Experienced women are not frightened when a woman faints, or 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 has 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 you, one 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 before 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 is so.”
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 that 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 bearers 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 Saone 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-a-beds 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 as 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, and your head 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 naked hand. 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, good and bad. No I 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 the 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 for you, 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.
Catherine was a good housewife who seldom left home for a day, and then one thing or another always went amiss. She was keenly conscious of this, and watching for a slack tide in things domestic, put off her visit to Sevenbergen from day to day, and one afternoon that it really could have been managed, Peter Buyskens' mule was out of the way.
At last, one day Eli asked her before all the family, whether it was true she had thought of visiting Margaret Brandt.
“Ay, my man.”
“Then I do forbid you.”
“Oh, do you?”
“I do.”
“Then there is no more to be said, I suppose,” said she, colouring.
“Not a word,” replied Eli sternly.
When she was alone with her daughter she was very severe, not upon Eli, but upon herself.
“Behoved me rather go thither like a cat at a robin. But this was me all over. I am like a silly hen that can lay no egg without cackling, and convening all the house to rob her on't. Next time you and I are after aught the least amiss, let's do't in Heaven's name then and there, and not take time to think about it, far less talk; so then, if they take us to task we can say, alack we knew nought; we thought no ill; now, who'd ever? and so forth. For two pins I'd go thither in all their teeth.”
Defiance so wild and picturesque staggered Kate. “Nay, mother, with patience father will come round.”
“And so will Michaelmas; but when? and I was so bent on you seeing the girl. Then we could have put our heads together about her. Say what they will, there is no judging body or beast but by the eye. And were I to have fifty more sons I'd ne'er thwart one of them's fancy, till such time as I had clapped my eyes upon her and seen Quicksands; say you, I should have thought of that before condemning Gerard his fancy; but there, life is a school, and the lesson ne'er done; we put down one fault and take up t'other, and so go blundering here, and blundering there, till we blunder into our graves, and there's an end of us.”
“Mother,” said Kate timidly.
“Well, what is a-coming now? no good news though, by the look of you. What on earth can make the poor wretch so scared?”
“An avowal she hath to make,” faltered Kate faintly.
“Now, there is a noble word for ye,” said Catherine proudly. “Our Gerard taught thee that, I'll go bail. Come then, out with thy vowel.”
“Well then, sooth to say, I have seen her.”
“And?”
“And spoken with her to boot.”
“And never told me? After this marvels are dirt.”
“Mother, you were so hot against her. I waited till I could tell you without angering you worse.”
“Ay,” said Catherine, half sadly, half bitterly, “like mother, like daughter; cowardice it is our bane. The others I whiles buffet, or how would the house fare? but did you, Kate, ever have harsh word or look from your poor mother, that you—Nay, I will not have ye cry, girl; ten to one ye had your reason; so rise up, brave heart, and tell me all, better late than ne'er; and first and foremost when ever, and how ever, wend you to Sevenbergen wi' your poor crutches, and I not know?”
“I never was there in my life; and, mammy dear, to say that I ne'er wished to see her that I will not, but I ne'er went nor sought to see her.”
“There now,” said Catherine disputatively, “said I not 'twas all unlike my girl to seek her unbeknown to me? Come now, for I'm all agog.
“Then thus 'twas. It came to my ears, no matter how, and prithee, good mother, on my knees ne'er ask me how, that Gerard was a prisoner in the Stadthouse tower.”
“Ah”
“By father's behest as 'twas pretended.”
Catherine uttered a sigh that was almost a moan. “Blacker than I thought,” she muttered faintly.
“Giles and I went out at night to bid him be of good cheer. And there at the tower foot was a brave lass, quite strange to me I vow, on the same errand.”
“Lookee there now, Kate.”
“At first we did properly frighten one another, through the place his bad name, and our poor heads being so full o' divels, and we whitened a bit in moonshine. But next moment, quo' I, 'You are Margaret.' 'And you are Kate,' quo' she. Think on't!”
“Did one ever? 'Twas Gerard! He will have been talking backards and forrards of thee to her, and her to thee.”
In return for this, Kate bestowed on Catherine one of the prettiest presents in nature—the composite kiss, i.e., she imprinted on her cheek a single kiss, which said—
1. Quite correct.2. Good, clever mother, for guessing so right and quick.3. How sweet for us twain to be' of one mind again afternever having been otherwise.4. Etc.
