At dark, after a long march, the Bastard and his men reached "the White Hart;" their arrival caused a prodigious bustle, and it was some time before Manon discovered her old friend among so many. When she did, she showed it only by heightened colour. She did not claim the acquaintance. The poor soul was already beginning to scorn.
"The base degrees by which she did ascend."
Denys saw, but could not smile. The inn reminded him too much of Gerard.
Ere the night closed the wind changed. She looked into the room and beckoned him with her finger. He rose sulkily, and his guards with him.
"Nay, I would speak a word to thee in private." She drew him to a corner of the room, and there asked him under her breath, would he do her a kindness.
He answered out loud, "No, he would not, he was not in the vein to do kindnesses to man or woman. If he did a kindness it should be to a dog: and not that if he could help it."
"Alas, good archer, I did you one eftsoons, you and your pretty comrade," said Manon, humbly.
"You did, dame, you did; well then, for his sake—what is't to do?"
"Thou knowest my story. I had been unfortunate. Now I am worshipful. But a woman did cast him in my teeth this day. And so 'twill be ever while he hangs there. I would have him ta'en down; well-a-day!"
"With all my heart."
"And none dare I ask but thee. Wilt do't?"
"Not I, even were I not a prisoner."
On this stern refusal the tender Manon sighed, and clasped her palms together despondently. Denys told her she need not fret. There were soldiers of a lower stamp, who would not make two bites of such a cherry. It was a mere matter of money; if she could find two angels, he would find two soldiers to do the dirty work of the "White Hart."
This was not very palatable. However, reflecting that soldiers were birds of passage, drinking here to-night, knocked on the head there to-morrow, she said, softly, "Send them out to me. But prithee, tell them that 'tis for one that is my friend; let them not think 'tis for me. I should sink into th' earth; times are changed."
Denys found warriors glad to win an angel apiece so easily. He sent them out, and instantly dismissing the subject with contempt, sat brooding on his lost friend.
Manon and the warriors soon came to a general understanding.But what were they to do with the body when taken down? She murmured, "The river is nigh the—the—place."
"Fling him in, eh?"
"Nay, nay; be not so cruel! Could ye not put him—gently—in—with somewhat weighty?"
She must have been thinking on the subject in detail; for she was not one to whom ideas came quickly.
All was speedily agreed, except the time of payment. The mail-clad itched for it, and sought it in advance. Manon demurred to that.
What, did she doubt their word? then let her come along with them, or watch them at a distance.
"Me?" said Manon, with horror. "I would liever die than see it done."
"Which yet you would have done."
"Ay, for sore is my need. Times are changed." She had already forgotten her precept to Denys.
An hour later the disagreeable relic of caterpillar existence ceased to canker the worshipful matron's public life, and the grim eyes of the past to cast malignant glances down into a white hind's clover field.
Total. She made the landlord an average wife, and a prime house-dog, and outlived everybody.
Her troops, when they returned from executing with mediæval naïveté the precept "Off wi' the auld love," received a shock. They found the market-place black with groups; it had been empty an hour ago. Conscience smote them. This came of meddling with the dead. However, the bolder of the two, encouraged by the darkness, stole forward alone, and slily mingled with a group: he soon returned to his companion, saying, in a tone of reproach not strictly reasonable,
"Ye born fool, it is only a miracle."
LETTERS of fire on the church wall had just inquired, with an appearance of genuine curiosity, why there was no mass for the duke in this time of trouble. The supernatural expostulation had been seen by many, and had gradually faded, leaving the spectators glued there gaping. The upshot was, that the corporation, not choosing to be behind the angelic powers in loyalty to a temporal sovereign, invested freely in masses. By this an old friend of ours, the curé, profited in hard cash; for which he had a very pretty taste. But for this I would not of course have detained you over so trite an occurrence as a miracle.
Denys begged for his arms, "Why disgrace him as well as break his heart?"
"Then swear on the cross of thy sword not to leave the Bastard's service until the sedition shall be put down." He yielded to necessity, and delivered three volleys of oaths, and recovered his arms and liberty.
The troops halted at "The Three Fish," and Marion at sight of him cried out, "I'm out of luck; who would have thought to see you again?" then seeing he was sad, and rather hurt than amused at this blunt jest, she asked him what was amiss? He told her. She took a bright view of the case. Gerard was too handsome and well-behaved to come to harm. The women too would always be on his side. Moreover, it was clear that things must either go well or ill with him. In the former case he would strike in with some good company going to Rome; in the latter, he would return home, perhaps be there before his friend; "for you have a trifle of fighting to do in Flanders by all accounts." She then brought him his gold pieces, and steadily refused to accept one, though he urged her again and again. Denys was somewhat convinced by her argument, because she concurred with his own wishes, and was also cheered a little by finding her so honest. It made him think a little better of that world in which his poor little friend was walking alone.
