SHE TURNED HER HEAD AWAY, AND HER LONG EYELASHES DROOPED SWEETLYSHE TURNED HER HEAD AWAY, AND HER LONG EYELASHES DROOPED SWEETLY
Margaret leaned back and half closed her eyes, and murmured to Gerard: "What a lovely scene! the warm sun, the green shade,the rich dresses, the bright music of the lutes and the cool music of the fountain, and all faces so happy and gay! and then, it is to you we owe it."
Gerard was silent all but his eyes; observing which—
"Now, speak not to me," said Margaret languidly; "let me listen to the fountain: what are you a competitor for?"
He told her.
"Very well! You will gain one prize, at least."
"Which? Which? Have you seen any of my work?"
"I? no. But you will gain a prize."
"I hope so: but what makes you think so?"
"Because you were so good to my father."
Gerard smiled at the feminine logic, and hung his head at the sweet praise, and was silent.
"Speak not," murmured Margaret. "They say this is a world of sin and misery. Can that be? What is your opinion?"
"No! that is all a silly old song," explained Gerard. "'Tis a byword our elders keep repeating, out of custom: it is not true."
"How can you know? you are but a child," said Margaret, with pensive dignity.
"Why only look round! And then I thought I had lost you for ever; and you are by my side: and now the minstrels are going to play again. Sin and misery? Stuff and nonsense!"
The lutes burst out. The court-yard rang again with their delicate harmony.
"What do you admire most of all these beautiful things, Gerard?"
"You know my name? How is that?"
"White magic. I am a witch."
"Angels are never witches. But I can't think how you—"
"Foolish boy! was it not cried at the gate loud enough to deave one?"
"So it was. Where is my head? What do I admire most? If you will sit a little more that way, I'll tell you."
"This way?"
"Yes; so that the light may fall on you. There. I see many fair things here, fairer than I could have conceived; but the bravest of all to my eye, is your lovely hair in its silver frame, and the setting sun kissing it. It reminds me of what the Vulgate praisesfor beauty, 'an apple of gold in a network of silver,' and, O what a pity I did not know you before I sent in my poor endeavours at illuminating! I could illuminate so much better now. I could do everything better. There, now the sun is full on it, it is like an aureole. So our Lady looked, and none since her until to-day."
"O fie! it is wicked to talk so. Compare a poor, coarse-favoured girl like me with the Queen of Heaven? O Gerard! I thought you were a good young man." And Margaret was shocked apparently.
Gerard tried to explain. "I am no worse than the rest: but how can I help having eyes; and a heart—Margaret!"
"Gerard?"
"Be not angry now!"
"Now, is it likely?"
"I love you."
"O for shame! you must not say that to me," and Margaret coloured furiously at this sudden assault.
"I can't help it. I love you. I love you."
"Hush, hush! for pity's sake! I must not listen to such words from a stranger. I am ungrateful to call you a stranger. O how one may be mistaken! If I had known you were so bold—" And Margaret's bosom began to heave, and her cheeks were covered with blushes, and she looked towards her sleeping father, very much like a timid thing that meditates actual flight.
Then Gerard was frightened at the alarm he caused. "Forgive me," said he imploringly. "How could any one help loving you?"
"Well, sir, I willtryand forgive you—you are so good in other respects; but then you must promise me never to say you—to saythatagain."
"Give me your hand then, or you don't forgive me."
She hesitated; but eventually put out her hand a very little way, very slowly, and with seeming reluctance. He took it, and held it prisoner. When she thought it had been there long enough, she tried gently to draw it away. He held it tight: it submitted quite patiently to force. Whatisthe use resisting force? She turned her head away, and her long eyelashes drooped sweetly. Gerard lost nothing by his promise. Words were not heeded here: and silence was more eloquent. Nature was in that day what she is in ours; but manners were somewhat freer. Then, as now, virgins drew back alarmed at the first words of love; but of pruderyand artificial coquetry there was little, and the young soon read one another's hearts. Everything was on Gerard's side: his good looks, her belief in his goodness, her gratitude; and opportunity: for at the duke's banquet this mellow summer eve, all things disposed the female nature to tenderness: the avenues to the heart lay open; the senses were so soothed and subdued with lovely colours, gentle sounds, and delicate odours; the sun gently sinking the warm air, the green canopy, the cool music of the now violet fountain.