“Now then, speak thy mind, child, Gerard is not here. Alas, what am I saying? would to Heaven he were.”
“Well then, mother, she is comely, and wrongs her picture but little.”
“Eh, dear; hark to young folk! I am for good acts, not good looks. Loves she my boy as he did ought to be loved?”
“Sevenbergen is farther from the Stadthouse than we are,” said Kate thoughtfully; “yet she was there afore me.”
Catherine nodded intelligence.
“Nay, more, she had got him out ere I came. Ay, down from the captive's tower.”
Catherine shook her head incredulously. “The highest tower for miles! It is not feasible.”
“'Tis sooth though. She and an old man she brought found means and wit to send him up a rope. There 'twas dangling from his prison, and our Giles went up it. When first I saw it hang, I said, 'This is glamour.' But when the frank lass's arms came round me, and her bosom' did beat on mine, and her cheeks wet, then said I, ''Tis not glamour: 'tis love.' For she is not like me, but lusty and able; and, dear heart, even I, poor frail creature, do feel sometimes as I could move the world for them I love: I love you, mother. And she loves Gerard.”
“God bless her for't! God bless her!”
“But
“But what, lamb?”
“Her love, is it for very certain honest? 'Tis most strange; but that very thing, which hath warmed your heart, hath somewhat cooled mine towards her; poor soul. She is no wife, you know, mother, when all is done.”
“Humph! They have stood at the altar together.”
“Ay, but they went as they came, maid and bachelor.”
“The parson, saith he so?”
“Nay, for that I know not.”
“Then I'll take no man's word but his in such a tangled skein.” After some reflection she added, “Natheless art right, girl; I'll to Sevenbergen alone. A wife I am but not a slave. We are all in the dark here. And she holds the clue. I must question her, and no one by; least of all you. I'll not take any lily to a house Wi' a spot, no, not to a palace o' gold and silver.”
The more Catherine pondered this conversation, the more she felt drawn towards Margaret, and moreover “she was all agog” with curiosity, a potent passion with us all, and nearly omnipotent with those who like Catherine, do not slake it with reading. At last, one fine day, after dinner, she whispered to Kate, “Keep the house from going to pieces, an ye can;” and donned her best kirtle and hood, and her scarlet clocked hose and her new shoes, and trudged briskly off to Sevenbergen, troubling no man's mule.
When she got there she inquired where Margaret Brandt lived. The first person she asked shook his head, and said—“The name is strange to me.” She went a little farther and asked a girl of about fifteen who was standing at a door. “Father,” said the girl, speaking into the house, “here is another after that magician's daughter.” The man came out and told Catherine Peter Brandt's cottage was just outside the town on the east side. “You may see the chimney hence;” and he pointed it out to her. “But you will not find them there, neither father nor daughter; they have left the town this week, bless you.”
“Say not so, good man, and me walken all the way from Tergou.”
“From Tergou? then you must ha' met the soldier.”
“What soldier? ay, I did meet a soldier.”
“Well, then, yon soldier was here seeking that self-same Margaret.”
“Ay, and warn't a mad with us because she was gone?” put in the girl. “His long beard and her cheek are no strangers, I warrant.”
“Say no more than ye know,” said Catherine sharply. “You are young to take to slandering your elders. Stay! tell we more about this soldier, good man.
“Nay, I know no more than that he came hither seeking Margaret Brandt, and I told him she and her father had made a moonlight flit on't this day sennight, and that some thought the devil had flown away with them, being magicians. 'And,' says he, 'the devil fly away with thee for thy ill news;' that was my thanks. 'But I doubt 'tis a lie,' said he. 'An you think so,' said I, 'go and see.' 'I will,' said he, and burst out wi' a hantle o' gibberish: my wife thinks 'twas curses; and hied him to the cottage. Presently back a comes, and sings t'other tune. 'You were right and I was wrong,' says he, and shoves a silver coin in my hand. Show it the wife, some of ye; then she'll believe me; I have been called a liar once to-day.”
“It needs not,” said Catherine, inspecting the coin all the same.
“And he seemed quiet and sad like, didn't he now, wench?”
“That a did,” said the young woman warmly; “and, dame, he was just as pretty a man as ever I clapped eyes on. Cheeks like a rose, and shining beard, and eyes in his head like sloes.”
