The banns of marriage had to be read three times, as in our days; with this difference, that they were commonly read on week-days, and the young couple easily persuaded the cure to do the three readings in twenty-four hours: he was new to the place, and their looks spoke volumes in their favour. They were cried on Monday at matins and at vespers; and, to their great delight, nobody from Tergou was in the church. The next morning they were both there, palpitating with anxiety, when, to their horror, a stranger stood up and forbade the banns, On the score that the parties were not of age, and their parents not consenting.
Outside the church door Margaret and Gerard held a trembling, and almost despairing consultation; but, before they could settle anything, the man who had done them so ill a turn approached, and gave them to understand that he was very sorry to interfere: that his inclination was to further the happiness of the young; but that in point of fact his only means of getting a living was by forbidding banns: what then? “The young people give me a crown, and I undo my work handsomely; tell the cure I was misinformed, and all goes smoothly.”
“A crown! I will give you a golden angel to do this,” said Gerard eagerly; the man consented as eagerly, and went with Gerard to the cure, and told him he had made a ridiculous mistake, which a sight of the parties had rectified. On this the cure agreed to marry the young couple next day at ten: and the professional obstructor of bliss went home with Gerard's angel. Like most of these very clever knaves, he was a fool, and proceeded to drink his angel at a certain hostelry in Tergou where was a green devoted to archery and the common sports of the day. There, being drunk, he bragged of his day's exploit; and who should be there, imbibing every word, but a great frequenter of the spot, the ne'er-do-weel Sybrandt. Sybrandt ran home to tell his father; his father was not at home; he was gone to Rotterdam to buy cloth of the merchants. Catching his elder brother's eye, he made him a signal to come out, and told him what he had heard.
There are black sheep in nearly every large family; and these two were Gerard's black brothers. Idleness is vitiating: waiting for the death of those we ought to love is vitiating; and these two one-idea'd curs were ready to tear any one to death that should interfere with that miserable inheritance which was their thought by day and their dream by night. Their parents' parsimony was a virtue; it was accompanied by industry, and its motive was love of their offspring; but in these perverse and selfish hearts that homely virtue was perverted into avarice, than which no more fruitful source of crimes is to be found in nature.
They put their heads together, and agreed not to tell their mother, whose sentiments were so uncertain, but to go first to the burgomaster. They were cunning enough to see that he was averse to the match, though they could not divine why.
Ghysbrecht Van Swieten saw through them at once; but he took care not to let them see through him. He heard their story, and putting on magisterial dignity and coldness, he said;
“Since the father of the family is not here, his duty falleth on me, who am the father of the town. I know your father's mind; leave all to me; and, above all, tell not a woman a word of this, least of all the women that are in your own house: for chattering tongues mar wisest counsels.”
So he dismissed them, a little superciliously: he was ashamed of his confederates.
On their return home they found their brother Gerard seated on a low stool at their mother's knee: she was caressing his hair with her hand, speaking very kindly to him, and promising to take his part with his father and thwart his love no more. The main cause of this change of mind was characteristic of the woman. She it was who in a moment of female irritation had cut Margaret's picture to pieces. She had watched the effect with some misgivings, and had seen Gerard turn pale as death, and sit motionless like a bereaved creature, with the pieces in his hands, and his eyes fixed on them till tears came and blinded them. Then she was terrified at what she had done; and next her heart smote her bitterly; and she wept sore apart; but, being what she was, dared not own it, but said to herself, “I'll not say a word, but I'll make it up to him.” And her bowels yearned over her son, and her feeble violence died a natural death, and she was transferring her fatal alliance to Gerard when the two black sheep came in. Gerard knew nothing of the immediate cause; on the contrary, inexperienced as he was in the ins and outs of females, her kindness made him ashamed of a suspicion he had entertained that she was the depredator, and he kissed her again and again, and went to bed happy as a prince to think his mother was his mother once more at the very crisis of his fate.
The next morning, at ten o'clock, Gerard and Margaret were in the church at Sevenbergen, he radiant with joy, she with blushes. Peter was also there, and Martin Wittenhaagen, but no other friend. Secrecy was everything. Margaret had declined Italy. She could not leave her father; he was too learned and too helpless. But it was settled they should retire into Flanders for a few weeks until the storm should be blown over at Tergou. The cure did not keep them waiting long, though it seemed an age. Presently he stood at the altar, and called them to him. They went hand in hand, the happiest in Holland. The cure opened his book.
But ere he uttered a single word of the sacred rite, a harsh voice cried “Forbear!” And the constables of Tergou came up the aisle and seized Gerard in the name of the law. Martin's long knife flashed out directly.
“Forbear, man!” cried the priest. “What! draw your weapon in a church, and ye who interrupt this holy sacrament, what means this impiety?”
“There is no impiety, father,” said the burgomaster's servant respectfully. “This young man would marry against his father's will, and his father has prayed our burgomaster to deal with him according to the law. Let him deny it if he can.”
“Is this so, young man?”
Gerard hung his head.
“We take him to Rotterdam to abide the sentence of the Duke.”
At this Margaret uttered a cry of despair, and the young creatures, who were so happy a moment ago, fell to sobbing in one another's arms so piteously, that the instruments of oppression drew back a step and were ashamed; but one of them that was good-natured stepped up under pretence of separating them, and whispered to Margaret:
“Rotterdam? it is a lie. We but take him to our Stadthouse.”
They took him away on horseback, on the road to Rotterdam; and, after a dozen halts, and by sly detours, to Tergou. Just outside the town they were met by a rude vehicle covered with canvas. Gerard was put into this, and about five in the evening was secretly conveyed into the prison of the Stadthouse. He was taken up several flights of stairs and thrust into a small room lighted only by a narrow window, with a vertical iron bar. The whole furniture was a huge oak chest.
Imprisonment in that age was one of the highroads to death. It is horrible in its mildest form; but in those days it implied cold, unbroken solitude, torture, starvation, and often poison. Gerard felt he was in the hands of an enemy.
“Oh, the look that man gave me on the road to Rotterdam. There is more here than my father's wrath. I doubt I shall see no more the light of day.” And he kneeled down and commended his soul to God.
Presently he rose and sprang at the iron bar of the window, and clutched it. This enabled him to look out by pressing his knees against the wall. It was but for a minute; but in that minute he saw a sight such as none but a captive can appreciate.
Martin Wittenhaagen's back.
Martin was sitting, quietly fishing in the brook near the Stadthouse.
Gerard sprang again at the window, and whistled. Martin instantly showed that he was watching much harder than fishing. He turned hastily round and saw Gerard—made him a signal, and taking up his line and bow, went quickly off.
Gerard saw by this that his friends were not idle: yet had rather Martin had stayed. The very sight of him was a comfort. He held on, looking at the soldier's retiring form as long as he could, then falling back somewhat heavily wrenched the rusty iron bar, held only by rusty nails, away from the stone-work just as Ghysbrecht Van Swieten opened the door stealthily behind him. The burgomaster's eye fell instantly on the iron, and then glanced at the window; but he said nothing. The window was a hundred feet from the ground; and if Gerard had a fancy for jumping out, why should he balk it? He brought a brown loaf and a pitcher of water, and set them on the chest in solemn silence. Gerard's first impulse was to brain him with the iron bar and fly down the stairs; but the burgomaster seeing something wicked in his eye, gave a little cough, and three stout fellows, armed, showed themselves directly at the door.
“My orders are to keep you thus until you shall bind yourself by an oath to leave Margaret Brandt, and return to the Church, to which you have belonged from your cradle.”
“Death sooner.”
“With all my heart.” And the burgomaster retired.
Martin went with all speed to Sevenbergen; there he found Margaret pale and agitated, but full of resolution and energy. She was just finishing a letter to the Countess Charolois, appealing to her against the violence and treachery of Ghysbrecht.
“Courage!” cried Martin on entering. “I have found him. He is in the haunted tower, right at the top of it. Ay, I know the place: many a poor fellow has gone up there straight, and come down feet foremost.”
He then told them how he had looked up and seen Gerard's face at a window that was like a slit in the wall.
“Oh, Martin! how did he look?”
“What mean you? He looked like Gerard Eliassoen.”
“But was he pale?”
“A little.”
“Looked he anxious? Looked he like one doomed?”
“Nay, nay; as bright as a pewter pot.”
“You mock me. Stay! then that must have been at sight of you. He counts on us. Oh, what shall we do? Martin, good friend, take this at once to Rotterdam.”
Martin held out his hand for the letter.
Peter had sat silent all this time, but pondering, and yet, contrary to custom, keenly attentive to what was going on around him.
“Put not your trust in princes,” said he.
“Alas! what else have we to trust in?”
“Knowledge.”
“Well-a-day, father! your learning will not serve us here.”