Gerard and Margaret sat hand in hand in silence: and Gerard's eyes sought hers lovingly; and hers now and then turned on him timidly and imploringly: and presently two sweet unreasonable tears rolled down her cheeks, and she smiled deliciously while they were drying: yet they did not take long.
And the sun declined; and the air cooled, and the fountain plashed more gently; and the pair throbbed in unison, and silence, and this weary world looked heaven to them.
A GRAVE white-haired seneschal came to their table, and inquired courteously whether Gerard Eliassoen was of their company. Upon Gerard's answer, he said:
"The Princess Marie would confer with you, young sir; I am to conduct you to her presence."
Instantly all faces within hearing turned sharp round, and were bent with curiosity and envy on the man that was to go to a princess.
Gerard rose to obey.
"I wager we shall not see you again," said Margaret, calmly, but colouring a little.
"That will you," was the reply: then he whispered in her ear: "This is my good princess; but you are my queen." He added aloud: "Wait for me, I pray you, I will presently return."
"Ay, ay!" said Peter awaking and speaking at one and the same moment.
Gerard gone, the pair whose dress was so homely, yet they were with the man whom the princess sent for, became "the cynosure of neighbouring eyes;" observing which, William Johnson came forward, acted surprise, and claimed his relations:
"And to think that there was I at your backs, and you saw me not."
"Nay, cousin Johnson, I saw you long syne," said Margaret, coldly.
"You saw me, and spoke not to me?"
"Cousin, it was for you to welcome us to Rotterdam, as it is for us to welcome you at Sevenbergen. Your servant denied us a seat in your house."
"The idiot!"
"And I had a mind to see whether it was 'like maid like master:' for there is sooth in bywords."
William Johnson blushed purple. He saw Margaret was keen, and suspected him. He did the wisest thing under the circumstances, trusted to deeds not words. He insisted on their coming home with him at once, and he would show them whether they were welcome to Rotterdam or not.
"Who doubts it, cousin? Who doubts it?" said the scholar.
Margaret thanked him graciously, but demurred to go just now: said she wanted to hear the minstrels again. In about a quarter of an hour Johnson renewed his proposal, and bade her observe that many of the guests had left. Then her real reason came out.
"It were ill manners to our friend: and he will lose us. He knows not where we lodge in Rotterdam, and the city is large, and we have parted company once already."
"Oh!" said Johnson, "we will provide for that. My young man, ahem! I mean my secretary, shall sit here and wait, and bring him on to my house: he shall lodge with me and with no other."
"Cousin, we shall be too burdensome."
"Nay, nay; you shall see whether you are welcome, or not, you and your friends, and your friends' friends if need be: and I shall hear what the princess would with him."
Margaret felt a thrill of joy that Gerard should be lodged under the same roof with her; then she had a slight misgiving. "But if your young man should be thoughtless, and go play, and Gerard miss him?"
"He go play? He leave that spot where I put him? and bid him stay? Ho! Stand forth, Hans Cloterman."
A figure clad in black serge and dark violet hose arose, and took two steps and stood before them without moving a muscle: a solemn, precise young man, the very statue of gravity and starched propriety. At his aspect Margaret, being very happy, could hardly keep her countenance. But she whispered Johnson, "I would put my hand in the fire for him. We are at your command, cousin, as soon as you have given him his orders."
Hans was then instructed to sit at the table and wait for Gerard, and conduct him to Ooster-Waagen Straet. He replied, not in words, but by calmly taking the seat indicated, and Margaret, Peter, and William Johnson went away together.
"And, indeed, it is time you were abed, father, after all your travel," said Margaret. This had been in her mind all along.
Hans Cloterman sat waiting for Gerard, solemn and business-like. The minutes flew by, but excited no impatience in that perfect young man. Johnson did him no more than justice when he laughed to scorn the idea of his secretary leaving his post, or neglecting his duty, in pursuit of sport or out of youthful hilarity and frivolity.
As Gerard was long in coming, the patient Hans—his employer's eye being no longer on him—improved the time by quaffing solemnly, silently, and at short but accurately measured intervals, goblets of Corsican wine. The wine was strong, so was Cloterman's head: and Gerard had been gone a good hour ere the model secretary imbibed the notion that Creation expected Cloterman to drink the health of all good fellows, and "nommément" of the Duke of Burgundy there present. With this view he filled bumper nine, and rose gingerly but solemnly and slowly. Having reached his full height, he instantly rolled upon the grass, goblet in hand, spilling the cold liquor on more than one ankle—whose owners frisked—but not disturbing a muscle in his own long face, which, in the total eclipse of reason, retained its gravity, primness, and infallibility.
