Hans Brinker; Or, The Silver Skates

"Ha! ha!" laughed the other boys.

Then came threats – threats that made Ludwig fairly shudder, though he continued to bind and tie with re-doubled energy.

"Hold up! mynheer house-breaker," said Van Mounen in a warning voice. "That knife is very near your throat. If you make the captain nervous, there is no telling what may happen."

The robber took the hint, and fell into a sullen silence.

Just at this moment the chrysalis upon the bed stirred and sat erect.

"What's the matter?" he asked, without opening his eyes.

"Matter!" echoed Ludwig, half trembling, half laughing, "get up, Jacob. Here's work for you. Come sit on this fellow's back while we get into our clothes; we're half perished."

"What fellow? Donder!"

"Hurrah for Poot!" cried all the boys, as Jacob sliding quickly to the floor, bedclothes and all, took in the state of affairs at a glance, and sat heavily beside Peter on the robber's back.

Oh, didn't the fellow groan, then!

"No use in holding him down any longer, boys," said Peter, rising, but bending as he did so to draw a pistol from his man's belt. "You see, I've been keeping guard over this pretty little weapon for the last ten minutes. It's cocked and the least wriggle might have set it off. No danger now. I must dress myself. You and I, Lambert, will go for the police. I'd no idea it was so cold."

"Where is Carl?" asked one of the boys.

They looked at one another. Carl certainly was not among them.

"Oh!" cried Ludwig, frightened at last, "where is he? Perhaps he's had a fight with the robber, and got killed."

"Not a bit of it," said Peter quietly, as he buttoned his stout jacket. "Look under the beds."

They did so. Carl was not there.

Just then they heard a commotion on the stairway. Ben hastened to open the door. The landlord almost tumbled in; he was armed with a big blunderbuss. Two or three lodgers followed; then the daughter, with an upraised frying-pan in one hand, and a candle in the other; and, behind her, looking pale and frightened, the gallant Carl!

"There's your man, mine host," said Peter, nodding toward the prisoner.

Mine host raised his blunderbuss, the girl screamed, and Jacob, more nimble than usual, rolled quickly from the robber's back.

"Don't fire," cried Peter; "he is tied, hand and foot. Let's roll him over, and see what he looks like."

Carl stepped briskly forward, with a blustering "Yes. We'll turn him over, in a way he won't like. Lucky we've caught him!"

"Ha! ha!" laughed Ludwig, "where were you, Master Carl?"

"Where was I?" retorted Carl, angrily; "why, I went to give the alarm, to be sure!"

All the boys exchanged glances; but they were too happy and elated to say anything ill-natured. Carl certainly was bold enough now. He took the lead while three others aided him in turning the helpless man.

While the robber lay, face up, scowling and muttering, Ludwig took the candlestick from the girl's hand.

"I must have a good look at the beauty," he said, drawing closer, but the words were no sooner spoken than he turned pale and started so violently that he almost dropped the candle.

"The voetspoelen!" he cried; "why, boys, it's the man who sat by the fire!"

"Of course it is," answered Peter; "we counted our money before him like simpletons. But what have we to do with voetspoelen, brother Ludwig? A month in jail is punishment enough."

The landlord's daughter had left the room. She now ran in, holding up a pair of huge wooden shoes. "See, father," she cried, "here are his great ugly boats. It's the man that we put in the next room after the young masters went to bed. Ah! it was wrong to send the poor young gentlemen up here so far out of sight and sound."

"The scoundrel!" hissed the landlord, "he has disgraced my house. I go for the police at once!"

In less than fifteen minutes two drowsy looking officers were in the room. After telling Mynheer Kleef that he must appear early in the morning with the boys and make his complaint before a magistrate, they marched off with their prisoner.

One would think the captain and his band could have slept no more that night; but the mooring has not yet been found that can prevent youth and an easy conscience from drifting down the river of dreams. The boys were too much fatigued to let so slight a thing as capturing a robber bind them to wakefulness. They were soon in bed again, floating away to strange scenes made of familiar things. Ludwig and Carl had spread their bedding upon the floor. One had already forgotten the voetspoelen, the race – everything; but Carl was wide awake. He heard the carrilons ringing out their solemn nightly music, and the watchman's noisy clapper putting in discord at the quarter-hours; he saw the moonshine glide away from the window, and the red morning light come pouring in, and all the while he kept thinking:

"Pooh! what a goose I have made of myself!"

Carl Schummel, alone, with none to look or to listen, was not quite so grand a fellow as Carl Schummel strutting about in his boots.

XXIII

BEFORE THE COURT

You may believe 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 of 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 waken."

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 lodgment 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 one 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 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 robber 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 that, "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 house-breaking. He did not succeed in robbing this time, but he broke the door-fastenings, and that I believe makes a burglary in the eye 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!"