“How know you that? Wit has been too strong for iron bars ere to-day.
“Ay, father; but nature is stronger than wit, and she is against us. Think of the height! No ladder in Holland might reach him.”
“I need no ladder; what I need is a gold crown.”
“Nay, I have money, for that matter. I have nine angels. Gerard gave them me to keep; but what do they avail? The burgomaster will not be bribed to let Gerard free.”
“What do they avail? Give me but one crown, and the young man shall sup with us this night.”
Peter spoke so eagerly and confidently, that for a moment Margaret felt hopeful; but she caught Martin's eye dwelling upon him with an expression of benevolent contempt.
“It passes the powers of man's invention,” said she, with a deep sigh.
“Invention!” cried the old man. “A fig for invention. What need we invention at this time of day? Everything has been said that is to be said, and done that ever will be done. I shall tell you how a Florentine knight was shut up in a tower higher than Gerard's; yet did his faithful squire stand at the tower foot and get him out, with no other engine than that in your hand, Martin, and certain kickshaws I shall buy for a crown.”
Martin looked at his bow, and turned it round in his hand, and seemed to interrogate it. But the examination left him as incredulous as before.
Then Peter told them his story, how the faithful squire got the knight out of a high tower at Brescia. The manoeuvre, like most things that are really scientific, was so simple, that now their wonder was they had taken for impossible what was not even difficult.
The letter never went to Rotterdam. They trusted to Peter's learning and their own dexterity.
It was nine o'clock on a clear moonlight night; Gerard, senior, was still away; the rest of his little family had been some time abed.
A figure stood by the dwarf's bed. It was white, and the moonlight shone on it.
With an unearthly noise, between a yell and a snarl, the gymnast rolled off his bed and under it by a single unbroken movement. A soft voice followed him in his retreat.
“Why, Giles, are you afeard of me?”
At this, Giles's head peeped cautiously up, and he saw it was only his sister Kate.
She put her finger to her lips. “Hush! lest the wicked Cornelis or the wicked Sybrandt hear us.” Giles's claws seized the side of the bed, and he returned to his place by one undivided gymnastic.
Kate then revealed to Giles that she had heard Cornelis and Sybrandt mention Gerard's name; and being herself in great anxiety at his not coming home all day, had listened at their door, and had made a fearful discovery. Gerard was in prison, in the haunted tower of the Stadthouse. He was there, it seemed, by their father's authority. But here must be some treachery; for how could their father have ordered this cruel act? He was at Rotterdam. She ended by entreating Giles to bear her company to the foot of the haunted tower, to say a word of comfort to poor Gerard, and let him know their father was absent, and would be sure to release him on his return.
“Dear Giles, I would go alone, but I am afeard of the spirits that men say do haunt the tower; but with you I shall not be afeard.”
“Nor I with you,” said Giles. “I don't believe there are any spirits in Tergou. I never saw one. This last was the likest one ever I saw; and it was but you, Kate, after all.”
In less than half an hour Giles and Kate opened the housedoor cautiously and issued forth. She made him carry a lantern, though the night was bright. “The lantern gives me more courage against the evil spirits,” said she.
The first day of imprisonment is very trying, especially if to the horror of captivity is added the horror of utter solitude. I observe that in our own day a great many persons commit suicide during the first twenty-four hours of the solitary cell. This is doubtless why our Jairi abstain so carefully from the impertinence of watching their little experiment upon the human soul at that particular stage of it.
As the sun declined, Gerard's heart too sank and sank; with the waning light even the embers of hope went out. He was faint, too, with hunger; for he was afraid to eat the food Ghysbrecht had brought him; and hunger alone cows men. He sat upon the chest, his arms and his head drooping before him, a picture of despondency. Suddenly something struck the wall beyond him very sharply, and then rattled on the floor at his feet. It was an arrow; he saw the white feather. A chill ran through him—they meant then to assassinate him from the outside. He crouched. No more missiles came. He crawled on all fours, and took up the arrow; there was no head to it. He uttered a cry of hope: had a friendly hand shot it? He took it up, and felt it all over: he found a soft substance attached to it. Then one of his eccentricities was of grand use to him. His tinder-box enabled him to strike a light: it showed him two things that made his heart bound with delight, none the less thrilling for being somewhat vague. Attached to the arrow was a skein of silk, and on the arrow itself were words written.
How his eyes devoured them, his heart panting the while!
Well beloved, make fast the silk to thy knife and lower to us: but hold thine end fast: then count an hundred and draw up.
Gerard seized the oak chest, and with almost superhuman energy dragged it to the window: a moment ago he could not have moved it. Standing on the chest and looking down, he saw figures at the tower foot. They were so indistinct, they looked like one huge form. He waved his bonnet to them with trembling hand: then he undid the silk rapidly but carefully, and made one end fast to his knife and lowered it till it ceased to draw. Then he counted a hundred. Then pulled the silk carefully up: it came up a little heavier. At last he came to a large knot, and by that knot a stout whipcord was attached to the silk. What could this mean? While he was puzzling himself Margaret's voice came up to him, low but clear. “Draw up, Gerard, till you see liberty.” At the word Gerard drew the whipcord line up, and drew and drew till he came to another knot, and found a cord of some thickness take the place of the whipcord. He had no sooner begun to draw this up, than he found that he had now a heavy weight to deal with. Then the truth suddenly flashed on him, and he went to work and pulled and pulled till the perspiration rolled down him: the weight got heavier and heavier, and at last he was well-nigh exhausted: looking down, he saw in the moonlight a sight that revived him: it was as it were a great snake coming up to him out of the deep shadow cast by the tower. He gave a shout of joy, and a score more wild pulls, and lo! a stout new rope touched his hand: he hauled and hauled, and dragged the end into his prison, and instantly passed it through both handles of the chest in succession, and knotted it firmly; then sat for a moment to recover his breath and collect his courage. The first thing was to make sure that the chest was sound, and capable of resisting his weight poised in mid-air. He jumped with all his force upon it. At the third jump the whole side burst open, and out scuttled the contents, a host of parchments.
After the first start and misgiving this gave him, Gerard comprehended that the chest had not burst, but opened: he had doubtless jumped upon some secret spring. Still it shook in some degree his confidence in the chest's powers of resistance; so he gave it an ally: he took the iron bar and fastened it with the small rope across the large rope, and across the window. He now mounted the chest, and from the chest put his foot through the window, and sat half in and half out, with one hand on that part of the rope which was inside. In the silent night he heard his own heart beat.
The free air breathed on his face, and gave him the courage to risk what we must all lose one day—for liberty. Many dangers awaited him, but the greatest was the first getting on to the rope outside. Gerard reflected. Finally, he put himself in the attitude of a swimmer, his body to the waist being in the prison, his legs outside. Then holding the inside rope with both hands, he felt anxiously with his feet for the outside rope, and when he had got it, he worked it in between the palms of his feet, and kept it there tight: then he uttered a short prayer, and, all the calmer for it, put his left hand on the sill and gradually wriggled out. Then he seized the iron bar, and for one fearful moment hung outside from it by his right hand, while his left hand felt for the rope down at his knees; it was too tight against the wall for his fingers to get round it higher up. The moment he had fairly grasped it, he left the bar, and swiftly seized the rope with the right hand too; but in this manoeuvre his body necessarily fell about a yard. A stifled cry came up from below. Gerard hung in mid-air. He clenched his teeth, and nipped the rope tight with his feet and gripped it with his hands, and went down slowly hand below hand. He passed by one huge rough stone after another. He saw there was green moss on one. He looked up and he looked down. The moon shone into his prison window: it seemed very near. The fluttering figures below seemed an awful distance. It made him dizzy to look down: so he fixed his eyes steadily on the wall close to him, and went slowly down, down, down.
He passed a rusty, slimy streak on the wall: it was some ten feet long. The rope made his hands very hot. He stole another look up.
The prison window was a good way off now.
Down—down—down—down.
The rope made his hands sore.
He looked up. The window was so distant, he ventured now to turn his eyes downward again; and there, not more than thirty feet below him, were Margaret and Martin, their faithful hands upstretched to catch him should he fall. He could see their eyes and their teeth shine in the moonlight. For their mouths were open, and they were breathing hard.
“Take care, Gerard oh, take care! Look not down.”
“Fear me not,” cried Gerard joyfully, and eyed the wall, but came down faster.
In another minute his feet were at their hands. They seized him ere he touched the ground, and all three clung together in one embrace.
“Hush! away in silence, dear one.”
They stole along the shadow of the wall.
Now, ere they had gone many yards, suddenly a stream of light shot from an angle of the building, and lay across their path like a barrier of fire, and they heard whispers and footsteps close at hand.
“Back!” hissed Martin. “Keep in the shade.”