Foot-soldiers in small bodies down to twos and threes were already on the road, making lazily towards Flanders, many of them penniless, but passed from town to town by the bailiffs, with orders for food and lodging on the innkeepers.
Anthony of Burgundy overtook numbers of these, and gathered them under his standard, so that he entered Flanders at the head of six hundred men. On crossing the frontier he was met by his brother Baldwyn, with men, arms, and provisions; he organized his whole force and marched on in battle array through several towns, not only without impediment, but with great acclamations. This loyalty called forth comments not altogether gracious.
"This rebellion of ours is a bite," growled a soldier called Simon, who had elected himself Denys's comrade.
Denys said nothing, but made a little vow to St. Mars to shoot this Anthony of Burgundy dead, should the rebellion, that had cost him Gerard, prove no rebellion.
That afternoon they came in sight of a strongly fortified town; and a whisper went through the little army that this was a disaffected place.
But, when they came in sight, the great gate stood open, and the towers that flanked it on each side were manned with a single sentinel apiece. So the advancing force somewhat broke their array and marched carelessly.
When they were within a furlong, the draw-bridge across the moat rose slowly and creaking till it stood vertical against the fort, and, the very moment it settled into this warlike attitude, down rattled the portcullis at the gate, and the towers and curtains bristled with lances and cross-bows.
A stern hum ran through the Bastard's front rank and spread to the rear.
"Halt!" cried he. The word went down the line, and they halted. "Herald to the gate!" A pursuivant spurred out of the ranks, and, halting twenty yards from the gate, raised his bugle with his herald's flag hanging down round it, and blew a summons. A tall figure in brazen armour appeared over the gate. A few fiery words passed between him and the herald, which were not audible, but their import clear, for the herald blew a single keen and threatening note at the walls, and came galloping back with war in his face. The Bastard moved out of the line to meet him, and their heads had not been together two seconds ere he turned in his saddle and shouted, "Pioneers, to the van!" and in a moment hedges were levelled, and the force took the field and encamped just out of shot from the walls; and away went mounted officers flying south,east, and west, to the friendly towns, for catapults, palisades, mantelets, raw hides, tar barrels, carpenters, provisions, and all the materials for a siege.
The bright perspective mightily cheered one drooping soldier. At the first clang of the portcullis his eyes brightened and his temple flushed; and when the herald came back with battle in his eye he saw it in a moment, and for the first time this many days cried, "Courage, tout le monde, le diable est mort."
If that great warrior heard, how he must have grinned!
THE besiegers encamped a furlong from the walls and made roads; kept their pikemen in camp ready for an assault when practicable; and sent forward their sappers, pioneers, catapultiers, and cross-bowmen. These opened a siege by filling the moat, and mining, or breaching the wall, etc. And, as much of their work had to be done under close fire of arrows, quarels, bolts, stones, and little rocks, the above artists "had need of a hundred eyes," and acted in concert with a vigilance, and an amount of individual intelligence, daring and skill, that made a siege very interesting, and even amusing; to lookers on.
The first thing they did was to advance their carpenters behind rolling mantelets, to erect a stockade high and strong on the very edge of the moat. Some lives were lost at this, but not many; for a strong force of cross-bowmen, including Denys, rolled their mantelets up and shot over the workmen's heads at every besieged who showed his nose, and at every loophole, arrow-slit, or other aperture, which commanded the particular spot the carpenters happened to be upon. Covered by their condensed fire, these soon raised a high palisade between them and the ordinary missiles from the pierced masonry.
But the besieged expected this, and ran out at night their hoards, or wooden penthouses on the top of the curtains. The curtains were built with square holes near the top to receive the beams, that supported these structures, the true defence of mediæval forts, from which the besieged delivered their missiles with far more freedom and variety of range than they could shoot through the obliquebut immovable loopholes of the curtain, or even through the sloping crenelets of the higher towers. On this the besiegers brought up mangonels, and set them hurling huge stones at these wood works and battering them to pieces. Contemporaneously they built a triangular wooden tower as high as the curtain, and kept it ready for use, and just out of shot.
This was a terrible sight to the besieged. These wooden towers had taken many a town. They began to mine underneath that part of the moat the tower stood frowning at; and made other preparations to give it a warm reception. The besiegers also mined, but at another part, their object being to get under the square barbican and throw it down. All this time Denys was behind his mantelet with another arbalestrier, protecting the workmen and making some excellent shots. These ended by earning him the esteem of an unseen archer, who every now and then sent a winged compliment quivering into his mantelet. One came and struck within an inch of the narrow slit through which Denys was squinting at the moment. "Peste," cried he, "you shoot well, my friend. Come forth and receive my congratulations! Shall merit such as thine hide its head? Comrade, it is one of those cursed Englishmen, with his half ell shaft. I'll not die till I've had a shot at London wall."