“I saw he was well bearded,” said Catherine; “but, for the rest, at my age I scan them not as when I was young and foolish. But he seemed right civil: doffed his bonnet to me as I had been a queen, and I did drop him my best reverence, for manners beget manners. But little I wist he had been her light o' love, and most likely the—Who bakes for this town?”
The man, not being acquainted with her, opened his eyes at this transition, swift and smooth.
“Well, dame, there be two; John Bush and Eric Donaldson, they both bide in this street.”
“Then, God be with you, good people,” said she, and proceeded; but her sprightly foot came flat on the ground now, and no longer struck it with little jerks and cocking heel. She asked the bakers whether Peter Brandt had gone away in their debt. Bush said they were not customers. Donaldson said, “Not a stiver: his daughter had come round and paid him the very night they went. Didn't believe they owed a copper in the town.” So Catherine got all the information of that kind she wanted with very little trouble.
“Can you tell me what sort this Margaret was?” said she, as she turned to go.
“Well, somewhat too reserved for my taste. I like a chatty customer—when I'm not too busy. But she bore a high character for being a good daughter.”
“'Tis no small praise. A well-looking lass, I am told?”
“Why, whence come you, wyfe?”
“From Tergou.”
“Oh, ay. Well you shall judge: the lads clept her 'the beauty of Sevenbergen;' the lasses did scout it merrily, and terribly pulled her to pieces, and found so many faults no two could agree where the fault lay.”
“That is enough,” said Catherine. “I see, the bakers are no fools in Sevenbergen, and the young women no shallower than in other burghs.”
She bought a manchet of bread, partly out of sympathy and justice (she kept a shop), partly to show her household how much better bread she gave them daily; and returned to Tergou dejected.
Kate met her outside the town with beaming eyes.
“Well, Kate, lass, it is a happy thing I went; I am heartbroken. Gerard has been sore abused. The child is none of ourn, nor the mother from this hour.”
“Alas, mother, I fathom not your meaning.”
“Ask me no more, girl, but never mention her name to me again. That is all.”
Kate acquiesced with a humble sigh, and they went home together.
They found a soldier seated tranquilly by their fire. The moment they entered the door he rose, and saluted them civilly. They stood and looked at him; Kate with some little surprise, but Catherine with a great deal, and with rising indignation.
“What makes you here?” was Catherine's greeting.
“I came to seek after Margaret.”
“Well, we know no such person.”
“Say not so, dame; sure you know her by name, Margaret Brandt.”
“We have heard of her for that matter—to our cost.”
“Comes, dame, prithee tell me at least where she bides.”
“I know not where she bides, and care not.”
Denys felt sure this was a deliberate untruth. He bit his lip. “Well, I looked to find myself in an enemy's country at this Tergou; but maybe if ye knew all ye would not be so dour.”
“I do know all,” replied Catherine bitterly. “This morn I knew nought.” Then suddenly setting her arms akimbo she told him with a raised voice and flashing eyes she wondered at his cheek sitting down by that hearth of all hearths in the world.
“May Satan fly away with your hearth to the lake of fire and brimstone,” shouted Denys, who could speak Flemish fluently. “Your own servant bade me sit there till you came, else I had ne'er troubled your hearth. My malison on it, and on the churlish roof-tree that greets an unoffending stranger this way,” and he strode scowling to the door.
“Oh! oh!” ejaculated Catherine, frightened, and also a little conscience-stricken; and the virago sat suddenly down and burst into tears. Her daughter followed suit quietly, but without loss of time.
A shrewd writer, now unhappily lost to us, has somewhere the following dialogue:
She. “I feel all a woman's weakness.”
He. “Then you are invincible.”
Denys, by anticipation, confirmed that valuable statement; he stood at the door looking ruefully at the havoc his thunderbolt of eloquence had made.
“Nay, wife,” said he, “weep not neither for a soldier's hasty word. I mean not all I said. Why, your house is your own, and what right in it have I? There now, I'll go.”
“What is to do?” said a grave manly voice.
It was Eli; he had come in from the shop.
“Here is a ruffian been a-scolding of your women folk and making them cry,” explained Denys.
“Little Kate, what is't? for ruffians do not use to call themselves ruffians,” said Eli the sensible.
