The judge walked up and down the room with rattling spurs, and twirled a bit of paper nervously between his fingers, as he put his questions.
"Where did you steal the tree?"
"I don't know any thing about it, your honor."
"You lie, you beggarly rascal!" cried the judge, stepping up to Mat and seizing him by the lapel of his coat.
Mat started backward, and clenched his fist involuntarily.
"I'm not a rascal," said he, at last, "and you must write what you have said in the minutes: I'd like to see what sort of a rascal I am. My cousin Buchmaier will come home after a while."
The judge turned away, biting his lips. If Mat's case had been a better one, the judge might have had reason to rue his words; but he wisely abstained from inserting what he had said in the minutes. He rang the bell, and sent for Soges.
"What proof have you that it was this fellow that put up the May-pole?"
"Every child in the village, the tiles on the roofs, know that Mat goes to see Eva: no offence, your honor, but I should think it would be the quickest way to send for Eva, and then he won't deny it: he can't qualify that it isn't so."
Mat opened his eyes wide, and his lips quivered; but he said nothing. The judge hesitated a long time, for he perfectly understood the impropriety of such a mode of proof; but the desire to set an example prevailed.