The seneschal led Gerard through several passages to the door of the pavilion, where some young noblemen, embroidered andfeathered, sat sentinel, guarding the heir-apparent, and playing cards by the red light of torches their servants held. A whisper from the seneschal, and one of them rose reluctantly, stared at Gerard with haughty surprise, and entered the pavilion. He presently returned, and, beckoning the pair, led them through a passage or two and landed them in an ante-chamber, where sat three more young gentlemen, feathered, furred, and embroidered like pieces of fancy work, and deep in that instructive and edifying branch of learning, dice.
"You can't see the princess—it is too late," said one.
Another followed suit:—
"She passed this way but now with her nurse. She is gone to bed, doll and all. Deuce-ace again!"
Gerard prepared to retire. The seneschal, with an incredulous smile, replied:—
"The young man is here by the countess's orders; be so good as conduct him to her ladies."
On this a superb Adonis rose, with an injured look, and led Gerard into a room where sat or lolloped eleven ladies, chattering like magpies. Two, more industrious than the rest, were playing cat's-cradle with fingers as nimble as their tongues. At the sight of a stranger all the tongues stopped like one piece of complicated machinery, and all the eyes turned on Gerard, as if the same string that checked the tongues had turned the eyes on. Gerard was ill at ease before, but this battery of eyes discountenanced him, and down wenthiseyes on the ground. Then the cowards finding, like the hare who ran by the pond and the frogs scuttled into the water, that there was a creature they could frighten, giggled and enjoyed their prowess. Then a duenna said, severely, "Mesdames!" and they were all abashed at once as though a modesty string had been pulled. This same duenna took Gerard, and marched before him in solemn silence. The young man's heart sank, and he had half a mind to turn and run out of the place. "What must princes be," he thought, "when their courtiers are so freezing? Doubtless they take their breeding from him they serve." These reflections were interrupted by the duenna suddenly introducing him into a room where three ladies sat working, and a pretty little girl tuning a lute. The ladies were richly but not showily dressed, and the duenna went up to the one who was hemming a kerchief, and saida few words in a low tone. This lady then turned towards Gerard, with a smile, and beckoned him to come near her. She did not rise, but she laid aside her work, and her manner of turning towards him, slight as the movement was, was full of grace and ease and courtesy. She began a conversation at once.
"Margaret Van Eyck is an old friend of mine, sir, and I am right glad to have a letter from her hand, and thankful to you, sir, for bringing it to me safely. Marie, my love, this is the young gentleman who brought you that pretty miniature."
"Sir, I thank you a thousand times," said the young lady.
"I am glad you feel her debtor, sweetheart, for our friend could have us to do him a little service in return."
"I will do anything on earth for him," replied the young lady with ardour.
"Anything on earth is nothing in the world," said the Countess of Charolois, quietly.
"Well, then, I will——What would you have me to do, sir?"
Gerard had just found out what high society he was in. "My sovereign demoiselle," said he, gently and a little tremulously, "where there have been no pains there needs no reward."
"But we must obey mamma. All the world must obey mamma."
"That is true. Then, our demoiselle, reward me, if you will, by letting me hear the stave you were going to sing and I did interrupt it."
"What, you love music, sir?"
"I adore it."
The little princess looked inquiringly at her mother, and received a smile of assent. She then took her lute and sang a romaunt of the day. Although but twelve years old, she was a well-taught and painstaking musician. Her little claw swept the chords with courage and precision, and struck out the notes of the arpeggio clear, and distinct, and bright, like twinkling stars; but the main charm was her voice. It was not mighty, but it was round, clear, full, and ringing like a bell. She sang with a certain modest eloquence, though she knew none of the tricks of feeling. She was too young to be theatrical, or even sentimental, so nothing was forced—all gushed. Her little mouth seemed the mouth of Nature. The ditty, too, was as pure as its utterance. As there were none of those false divisions—those whining slurs, which are now sold so dearby Italian songsters, though every jackal in India delivers them gratis to his customers all night, and sometimes gets shot for them, and always deserve it—so there were no cadences and fiorituri, the trite, turgid, and feeble expletives of song, the skim milk, with which mindless musicians and mindless writers quench fire, wash out colour, and drown melody and meaning dead.
