"Where is he? where?" screamed Mr. Skinner, from the other side of the hedge.
"Steady, boys!" shouted his clerk, from the furthest rear. "At him! Why should you fear the scoundrel? The man that catches and binds him shall have a hundred florins."
"Are any of you at the other side of the garden?" bawled the commissioner, with a stentorian voice.
"Smash your souls, you cursed hellhounds!" roared Mr. Skinner. "Why are you all here? Why are you not at the other side of the garden?"
"Your lordship's lordship told us to come to this place," said a Pandur; but a blow from Paul Skinner's stalwart arm sent him sprawling to the ground. "Be off!" shouted the intrepid justice; "be off a few of you--but not too many. Seize him and bind him!"
"Shoot him on the spot, if he shows fight," urged the clerk.
"Shoot him--indeed!" roared the justice. "I'll brain the man that dares to shoot him, for I must have the satisfaction of hanging the fellow."
Amidst these preparations for the capture of the robber, the person "wanted" had quietly entered the house, where old Liptaka stowed him away behind some casks, which lay in the room. Vilma trembled.
"Fear not, Missie," said the Liptaka; "they dare not enter this house. Of course, if it were a poor man's case, they'd ransack every corner, and turn the whole house out of the window. But it's a different thing with a nobleman's curia."
The Liptaka was mistaken, and she had soon ample opportunity of convincing herself of the fact that the keeping of the law is one thing, and the law itself another. For Mr. Paul Skinner, after surrounding the garden on all sides, and after summoning Viola to come forward and be hanged, found it necessary to proceed to a close investigation of the premises. He opened the garden door and entered with his _posse_ of Pandurs and peasants. Vilma's flowers and Mrs. Ershebet's broccolis were alike trodden down by the intruders, and great exertions were made to start the game. But their search was fruitless. So were their curses. Mr. Skinner protested that the robber must be hid in the house, and Kenihazy instantly suggested the propriety of searching the suspected habitation. The justice consented, and walked up to the door which communicated between the house and the garden, when the door was opened from the inside, and Mrs. Ershebet appeared on the threshold.