighs, and longing looks at the card-tables; for they waited for Messrs. Catspaw and Skinner.

While his guests were thus employed, Mr. Kishlaki sat in his room, leaning his head in his hand, and so entirely given up to thought, that his pipe went out without his being aware of it.

"Tres.h.i.+, my soul!" said he at length, turning to his wife, "Tres.h.i.+, I am a wretch!"

Lady Kishlaki sighed, and her husband went on.

"I know, Tres.h.i.+, you will not love me as you used to do, and it's the same with Kalman. When you see me you'll think: he might have saved the poor fellow's life, and he wouldn't do it!"

Lady Kishlaki said a few words of comfort; but the old man shook his head, and continued:

"No, Tres.h.i.+! that man's life was in my hands, and I killed him. His blood is on my soul."

The good woman's heart yielded to the sincerity of his sorrow, and instead of reproaching him, as she intended, she sought to comfort him, by protesting that the responsibility, if there was any, lay equally with the other judges. "Besides," added she, "how frequently have you not sat in a common court, without feeling remorse and sorrow!"

"Oh, that's a very different thing," replied Kishlaki. "In a common court a man is allowed to vote after his conscience, and the sentence is found by a majority. There is no idea of the life of the prisoner depending upon a single vote; the sentence is sent to the upper court, and to the king's government, and if it is executed, I need not reproach myself with being the _sole_ cause of the prisoner's death. But to think that nothing was wanted to-day but my single simple word of 'non content;' that I did not say the word, and that it was I who killed that fellow,--goodness gracious! it breaks my heart. I hate myself, and I feel that others cannot love me."

"But if that is your view of the case," said his wife, with tears in her eyes; "why, for G.o.d's sake, did you vote as you did?"

"Why, indeed?" cried Kishlaki, pacing the room in a state of great excitement; "because I am a poor weak fool; because I was afraid of them when they told me my conduct was ridiculous; because Mr. Catspaw, and the whole lot of them, called out, that the Retys would never forgive me if Viola's depositions were taken down; and because I thought of Kalman's love to Etelka. And Volgyeshy walked away and left me by myself----"

"I cannot think that the Retys should be guilty of such infamous conduct----"

"Nor I! I am sure it's a trick of Catspaw's; and it tricks me out of my reputation, name, and peace of mind."

"Do not say so!" cried Lady Kishlaki. "Who will dare to attack your reputation?"

"Who? Everybody! Perhaps Volgyeshy is right. On consideration, it strikes me that the protocol was irregular; and if so, who's to be blamed for it? I, the president of the court. But I wouldn't mind that!

I would not mind it in the least, if they called me a dunce, and a cullion, and a zany, and what not--but to step from my door, and to see the wretched man hanging on my own ground, whom I might have saved, and to think of his wife and his children, how they clasped my knees, and begged for his life--oh, I'm undone!"

"Nonsense!" said Kalman, who entered the room at that moment. "It's in your power to release Viola."

"Impossible!" cried Kishlaki; "and still the subject is too serious for jokes. But it's impossible."

"There's a legal impossibility, if you like," replied the young man; "for in law, I take it, it is thought impossible for two witnesses to tell lies, though one witness may, and for a judge to be a party against the culprit. But, thank heaven! there are other expedients."

"No appeal is possible from a court-martial," sighed Kishlaki.

"But still there is an appeal, and we'll make it. It's an appeal to the future!"

"What does he say? I cannot understand it," said the old man.

"But _I_ do!" cried Lady Kishlaki. "You have planned his escape, have you not?"

"I have, my dear mother. When he is once at large, we will make an appeal; and if the worst come to the worst, he'll come before G.o.d's judgment-seat at the end of his life. G.o.d will re-consider this day's proceedings, and the sentence. But I know that the law cannot now do any thing for him: indeed, the law may possibly condemn the step I am about to take; but I don't care for it. My conscience tells me that what I do is right; and if the Skinners and Catspaws are _in_ the law, why it's an honour to be out of it."

Lady Kishlaki doted on her son; and her joy at his bold and manly speech pa.s.sed all bounds.

"You are right," said she, with that peculiar tone which marks a proud and a happy woman: "you are right to scorn the law which would force us to hang that wretched man on our own ground. Save his life; and may G.o.d bless you for making your mother happy!"

Mr. Kishlaki, too, seemed relieved when he understood that there was a means of saving Viola's life; but he soon fell back into his characteristic irresolution.

"Take care," said he. "I cannot see how----"

"Leave him alone to manage it," cried Lady Kishlaki. "The moment I heard him speak, I knew that his young mind, fertile in expedients,----"