Ere she could explain, “Hold your tongue, girl,” said Catherine; “Muriel bade him sat down, and I knew not that, and wyted on him; and he was going and leaving his malison on us, root and branch. I was never so becursed in all my days, oh! oh! oh!”
“You were both somewhat to blame; both you and he,” said Eli calmly. “However, what the servant says the master should still stand to. We keep not open house, but yet we are not poor enough to grudge a seat at our hearth in a cold day to a wayfarer with an honest face, and, as I think, a wounded man. So, end all malice, and sit ye down!”
“Wounded?” cried mother and daughter in a breath.
“Think you a soldier slings his arm for sport?”
“Nay, 'tis but an arrow,” said Denys cheerfully.
“But an arrow?” said Kate, with concentrated horror. “Where were our eyes, mother?”
“Nay, in good sooth, a trifle. Which, however, I will pray mesdames to accept as an excuse for my vivacity. 'Tis these little foolish trifling wounds that fret a man, worthy sir. Why, look ye now, sweeter temper than our Gerard never breathed, yet, when the bear did but strike a piece no bigger than a crown out of his calf, he turned so hot and choleric y'had said he was no son of yours, but got by the good knight Sir John Pepper on his wife dame Mustard; who is this? a dwarf? your servant, Master Giles.”
“Your servant, soldier,” roared the newcomer. Denys started. He had not counted on exchanging greetings with a petard.
Denys's words had surprised his hosts, but hardly more than their deportment now did him. They all three came creeping up to where he sat, and looked down into him with their lips parted, as if he had been some strange phenomenon.
And growing agitation succeeded to amazement.
“Now hush!” said Eli, “let none speak but I. Young man,” said he solemnly, “in God's name who are you, that know us though we know you not, and that shake our hearts speaking to us of—the absent-our poor rebellious son: whom Heaven forgive and bless?”
“What, master,” said Denys, lowering his voice, “hath he not writ to you? hath he not told you of me, Denys of Burgundy?”
“He hath writ, but three lines, and named not Denys of Burgundy, nor any stranger.”
“Ay, I mind the long letter was to his sweetheart, this Margaret, and she has decamped, plague take her, and how I am to find her Heaven knows.”
“What, she is not your sweetheart then?”
“Who, dame? an't please you.”
“Why, Margaret Brandt.”
“How can my comrade's sweetheart be mine? I know her not from Noah's niece; how should I? I never saw her.”
“Whist with this idle chat, Kate,” said Eli impatiently, “and let the young man answer me. How came you to know Gerard, our son? Prithee now think on a parent's cares, and answer me straightforward, like a soldier as thou art.”
“And shall. I was paid off at Flushing, and started for Burgundy. On the German frontier I lay at the same inn with Gerard. I fancied him. I said, 'Be my comrade.' He was loth at first; consented presently. Many a weary league we trode together. Never were truer comrades: never will be while earth shall last. First I left my route a bit to be with him: then he his to be with me. We talked of Sevenbergen and Tergou a thousand times; and of all in this house. We had our troubles on the road; but battling them together made them light. I saved his life from a bear; he mine in the Rhine: for he swims like a duck and I like a hod o' bricks and one another's lives at an inn in Burgundy, where we two held a room for a good hour against seven cut-throats, and crippled one and slew two; and your son did his devoir like a man, and met the stoutest champion I ever countered, and spitted him like a sucking-pig. Else I had not been here. But just when all was fair, and I was to see him safe aboard ship for Rome, if not to Rome itself, met us that son of a—the Lord Anthony of Burgundy, and his men, making for Flanders, then in insurrection, tore us by force apart, took me where I got some broad pieces in hand, and a broad arrow in my shoulder, and left my poor Gerard lonesome. At that sad parting, soldier though I be, these eyes did rain salt scalding tears, and so did his, poor soul. His last word to me was, 'Go, comfort Margaret!' so here I be. Mine to him was, 'Think no more of Rome. Make for Rhine, and down stream home.' Now say, for you know best, did I advise him well or ill?”
“Soldier, take my hand,” said Eli. “God bless thee! God bless thee!” and his lip quivered. It was all his reply, but more eloquent than many words.
Catherine did not answer at all, but she darted from the room and bade Muriel bring the best that was in the house, and returned with wood in both arms, and heaped the fire, and took out a snow-white cloth from the press, and was going in a great hurry to lay it for Gerard's friend, when suddenly she sat down and all the power ebbed rapidly out of her body.