On the besiegers' side was a figure that soon attracted great notice by promenading under fire. It was a tall knight, clad in complete brass, and carrying a light but prodigiously long lance with which he directed the movements of the besieged. And, when any disaster befell the besiegers, this long knight and his tall lance were pretty sure to be concerned in it.
My young reader will say, "Why did not Denys shoot him?"
Denys did shoot him; every day of his life: other arbalestriers shot him; archers shot him. Everybody shot him. He was there to be shot, apparently. But the abomination was, he did not mind being shot. Nay, worse, he got at last so demoralized as not to seem to know when he was shot. He walked his battlements under fire, as some stout skipper paces his deck in a suit of Flushing, calmly oblivious of the April drops that fall on his woolen armour. At last the besiegers got spiteful, and would not waste any more good steel on him; but cursed him and his impervious coat of mail.
He took these missiles like the rest.
Gunpowder has spoiled war. War was always detrimental to the solid interests of mankind. But in old times it was good for something: it painted well, sang divinely, furnished Iliads. But invisible butchery, under a pall of smoke a furlong thick, who is any the better for that? Poet with his note-book may repeat, "Suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri;" but the sentiment is hollow and savours of cuckoo. You can't tueri anything but a horrid row. He didn't say "Suave etiam ingentem caliginem tueri per campos instructam."
They managed better in the middle ages.
This siege was a small affair: but, such as it was, a writer or minstrel could see it; and turn an honest penny by singing it; so far then the sport was reasonable, and served an end.
It was a bright day, clear, but not quite frosty. The efforts of the besieging force were concentrated against a space of about two hundred and fifty yards, containing two curtains, and two towers, one of which was the square barbican, the other had a pointed roof that was built to overlap, resting on a stone machicolade, and by this means a row of dangerous crenelets between the roof and the masonry grinned down at the nearer assailants, and looked not very unlike the grinders of a modern frigate with each port nearly closed. The curtains were overlapped with pent-houses somewhat shattered by the mangonels, trébuchets, and other slinging engines of the besiegers. On the besiegers' edge of the moat was what seemed at first sight a gigantic arsenal, longer than it was broad, peopled by human ants, and full of busy, honest industry, and displaying all the various mechanical science of the age in full operation. Here the lever at work, there the winch and pulley, here the balance, there the capstan. Everywhere heaps of stones, and piles of fascines, mantelets, and rows of fire-barrels. Mantelets rolling, the hammer tapping all day, horses and carts in endless succession rattling up with materials. Only, on looking closer into the hive of industry, you might observe that arrows were constantly flying to and fro, that the cranes did not tenderly deposit their masses of stone, but flung them with an indifference to property, though on scientific principles, and that among the tubs full of arrows, and the tar-barrels and the beams, the fagots, and other utensils, here and there a workman or a soldier lay flatter than is usual in limited naps, and something more or less feathered stuck in them, and blood, and other essentials, oozed out.
At the edge of the moat opposite the wooden tower, a strong penthouse which they called "a cat" might be seen stealing towards the curtain, and gradually filling up the moat with fascines and rubbish, which the workmen flung out at its mouth. It was advanced by two sets of ropes passing round pulleys, and each worked by a windlass at some distance from the cat. The knight burnt the first cat by flinging blazing tar-barrels on it. So the besiegers made the roof of this one very steep, and covered it with raw hides, and the tar-barrels could not harm it. Then the knight made signs with his spear, and a little trébuchet behind the walls began dropping stones just clear of the wall into the moat, and at last they got the range, and a stone went clean through the roof of the cat, and made an ugly hole.
Baldwyn of Burgundy saw this, and losing his temper, ordered the great catapult that was battering the wood-work of the curtain opposite it to be turned and levelled slantwise at this invulnerable knight. Denys and his Englishman went to dinner. These two worthies being eternally on the watch for one another had made a sort of distant acquaintance, and conversed by signs, especially on a topic that in peace or war maintains the same importance. Sometimes Denys would put a piece of bread on the top of his mantelet, and then the archer would hang something of the kind out by a string; or the order of invitation would be reversed. Any way they always managed to dine together.
And now the engineers proceeded to the unusual step of slinging fifty-pound stones at an individual.
This catapult was a scientific, simple, and beautiful engine, and very effective in vertical fire at the short ranges of the period.
