, and at the same time
there was a moaning and groaning; for at night one hears and makes out
every thing much plainlier. Off I ran. Two fellows were drawing a cart
in great tribulation and fear, and the pale rascal was walking
alongside, and driving them on. 'Scoundrels!' I shouted in their
faces! and the word was hardly out of my throat, when the two thieves
had already scampered off; but the pale skinny mountebank I held fast;
the cart with the stolen goods is standing in the wood. They will soon
bring it after me however; for I met a couple of workmen whom I sent
for it; and the Hungarian waivode I have dragged hither with my own
hand."

Meanwhile the whole house was in an uprore. The stranger was sitting
handcufft at the door; and miners, spinners, and weavers came
crowding; others flockt from the mills; and all were shouting, all
were staring with wonder at each other; everybody wanted to tell his
story, and nobody seemed to know what it was that had happened; so
that Edward and Conrad began with much perplexity and annoyance to
question one after another, until the miner cried out with his
thundering voice: "Hold your jaws all of you. Not a soul shall speak
another word, except he whom your young master shall ask."

One-eyed Michael was standing near them, and, as Edward turned to him,
he said: "It may have been about three in the morning when I set off
from the forge to deliver a message betimes at the smelting house up
in the mountains. I was walking along the path through the wood,
thinking no harm, save that when I got pretty near to the warehouse
all the nightly robberies came across me which have been going on this
many a long day there. 'I'd give the world to catch the rogue,' I said
to myself, when all at once a gun went off. A gun! what ho! that put
me to my wits. 'There are never any sportsmen hereabout,' I said, and
began marching and bustling on with a little more haste and speed. In
a few moments I hear cries and yells and shouts, and a pothering and
squabbling. All this methinks can never be right. I get to the top,
and now I see the whole business. The warehouse is open, several
barrows and men are before it, they are piling up the goods: a short
figure that I could not make out in the dark, panting and whining,
screaming and grumbling, is shuffling and tumbling about. I make up to
the fellows with the stolen goods. Then some of them seized me fast
and prest down my eyes. The noise lessens, I can