They hurried back, passed the dangling rope, and made for a little square projecting tower. They had barely rounded it when the light shot trembling past them, and flickered uncertainly into the distance.
“A lantern!” groaned Martin in a whisper. “They are after us.”
“Give me my knife,” whispered Gerard. “I'll never be taken alive.”
“No, no!” murmured Margaret; “is there no way out where we are?”
“None! none! But I carry six lives at my shoulder;” and with the word, Martin strung his bow, and fitted an arrow to the string: “in war never wait to be struck: I will kill one or two ere they shall know where their death comes from:” then, motioning his companions to be quiet he began to draw his bow, and, ere the arrow was quite drawn to the head, he glided round the corner ready to loose the string the moment the enemy should offer a mark.
Gerard and Margaret held their breath in horrible expectation: they had never seen a human being killed.
And now a wild hope, but half repressed, thrilled through Gerard, that this watchful enemy might be the burgomaster in person. The soldier, he knew, would send an arrow through a burgher or burgomaster, as he would through a boar in a wood.
But who may foretell the future, however near? The bow, instead of remaining firm, and loosing the deadly shaft, was seen to waver first, then shake violently, and the stout soldier staggered back to them, his knees knocking and his cheeks blanched with fear. He let his arrow fall, and clutched Gerard's shoulder.
“Let me feel flesh and blood,” he gasped. “The haunted tower! the haunted tower!”
His terror communicated itself to Margaret and Gerard. They gasped rather than uttered an inquiry.
“Hush!” he cried, “it will hear you up the wall! it is going up the wall! Its head is on fire. Up the wall, as mortal creatures walk upon green sward. If you know a prayer, say it, for hell is loose to-night.”
“I have power to exorcise spirits,” said Gerard, trembling. “I will venture forth.”
“Go alone then,” said Martin; “I have looked on't once, and live.”
The strange glance of hatred the burgomaster had cast on Gerard, coupled with his imprisonment, had filled the young man with a persuasion that Ghysbrecht was his enemy to the death, and he glided round the angle of the tower, fully expecting to see no supernatural appearance, but some cruel and treacherous contrivance of a bad man to do him a mischief in that prison, his escape from which could hardly be known.
As he stole forth, a soft but brave hand crept into his; and Margaret was by his side, to share this new peril.
No sooner was the haunted tower visible, than a sight struck their eyes that benumbed them as they stood. More than halfway up the tower, a creature with a fiery head, like an enormous glowworm, was steadily mounting the wall: the body was dark, but its outline visible through the glare from the head, and the whole creature not much less than four feet long.
At the foot of the tower stood a thing in white, that looked exactly like the figure of a female. Gerard and Margaret palpitated with awe.
“The rope! the rope! It is going up the rope,” gasped Gerard.
As they gazed, the glowworm disappeared in Gerard's late prison, but its light illuminated the cell inside and reddened the window. The white figure stood motionless below.
Such as can retain their senses after the first prostrating effect of the supernatural are apt to experience terror in one of its strangest forms, a wild desire to fling themselves upon the terrible object. It fascinates them as the snake the bird. The great tragedian Macready used to render this finely in Macbeth, at Banquo's second appearance. He flung himself with averted head at the horrible shadow. This strange impulse now seized Margaret. She put down Gerard's hand quietly, and stood bewildered; then, all in a moment, with a wild cry, darted towards the spectre. Gerard, not aware of the natural impulse I have spoken of, never doubted the evil one was drawing her to her perdition. He fell on his knees.
“Exorcizo vos. In nomine beatae Mariae, exorcizo vos.”
While the exorcist was shrieking his incantations in extremity of terror, to his infinite relief he heard the spectre utter a feeble cry of fear. To find that hell had also its little weaknesses was encouraging. He redoubled his exorcisms, and presently he saw the ghastly shape kneeling at Margaret's knees, and heard it praying piteously for mercy.
Kate and Giles soon reached the haunted tower. Judge their surprise when they found a new rope dangling from the prisoner's window to the ground.
“I see how it is,” said the inferior intelligence, taking facts as they came. “Our Gerard has come down this rope. He has got clear. Up I go, and see.”
“No, Giles, no!” said the superior intelligence, blinded by prejudice. “See you not this is glamour? This rope is a line the evil one casts out to wile thee to destruction. He knows the weaknesses of all our hearts; he has seen how fond you are of going up things. Where should our Gerard procure a rope? how fasten it in the sky like this? It is not in nature. Holy saints protect us this night, for hell is abroad.”
“Stuff!” said the dwarf; “the way to hell is down, and this rope leads up. I never had the luck to go up such a long rope. It may be years ere I fall in with such a long rope all ready for me. As well be knocked on the head at once as never know happiness.”
And he sprung on to the rope with a cry of delight, as a cat jumps with a mew on to a table where fish is. All the gymnast was on fire; and the only concession Kate could gain from him was permission to fasten the lantern on his neck first.
“A light scares the ill spirits,” said she.
And so, with his huge arms, and his legs like feathers, Giles went up the rope faster than his brother came down it. The light at the nape of his neck made a glowworm of him. His sister watched his progress, with trembling anxiety. Suddenly a female figure started out of the solid masonry, and came flying at her with more than mortal velocity.
Kate uttered a feeble cry. It was all she could, for her tongue clove to her palate with terror. Then she dropped her crutches, and sank upon her knees, hiding her face and moaning:
“Take my body, but spare my soul!”
Margaret (panting). “Why, it is a woman!”
Kate (quivering). “Why, it is a woman!”
Margaret. “How you scared me!”
Kate. “I am scared enough myself. Oh! oh! oh!”
“This is strange! But the fiery-headed thing? Yet it was with you, and you are harmless! But why are you here at this time of night?”
“Nay, why are YOU?”
“Perhaps we are on the same errand? Ah! you are his good sister, Kate!”
“And you are Margaret Brandt.”
“Yes.
“All the better. You love him; you are here. Then Giles was right. He has won free.”
Gerard came forward, and put the question at rest. But all further explanation was cut short by a horrible unearthly noise, like a sepulchre ventriloquizing:
“PARCHMENT!—PARCHMENT!—PARCHMENT!”
At each repetition, it rose in intensity. They looked up, and there was the dwarf, with his hands full of parchments, and his face lighted with fiendish joy and lurid with diabolical fire. The light being at his neck, a more infernal “transparency” never startled mortal eye. With the word, the awful imp hurled parchment at the astonished heads below. Down came records, like wounded wild-ducks; some collapsed, others fluttering, and others spread out and wheeling slowly down in airy circles. They had hardly settled, when again the sepulchral roar was heard—“Parchment—parchment!” and down pattered and sailed another flock of documents: another followed: they whitened the grass. Finally, the fire-headed imp, with his light body and horny hands, slid down the rope like a falling star, and (business before sentiment) proposed to his rescued brother an immediate settlement for the merchandise he had just delivered.
“Hush!” said Gerard; “you speak too loud. Gather them up, and follow us to a safer place than this.”
“Will you come home with me, Gerard?” said little Kate.
“I have no home.”
“You shall not say so. Who is more welcome than you will be, after this cruel wrong, to your father's house?
“Father! I have no father,” said Gerard sternly. “He that was my father is turned my gaoler. I have escaped from his hands; I will never come within their reach again.”
“An enemy did this, and not our father.”
And she told him what she had overheard Cornelis and Sybrandt say. But the injury was too recent to be soothed. Gerard showed a bitterness of indignation he had hitherto seemed incapable of.
“Cornelis and Sybrandt are two ill curs that have shown me their teeth and their heart a long while; but they could do no more. My father it is that gave the burgomaster authority, or he durst not have laid a finger on me, that am a free burgher of this town. So be it, then. I was his son. I am his prisoner. He has played his part. I shall play mine. Farewell the burgh where I was born, and lived honestly and was put in prison. While there is another town left in creation, I'll never trouble you again, Tergou.”
“Oh! Gerard! Gerard!”
Margaret whispered her: “Do not gainsay him now. Give his choler time to cool!”
Kate turned quickly towards her. “Let me look at your face?” The inspection was favourable, it seemed, for she whispered: “It is a comely face, and no mischief-maker's.”
“Fear me not,” said Margaret, in the same tone. “I could not be happy without your love, as well as Gerard's.”
“These are comfortable words,” sobbed Kate. Then, looking up, she said, “I little thought to like you so well. My heart is willing, but my infirmity will not let me embrace you.”
At this hint, Margaret wound gently round Gerard's sister, and kissed her lovingly.
“Often he has spoken of you to me, Kate; and often I longed for this.”
“You, too, Gerard,” said Kate; “kiss me ere you go; for my heart lies heavy at parting with you this night.”