Imagine a fir-tree cut down, and set to turn round a horizontal axis on lofty uprights, but not in equilibrio; three-fourths of the tree being on the hither side. At the shorter and thicker end of the tree was fastened a weight of half a ton. This butt end just before the discharge pointed towards the enemy. By means of a powerful winch the long tapering portion of the tree was forced down to the very ground; and fastened by a bolt; and the stone placed in a sling attached to the tree's nose. But this process of course raised the butt end with its huge weight high in the air, and kept it there struggling in vain to come down. The bolt was now drawn; Gravity, an institution which flourished even then, resumed its sway, theshort end swung furiously down, the long end went as furiously round up, and at its highest elevation flung the huge stone out of the sling with a tremendous jerk. In this case the huge mass so flung missed the knight, but came down near him on the penthouse, and went through it like paper, making an awful gap in roof and floor. Through the latter fell out two inanimate objects, the stone itself and the mangled body of a besieger it had struck. They fell down the high curtain side, down, down, and struck almost together the sullen waters of the moat, which closed bubbling on them, and kept both the stone and the bone two hundred years, till cannon mocked those oft perturbed waters, and civilization dried them.
"Aha! a good shot," cried Baldwyn of Burgundy.
The tall knight retired. The besiegers hooted him.
He reappeared on the platform of the barbican, his helmet being just visible above the parapet. He seemed very busy, and soon an enormous Turkish catapult made its appearance on the platform, and aided by the elevation at which it was planted, flung a twenty-pound stone two hundred and forty yards in the air; it bounded after that, and knocked some dirt into the Lord Anthony's eye, and made him swear. The next stone struck a horse that was bringing up a sheaf of arrows in a cart, bowled the horse over dead like a rabbit, and spilt the cart. It was then turned at the besiegers' wooden tower, supposed to be out of shot. Sir Turk slung stones cut with sharp edges on purpose, and struck it repeatedly, and broke it in several places. The besiegers turned two of their slinging engines on this monster, and kept constantly slinging smaller stones on to the platform of the barbican, and killed two of the engineers. But the Turk disdained to retort. He flung a forty-pound stone on to the besiegers' great catapult, and hitting it in the neighbourhood of the axis, knocked the whole structure to pieces and sent the engineers skipping and yelling.
In the afternoon, as Simon was running back to his mantelet from a palisade where he had been shooting at the besieged, Denys, peeping through his slit, saw the poor fellow suddenly stare and hold out his arms, then roll on his face, and a feathered arrow protruded from his back. The archer showed himself a moment to enjoy his skill. It was the Englishman. Denys, already prepared, shot his bolt and the murderous archer staggered away wounded. But poor Simon never moved. His wars were over.
"I am unlucky in my comrades," said Denys.
The next morning an unwelcome sight greeted the besieged. The cat was covered with mattresses and raw hides, and fast filling up the moat. The knight stoned it, but in vain; flung burning tar-barrels on it, but in vain. Then with his own hands he let down by a rope a bag of burning sulphur and pitch, and stunk them out. But Baldwyn, armed like a lobster, ran, and bounding on the roof, cut the string, and the work went on. Then the knight sent fresh engineers into the mine, and undermined the place and underpinned it with beams, and covered the beams thickly with grease and tar.
At break of day the moat was filled, and the wooden tower began to move on its wheels towards a part of the curtain on which two catapults were already playing to breach the hoards, and clear the way. There was something awful and magical in its approach without visible agency, for it was driven by internal rollers worked by leverage. On the top was a platform, where stood the first assailing party protected in front by the drawbridge of the turret, which stood vertical till lowered on to the wall; but better protected by full suits of armour. The besieged slung at the tower, and struck it often, but in vain. It was well defended with mattresses and hides, and presently was at the edge of the moat. The knight bade fire the mine underneath it.
Then the Turkish engine flung a stone of half a hundredweight right amongst the knights and carried two away with it off the tower on to the plain. One lay and writhed: the other neither moved nor spake.
And now the besieging catapults flung blazing tar-barrels, and fired the hoards on both sides, and the assailants ran up the ladders behind the tower, and lowered the drawbridge on to the battered curtain, while the catapults in concert flung tar-barrels and fired the adjoining works to dislodge the defenders. The armed men on the platform sprang on the bridge, led by Baldwyn. The invulnerable knight and his men-at-arms met them, and a fearful combat ensued, in which many a figure was seen to fall headlong down off the narrow bridge. But fresh besiegers kept swarming up behind the tower, and the besieged were driven off the bridge.