While the pure and tender strain was flowing from the pure young throat, Gerard's eyes filled. The countess watched him with interest, for it was usual to applaud the princess loudly, but not with cheek and eye. So when the voice ceased, and the glasses left off ringing, she asked demurely, "Was he content?"
Gerard gave a little start; the spoken voice broke the charm, and brought him back to earth.
"Oh, madam!" he cried, "surely it is thus that cherubs and seraphs sing, and charm the saints in heaven."
"I am somewhat of your opinion, my young friend," said the countess, with emotion; and she bent a look of love and gentle pride upon her girl: a heavenly look, such as, they say, is given to the eye of the short-lived resting on the short-lived.
The countess resumed:
"My old friend requests me to be serviceable to you. It is the first favour she has done us the honour of asking us, and the request is sacred. You are in holy orders, sir?"
Gerard bowed.
"I fear you are not a priest, you look too young."
"Oh no, madam; I am not even a sub-deacon. I am only a lector; but next month I shall be an exorcist; and before long an acolyth."
"Well, Monsieur Gerard, with your accomplishments you can soon pass through the inferior orders. And let me beg you to do so. For the day after you have said your first mass I shall have the pleasure of appointing you to a benefice."
"Oh, madam!"
"And, Marie, remember I make this promise in your name as well as my own."
"Fear not mamma: I will not forget. But if he will take my advice, what he will be is Bishop of Liége. The Bishop of Liége is a beautiful bishop. What! do you not remember him, mamma,that day we were at Liége? he was braver than grandpa himself. He had on a crown, a high one, and it was cut in the middle, and it was full of oh! such beautiful jewels: and his gown stiff with gold; and his mantle, too; and it had a broad border, all pictures: but, above all, his gloves; you have no such gloves, mamma. They were embroidered and covered with jewels, and scented with such lovely scent; I smelt them all the time he was giving me his blessing on my head with them. Dear old man! I dare say he will die soon—most old people do—and then, sir, you can be bishop, you know, and wear—"
"Gently, Marie, gently: bishoprics are for old gentlemen; and this is a young gentleman."
"Mamma! he is not so very young."
"Not compared with you, Marie, eh?"
"He is a good bigth, dear mamma; and I am sure he isgoodenough for a bishop."
"Alas, mademoiselle! you are mistaken."
"I know not that, Monsieur Gerard; but I am a little puzzled to know on what grounds mademoiselle there pronounces your character so boldly."
"Alas, mamma!" said the princess, "you have not looked at his face, then;" and she raised her eyebrows at her mother's simplicity.
"I beg your pardon," said the countess, "I have. Well, sir, if I cannot go quite so fast as my daughter, attribute it to my age, not to a want of interest in your welfare. A benefice will do to begin your career with; and I must take care it is not too far from—what call you the place?"
"Tergou, madam."
"A priest gives up much," continued the countess; "often, I fear, he learns too late how much:" and her woman's eye rested a moment on Gerard with mild pity and half surprise at his resigning her sex, and all the heaven they can bestow, and the great parental joys: "at least you shall be near your friends. Have you a mother?"
"Yes, madam; thanks be to God!"
"Good! You shall have a church near Tergou. She will thank me. And now, sir, we must not detain you too long from those who have a better claim on your society than we have. Duchess, oblige me by bidding one of the pages conduct him to the hall of banquet; the way is hard to find."
Gerard bowed low to the countess and the princess, and backed towards the door.
"I hope it will be a nice benefice," said the princess to him, with a pretty smile, as he was going out; then, shaking her head with an air of solemn misgiving, "but you had better have been Bishop of Liége."
