The Village Notary Part 53

"Don't presume to mention her, you miscreant!" cried Mr. Tengelyi.

"_You_ my daughter's husband? You!--a robber, a thief?"

The noise of the altercation brought Vilma and the Liptaka into the room, and the pa.s.sers-by in the street stopped at the window and listened. Mr. Catspaw was of opinion that the presence of so many witnesses would prevent the notary from proceeding to acts of bodily violence; and, moreover, he was aware that his dignity would not allow him to submit to Tengelyi's insulting language. To talk big was not only safe, but prudent.

"This is too bad!" screamed he. "I'll make you repent it, sir!"

"Repent it?" shouted Tengelyi.

"Yes, repent it, if you please, my dear notary! Perhaps you are not aware that you are not a n.o.bleman?"

"Reptile! dost thou dare to remind me of thy villany?" cried the notary, raising his stick, in spite of the endeavours of his wife and daughter, who sought to restrain him.

"Though I condescend to propose for your daughter, you ought not to forget the difference between your rank and mine!"

"It's the difference between an honest man and a rascal!" cried Tengelyi, still struggling to disengage his arm from the grasp of Mrs.

Ershebet.

Mr. Catspaw saw clearly that the delay of another minute would prove dangerous. He retreated, and reached the door just when Tengelyi, whose fury brooked no restraint, broke from those who held him, and rushed in pursuit of him.

"G.o.d knows but I'll be the death of that fellow!" said the notary, as he returned to his house, accompanied by Vandory and Akosh, who luckily met him as he was running after the attorney. Exhausted with his pa.s.sion, he flung himself on a chair; and though his wife, Vandory, and Akosh a.s.sured him that Mr. Catspaw was beneath an honest man's notice, a considerable time elapsed before he regained his usual equanimity. The witnesses of the scene, too, were greatly excited and interested; and a report was spread, by some, that Mr. Catspaw had been beaten and kicked, and by others, that Tengelyi would have killed the attorney, but for the flight of the latter.

While these and sundry other rumours on the subject of his danger were spreading in Tissaret, the worthy Mr. Catspaw reached his apartments in safety, though by no means in an enviable mood.

"What a confounded fool I've made of myself!" said he. "Propose for the girl, indeed! curse me, I'm a victim to that silly attachment of mine for the Retys. Would they have given me a penny more for marrying her?

No. They cannot help giving me fifty thousand florins, but they won't give me a farthing more. And even if I were to prevent young Rety's marriage, his ungrateful mother would never forgive me. She'll never get over those money matters. Curse her! She'd skin a flint! But who the deuce could have thought that the woman wouldn't let me speak, and that Tengelyi would come home? And he insulted me!--publicly!--before everybody did he insult me, and I cannot even retaliate upon him! I dare not offend that puppy Akosh; for, after all, I don't see what I can do, except giving him Tengelyi's doc.u.ments, and a few of Vandory's letters.

It's a good plan, and it will protect me against being prosecuted. But before doing this I must have the bills in my pocket."

But even this resolution did not quite conquer Mr. Catspaw's apprehensions; for did not Akosh hate him? and might not the young man inst.i.tute proceedings against him? No! he would bind Akosh by his word of honour,--these young men are so full of prejudice! "And besides, he cannot inform against me, without dishonouring his own name. His mother-in-law is too much mixed up with the affair," muttered the attorney, as he lighted a candle and sat down to examine Vandory's papers.

It was almost eleven o'clock when he finished his labours. He took a few of the letters, put them in an envelope, and placed them in a secret corner of his desk. His examination of the letters had satisfied him that the Retys could not think of braving the publicity of a court of justice. This discovery put him into the best of tempers.

"Capital!" said he, rubbing his hands; "in a few days I shall have fifty thousand florins, and by communicating the affair to Akosh, I can foil any plans of revenge which this woman may have against me. I'm worth two hundred thousand florins! At last I know what I've lived for!" And he prepared to lock the door. He turned the key and tried the door, but it remained open. He tried it again, but without success. Mr. Catspaw shook his head. Something must be the matter with the lock. He thought of bolting the door; but the bolt would not move.

"What the deuce can be the matter?" said he, after another unsuccessful attempt.

He recollected that since Akosh, Etelka, and the Retys were gone, he was quite alone in that part of the house; and so much had his mind of late been occupied with robbers and robberies, that he became uneasy at the thought of pa.s.sing the night alone and with open doors; and while he thought of it, it struck him that something moved in the stove. He approached it and listened.