“Father!” cried Kate, whose eye was as quick as her affection.
Denys started up; but Eli waved him back and flung a little water sharply in his wife's face. This did her instant good. She gasped, “So sudden. My poor boy!” Eli whispered Denys, “Take no notice! she thinks of him night and day.” They pretended not to observe her, and she shook it off, and hustled and laid the cloth with her own hands; but as she smoothed it, her hands trembled and a tear or two stole down her cheeks.
They could not make enough of Denys. They stuffed him, and crammed him; and then gathered round him and kept filling his glass in turn, while by that genial blaze of fire and ruby wine and eager eyes he told all that I have related, and a vast number of minor details, which an artist, however minute, omits.
But how different the effect on my readers and on this small circle! To them the interest was already made before the first word came from his lips. It was all about Gerard, and he who sat there telling it them, was warm from Gerard and an actor with him in all these scenes.
The flesh and blood around that fire quivered for their severed member, hearing its struggles and perils.
I shall ask my readers to recall to memory all they can of Gerard's journey with Denys, and in their mind's eye to see those very matters told by his comrade to an exile's father, all stoic outside, all father within, and to two poor women, an exile's mother and a sister, who were all love and pity and tender anxiety both outside and in. Now would you mind closing this book for a minute and making an effort to realize all this? It will save us so much repetition.
Then you will not be surprised when I tell you that after a while Giles came softly and curled himself up before the fire, and lay gazing at the speaker with a reverence almost canine; and that, when the rough soldier had unconsciously but thoroughly betrayed his better qualities, and above all his rare affection for Gerard, Kate, though timorous as a bird, stole her little hand into the warrior's huge brown palm, where it lay an instant like a tea-spoonful of cream spilt on a platter, then nipped the ball of his thumb and served for a Kardiometer. In other words, Fate is just even to rival storytellers, and balances matters. Denys had to pay a tax to his audience which I have not. Whenever Gerard was in too much danger, the female faces became so white, and their poor little throats gurgled so, he was obliged in common humanity to spoil his recital. Suspense is the soul of narrative, and thus dealt Rough-and-Tender of Burgundy with his best suspenses. “Now, dame, take not on till ye hear the end; ma'amselle, let not your cheek blanch so; courage! it looks ugly; but you shall hear how we won through. Had he miscarried, and I at hand, would I be alive?”
And meantime Kate's little Kardiometer, or heart-measurer, graduated emotion, and pinched by scale. At its best it was by no means a high-pressure engine. But all is relative. Denys soon learned the tender gamut; and when to water the suspense, and extract the thrill as far as possible. On one occasion only he cannily indemnified his narrative for this drawback. Falling personally into the Rhine, and sinking, he got pinched, he Denys, to his surprise and satisfaction. “Oho!” thought he, and on the principle of the anatomists, “experimentum in corpore vili,” kept himself a quarter of an hour under water; under pressure all the time. And even when Gerard had got hold of him, he was loth to leave the river, so, less conscientious than I was, swam with Gerard to the east bank first, and was about to land, but detected the officers and their intent, chaffed them a little space, treading water, then turned and swam wearily all across, and at last was obliged to get out, for very shame, or else acknowledge himself a pike; so permitted himself to land, exhausted: and the pressure relaxed.
It was eleven o'clock, an unheard-of hour, but they took no note of time this night; and Denys had still much to tell them, when the door was opened quietly, and in stole Cornelis and Sybrandt looking hang-dog. They had this night been drinking the very last drop of their mysterious funds.
Catherine feared her husband would rebuke them before Denys; but he only looked sadly at them, and motioned them to sit down quietly.
Denys it was who seemed discomposed. He knitted his brows and eyed them thoughtfully and rather gloomily. Then turned to Catherine. “What say you, dame? the rest to-morrow; for I am somewhat weary, and it waxes late.”
“So be it,” said Eli. But when Denys rose to go to his inn, he was instantly stopped by Catherine. “And think you to lie from this house? Gerard's room has been got ready for you hours agone; the sheets I'll not say much for, seeing I spun the flax and wove the web.”