Another minute, and the town was taken, but so well had the firing of the mine been timed, that just at this instant the underpinners gave way, and the tower suddenly sank away from the walls tearingthe drawbridge clear and pouring the soldiers off it against the masonry and on to the dry moat. The besieged uttered a fierce shout and in a moment surrounded Baldwyn and his fellows; but strange to say offered them quarter. While a party disarmed and disposed of these, others fired the turret in fifty places with a sort of hand grenades. At this work who so busy as the tall knight. He put fire-bags on his long spear, and thrust them into the doomed structure late so terrible. To do this he was obliged to stand on a projecting beam of the shattered hoard, holding on by the hand of a pikeman to steady himself. This provoked Denys, he ran out from his mantelet, hoping to escape notice in the confusion, and levelling his cross-bow missed the knight clean, but sent his bolt into the brain of the pikeman, and the tall knight fell heavily from the wall lance and all. Denys gazed wonderstruck: and, in that unlucky moment suddenly he felt his arm hot, then cold, and there was an English arrow skewering it.
This episode was unnoticed in a much greater matter. The knight, his armour glittering in the morning sun, fell headlong, but, turning as he neared the water, struck it with a slap that sounded a mile off.
None ever thought to see him again. But he fell at the edge of the fascines on which the turret stood all cocked on one side, and his spear stuck into them under water, and by a mighty effort he got to the side, but could not get out. Anthony sent a dozen knights with a white flag to take him prisoner. He submitted like a lamb, but said nothing.
He was taken to Anthony's tent.
That worthy laughed at first at the sight of his muddy armour. But presently, frowning, said, "I marvel, sir, that so good a knight as you should know his devoir so ill as turn rebel, and give us all this trouble."
"I am nun—nun—nun—nun—nun—no knight."
"What, then?"
"A hosier."
"A what? Then thy armour shall be stripped off, and thou shalt be tied to a stake in front of the works, and riddled with arrows for a warning to traitors."
"N—n—n—n—no! duda—duda—duda—duda—don't do that."
"Why not?"
"Tuta—tuta—tuta—townsfolk will—h—h—h—hang t'other buba—buba—buba—buba—bastard."
"What, whom?"
"Your bub—bub—bub—brother Baldwyn."
"What, have yon knaves ta'en him?"
The warlike hosier nodded.
"Hang the fool!" said Anthony peevishly.
The warlike hosier watched his eye, and, doffing his helmet took out of the lining an intercepted letter from the duke, bidding the said Anthony come to court immediately, as he was to represent the court of Burgundy at the court of England: was to go over and receive the English king's sister and conduct her to her bridegroom the Earl of Charolois. The mission was one very soothing to Anthony's pride, and also to his love of pleasure. For Edward the Fourth held the gayest and most luxurious court in Europe. The sly hosier saw he longed to be off, and said, "We'll gega—gega—gega—gega—give ye a thousand angels to raise the siege."
"And Baldwyn?"
"I'll gega—gega—gega—gega—go and send him with the money."
It was now dinner-time; and, a flag of truce being hoisted on both sides, the sham knight and the true one dined together and came to a friendly understanding.
"But what is your grievance, my good friend?"
"Tuta—tuta—tuta-tuta—too much taxes."
Denys on finding the arrow in his right arm, turned his back, which was protected by a long shield, and walked sulkily into camp. He was met by the Comte de Jarnac, who had seen his brilliant shot, and finding him wounded into the bargain, gave him a handful of broad pieces.
"Hast got the better of thy grief, arbalestrier, methinks."
"My grief, yes; but not my love. As soon as ever I have put down this rebellion, I go to Holland, and there I shall meet with him."
This event was nearer than Denys thought. He was relieved from service next day, and, though his wound was no trifle, set out with a stout heart to rejoin his friend in Holland.
A CHANGE came over Margaret Brandt. She went about her household duties like one in a dream. If Peter did but speak a little quickly to her, she started and fixed two terrified eyes on him. She went less often to her friend Margaret Van Eyck, and was ill at her ease when there. Instead of meeting her warm old friend's caresses, she used to receive them passive and trembling, and sometimes almost shrink from them. But the most extraordinary thing was, she never would go outside her own house in daylight. When she went to Tergou it was after dusk, and she returned before daybreak. She would not even go to matins. At last Peter, unobservant as he was, noticed it, and asked her the reason.
"The folk all look at me so."
One day, Margaret Van Eyck asked her what was the matter. A scared look and a flood of tears were all the reply: the old lady expostulated gently. "What, sweetheart, afraid to confide your sorrows to me?"
"I have no sorrows, madam, but of my own making. I am kinder treated than I deserve; especially in this house."
"Then why not come oftener, my dear?"
"I come oftener than I deserve:" and she sighed deeply.
"There, Reicht is bawling for you," said Margaret Van Eyck; "go child!—what on earth can it be?"