Gerard kissed her, and she went on her crutches home. The last thing they heard of her was a little patient sigh. Then the tears came and stood thick in Margaret's eyes. But Gerard was a man, and noticed not his sister's sigh.
As they turned to go to Sevenbergen, the dwarf nudged Gerard with his bundle of parchments and held out a concave claw.
Margaret dissuaded Gerard. “Why take what is not ours?”
“Oh, spoil an enemy how you can.”
“But may they not make this a handle for fresh violence?”
“How can they? Think you I shall stay in Tergou after this? The burgomaster robbed me of my liberty; I doubt I should take his life for it, if I could.”
“Oh, fie! Gerard.”
“What! Is life worth more than liberty? Well, I can't take his life, so I take the first thing that comes to hand.”
He gave Giles a few small coins, with which the urchin was gladdened, and shuffled after his sister. Margaret and Gerard were speedily joined by Martin, and away to Sevenbergen.
Ghysbrecht Van Swieten kept the key of Gerard's prison in his pouch. He waited till ten of the clock ere he visited for he said to himself, “A little hunger sometimes does well it breaks 'em.” At ten he crept up the stairs with a loaf and pitcher, followed by his trusty servant well armed. Ghysbrecht listened at the door. There was no sound inside. A grim smile stole over his features. “By this time he will be as down-hearted as Albert Koestein was,” thought he. He opened the door.
No Gerard.
Ghysbrecht stood stupefied.
Although his face was not visible, his body seemed to lose all motion in so peculiar a way, and then after a little he fell trembling so, that the servant behind him saw there was something amiss, and crept close to him and peeped over his shoulder. At sight of the empty cell, and the rope, and iron bar, he uttered a loud exclamation of wonder; but his surprise doubled when his master, disregarding all else, suddenly flung himself on his knees before the empty chest, and felt wildly all over it with quivering hands, as if unwilling to trust his eyes in a matter so important.
The servant gazed at him in utter bewilderment.
“Why, master, what is the matter?”
Ghysbrecht's pale lips worked as if he was going to answer; but they uttered no sound: his hands fell by his side, and he stared into the chest.
“Why, master, what avails glaring into that empty box? The lad is not there. See here! note the cunning of the young rogue; he hath taken out the bar, and—”
“GONE! GONE! GONE!”
“Gone! What is gone, Holy saints! he is planet-struck!”
“STOP THIEF!” shrieked Ghysbrecht, and suddenly turned, on his servant and collared him, and shook him with rage. “D'ye stand there, knave, and see your master robbed? Run! fly! A hundred crowns to him that finds it me again. No, no! 'tis in vain. Oh, fool! fool! to leave that in the same room with him. But none ever found the secret spring before. None ever would but he. It was to be. It is to be. Lost! lost!” and his years and infirmity now gained the better of his short-lived frenzy, and he sank on the chest muttering “Lost! lost!”
“What is lost, master?” asked the servant kindly.
“House and lands and good name,” groaned Ghysbrecht, and wrung his hands feebly.
“WHAT?” cried the servant.
This emphatic word, and the tone of eager curiosity, struck on Ghysbrecht's ear and revived his natural cunning.
“I have lost the town records,” stammered he, and he looked askant at the man like a fox caught near a hen-roost.
“Oh, is that all?”
“Is't not enough? What will the burghers say to me? What will the burghs do?” Then he suddenly burst out again, “A hundred crowns to him who shall recover them; all, mind, all that were in this box. If one be missing, I give nothing.”
“'Tis a bargain, master: the hundred crowns are in my pouch. See you not that where Gerard Eliassoen is, there are the pieces of sheepskin you rate so high?”
“That is true; that is true, good Dierich: good faithful Dierich. All, mind, all that were in the chest.”
“Master, I will take the constables to Gerard's house, and seize him for the theft.”
“The theft? ay! good; very good. It is theft. I forgot that. So, as he is a thief now, we will put him in the dungeons below, where the toads are and the rats. Dierich, that man must never see daylight again. 'Tis his own fault; he must be prying. Quick, quick! ere he has time to talk, you know, time to talk.”
In less than half an hour Dierich Brower and four constables entered the hosier's house, and demanded young Gerard of the panic-stricken Catherine.
“Alas! what has he done now?” cried she; “that boy will break my heart.”
“Nay, dame, but a trick of youth,” said Dierich. “He hath but made off with certain skins of parchment, in a frolic doubtless but the burgomaster is answerable to the burgh for their safe keeping, so he is in care about them; as for the youth, he will doubtless be quit for a reprimand.”
This smooth speech completely imposed on Catherine; but her daughter was more suspicious, and that suspicion was strengthened by the disproportionate anger and disappointment Dierich showed the moment he learned Gerard was not at home, had not been at home that night.
“Come away then,” said he roughly. “We are wasting time.” He added vehemently, “I'll find him if he is above ground.”
Affection sharpens the wits, and often it has made an innocent person more than a match for the wily. As Dierich was going out, Kate made him a signal she would speak with him privately. He bade his men go on, and waited outside the door. She joined him.
“Hush!” said she; “my mother knows not. Gerard has left Tergou.”
“How?”
“I saw him last night.”
“Ay! Where?” cried Dierich eagerly.
“At the foot of the haunted tower.”
“How did he get the rope?”
“I know not; but this I know; my brother Gerard bade me there farewell, and he is many leagues from Tergou ere this. The town, you know, was always unworthy of him, and when it imprisoned him, he vowed never to set foot in it again. Let the burgomaster be content, then. He has imprisoned him, and he has driven him from his birthplace and from his native land. What need now to rob him and us of our good name?”
This might at another moment have struck Dierich as good sense; but he was too mortified at this escape of Gerard and the loss of a hundred crowns.
“What need had he to steal?” retorted he bitterly.
“Gerard stole not the trash; he but took it to spite the burgomaster, who stole his liberty; but he shall answer to the Duke for it, he shall. As for these skins of parchment you keep such a coil about, look in the nearest brook or stye, and 'tis odds but you find them.”
“Think ye so, mistress?—think ye so?” And Dierich's eyes flashed. “Mayhap you know 'tis so.”
“This I know, that Gerard is too good to steal, and too wise to load himself with rubbish, going a journey.”
“Give you good day, then,” said Dierich sharply. “The sheepskin you scorn, I value it more than the skin of any in Tergou.”
And he went off hastily on a false scent.
Kate returned into the house and drew Giles aside.
“Giles, my heart misgives me; breathe not to a soul what I say to you. I have told Dirk Brower that Gerard is out of Holland, but much I doubt he is not a league from Tergou.”
“Why, where is he, then?”
“Where should he be, but with her he loves? But if so, he must not loiter. These be deep and dark and wicked men that seek him. Giles, I see that in Dirk Brower's eye makes me tremble. Oh, why cannot I fly to Sevenbergen and bid him away? Why am I not lusty and active like other girls? God forgive me for fretting at His will; but I never felt till now what it is to be lame and weak and useless. But you are strong, dear Giles,” added she coaxingly; “you are very strong.”
“Yes, I am strong,” thundered Perpusillus; then, catching sight of her meaning, “but I hate to go on foot,” he added sulkily.
“Alas! alas! who will help me if you will not? Dear Giles, do you not love Gerard?”
“Yes, I like him best of the lot. I'll go to Sevenbergen on Peter Buyskens his mule. Ask you him, for he won't lend her me.”
Kate remonstrated. The whole town would follow him. It would be known whither he was gone, and Gerard be in worse danger than before.
Giles parried this by promising to ride out of the town the opposite way, and not turn the mule's head towards Sevenbergen till he had got rid of the curious.
Kate then assented and borrowed the mule. She charged Giles with a short but meaning message, and made him repeat it after her over and over, till he could say it word for word.
Giles started on the mule, and little Kate retired, and did the last thing now in her power for her beloved brother—prayed on her knees long and earnestly for his safety.
该作者的其它作品
《white lies》
Gerard and Margaret went gaily to Sevenbergen in the first flush of recovered liberty and successful adventure. But these soon yielded to sadder thoughts. Gerard was an escaped prisoner, and liable to be retaken and perhaps punished; and therefore he and Margaret would have to part for a time. Moreover, he had conceived a hatred to his native place. Margaret wished him to leave the country for a while, but at the thought of his going to Italy her heart fainted. Gerard, on the contrary, was reconciled to leaving Margaret only by his desire to visit Italy, and his strong conviction that there he should earn money and reputation, and remove every obstacle to their marriage. He had already told her all that the demoiselle Van Eyck had said to him. He repeated it, and reminded Margaret that the gold pieces were only given him to go to Italy with. The journey was clearly for Gerard's interest. He was a craftsman and an artist, lost in this boorish place. In Italy they would know how to value him. On this ground above all the unselfish girl gave her consent; but many tender tears came with it, and at that Gerard, young and loving as herself, cried bitterly with her, and often they asked one another what they had done, that so many different persons should be their enemies, and combine, as it seemed, to part them.