Gerard followed his new conductor, his heart warm with gratitude: but ere he reached the banquet-hall a chill came over him. The mind of one who has led a quiet, uneventful life is not apt to take in contradictory feelings at the same moment and balance them, but rather to be overpowered by each in turn. While Gerard was with the countess, the excitement of so new a situation, the unlooked for promise, the joy and pride it would cause at home, possessed him wholly: but now it was passion's turn to be heard again. What, give up Margaret, whose soft hand he still felt in his, and her deep eyes in his heart? resign her and all the world of love and joy she had opened on him to-day? The revulsion, when it did come, was so strong, that he hastily resolved to say nothing at home about the offered benefice. "The countess is so good," thought he, "she has a hundred ways of aiding a young man's fortune: she will not compel me to be a priest when she shall learn I love one of her sex: one would almost think she does know it, for she cast a strange look on me and said, 'A priest gives up much, too much.' I dare say she will give me a place about the palace." And with this hopeful reflection his mind was eased, and, being now at the entrance of the banqueting-hall, he thanked his conductor, and ran hastily with joyful eyes to Margaret. He came in sight of her table—she was gone. Peter was gone too. Nobody was at the table at all: only a citizen in sober garments had just tumbled under it dead drunk, and several persons were raising him to carry him away. Gerard never guessed how important this solemn drunkard was to him: he was looking for "Beauty," and let the "Beast" lie. He ran wildly round the hall, which was now comparatively empty. She was not there. He left the palace: outside he found a crowd gaping at two great fanlights just lighted over the gate. He asked them earnestly if they had seen an old man in a gown, and a lovely girl pass out. They laughed at the question. "They were staring at these new lights that turn night into day. They didn't trouble their heads about old men and young wenches, every-day sights."From another group he learned there was a Mystery being played under canvas hard by, and all the world gone to see it. This revived his hopes, and he went and saw the Mystery. In this representation divine personages, too sacred for me to name here, came clumsily down from heaven to talk sophistry with the cardinal Virtues, the nine Muses, and the seven deadly Sins, all present in human shape, and not unlike one another. To enliven which weary stuff in rattled the Prince of the power of the air, and an imp that kept molesting him and buffeting him with a bladder, at each thwack of which the crowd were in ecstasies. When the Vices had uttered good store of obscenity and the Virtues twaddle, the celestials, including the nine Muses, went gingerly back to heaven one by one; for there was but one cloud; and two artisans worked it up with its supernatural freight, and worked it down with a winch, in full sight of the audience. These disposed of, the bottomless pit opened and flamed in the centre of the stage; the carpenters and Virtues shoved the Vices in, and the Virtues and Beelzebub and his tormentor danced merrily round the place of eternal torture to the fife and tabor.
This entertainment was writ by the Bishop of Ghent for the diffusion of religious sentiment by the aid of the senses, and was an average specimen of theatrical exhibitions so long as they were in the hands of the clergy. But, in course of time, the laity conducted plays, and so the theatre, I learn from the pulpit, has become profane.
Margaret was nowhere in the crowd, and Gerard could not enjoy the performance: he actually went away in Act 2, in the midst of a much-admired piece of dialogue, in which Justice out-quibbled Satan. He walked through many streets, but could not find her he sought. At last, fairly worn out, he went to a hostelry and slept till daybreak. All that day, heavy and heartsick, he sought her, but could never fall in with her or her father, nor ever obtain the slightest clue. Then he felt she was false or had changed her mind. He was irritated now, as well as sad. More good fortune fell on him: he almost hated it. At last, on the third day, after he had once more been through every street, he said "She is not in the town, and I shall never see her again. I will go home." He started for Tergou with a royal favour promised, with fifteen golden angels in his purse, a golden medal on his bosom and a heart like a lump of lead.
IT was near four o'clock in the afternoon. Eli was in the shop. His eldest and youngest sons were abroad. Catherine and her little crippled daughter had long been anxious about Gerard, and now they were gone a little way down the road, to see if by good luck he might be visible in the distance; and Giles was alone in the sitting-room, which I will sketch, furniture and dwarf included.
The Hollanders were always an original and leading people. They claim to have invented printing (wooden type), oil-painting, liberty, banking, gardening, &c. Above all, years before my tale, they invented cleanliness. So while the English gentry, in velvet jerkins, and chicken-toed shoes, trode floors of stale rushes, foul receptacle of bones, decomposing morsels, spittle, dogs' eggs, and all abominations, this hosier's sitting-room at Tergou was floored with Dutch tiles, so highly glazed and constantly washed, that you could eat off them. There was one large window; the cross stone-work in the centre of it was very massive, and stood in relief, looking like an actual cross to the inmates, and was eyed as such in their devotions. The panes were very small and lozenge-shaped, and soldered to one another with strips of lead: the like you may see to this day in our rural cottages. The chairs were rude and primitive, all but the arm-chair, whose back, at right angles with its seat, was so high that the sitter's head stopped two feet short of the top. This chair was of oak and carved at the summit. There was a copper pail, that went in at the waist, holding holy water; and a little hand-besom to sprinkle it far and wide; and a long, narrow but massive oak table, and a dwarf sticking to its rim by his teeth, his eyes glaring, and his claws in the air like a pouncing vampire. Nature, it would seem, did not make Giles a dwarf out of malice prepense: she constructed a head and torso with her usual care: but just then her attention was distracted, and she left the rest to chance; the result was a human wedge, an inverted cone. He might justly have taken her to task in the terms of Horace:—
Amphora cœpitInstitui; currente rotâ cur urceus exit?