"I am a fool!" said he at last; "if I can't lock the door, it's because the lock's used up; and as for the bolt, why I've never moved it. It ought to be rusty by this time!" He went to bed, still thinking of the most profitable plan of investing his money, when a slight noise interrupted his train of agreeable thoughts. Steps were heard on the stairs. They were soft and cautious, like the steps of one who wishes to escape detection. Mr. Catspaw heard them distinctly. They approached from the stairs, and crept along the corridor to his room. He was just about to leave his bed when the door was softly opened, and a man, wrapped up in a bunda, entered the room.

"_Viola!_" said Mr. Catspaw, with a trembling voice, for the shout which he wished to raise died in his throat. His hair stood on end; his jaws shook.

"It's well you know me!" said the outlaw, as he advanced to the attorney's bed. "If you call for help, you are a dead man! Besides, it's no use calling; n.o.body will hear you."

"I won't call! I won't make a noise!" said Mr. Catspaw, while an ashy paleness spread over his features. "I know you are the last man to hurt me, good Mr. Viola! Do you come for money? I am a poor man, but you are welcome to all I have. No thanks! I am happy to oblige you!"

"_I_ am the last man to hurt you!" said the robber, giving the attorney a look which made his blood creep. "Am I indeed? Don't you think bygones are bygones with me! Not your agony, not all the blood in your veins, can pay me for what you've done to me and mine!"

"You are mistaken, my dear sir; indeed you are----;" the attorney cast a despairing look around him; "I am not----"

"Who?" said Viola, sternly. "Who was it made me a robber? Who was it that drove me forth, like a beast of the forest, while my wife and children were cast as beggars on the world? Say it was not you! Say it was not you who wrote my doom! Say it was not you who would have drunk my blood! Say it is not you who are my curse and my enemy!----"

"I'll give you my all,--I'll give you all I have! I've a couple of hundreds of Mr. Rety's money too, and you are welcome to them, though I shall have to refund them, and----"

"I don't want your money!" said Viola, scornfully. "I want the papers you stole from the notary."

"The papers?" said the attorney, with a look of profound astonishment; "what papers does it please you to mean, my dear Mr. Viola?"

"I mean the papers which you took away when they bound me. If you don't give them up this minute, you'll never rise from this bed."

The robber's tone showed Mr. Catspaw that it was dangerous to trifle with him. He replied,--

"Yes, I had them! You are right, I took them from you; but I lament to say I was rash enough to burn them on the spot. That's the truth of it.

I would not tell you a lie, no! not for the world; for you know all and everything."

"If so, tell your lies to others. I know that you keep the papers in this room, and that you've offered them to Lady Rety for fifty thousand florins."

"Who can have told you that?" cried Mr. Catspaw, as a suspicion flashed through his mind that Viola might possibly be hired by Lady Rety; "who?

who?"

"Never you mind who it was?" said Viola, dryly; "if you think your life of less value than fifty thousand florins, I'll show you in an instant how little _I_ care for it."

"But do tell me!" cried the attorney, "do tell me who told you that the papers are in my room?--who has sent you?"

"Silence!" and the robber flung his bunda back; "get up! give me the papers, unless----"

Mr. Catspaw rose and walked to his desk. Viola stood quietly by, watching him.

The attorney's hands trembled as he produced the papers. They were in two bundles, and among them were some letters of Tengelyi's, which the Jew had abstracted with the rest.

"Here they are!" said Mr. Catspaw, with a hoa.r.s.e voice; "you know their value. Ask whatever you please----"

"I don't want your money, keep it!" said the robber, advancing to seize the packet; when the attorney recollected that he kept a loaded pistol in the desk.

Yielding to an impulse of mad despair, he seized it and presented it at Viola.

The robber's eyes shot fire as he saw the weapon. He made a rush; the attorney fell, and the pistol was in Viola's hands.

That movement sealed Mr. Catspaw's doom. Viola was not cruel. He had an instinctive aversion to the shedding of blood. If Mr. Catspaw had given up the papers without resistance, he would have been safe; but the treachery of the action and the struggle inflamed the robber's wilder pa.s.sions.

"Pity!" screamed Mr. Catspaw, as Viola seized him by the throat.

"Did you pity _me_ when Susi begged for grace, when you wrote my death-warrant?"

The attorney's face grew black, his eyes started from his head; but his despair gave him strength. When he saw the robber's knife descending, he caught it in his hands.

There was a noise in the house. Steps were heard. The attorney's cries had roused the servants.

Viola made a violent movement. Again, and again, and again was the broad steel buried in the breast of his victim. Then, seizing the papers with his b.l.o.o.d.y hands, he rushed from the room and reached the yard, where he was met by the coachman and another servant. They pursued him.