Turning possibilities over in her mind, she thought Margaret must be mortified at the contempt with which she was treated by Gerard's family. "I will take them to task for it, at least such of them as are women;" and, the very next day, she put on her hood and cloak, and, followed by Reicht, went to the hosier's house. Catherine received her with much respect, and thanked her with tears for her kindness to Gerard. But when, encouraged by this, her visitor diverged to Margaret Brandt, Catherine's eyes dried, and her lips turned to half the size, and she looked as only obstinate, ignorant women can look. When they put on this cast of features, you might as well attempt to soften or convince a brick wall. MargaretVan Eyck tried, but all in vain. So then, not being herself used to be thwarted, she got provoked, and at last went out hastily with an abrupt and mutilated curtsy, which Catherine returned with an air rather of defiance than obeisance. Outside the door Margaret Van Eyck found Reicht conversing with a pale girl on crutches. Margaret Van Eyck was pushing by them with heightened colour, and a scornful toss intended for the whole family, when suddenly a little delicate hand glided timidly into hers, and looking round she saw two dove-like eyes, with the water in them, that sought hers gratefully, and at the same time, imploringly. The old lady read this wonderful look, complex as it was, and down went her choler. She stooped and kissed Kate's brow. "I see," said she. "Mind, then, I leave it to you." Returned home, she said,—"I have been to a house to-day, where I have seen a very common thing and a very uncommon thing: I have seen a stupid, obstinate woman, and I have seen an angel in the flesh, with a face—if I had it here I'd take down my brushes once more, and try and paint it."
Little Kate did not belie the good opinion so hastily formed of her. She waited a better opportunity, and told her mother what she had learned from Reicht Heynes, that Margaret had shed her very blood for Gerard in the wood.
"See, mother, how she loves him."
"Who would not love him?"
"Oh, mother, think of it! Poor thing."
"Ay, wench. She has her own trouble, no doubt, as well as we ours. I can't abide the sight of blood, let alone my own."
This was a point gained; but when Kate tried to follow it up she was stopped short.
About a month after this a soldier of the Dalgetty tribe, returning from service in Burgundy, brought a letter one evening to the hosier's house. He was away on business: but the rest of the family sat at supper. The soldier laid the letter on the table by Catherine, and, refusing all guerdon for bringing it, went off to Sevenbergen.
The letter was unfolded and spread out: and curiously enough, though not one of them could read, they could all tell it was Gerard's handwriting.
"And your father must be away," cried Catherine. "Are ye not ashamed of yourselves? not one that can read your brother's letter?"
But although the words were to them what hieroglyphics are to us, there was something in the letter they could read. There is an art can speak without words: unfettered by the penman's limits, it can steal through the eye into the heart and brain, alike of the learned and unlearned: and it can cross a frontier or a sea, yet lose nothing. It is at the mercy of no translator: for it writes an universal language.
When, therefore, they saw this,
clasped hands
which Gerard had drawn with his pencil between the two short paragraphs, of which his letter consisted, they read it, and it went straight to their hearts.
Gerard was bidding them farewell.
As they gazed on that simple sketch, in every turn and line of which they recognized his manner, Gerard seemed present, and bidding them farewell.
The women wept over it till they could see it no longer.
Giles said, "Poor Gerard!" in a lower voice than seemed to belong to him.
Even Cornelis and Sybrandt felt a momentary remorse, and sat silent and gloomy.
But how to get the words read to them. They were loth to show their ignorance and their emotion to a stranger.
"The Dame Van Eyck?" said Kate, timidly.
"And so I will, Kate. She has a good heart. She loves Gerard, too. She will be glad to hear of him. I was short with her when she came here: but I will make my submission, and then she will tell me what my poor child says to me."
She was soon at Margaret Van Eyck's house. Reicht took her into a room, and said, "Bide a minute; she is at her orisons."
There was a young woman in the room seated pensively by the stove; but she rose and courteously made way for the visitor.
"Thank you, young lady; the winter nights are cold, and your stove is a treat." Catherine then, while warming her hands, inspected her companion furtively from head to foot, both inclusive. The young person wore an ordinary wimple, but her gown was trimmed with fur, which was, in those days, almost a sign of superior rank or wealth. But what most struck Catherine was the candour and modesty of the face. She felt sure of sympathy from so good a countenance, and began to gossip.
"Now, what think you brings me here, young lady? It is a letter: a letter from my poor boy that is far away in some savage part or other. And I take shame to say that none of us can read it. I wonder whether you can read?"
"Yes."
"Can ye, now? It is much to your credit, my dear. I dare say she won't be long; but every minute is an hour to a poor longing mother."
"I will read it to you."
"Bless you, my dear; bless you!"
In her unfeigned eagerness she never noticed the suppressed eagerness, with which the hand was slowly put out to take the letter. She did not see the tremor with which the fingers closed on it.
