It was an unheard-of audacity for a simple burgess to challenge the town Sheriff himself to a tilting duel with cudgels and lances. The people listened in amazement, but still more amazed were they when Master Dóronczius not only did not prosecute the audacious youth, but told the watchmen to let him go in peace, as he must certainly be out of his wits.
But Joseph Sándor, when Dóronczius would not come out of his house to fight with him in God's name, took a bladder lantern, hung it on the point of his lance, hung beside it a ragged sheep-skin jacket and a pair of hose, and throwing the lance over his shoulder, galloped through the town, exclaiming at every street corner—
"Hearken ye! old and young. Which of you hath seen this Michael Dóronczius, whom I am seeking with a lantern? Tell me, who hath seen him? What hath become of him?"
And in every crowd there is never any lack of merry roysterers ready to give mocking answers to such scornful questions.
"I have seen him. He is hiding just now in a mouse-hole, only his spur is visible."
"I have seen him. He is dressed up in his wife's clothes; he is selling bacon in the market-place among the huckster wenches."
"Never mind, Joe," cried another, "he is sitting behind the stove. He would freeze up if he came out."
"Nay, he would like to come," cried the fourth, "only his mother won't let him. She wants him to skein her thread for her."
"He'll come immediately," said a fifth, "only he's looking for his lance; the fowls are sitting on it, and he durst not drive them away for fear the cock might peck him."
"Let him alone," cried a sixth, "he's lying sick; a gnat bit him yesterday."