The burgomaster arose. “Kobus, put the handcuffs on him at once. In heaven’s name make haste about it then.”
The veldwachter bustled up from the ground, and set about securing the prisoner as closely as possible. While he was thus occupied, and Hannes was holding the persistently silent criminal, the burgomaster kept walking round and round his captive in order to see what sort of a fish he had got in his net. In this he would probably have been unsuccessful, had not the moon, in a sudden caprice, shone out brightly once more. When the triumvirate saw the pale face, paler than ever with the fright and the cold moonlight, and perceived it to be the face so well known to them, all their astonishment uttered itself in the simultaneous cry—
“The Dominie!”
The school was empty, and the children had a holiday, for the Dominie ... was sitting in the vault under the tower.
Under the tower sat the Dominie, amidst pieces of old iron and other rubbish. Light and air stole in shyly, in small quantities, through the little, square, grated window, in which a single scrap of glass, dusty and weather-stained, remained in one corner, to show there had once been a pane. As the court-house was surrounded by a paddock, which again was enclosed by a low wall, the sounds from outside only penetrated indistinctly, as a vague murmur, into this chamber. Sometimes it was quiet,—deadly still, there, especially of an evening, and then life came into the place, for the rats and mice began their games. The Master was an old man, and nervous, and he could not sleep much. He thought over the whole matter in his wakeful hours, and it gradually became clear to him that he had been arrested by mistake.... Klaas had stolen Jan van ’t Hout’s pears, and he, the Dominie, had been taken for the thief returning for a second load. But it would not be difficult to prove his innocence. Only it was lasting a long time; he ought surely to have been tried before now. Four days had passed without his hearing anything. Even the veldwachter, who, as a rule, could not be with him two minutes without wanting to relate some story or other, was now silence itself, when he brought the Dominie his daily rations. What was the meaning of this delay?
“SITTING IN THE VAULT UNDER THE TOWER.”
Yes, the delay had well-founded reasons! The burgomaster had indeed caught the fish, but he did not exactly know what he was to do with him. It was a ticklish business. Was he to hand over the prisoner immediately, without the form of a trial, to the authorities in town? or was he first to hold an inquiry, and send up the procès-verbal along with the prisoner? Supposing the latter to be the case, how was he to set about it? It was a most unfortunate circumstance that there had never been any thieves in the parish, for now the burgomaster was most certainly at his wits’ end. The secretary—a poor, infirm old man, almost in his dotage—was consulted in vain. The same result attended a conference with the “law-holders.”[[6]] Finally the burgomaster called Kobus to his assistance. He reflected for some time, and said at last:
“Doesn’t it say in the communal bye-laws?”
“This case is one for which no provision is made in the Gemeentewet” said the burgomaster, with admirable composure,—the truth being that the greater part of the Gemeentewet was Greek to him, and that he had gradually picked up, by practical experience, what knowledge he possessed of his official duties. Kobus, however, was very far from suspecting any such subtleties, and believed his superior implicitly. His invention being now exhausted, he confined himself to remarking, with a sigh, “If it hadn’t been the Dominie himself, now, we might have asked him—he could surely have looked it up somewhere.”