"Come then, read it to me, prithee. I am wearying for it."
"The first words are, 'To my honoured parents.'"
"Ay! and he always did honour us, poor soul."
"'God and the saints have you in his holy keeping, and bless you by night and by day. Your one harsh deed is forgotten; your years of love remembered.'"
Catherine laid her hand on her bosom, and sank back in her chair with one long sob.
"Then comes this, madam. It doth speak for itself; 'a long farewell.'"
"Ay, go on: bless you, girl; you give me sorry comfort. Still 'tis comfort."
"'To my brothers Cornelis and Sybrandt:—Be content; you will see me no more!'"
"What does that mean? Ah."
"'To my sister Kate. Little angel of my father's house. Be kind toher—' Ah!"
"That is Margaret Brandt, my dear,—his sweetheart, poor soul. I've not been kind to her, my dear. Forgive me, Gerard!"
"'—for poor Gerard's sake: since grief to her is death—to—me——' Ah!" And nature, resenting the poor girl's struggle for unnatural composure, suddenly gave way, and she sank from her chair and lay insensible, with the letter in her hand, and her head on Catherine's knees.
EXPERIENCED women are not frightened when a woman faints, nor do they hastily attribute it to anything but physical causes, which they have often seen produce it. Catherine bustled about; laid the girl down with her head on the floor quite flat, opened the window, and unloosed her dress as she lay. Not till she had done all this did she step to the door and say, rather loudly:
"Come here, if you please."
Margaret Van Eyck and Reicht came and found Margaret lying quite flat, and Catherine beating her hands.
"Oh, my poor girl! What have you done to her?"
"Me?" said Catherine, angrily.
"What has happened, then?"
"Nothing, madam; nothing more than is natural in her situation."
Margaret Van Eyck coloured with ire.
"You do well to speak so coolly," said she, "you that are the cause of her situation."
"That I am not," said Catherine, bluntly, "nor any woman born."
"What? was it not you and your husband that kept them apart: and now he is gone to Italy all alone. Situation indeed? You have broken her heart amongst you."
"Why, madam? Who is it then? in Heaven's name? to hear youone would think this was my Gerard's lass. But that can't be. This fur never cost less than five crowns the ell; besides, this young gentlewoman is a wife; or ought to be."
"Of course she ought. And who is the cause she is none? Who came between them at the very altar?"
"God forgive them, whoever it was," said Catherine, gravely: "me it was not, nor my man."
"Well," said the other, a little softened, "now you have seen her perhaps you will not be quite so bitter against her, madam. She is coming to, thank Heaven."
"Me bitter against her?" said Catherine: "no; that is all over. Poor soul! trouble behind her and trouble afore her; and to think of my setting her, of all living women, to read Gerard's letter to me. Ay, and that was what made her go off, I'll be sworn. She is coming to. What, sweetheart? be not afeard, none are here but friends."
They seated her in an easy chair. As the colour was creeping back to her face and lips, Catherine drew Margaret Van Eyck aside.
"Is she staying with you, if you please?"
"No, madam."
"I wouldn't let her go back to Sevenbergen to-night, then."
"That is as she pleases. She still refuses to bide the night."
"Ay, but you are older than she is; you can make her. There, she is beginning to notice." Catherine then put her mouth to Margaret Van Eyck's ear for half a moment; it did not seem time enough to whisper a word, far less a sentence. But on some topics females can flash communication to female like lightning, or thought itself.
The old lady started, and whispered back.
"It's false! it is a calumny! it is monstrous! Look at her face. It is blasphemy to accuse such a face."
"Tut! tut! tut!" said the other, "you might as well say this is not my hand. I ought to know; and I tell ye it isso."
Then much to Margaret Van Eyck's surprise she went up to the girl, and, taking her round the neck, kissed her warmly. "I suffered for Gerard, and you shed your blood for him I do hear: his own words show me I have been to blame, the very words you have read to me. Ay, Gerard, my child, I have held aloof from her.But I'll make it up to her, once I begin. You are my daughter from this hour."
Another warm embrace sealed this hasty compact, and the woman of impulse was gone.
Margaret lay back in her chair, and a feeble smile stole over her face. Gerard's mother had kissed her and called her daughter; but the next moment she saw her old friend looking at her with a vexed air.
"I wonder you let that woman kiss you."
"His mother!" murmured Margaret, half reproachfully.
"Mother, or no mother, you would not let her touch you if you knew what she whispered in my ear about you."
"About me?" said Margaret, faintly.
"Ay, about you whom she never saw till to-night." The old lady was proceeding, with some hesitation and choice of language, to make Margaret share her indignation, when an unlooked-for interruption closed her lips.