They sat hand in hand till midnight, now deploring their hard fate, now drawing bright and hopeful pictures of the future, in the midst of which Margaret's tears would suddenly flow, and then poor Gerard's eloquence would die away in a sigh.
The morning found them resigned to part, but neither had the courage to say when; and much I doubt whether the hour of parting ever would have struck.
But about three in the afternoon, Giles, who had made a circuit of many miles to avoid suspicion, rode up to the door. They both ran out to him, eager with curiosity.
“Brother Gerard,” cried he, in his tremendous tones, “Kate bids you run for your life. They charge you with theft; you have given them a handle. Think not to explain. Hope not for justice in Tergou. The parchments you took, they are but a blind. She hath seen your death in the men's eyes; a price is on your head. Fly! For Margaret's sake and all who love you, loiter not life away, but fly!”
It was a thunder-clap, and left two white faces looking at one another, and at the terrible messenger.
Then Giles, who had hitherto but uttered by rote what Catherine bade him, put in a word of his own.
“All the constables were at our house after you, and so was Dirk Brower. Kate is wise, Gerard. Best give ear to her rede, and fly!”
“Oh, yes, Gerard,” cried Margaret wildly. “Fly on the instant. Ah! those parchments; my mind misgave me: why did I let you take them?”
“Margaret, they are but a blind: Giles says so. No matter: the old caitiff shall never see them again; I will not go till I have hidden his treasure where he shall never find it.” Gerard then, after thanking Giles warmly, bade him farewell, and told him to go back and tell Kate he was gone. “For I shall be gone ere you reach home,” said he. He then shouted for Martin; and told him what had happened, and begged him to go a little way towards Tergou, and watch the road.
“Ay!” said Martin, “and if I see Dirk Brower or any of his men, I will shoot an arrow into the oak-tree that is in our garden; and on that you must run into the forest hard by, and meet me at the weird hunter's spring. Then I will guide you through the wood.”
Surprise thus provided against, Gerard breathed again. He went with Margaret, and while she watched the oak-tree tremblingly, fearing every moment to see an arrow strike among the branches, Gerard dug a deep hole to bury the parchments in.
He threw them in, one by one. They were nearly all charters and records of the burgh; but one appeared to be a private deed between Floris Brandt, father of Peter, and Ghysbrecht.
“Why, this is as much yours as his,” said Gerard. “I will read this.”
“Oh, not now, Gerard, not now,” cried Margaret. “Every moment you lose fills me with fear; and see, large drops of rain are beginning to fall, and the clouds lower.”
Gerard yielded to this remonstrance; but he put the deed into his bosom, and threw the earth in over the others, and stamped it down. While thus employed there came a flash of lightning followed by a peal of distant thunder, and the rain came down heavily. Margaret and Gerard ran into the house, whither they were speedily followed by Martin.
“The road is clear,” said he, “and a heavy storm coming on.”
His words proved true. The thunder came nearer and nearer till it crashed overhead: the flashes followed one another close, like the strokes of a whip, and the rain fell in torrents. Margaret hid her face not to see the lightning. On this, Gerard put up the rough shutter and lighted a candle. The lovers consulted together, and Gerard blessed the storm that gave him a few hours more with Margaret. The sun set unperceived, and still the thunder pealed, and the lightning flashed, and the rain poured. Supper was set; but Gerard and Margaret could not eat: the thought that this was the last time they should sup together choked them. The storm lulled a little. Peter retired to rest. But Gerard was to go at peep of day, and neither he nor Margaret could afford to lose an hour in sleep. Martin sat a while, too; for he was fitting a new string to his bow, a matter in which he was very nice.
The lovers murmured their sorrows and their love beside him.
Suddenly the old man held up his hand to them to be silent.
They were quiet and listened, and heard nothing. But the next moment a footstep crackled faintly upon the autumn leaves that lay strewn in the garden at the back door of the house. To those who had nothing to fear such a step would have said nothing; but to those who had enemies it was terrible. For it was a foot trying to be noiseless.
Martin fitted an arrow to his string and hastily blew out the candle. At this moment, to their horror, they heard more than one footstep approach the other door of the cottage, not quite so noiselessly as the other, but very stealthily—and then a dead pause.
Their blood froze in their veins.
“Oh, Kate, oh, Kate! You said fly on the instant.” And Margaret moaned and wrung her hands in anguish and terror and wild remorse for having kept Gerard.
“Hush, girl!” said Martin, in a stern whisper.
A heavy knock fell on the door.
And on the hearts within.
该作者的其它作品
《white lies》
As if this had been a concerted signal, the back door was struck as rudely the next instant. They were hemmed in. But at these alarming sounds Margaret seemed to recover some share of self-possession. She whispered, “Say he was here, but is gone.” And with this she seized Gerard and almost dragged him up the rude steps that led to her father's sleeping-room. Her own lay next beyond it.
The blows on the door were repeated.
“Who knocks at this hour?”
“Open, and you will see!”
“I open not to thieves—honest men are all abed now.”
“Open to the law, Martin Wittenhaagen, or you shall rue it.”
“Why, that is Dirk Brower's voice, I trow. What make you so far from Tergou?”
“Open, and you will know.”
Martin drew the bolt very slowly, and in rushed Dierich and four more. They let in their companion who was at the back door.
“Now, Martin, where is Gerard Eliassoen?”
“Gerard Eliassoen? Why, he was here but now!”
“Was here?” Dierich's countenance fell. “And where is he now?”
“They say he has gone to Italy. Why, what is to do?”
“No matter. When did he go? Tell me not that he went in such a storm as this!”
“Here is a coil about Gerard Eliassoen,” said Martin contemptuously. Then he lighted the candle, and seating himself coolly by the fire, proceeded to whip some fine silk round his bow-string at the place where the nick of the arrow frets it.
“I'll tell you,” said he carelessly. “Know you his brother Giles?—a little misbegotten imp, all head and arms? Well, he came tearing over here on a mule, and bawled out something, I was too far off to hear the creature's words, but only its noise. Any way, he started Gerard. For as soon as he was gone, there was such crying and kissing, and then Gerard went away. They do tell me he has gone to Italy—mayhap you know where that is, for I don't.”
Dierich's countenance fell lower and lower at this account. There was no flaw in it, A cunninger man than Martin would perhaps have told a lie too many and raised suspicion. But Martin did his task well. He only told the one falsehood he was bade to tell, and of his own head invented nothing.
“Mates,” said Dierich, “I doubt he speaks sooth. I told the burgomaster how 'twould be. He met the dwarf galloping Peter Buyskens's mule from Sevenbergen. 'They have sent that imp to Gerard,' says he, 'so, then, Gerard is at Sevenbergen.' 'Ah, master!' says I, ''tis too late now. We should have thought of Sevenbergen before, instead of wasting our time hunting all the odd corners of Tergou for those cursed parchments that we shall never find till we find the man that took 'em. If he was at Sevenbergen,' quoth I, 'and they sent the dwarf to him, it must have been to warn him we are after him. He is leagues away by now,' quoth I. Confound that chalk-faced girl! she has outwitted us bearded men; and so I told the burgomaster, but he would not hear reason. A wet jerkin apiece, that is all we shall get, mates, by this job.”
Martin grinned coolly in Dierich's face.
“However,” added the latter, “to content the burgomaster, we will search the house.”
Martin turned grave directly.
This change of countenance did not escape Dierich. He reflected a moment.
“Watch outside two of you, one on each side of the house, that no one jump from the upper windows. The rest come with me.”
And he took the candle and mounted the stairs, followed by three of his comrades.
Martin was left alone.
The stout soldier hung his head. All had gone so well at first; and now this fatal turn! Suddenly it occurred to him that all was not yet lost. Gerard must be either in Peter's room or Margaret's; they were not so very high from the ground. Gerard would leap out. Dierich had left a man below; but what then? For half a minute Gerard and he would be two to one, and in that brief space, what might not be done?
Martin then held the back door ajar and watched. The light shone in Peter's room. “Curse the fool!” said he, “is he going to let them take him like a girl?”
The light now passed into Margaret's bedroom. Still no window was opened. Had Gerard intended to escape that way, he would not have waited till the men were in the room. Martin saw that at once, and left the door, and came to the foot-stair and listened.
He began to think Gerard must have escaped by the window while all the men were in the house. The longer the silence continued, the stronger grew this conviction. But it was suddenly and rudely dissipated.
Faint cries issued from the inner bedroom—Margaret's.
“They have taken him,” groaned Martin; “they have got him.”