“Then would I lie in them blindfold,” was the gallant reply. “Ah, dame, our poor Gerard was the one for fine linen. He could hardly forgive the honest Germans their coarse flax, and whene'er my traitors of countrymen did amiss, a would excuse them, saying, 'Well, well; bonnes toiles sont en Bourgogne:' that means, there be good lenten cloths in Burgundy.' But indeed he beat all for bywords and cleanliness.
“Oh, Eli! Eli! doth not our son come back to us at each word?”
“Ay. Buss me, my poor Kate. You and I know all that passeth in each other's hearts this night. None other can, but God.”
Denys took an opportunity next day and told mother and daughter the rest, excusing himself characteristically for not letting Cornelis and Sybrandt hear of it. “It is not for me to blacken them; they come of a good stock. But Gerard looks on them as no friends of his in this matter; and I'm Gerard's comrade and it is a rule with us soldiers not to tell the enemy aught—but lies.”
Catherine sighed, but made no answer.
The adventures he related cost them a tumult of agitation and grief, and sore they wept at the parting of the friends, which even now Denys could not tell without faltering. But at last all merged in the joyful hope and expectation of Gerard's speedy return. In this Denys confidently shared; but reminded them that was no reason why he should neglect his friend's wishes and last words. In fact, should Gerard return next week, and no Margaret to be found, what sort of figure should he cut?
Catherine had never felt so kindly towards the truant Margaret as now; and she was fully as anxious to find her, and be kind to her before Gerard's return, as Denys was; but she could not agree with him that anything was to be gained by leaving this neighbourhood to search for her. “She must have told somebody whither she was going. It is not as though they were dishonest folk flying the country; they owe not a stiver in Sevenbergen; and dear heart, Denys, you can't hunt all Holland for her.”
“Can I not?” said Denys grimly. “That we shall see.” He added, after some reflection, that they must divide their forces; she stay here with eyes and ears wide open, and he ransack every town in Holland for her, if need be. “But she will not be many leagues from here. They be three. Three fly not so fast, nor far, as one.”
“That is sense,” said Catherine. But she insisted on his going first to the demoiselle Van Eyck. “She and our Margaret were bosom friends. She knows where the girl is gone, if she will but tell us.” Denys was for going to her that instant, so Catherine, in a turn of the hand, made herself one shade neater, and took him with her.
She was received graciously by the old lady sitting in a richly furnished room; and opened her business. The tapestry dropped out of Margaret Van Eyck's hands. “Gone? Gone from Sevenbergen and not told me; the thankless girl.”
This turn greatly surprised the visitors. “What, you know not? when was she here last?”
“Maybe ten days agone. I had ta'en out my brushes, after so many years, to paint her portrait. I did not do it, though; for reasons.”
Catherine remarked it was “a most strange thing she should go away bag and baggage like this, without with your leave or by your leave, why, or wherefore. Was ever aught so untoward; just when all our hearts are warm to her; and here is Gerard's mate come from the ends of the earth with comfort for her from Gerard, and can't find her, and Gerard himself expected. What to do I know not. But sure she is not parted like this without a reason. Can ye not give us the clue, my good demoiselle? Prithee now.
“I have it not to give,” said the elder lady, rather peevishly.
“Then I can,” said Reicht Heynes, showing herself in the doorway, with colour somewhat heightened.
“So you have been hearkening all the time, eh?”
“What are my ears for, mistress?”
“True. Well, throw us the light of thy wisdom on this dark matter.”
“There is no darkness that I see,” said Reicht. “And the clue, why, an ye call't a two-plye twine, and the ends on't in this room e'en now, ye'll not be far out. Oh, mistress, I wonder at you sitting there pretending.”
“Marry, come up.” and the mistress's cheek was now nearly as red as the servant's. “So 'twas I drove the foolish girl away.”
“You did your share, mistress. What sort of greeting gave you her last time she came? Think you she could miss to notice it, and she all friendless? And you said, 'I have altered my mind about painting of you,' says you, a turning up your nose at her.”
“I did not turn up my nose. It is not shaped like yours for looking heavenward.”
“Oh, all our nosen can follow our heartys bent, for that matter. Poor soul. She did come into the kitchen to me. 'I am not to be painted now,' said she, and the tears in her eyes. She said no more. But I knew well what she did mean. I had seen ye.”
