"Give me your child, that I may look at it, and dance it on my knee. What a sweet child it is!" said he, his whole face radiant with smiles; "I never saw a prettier child: and it laughs, too, and at me! No, my fine fellow, we won't let your father come to harm. Ej, Susi, I wish to goodness I had a child like this!"
"My children will love you as their second father," said she, with a happy and grateful look.
"Yes, as their second father," said the old man, sighing; "but it must be a fine thing to be loved as a real father. I say, Susi, I've often thought why God hasn't given me children. You'll say it's because I have no wife. That's true. But why haven't I got a wife? If they had not sent me to the wars, I'd be a grandfather by this time; and, believe me, I'd give my silver medal and my cross for such children as yours. I'd give them both for a single child! Well, God's will be done. Perhaps I have no children because if I had I'd not be so fond of other people's. Young children are all equally beautiful; there's no difference between them. They are fresh and lively, like river trout; but in course of time one half of them turn out to be frogs, and worse."
Janosh saw that Pishta came back with Vandory to call his mother to Viola. Imploring her not to betray the secret, he walked away, fearful lest Susi should want the strength to dissemble her thoughts. His anxiety on this head was perfectly gratuitous. The good news, which Susi communicated to her husband, filled them both with unspeakable dismay. Whoever could have seen Viola would have thought that his stout heart was at last overcome with the fear of death. Need we marvel at this? Was not life powerful within him, trembling in every nerve, throbbing in every vein? Was not his wife by his side? Could he forget his children, whom his death might drive to ruin and, possibly, to crime? Viola had long wished to change his mode of life. He was now at liberty to do so. The brother of the Gulyash was dead. The poor man died at the moment when he was preparing to take his wife and three children to another county, where a place as Gulyash was promised to him. The papers and passports which were necessary for this purpose were in the hands of old Ishtvan, who had promised to take Viola to the place. There, above a hundred miles from the scene of his misfortunes, in a lonely tanya, where nobody knew him or cared to know him, could he not hope to live happily, peacefully, and contentedly? But did not that happiness hang on a slender thread, indeed? Were there not a hundred chances between him and its attainment? A whim of the justice's, a different position of the sentinels, the noise of a falling plank, could snatch the cup of life and liberty from his lips, and cast him back into the valley of the shadow of death.
He was in this state of mind when Mr. Skinner made his appearance in the cell. He was accompanied by Mr. Catspaw and the steward, for his umbra, Kenihazy, was in a state which rendered him unfit to be company to any one, even to Mr. Skinner. The change in Viola's manner was too striking to escape the attention of either the attorney or the steward. The justice perambulated the cell with a show of great dignity, and a futile attempt to examine into the condition of the walls. He poked his stick into the straw which served Viola for a lair; when the steward walked up to him, and whispered that the robber had lost all his former boldness.
"Indeed!" cried Mr. Skinner, with a shrill laugh. "I say, Viola, where's your pluck? Where's your impertinence, man? Ain't you going to die game, eh, Viola?"
"Sir," said the robber, biting his lips, "the step which I am preparing to take is bitter, and, I will own it, I feel for my family. What is to become of them?"
"Your family? Oh! your wife! Never mind; I'll protect her."
Viola looked daggers at the man; but he curbed his temper and was silent.
"And as for your children," continued the justice in a bantering tone, "they're very fine children, are they not?—eh? Well, they'll grow up, and come to be hanged—eh? But what's the use of this palaver? I say, Susi, be off! You've had plenty of time for your gossip; and I say, Viola, make your will and all that sort of thing."