It now flashed across Martin's mind that if they took Gerard away, his life was not worth a button; and that, if evil befell him, Margaret's heart would break. He cast his eyes wildly round like some savage beast seeking an escape, and in a twinkling formed a resolution terribly characteristic of those iron times and of a soldier driven to bay. He stepped to each door in turn, and imitating Dierich Brower's voice, said sharply, “Watch the window!” He then quietly closed and bolted both doors. He then took up his bow and six arrows; one he fitted to his string, the others he put into his quiver. His knife he placed upon a chair behind him, the hilt towards him; and there he waited at the foot of the stair with the calm determination to slay those four men, or be slain by them. Two, he knew, he could dispose of by his arrows, ere they could get near him, and Gerard and he must take their chance hand-to-hand with the remaining pair. Besides, he had seen men panic-stricken by a sudden attack of this sort. Should Brower and his men hesitate but an instant before closing with him, he should shoot three instead of two, and then the odds would be on the right side.
He had not long to wait. The heavy steps sounded in Margaret's room, and came nearer and nearer.
The light also approached, and voices.
Martin's heart, stout as it was, beat hard, to hear men coming thus to their death, and perhaps to his; more likely so than not: for four is long odds in a battlefield of ten feet square, and Gerard might be bound perhaps, and powerless to help. But this man, whom we have seen shake in his shoes at a Giles-o'-lanthorn, never wavered in this awful moment of real danger, but stood there, his body all braced for combat, and his eye glowing, equally ready to take life and lose it. Desperate game! to win which was exile instant and for life, and to lose it was to die that moment upon that floor he stood on.
Dierich Brower and his men found Peter in his first sleep. They opened his cupboards, they ran their knives into an alligator he had nailed to his wall; they looked under his bed: it was a large room, and apparently full of hiding-places, but they found no Gerard.
Then they went on to Margaret's room, and the very sight of it was discouraging—it was small and bare, and not a cupboard in it; there was, however, a large fireplace and chimney. Dierich's eye fell on these directly. Here they found the beauty of Sevenbergen sleeping on an old chest not a foot high, and no attempt made to cover it; but the sheets were snowy white, and so was Margaret's own linen. And there she lay, looking like a lily fallen into a rut.
Presently she awoke, and sat up in the bed, like one amazed; then, seeing the men, began to scream faintly, and pray for mercy.
She made Dierich Brower ashamed of his errand.
“Here is a to-do,” said he, a little confused. “We are not going to hurt you, my pretty maid. Lie you still, and shut your eyes, and think of your wedding-night, while I look up this chimney to see if Master Gerard is there.”
“Gerard! in my room?”
“Why not? They say that you and he—”
“Cruel! you know they have driven him away from me—driven him from his native place. This is a blind. You are thieves; you are wicked men; you are not men of Sevenbergen, or you would know Margaret Brandt better than to look for her lover in this room of all others in the world. Oh, brave! Four great hulking men to come, armed to the teeth, to insult one poor honest girl! The women that live in your own houses must be naught, or you would respect them too much to insult a girl of good character.”
“There! come away, before we hear worse,” said Dierich hastily. “He is not in the chimney. Plaster will mend what a cudgel breaks; but a woman's tongue is a double-edged dagger, and a girl is a woman with her mother's milk still in her.” And he beat a hasty retreat. “I told the burgomaster how 'twould be.”
Where is the woman that cannot act a part? Where is she who will not do it, and do it well, to save the man she loves? Nature on these great occasions comes to the aid of the simplest of the sex, and teaches her to throw dust in Solomon's eyes. The men had no sooner retired than Margaret stepped out of bed, and opened the long chest on which she had been lying down in her skirt and petticoat and stockings, and nightdress over all; and put the lid, bed-clothes and all, against the wall: then glided to the door and listened. The footsteps died away through her father's room and down the stairs.
Now in that chest there was a peculiarity that it was almost impossible for a stranger to detect. A part of the boarding of the room had been broken, and Gerard being applied to to make it look neater, and being short of materials, had ingeniously sawed away a space sufficient just to admit Margaret's soi-disant bed, and with the materials thus acquired he had repaired the whole room. As for the bed or chest, it really rested on the rafters a foot below the boards. Consequently it was full two feet deep, though it looked scarce one.
All was quiet. Margaret kneeled and gave thanks to Heaven. Then she glided from the door and leaned over the chest, and whispered tenderly, “Gerard!”
Gerard did not reply.
She then whispered a little louder, “Gerard, all is safe, thank Heaven! You may rise; but oh! be cautious!”
Gerard made no reply.
She laid her hand upon his shoulder—“Gerard!”
No reply.
“Oh, what is this?” she cried, and her hands ran wildly over his face and his bosom. She took him by the shoulders; she shook him; she lifted him; but he escaped from her trembling hands, and fell back, not like a man, but like a body. A great dread fell on her. The lid had been down. She had lain upon it. The men had been some time in the room. With all the strength of frenzy she tore him out of the chest. She bore him in her arms to the window. She dashed the window open. The sweet air came in. She laid him in it and in the moonlight. His face was the colour of ashes; his body was all limp and motionless. She felt his heart. Horror! it was as still as the rest! Horror of horrors! she had stifled him with her own body.
The mind cannot all at once believe so great and sudden and strange a calamity. Gerard, who had got alive into that chest scarce five minutes ago, how could he be dead?
She called him by all the endearing names that heart could think or tongue could frame. She kissed him and fondled him and coaxed him and implored him to speak to her.
No answer to words of love, such as she had never uttered to him before, nor thought she could utter. Then the poor creature, trembling all over, began to say over that ashy face little foolish things that were at once terrible and pitiable.
“Oh, Gerard! I am very sorry you are dead. I am very sorry I have killed you. Forgive me for not letting the men take you; it would have been better than this. Oh, Gerard! I am very, very sorry for what I have done.” Then she began suddenly to rave.
“No! no! such things can't be, or there is no God. It is monstrous. How can my Gerard be dead? How can I have killed my Gerard? I love him. Oh, God! you know how I love him. He does not. I never told him. If he knew my heart, he would speak to me, he would not be so deaf to his poor Margaret. It is all a trick to make me cry out and betray him; but no! I love him too well for that. I'll choke first.” And she seized her own throat, to check her wild desire to scream in her terror and anguish.
“If he would but say one word. Oh, Gerard! don't die without a word. Have mercy on me and scold me, but speak to me: if you are angry with me, scold me! curse me! I deserve it: the idiot that killed the man she loved better than herself. Ah I am a murderess. The worst in all the world. Help! help! I have murdered him. Ah! ah! ah! ah! ah!”
She tore her hair, and uttered shriek after shriek, so wild, so piercing, they fell like a knell upon the ears of Dierich Brower and his men. All started to their feet and looked at one another.
Martin Wittenhaagen, standing at the foot of the stairs with his arrow drawn nearly to the head and his knife behind him, was struck with amazement to see the men come back without Gerard: he lowered his bow and looked open-mouthed at them. They, for their part, were equally puzzled at the attitude they had caught him in.
“Why, mates, was the old fellow making ready to shoot at us?”
“Stuff!” said Martin, recovering his stolid composure; “I was but trying my new string. There! I'll unstring my bow, if you think that.”
“Humph!” said Dierich suspiciously, “there is something more in you than I understand: put a log on, and let us dry our hides a bit ere we go.”
A blazing fire was soon made, and the men gathered round it, and their clothes and long hair were soon smoking from the cheerful blaze. Then it was that the shrieks were heard in Margaret's room. They all started up, and one of them seized the candle and ran up the steps that led to the bedrooms.
Martin rose hastily too, and being confused by these sudden screams, and apprehending danger from the man's curiosity, tried to prevent him from going there.
At this Dierich threw his arms round him from behind, and called on the others to keep him. The man that had the candle got clear away, and all the rest fell upon Martin, and after a long and fierce struggle, in the course of which they were more than once all rolling on the floor, with Martin in the middle, they succeeded in mastering the old Samson, and binding him hand and foot with a rope they had brought for Gerard.
Martin groaned aloud. He saw the man had made his way to Margaret's room during the struggle, and here was he powerless.
“Ay, grind your teeth, you old rogue,” said Dierich, panting with the struggle. “You shan't use them.”
“It is my belief, mates, that our lives were scarce safe while this old fellow's bones were free.”
“He makes me think this Gerard is not far off,” put in another.
“No such luck,” replied Dierich. “Hallo, mates. Jorian Ketel is a long time in that girl's bedroom. Best go and see after him, some of us.”
The rude laugh caused by this remark had hardly subsided, when hasty footsteps were heard running along over head.
“Oh, here he comes, at last. Well, Jorian, what is to do now up there?”