The young woman slid from her chair to her knees, and began to pray piteously to her for pardon. From the words and the manner of her penitence a bystander would have gathered she had inflicted some cruel wrong, some intolerable insult, upon her venerable friend.
THE little party at the hosier's house sat at table discussing the recent event, when their mother returned, and, casting a piercing glance all round the little circle, laid the letter flat on the table. She repeated every word of it by memory, following the lines with her finger, to cheat herself and hearers into the notion that she could read the words or nearly. Then, suddenly lifting her head, she cast another keen look on Cornelis and Sybrandt: their eyes fell.
On this the storm that had long been brewing burst on their heads.
Catherine seemed to swell like an angry hen ruffling her feathers, and out of her mouth came a Rhone and Saône of wisdom and twaddle, of great and mean invective, such as no male that ever was born could utter in one current; and not many women.
The following is a fair though a small sample of her words: only they were uttered all in one breath:—
"I have long had my doubts that you blew the flame betwixt Gerard and your father, and set that old rogue, Ghysbrecht, on. And now here are Gerard's own written words to prove it. You have driven your own flesh and blood into a far land, and robbed the mother that bore you of her darling, the pride of her eye, the joy of her heart. But you are all of a piece from end to end. When you were all boys together, my others were a comfort; but you were a curse: mischievous and sly; and took a woman half a day to keep your clothes whole: for why? work wears cloth, but play cuts it. With the beard comes prudence: but none came to you: still the last to go to bed, and the last to leave it; and why? because honesty goes to bed early, and industry rises betimes; where there are two lie-abeds in a house there are a pair of ne'er-do-weels. Often I've sat and looked at your ways, and wondered where ye came from: ye don't take after your father, and ye are no more like me than a wasp is to an ant; sure ye were changed in the cradle, or the cuckoo dropped ye on my floor: for ye have not our hands, nor our hearts: of all my blood none but you ever jeered them that God afflicted; but often when my back was turned I've heard you mock at Giles, because he is not so big as some; and at my lily Kate, because she is not so strong as a Flanders mare. After that rob a church an you will! for you can be no worse in His eyes that made both Kate and Giles, and in mine that suffered for them, poor darlings, as I did for you, you paltry, unfeeling, treasonable curs! No, I will not hush, my daughter; they have filled the cup too full. It takes a deal to turn a mother's heart against the sons she has nursed upon her knees; and many is the time I have winked and wouldn't see too much, and bitten my tongue, lest their father should know them as I do; he would have put them to the door that moment. But now they have filled the cup too full. And where got ye all this money? For this last month you have been rolling in it. You never wrought for it. I wish I may never hear from other mouths how ye got it. It is since that night you were out so late, andyourhead came back so swelled, Cornelis. Sloth and greed are ill mated, my masters. Lovers of money must sweat or steal. Well, if you robbed any poor soul of it, it was some woman, I'll go bail; for a man would drive you with his nakedhand. No matter; it is good for one thing. It has shown me how you will guide our gear if ever it comes to be yourn. I have watched you, my lads, this while. You have spent a groat to-day between you. And I spend scarce a groat a week, and keep you all, goodandbad. No! give up waiting for the shoes that will maybe walk behind your coffin; for this shop and this house shall never be yourn. Gerard is our heir: poor Gerard whom you have banished and done your best to kill; after that never call me mother again! But you have made him tenfold dearer to me. My poor lost boy! I shall soon see him again; shall hold him in my arms, and set him on my knees. Ay, you may stare! You are too crafty, and yet not crafty enow. You cut the stalk away; but you left the seed—the seed that shall outgrow you, and outlive you. Margaret Brandt is quick, and it is Gerard's, and what is Gerard's is mine; and I have prayed the saints it may be a boy: and it will—it must. Kate, when I found it was so, my bowels yearned over her child unborn as if it had been my own. He is our heir. He will outlive us. You will not: for a bad heart in a carcass is like the worm in a nut, soon brings the body to dust. So, Kate, take down Gerard's bib and tucker that are in the drawer you wot of, and one of these days we will carry them to Sevenbergen. We will borrow Peter Buyskens' cart, and go comfort Gerard's wife under her burden. She is his wife. Who is Ghysbrecht Van Swieten? Can he come between a couple and the altar, and sunder those that God and the priest make one? She is my daughter, and I am as proud of her as I am of you, Kate, almost; and as foryou, keep out of my way awhile: for you are like the black dog in my eyes."
Cornelis and Sybrandt took the hint and slunk out, aching with remorse, and impenitence, and hate. They avoided her eye as much as ever they could: and for many days she never spoke a word good, bad, or indifferent, to either of them. Liberaverat animum suum.