His centre was anything but his centre of gravity. Bisected, upper Giles would have outweighed three lower Giles. But this very disproportion enabled him to do feats that would have baffled Milo. His brawny arms had no weight to draw after them; so he could go up a vertical pole like a squirrel, and hang for hours from a bough by one hand like a cherry by its stalk. If he could have made a vacuum with his hands, as the lizard is said to do with its feet, he would have gone along a ceiling. Now, this pocket athlete was insanely fond of gripping the dinner-table with both hands, and so swinging; and then—climax of delight!—he would seize it with his teeth, and taking off his hands, hold on like grim death by his huge ivories.
But all our joys, however elevating, suffer interruption. Little Kate caught Sampsonet in this posture, and stood aghast. She was her mother's daughter, and her heart was with the furniture, not with the 12mo. gymnast.
"Oh, Giles! how can you? Mother is at hand. It dents the table."
"Go and tell her, little talebearer," snarled Giles. "You are the one for making mischief."
"Am I?" inquired Kate, calmly; "that is news to me."
"The biggest in Tergou," growled Giles, fastening on again.
"Oh, indeed?" said Kate drily.
This piece of unwonted satire launched, and Giles not visibly blasted, she sat down quietly and cried.
Her mother came in almost at that moment, and Giles hurled himself under the table, and there glared.
"What is to do now?" said the dame, sharply. Then turning her experienced eye from Kate to Giles, and observing the position he had taken up, and a sheepish expression, she hinted at cuffing of ears.
"Nay, mother," said the girl; "it was but a foolish word Giles spoke. I had not noticed it at another time; but I was tired and in care for Gerard, you know."
"Let no one be in care for me," said a faint voice at the door, and in tottered Gerard, pale dusty, and worn out; and amidst uplifted hands and cries of delight, curiosity, and anxiety, mingled, dropped exhausted into the nearest chair.
Beating Rotterdam, like a covert, for Margaret, and the long journey afterwards, had fairly knocked Gerard up. But elastic youth soon revived, and behold him the centre of an eager circle. First ofall they must hear about the prizes. Then Gerard told them he had been admitted to see the competitors' works all laid out in an enormous hall before the judges pronounced. "Oh, mother! oh Kate; when I saw the goldsmith's work, I had like to have fallen on the floor. I had thought not all the goldsmiths on earth had so much gold, silver, jewels, and craft of design and facture. But, in sooth, all the arts are divine."
Then to please the females, he described to them the reliquaries, feretories, calices, crosiers, crosses, pyxes, monstrances, and other wonders ecclesiastical, and the goblets, hanaps, watches, clocks, chains, brooches, &c., so that their mouths watered.
"But Kate, when I came to the illuminated work from Ghent and Bruges, my heart sank. Mine was dirt by the side of it. For the first minute I could almost have cried; but I prayed for a better spirit, and presently I was able to enjoy them, and thank God for those lovely works, and for those skilful, patient craftsmen, whom I own my masters. Well, the coloured work was so beautiful I forgot all about the black and white. But, next day, when all the other prizes had been given, they came to the writing, and whose name think you was called first?"
"Yours," said Kate.
The others laughed her to scorn.
"You may well laugh," said Gerard, "but for all that Gerard Eliassoen of Tergou was the name the herald shouted. I stood stupid; they thrust me forward. Everything swam before my eyes. I found myself kneeling on a cushion at the feet of the duke. He said something to me, but I was so fluttered I could not answer him. So then he put his hand to his side and did not draw a glaive and cut off my dull head, but gave me a gold medal, and there it is." There was a yell and almost a scramble. "And then he gave me fifteen great bright golden angels. I had seen one before, but I never handled one. Here they are."
"Oh Gerard! oh Gerard!"
"There is one for you, our eldest; and one for you, Sybrandt, and for you, Little Mischief; and two for thee, Little Lily, because God hath afflicted thee; and one for myself to buy colours and vellum; and nine for her that nursed us all, and risked the two crowns upon poor Gerard's hand."