Jorian Ketel went straight to Margaret's room, and there, to his infinite surprise, he found the man he had been in search of, pale and motionless, his head in Margaret's lap, and she kneeling over him, mute now, and stricken to stone. Her eyes were dilated yet glazed, and she neither saw the light nor heard the man, nor cared for anything on earth, but the white face in her lap.
Jorian stood awe-struck, the candle shaking in his hand.
“Why, where was he, then, all the time?”
Margaret heeded him not. Jorian went to the empty chest and inspected it. He began to comprehend. The girl's dumb and frozen despair moved him.
“This is a sorry sight,” said he; “it is a black night's work: all for a few skins! Better have gone with us than so. She is past answering me, poor wench. Stop! let us try whether—”
He took down a little round mirror, no bigger than his hand, and put it to Gerard's mouth and nostrils, and held it there. When he withdrew it, it was dull.
“THERE IS LIFE IN HIM!” said Jorian Ketel to himself.
Margaret caught the words instantly, though only muttered, and it was if a statue should start into life and passion. She rose and flung her arms round Jorian's neck.
“Oh, bless the tongue that tells me so!” and she clasped the great rough fellow again and again, eagerly, almost fiercely.
“There, there! let us lay him warm, said Jorian; and in a moment he raised Gerard and laid him on the bed-clothes. Then he took out a flask he carried, and filled his hand twice with Schiedamze, and flung it sharply each time in Gerard's face. The pungent liquor co-operated with his recovery—he gave a faint sigh. Oh, never was sound so joyful to human ear! She flew towards him, but then stopped, quivering for fear she should hurt him. She had lost all confidence in herself.
“That is right—let him alone,” said Jorian; “don't go cuddling him as you did me, or you'll drive his breath back again. Let him alone: he is sure to come to. 'Tisn't like as if he was an old man.”
Gerard sighed deeply, and a faint streak of colour stole to his lips. Jorian made for the door. He had hardly reached it, when he found his legs seized from behind.
It was Margaret! She curled round his knees like a serpent, and kissed his hand, and fawned on him. “You won't tell? You have saved his life; you have not the heart to thrust him back into his grave, to undo your own good work?”
“No, no! It is not the first time I have done you two a good turn; 'twas I told you in the church whither we had to take him. Besides, what is Dierich Brower to me? I'll see him hanged ere I'll tell him. But I wish you'd tell me where the parchments are! There are a hundred crowns offered for them. That would be a good windfall for my Joan and the children, you know.”
“Ah! they shall have those hundred crowns.
“What! are the things in the house?” asked Jorian eagerly.
“No; but I know where they are; and by God and St. Bavon I swear you shall have them to-morrow. Come to me for them when you will, but come alone.”
“I were made else. What! share the hundred crowns with Dirk Brower? And now may my bones rot in my skin if I let a soul know the poor boy is here.”
He then ran off, lest by staying longer he should excite suspicion, and have them all after him. And Margaret knelt, quivering from head to foot, and prayed beside Gerard and for Gerard.
“What is to do?” replied Jorian to Dierich Brower's query; “why, we have scared the girl out of her wits. She was in a kind of fit.”
“We had better all go and doctor her, then.”
“Oh, yes! and frighten her into the churchyard. Her father is a doctor, and I have roused him, and set him to bring her round. Let us see the fire, will ye?”
His off-hand way disarmed all suspicion. And soon after the party agreed that the kitchen of the “Three Kings” was much warmer than Peter's house, and they departed, having first untied Martin.
“Take note, mate, that I was right, and the burgomaster wrong,” said Dierich Brower at the door; “I said we should be too late to catch him, and we were too late.”
Thus Gerard, in one terrible night, grazed the prison and the grave.
And how did he get clear at last? Not by his cunningly contrived hiding-place, nor by Margaret's ready wit; but by a good impulse in one of his captors, by the bit of humanity left in a somewhat reckless fellow's heart, aided by his desire of gain. So mixed and seemingly incongruous are human motives, so shortsighted our shrewdest counsels.
They whose moderate natures or gentle fates keep them, in life's passage, from the fierce extremes of joy and anguish our nature is capable of, are perhaps the best, and certainly the happiest of mankind. But to such readers I should try in vain to convey what bliss unspeakable settled now upon these persecuted lovers, Even to those who have joyed greatly and greatly suffered, my feeble art can present but a pale reflection of Margaret's and Gerard's ecstasy.
To sit and see a beloved face come back from the grave to the world, to health and beauty, by swift gradations; to see the roses return to the loved cheek, love's glance to the loved eye, and his words to the loved mouth—this was Margaret's—a joy to balance years of sorrow. It was Gerard's to awake from a trance, and find his head pillowed on Margaret's arm; to hear the woman he adored murmur new words of eloquent love, and shower tears and tender kisses and caresses on him. He never knew, till this sweet moment, how ardently, how tenderly, she loved him. He thanked his enemies. They wreathed their arms sweetly round each other, and trouble and danger seemed a world, an age behind them. They called each other husband and wife. Were they not solemnly betrothed? And had they not stood before the altar together? Was not the blessing of Holy Church upon their union?—her curse on all who would part them?
But as no woman's nerves can bear with impunity so terrible a strain. presently Margaret turned faint, and sank on Gerard's shoulder, smiling feebly, but quite, quite unstrung. Then Gerard was anxious, and would seek assistance. But she held him with a gentle grasp, and implored him not to leave her for a moment.
“While I can lay my hand on you, I feel you are safe, not else. Foolish Gerard! nothing ails me. I am weak, dearest, but happy, oh! so happy!”
Then it was Gerard's turn to support that dear head, with its great waves of hair flowing loose over him, and nurse her, and soothe her, quivering on his bosom, with soft encouraging words and murmurs of love, and gentle caresses. Sweetest of all her charms is a woman's weakness to a manly heart.
Poor things! they were happy. To-morrow they must part. But that was nothing to them now. They had seen Death, and all other troubles seemed light as air. While there is life there is hope; while there is hope there is joy. Separation for a year or two, what was it to them, who were so young, and had caught a glimpse of the grave? The future was bright, the present was Heaven: so passed the blissful hours.
Alas! their innocence ran other risks besides the prison and the grave. They were in most danger from their own hearts and their inexperience, now that visible danger there was none.
Ghysbrecht Van Swieten could not sleep all night for anxiety. He was afraid of thunder and lightning, or he would have made one of the party that searched Peter's house. As soon as the storm ceased altogether, he crept downstairs, saddled his mule, and rode to the “Three Kings” at Sevenbergen. There he found his men sleeping, some on the chairs, some on the tables, some on the floor. He roused them furiously, and heard the story of their unsuccessful search, interlarded with praises of their zeal.
“Fool! to let you go without me,” cried the burgomaster. “My life on't he was there all the time. Looked ye under the girl's bed?”
“No; there was no room for a man there.”
“How know ye that, if ye looked not?” snarled Ghysbrecht. “Ye should have looked under her bed, and in it too, and sounded all the panels with your knives. Come, now, get up, and I shall show ye how to search.”
Dierich Brower got up and shook himself. “If you find him, call me a horse and no man.”
In a few minutes Peter's house was again surrounded.
The fiery old man left his mule in the hands of Jorian Ketel, and, with Dierich Brower and the others, entered the house.
The house was empty.
Not a creature to be seen, not even Peter. They went upstairs, and then suddenly one of the men gave a shout, and pointed through Peter's window, which was open. The others looked, and there, at some little distance, walking quietly across the fields with Margaret and Martin, was the man they sought. Ghysbrecht, with an exulting yell, descended the stairs and flung himself on his mule; and he and his men set off in hot pursuit.
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《white lies》
Gerard warned by recent peril, rose before daybreak and waked Martin. The old soldier was astonished. He thought Gerard had escaped by the window last night. Being consulted as to the best way for him to leave the country and elude pursuit, he said there was but one road safe. “I must guide you through the great forest to a bridle-road I know of. This will take you speedily to a hostelry, where they will lend you a swift horse; and then a day's gallop will take you out of Holland. But let us start ere the folk here quit their beds.”
Peter's house was but a furlong and a half from the forest. They started, Martin with his bow and three arrows, for it was Thursday; Gerard with nothing but a stout oak staff Peter gave him for the journey.
Margaret pinned up her kirtle and farthingale, for the road was wet. Peter went as far as his garden hedge with them, and then with more emotion than he often bestowed on passing events, gave the young man his blessing.
The sun was peeping above the horizon as they crossed the stony field and made for the wood. They had crossed about half, when Margaret, who kept nervously looking back every now and then, uttered a cry, and, following her instinct, began to run towards the wood, screaming with terror all the way.
Ghysbrecht and his men were in hot pursuit.
