Before the Court
You may believe that the landlord's daughter bestirred herself to
prepare a good meal for the boys next morning. Mynheer had a
Chinese gong that could make more noise than a dozen breakfast
bells. Its hideous reveille, clanging through the house, generally startled the drowsiest lodgers into activity, but the maiden would not allow it to be sounded this morning.
"Let the brave young gentlemen sleep," she said to the greasy
kitchen boy. "They shall be warmly fed when they awaken."
It was ten o'clock when Captain Peter and his band came
straggling down one by one.
"A pretty hour," said mine host, gruffly. "It is high time we
were before the court. Fine business, this, for a respectable
inn. You will testify truly, young masters, that you found most
excellent fare and lodging at the Red Lion?"
"Of course we will," answered Carl saucily, "and pleasant
company, too, though they visit at rather unseasonable hours."
A stare and a "humph!" was all the answer mynheer made to this, but the daughter was more communicative. Shaking her earrings at Carl, she said sharply, "Not so very pleasant, either, master traveler, if you could judge by the way YOU ran away from it!"
"Impertinent creature!" hissed Carl under his breath as he began
busily to examine his skate straps. Meantime the kitchen boy, listening outside at the crack of the door, doubled himself with silent laughter.
After breakfast the boys went to the police court, accompanied by
Huygens Kleef and his daughter. Mynheer's testimony was
principally to the effect that such a thing as a robber at the
Red Lion had been unheard of until last night, and as for the Red
Lion, it was a most respectable inn, as respectable as any house
in Leyden. Each boy, in turn, told all that he knew of the
affair and identified the prisoner in the box as the same man who
entered their room in the dead of night. Ludwig was surprised to
find that the prisoner in the box was a man of ordinary
size--especially after he had described him, under oath, to the
court as a tremendous fellow with great, square shoulders and
legs of prodigious weight. Jacob swore that he was awakened by
the robber kicking and thrashing upon the floor, and immediately
afterward, Peter and the rest (feeling sorry that they had not
explained the matter to their sleepy comrade) testified that the
man had not moved a muscle from the moment the point of the
dagger touched his throat, until, bound from head to foot, he was
rolled over for inspection. The landlord's daughter made one boy
blush, and all the court smile, by declaring, "If it hadn't been
for that handsome young gentleman there"--pointing to
Peter--"they might have all been murdered in their beds; for the
dreadful man had a great, shining knife most as long as Your
Honor's arm," and SHE believed, "the handsome young gentleman
had struggled hard enough to get it away from him, but he was too
modest, bless him! to say so."
Finally, after a little questioning, and cross-questioning from
the public prosecutor, the witnesses were dismissed, and the
robber was handed over to the consideration of the criminal
court.
"The scoundrel!" said Carl savagely when the boys reached the
street. "He ought to be sent to jail at once. If I had been in
your place, Peter, I certainly should have killed him outright!"
"He was fortunate, then, in falling into gentler hands," was
Peter's quiet reply. "It appears he has been arrested before
under a charge of housebreaking. He did not succeed in robbing
this time, but he broke the door-fastenings, and that I believe
constitutes a burglary in the eyes of the law. He was armed with
a knife, too, and that makes it worse for him, poor fellow!"
"Poor fellow!" mimicked Carl. "One would think he was your
brother!"
"So he is my brother, and yours too, Carl Schummel, for that
matter," answered Peter, looking into Carl's eye. "We cannot say
what we might have become under other circumstances. WE have
been bolstered up from evil, since the hour we were born. A
happy home and good parents might have made that man a fine
fellow instead of what he is. God grant that the law may cure
and not crush him!"