The gold drew out their characters. Cornelis and Sybrandt clutchedeach his coin with one glare of greediness and another glare of envy at Kate who had got two pieces. Giles seized his and rolled it along the floor and gambolled after it. Kate put down her crutches and sat down, and held out her little arms to Gerard with a heavenly gesture of love and tenderness, and the mother, fairly benumbed at first by the shower of gold that fell on her apron, now cried out, "Leave kissing him, Kate, he is my son, not yours. Ah, Gerard, my boy! I have not loved you as you deserved."
Then Gerard threw himself on his knees beside her, and she flung her arms round him and wept for joy and pride, upon his neck.
"Good lad! good lad!" cried the hosier, with some emotion. "I must go and tell the neighbors. Lend me the medal, Gerard, I'll show it my good friend, Peter Buyskens; he is ever regaling me with how his son Jorian won the tin mug a shooting at the butts."
"Ay, do my man; and show Peter Buyskens one of the angels. Tell him there are fourteen more where that came from. Mind you bring it me back!"
"Stay a minute, father, there is better news behind," said Gerard, flushing with joy at the joy he caused.
"Better! Better than this?"
Then Gerard told his interview with the countess, and the house rang with joy.
"Now God bless the good lady and bless the Dame Van Eyck! A benefice? our son! My cares are at an end. Eli, my good friend and master, now we two can die happy whenever our time comes. This dear boy will take our place, and none of these loved ones will want a home or a friend."
From that hour Gerard was looked upon as the stay of the family. He was a son apart, but in another sense. He was always in the right, and nothing was too good for him. Cornelis and Sybrandt became more and more jealous of him, and longed for the day he should go to his benefice: they would get rid of the favourite, and his reverence's purse would be open to them. With these views he co-operated. The wound love had given him, throbbed duller and duller. His success and the affection and admiration of his parents, made him think more highly of himself, and resent with more spirit Margaret's ingratitude and discourtesy. For all that, she had power to cool him towards the rest of her sex, and now for every reason he wished to be ordained priest as soon as he couldpass the intermediate orders. He knew the Vulgate already better than most of the clergy, and studied the rubric and the dogmas of the Church with his friends the monks; and, the first time the bishop came that way, he applied to be admitted "exorcist," the third step in holy orders. The bishop questioned him, and ordained him at once. He had to kneel, and after a short prayer, the bishop delivered to him a little MS. full of exorcisms, and said: "Take this, Gerard, and have power to lay hands on the possessed, whether baptized or catechumens!" and he took it reverently, and went home invested by the Church with power to cast out demons.
Returning home from the church, he was met by little Kate on her crutches.
"Oh, Gerard! who think you, hath sent to our house seeking you?—the burgomaster himself."
"Ghysbrecht Van Swieten? What would he with me?"
"Nay, Gerard, I know not. But he seems urgent to see you. You are to go to his house on the instant."
"Well, he is the burgomaster: I will go: but it likes me not. Kate, I have seen him cast such a look on me as no friend casts. No matter; such looks forewarn the wise. To be sure, he knows—"
"Knows what, Gerard?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Kate, I'll go."
GHYSBRECHT VAN SWIETEN was an artful man. He opened on the novice with something quite wide of the mark he was really aiming at. "The town records," said he, "are crabbedly written, and the ink rusty with age." He offered Gerard the honour of transcribing them fair.
Gerard inquired what he was to be paid.
Ghysbrecht offered a sum that would have just purchased the pens, ink, and parchment.
"But, burgomaster, my labour? Here is a year's work."
"Your labour? Call you marking parchment labour? Little sweat goes to that, I trow."
"'Tis labour, and skilled labour to boot: and that is better paid in all crafts than rude labour, sweat or no sweat. Beside, there's my time."
"Your time? Why what is time to you, at two-and-twenty?" Then fixing his eyes keenly on Gerard, to mark the effect of his words, he said: "Say rather, you are idle grown. You are in love. Your body is with these chanting monks, but your heart is with Peter Brandt and his red-haired girl."
"I know no Peter Brandt."
"This denial confirmed Ghysbrecht's suspicion that the caster-out of demons was playing a deep game.
"Ye lie!" he shouted. "Did I not find you at her elbow, on the road to Rotterdam?"
"Ah!"
"Ah. And you were seen at Sevenbergen but t'other day."
"Was I?"
"Ay; and at Peter's house."
"At Sevenbergen?"
"Ay, at Sevenbergen."