Resistance would have been madness. Martin and Gerard followed Margaret's example. The pursuers gained slightly on them; but Martin kept shouting, “Only win the wood! only win the wood!”
They had too good a start for the men on foot, and their hearts bounded with hope at Martin's words, for the great trees seemed now to stretch their branches like friendly arms towards them, and their leaves like a screen.
But an unforeseen danger attacked them. The fiery old burgomaster flung himself on his mule, and, spurring him to a gallop, he headed not his own men only, but the fugitives. His object was to cut them off. The old man came galloping in a semicircle, and got on the edge of the wood, right in front of Gerard; the others might escape for aught he cared.
Margaret shrieked, and tried to protect Gerard by clasping him; but he shook her off without ceremony.
Ghysbrecht in his ardour forgot that hunted animals turn on the hunter; and that two men can hate, and two can long to kill the thing they hate.
Instead of attempting to dodge him, as the burgomaster made sure he would, Gerard flew right at him, with a savage, exulting cry, and struck at him with all his heart, and soul and strength. The oak staff came down on Ghysbrecht's face with a frightful crash, and laid him under his mule's tail beating the devil's tattoo with his heels, his face streaming, and his collar spattered with blood.
The next moment the three were in the wood. The yell of dismay and vengeance that burst from Ghysbrecht's men at that terrible blow which felled their leader, told the fugitives that it was now a race for life or death.
“Why run?” cried Gerard, panting. “You have your bow, and I have this,” and he shook his bloody staff.
“Boy!” roared Martin; “the GALLOWS! Follow me,” and he fled into the wood. Soon they heard a cry like a pack of hounds opening on sight of the game. The men were in the wood, and saw them flitting amongst the trees. Margaret moaned and panted as she ran; and Gerard clenched his teeth and grasped his staff. The next minute they came to a stiff hazel coppice. Martin dashed into it, and shouldered the young wood aside as if it were standing corn.
Ere they had gone fifty yards in it they came to four blind paths.
Martin took one. “Bend low,” said he. And, half creeping, they glided along. Presently their path was again intersected with other little tortuous paths. They took one of them. It seemed to lead back; but it soon took a turn, and, after a while, brought them to a thick pine grove, where the walking was good and hard. There were no paths here; and the young fir-trees were so thick, you could not see three yards before your nose.
When they had gone some way in this, Martin sat down; and, having learned in war to lose all impression of danger with the danger itself, took a piece of bread and a slice of ham out of his wallet, and began quietly to eat his breakfast.
The young ones looked at him with dismay. He replied to their looks.
“All Sevenbergen could not find you now; you will lose your purse, Gerard, long before you get to Italy; is that the way to carry a purse?”
Gerard looked, and there was a large triangular purse, entangled by its chains to the buckle and strap of his wallet.
“This is none of mine,” said he. “What is in it, I wonder?” and he tried to detach it; but in passing through the coppice it had become inextricably entangled in his strap and buckle. “It seems loath to leave me,” said Gerard, and he had to cut it loose with his knife. The purse, on examination, proved to be well provided with silver coins of all sizes, but its bloated appearance was greatly owing to a number of pieces of brown paper folded and doubled. A light burst on Gerard. “Why, it must be that old thief's; and see! stuffed with paper to deceive the world!”
The wonder was how the burgomaster's purse came on Gerard.
They hit at last upon the right solution. The purse must have been at Ghysbrecht's saddle-bow, and Gerard rushing at his enemy, had unconsciously torn it away, thus felling his enemy and robbing him, with a single gesture.
Gerard was delighted at this feat, but Margaret was uneasy.
“Throw it away, Gerard, or let Martin take it back. Already they call you a thief. I cannot bear it.”
“Throw it away! give it him back? not a stiver! This is spoil lawfully won in battle from an enemy. Is it not, Martin?”
“Why, of course. Send him back the brown paper, and you will; but the purse or the coin—that were a sin.”
“Oh, Gerard!” said Margaret, “you are going to a distant land. We need the goodwill of Heaven. How can we hope for that if we take what is not ours?”
But Gerard saw it in a different light.
“It is Heaven that gives it me by a miracle, and I shall cherish it accordingly,” said this pious youth. “Thus the favoured people spoiled the Egyptians, and were blessed.”
“Take your own way,” said Margaret humbly; “you are wiser than I am. You are my husband,” added she, in a low murmuring voice; “is it for me to gainsay you?”
These humble words from Margaret, who, till that day, had held the whip-hand, rather surprised Martin for the moment. They recurred to him some time afterwards, and then they surprised him less.
Gerard kissed her tenderly in return for her wife-like docility, and they pursued their journey hand in hand, Martin leading the way, into the depths of the huge forest. The farther they went, the more absolutely secure from pursuit they felt. Indeed, the townspeople never ventured so far as this into the trackless part of the forest.
Impetuous natures repent quickly. Gerard was no sooner out of all danger than his conscience began to prick him.
“Martin, would I had not struck quite so hard.”
“Whom? Oh! let that pass, he is cheap served.”
“Martin, I saw his grey hairs as my stick fell on him. I doubt they will not from my sight this while.”
Martin grunted with contempt. “Who spares a badger for his grey hairs? The greyer your enemy is, the older; and the older the craftier and the craftier the better for a little killing.”
“Killing? killing, Martin? Speak not of killing!” and Gerard shook all over.
“I am much mistook if you have not,” said Martin cheerfully.
“Now Heaven forbid!”
“The old vagabond's skull cracked like a walnut. Aha!”
“Heaven and the saints forbid it!”
“He rolled off his mule like a stone shot out of a cart. Said I to myself, 'There is one wiped out,'” and the iron old soldier grinned ruthlessly.
Gerard fell on his knees and began to pray for his enemy's life.
At this Martin lost his patience. “Here's mummery. What! you that set up for learning, know you not that a wise man never strikes his enemy but to kill him? And what is all this coil about killing of old men? If it had been a young one, now, with the joys of life waiting for him, wine, women, and pillage! But an old fellow at the edge of the grave, why not shove him in? Go he must, to-day or to-morrow; and what better place for greybeards? Now, if ever I should be so mischancy as to last so long as Ghysbrecht did, and have to go on a mule's legs instead of Martin Wittenhaagen's, and a back like this (striking the wood of his bow), instead of this (striking the string), I'll thank and bless any young fellow who will knock me on the head, as you have done that old shopkeeper; malison on his memory.
“Oh, culpa mea! culpa mea!” cried Gerard, and smote upon his breast.
“Look there!” cried Martin to Margaret scornfully, “he is a priest at heart still—and when he is not in ire, St. Paul, what a milksop!”
“Tush, Martin!” cried Margaret reproachfully: then she wreathed her arms round Gerard, and comforted him with the double magic of a woman's sense and a woman's voice.
“Sweetheart!” murmured she, “you forget: you went not a step out of the way to harm him, who hunted you to your death. You fled from him. He it was who spurred on you. Then did you strike; but in self-defence and a single blow, and with that which was in your hand. Malice had drawn knife, or struck again and again. How often have men been smitten with staves not one but many blows, yet no lives lost! If then your enemy has fallen, it is through his own malice, not yours, and by the will of God.”
“Bless you, Margaret; bless you for thinking so!”
“Yes; but, beloved one, if you have had the misfortune to kill that wicked man, the more need is there that you fly with haste from Holland. Oh, let us on.”
“Nay, Margaret,” said Gerard. “I fear not man's vengeance, thanks to Martin here and this thick wood: only Him I fear whose eye pierces the forest and reads the heart of man. If I but struck in self-defence, 'tis well; but if in hate, He may bid the avenger of blood follow me to Italy—to Italy? ay, to earth's remotest bounds.”
“Hush!” said Martin peevishly. “I can't hear for your chat.”
“What is it?”
“Do you hear nothing, Margaret; my ears are getting old.”
Margaret listened, and presently she heard a tuneful sound, like a single stroke upon a deep ringing bell. She described it so to Martin.
“Nay, I heard it,” said he.
“And so did I,” said Gerard; “it was beautiful. Ah! there it is again. How sweetly it blends with the air. It is a long way off. It is before us, is it not?”
“No, no! the echoes of this wood confound the ear of a stranger. It comes from the pine grove.”
“What! the one we passed?”
“Why, Martin, is this anything? You look pale.”
“Wonderful!” said Martin, with a sickly sneer. “He asks me is it anything? Come, on, on! at any rate, let us reach a better place than this.”
“A better place—for what?”
“To stand at bay, Gerard,” said Martin gravely; “and die like soldiers, killing three for one.”
“What's that sound?”
“IT IS THE AVENGER OF BLOOD.”
“Oh, Martin, save him! Oh, Heaven be merciful What new mysterious peril is this?”
“GIRL, IT'S A BLOODHOUND.”