Now, this was what in modern days is called a draw. It was a guess, put boldly forth as fact, to elicit by the young man's answer, whether he had been there lately or not.
The result of the artifice surprised the crafty one. Gerard started up in a strange state of nervous excitement.
"Burgomaster," said he, with trembling voice, "I have not been at Sevenbergen this three years, and I knew not the name of those you saw me with, nor where they dwelt; but as my time is precious, though you value it not, give you good day." And he darted out with his eyes sparkling.
Ghysbrecht started up in huge ire; but he sank into his chair again.
"He fears me not. He knows something if not all."
Then he called hastily to his trusty servant, and almost dragged him to a window.
"See you yon man?" he cried. "Haste! Follow him! But let him not see you. He is young, but old in craft. Keep him in sight all day. Let me know whither he goes and what he does."
It was night when the servant returned.
"Well? well?" cried Van Swieten, eagerly.
"Master, the young man went from you to Sevenbergen."
Ghysbrecht groaned.
"To the house of Peter the Magician."
"LOOK into your own heart and write!" said Herr Cant; and earth's cuckoos echoed the cry. Look into the Rhine where it is deepest, and the Thames where it is thickest, and paint the bottom. Lower a bucket into a well of self-deception, and what comes up must be immortal truth, mustn't it? Now, in the first place no son of Adam ever reads his own heart at all, except by the habit acquired, and the light gained, from some years' perusal of other hearts; and even then, with his acquired sagacity and reflected light, he can but spell and decipher his own heart, not read it fluently. Half way to Sevenbergen Gerard looked into his own heart, and asked it why he was going to Sevenbergen. His heart replied without a moment's hesitation. "We are going out of curiosity, to know why she jilted us, and to show her it has not broken our hearts, and that we are quite content with our honours and our benefice in prospectu, and don't want her nor any of her fickle sex."
He soon found out Peter Brandt's cottage; and there sat a girl in the doorway, plying her needle, and a stalwart figure leaned on a long bow and talked to her. Gerard felt an unaccountable pang at the sight of him. However, the man turned out to be past fifty years of age, an old soldier, whom Gerard remembered to have seen shoot at the butts with admirable force and skill. Another minute and the youth stood before them. Margaret looked up and dropped her work, and uttered a faint cry, and was white and red by turns. But these signs of emotion were swiftly dismissed, and she turned far more chill and indifferent than she would if she had not betrayed this agitation.
"What! is it you, Master Gerard? What on earth brings you here, I wonder?"
"I was passing by and saw you; so I thought I would give you good day and ask after your father."
"My father is well. He will be here anon."
"Then I may as well stay till he comes."
"As you will. Good Martin, step into the village and tell my father here is a friend of his."
"And not of yours?"
"My father's friends are mine."
"That is doubtful. It was not like a friend to promise to wait for me, and then make off the moment my back was turned. Cruel Margaret! you little know how I searched the town for you; how for want of you nothing was pleasant to me."
"These are idle words; if you had desired my father's company, or mine, you would have come back. There I had a bed laid for you, sir, at my cousin's, and he would have made much of you, and, who knows, I might have made much of you too. I was in the humour that day. You will not catch me in the same mind again, neither you nor any young man, I warrant me."
"Margaret, I came back the moment the countess let me go; but you were not there."
"Nay, you did not, or you had seen Hans Cloterman at our table; we left him to bring you on."
"I saw no one there, but only a drunken man that had just tumbled down."
"At our table? How was he clad?"
"Nay, I took little heed: in sad coloured garb."
At this Margaret's face gradually warmed; but presently, assuming incredulity and severity, she put many shrewd questions, all of which Gerard answered most loyally. Finally, the clouds cleared, and they guessed how the misunderstanding had come about. Then came a revulsion of tenderness, all the more powerful that they had done each other wrong; and then, more dangerous still, came mutual confessions. Neither had been happy since, neither ever would have been happy but for this fortunate meeting.
And Gerard found a MS. Vulgate lying open on the table, and pounced upon it like a hawk. MSS. were his delight; but before he could get to it two white hands quickly came flat upon the page, and a red face over them.
"Nay, take away your hands, Margaret, that I may see where you are reading, and I will read there too at home; so shall my soul meet yours in the sacred page. You will not? Nay, then, I must kissthem away." And he kissed them so often, that for very shame they were fain to withdraw, and, lo! the sacred book lay open at