“Well,” said Margaret Van Eyck, “I do confess so much, and I make you the judge, madam. Know that these young girls can do nothing of their own heads, but are most apt at mimicking aught their sweethearts do. Now your Gerard is reasonably handy at many things, and among the rest at the illuminator's craft. And Margaret she is his pupil, and a patient one: what marvel? having a woman's eye for colour, and eke a lover to ape. 'Tis a trick I despise at heart: for by it the great art of colour, which should be royal, aspiring, and free, becomes a poor slave to the petty crafts of writing and printing, and is fettered, imprisoned, and made little, body and soul, to match the littleness of books, and go to church in a rich fool's pocket. Natheless affection rules us all, and when the poor wench would bring me her thorn leaves, and lilies, and ivy, and dewberries, and ladybirds, and butterfly grubs, and all the scum of Nature-stuck fast in gold-leaf like wasps in a honey-pot, and withal her diurnal book, showing she had pored an hundred, or an hundred and fifty, or two hundred hours over each singular page, certes I was wroth that an immortal soul, and many hours of labour, and much manual skill, should be flung away on Nature's trash, leaves, insects, grubs, and on barren letters; but, having bowels, I did perforce restrain, and as it were, dam my better feelings, and looked kindly at the work to see how it might be bettered; and said I, 'Sith Heaven for our sins hath doomed us to spend time, and soul, and colour on great letters and little beetles, omitting such small fry as saints and heroes, their acts and passions, why not present the scum naturally?' I told her 'the grapes I saw, walking abroad, did hang i' the air, not stick in a wall; and even these insects,' quo' I, 'and Nature her slime in general, pass not their noxious lives wedged miserably in metal prisons like flies in honey-pots and glue-pots, but do crawl or hover at large, infesting air.' 'Ah my dear friend,' says she, 'I see now whither you drive; but this ground is gold; whereon we may not shade.' 'Who said so?' quoth I. 'All teachers of this craft,' says she; and (to make an end o' me at once, I trow) 'Gerard himself!' 'That for Gerard himself,' quoth I, 'and all the gang; gi'e me a brush!'
“Then chose I, to shade her fruit and reptiles, a colour false in nature, but true relatively to that monstrous ground of glaring gold; and in five minutes out came a bunch of raspberries, stalk and all, and a'most flew in your mouth; likewise a butterfly grub she had so truly presented as might turn the stoutest stomach. My lady she flings her arms round my neck, and says she, 'Oh!'”
“Did she now?”
“The little love!” observed Denys, succeeding at last in wedging in a word.
Margaret Van Eyck stared at him; and then smiled. She went on to tell them how from step to step she had been led on to promise to resume the art she had laid aside with a sigh when her brothers died, and to paint the Madonna once more—with Margaret for model. Incidentally she even revealed how girls are turned into saints. “Thy hair is adorable,” said I. “Why, 'tis red,” quo' she. “Ay,” quoth I, “but what a red! how brown! how glossy! most hair is not worth a straw to us painters; thine the artist's very hue. But thy violet eyes, which smack of earth, being now languid for lack of one Gerard, now full of fire in hopes of the same Gerard, these will I lift to heaven in fixed and holy meditation, and thy nose, which doth already somewhat aspire that way (though not so piously as Reicht's), will I debase a trifle, and somewhat enfeeble thy chin.”
“Enfeeble her chin? Alack! what may that mean? Ye go beyond me, mistress.”
“'Tis a resolute chin. Not a jot too resolute for this wicked world; but when ye come to a Madonna? No thank you.”
“Well I never. A resolute chin.”
Denys. “The darling!”
“And now comes the rub. When you told me she was—the way she is, it gave me a shock; I dropped my brushes. Was I going to turn a girl, that couldn't keep her lover at a distance, into the Virgin Mary, at my time of life? I love the poor ninny still. But I adore our blessed Lady. Say you, 'a painter must not be peevish in such matters'? Well, most painters are men; and men are fine fellows. They can do aught. Their saints and virgins are neither more nor less than their lemans, saving your presence. But know that for this very reason half their craft is lost on me, which find beneath their angels' white wings the very trollops I have seen flaunting it on the streets, bejewelled like Paynim idols, and put on like the queens in a pack o' cards. And I am not a fine fellow, but only a woman, and my painting is but one half craft, and t'other half devotion. So now you may read me. 'Twas foolish, maybe, but I could not help it; yet am I sorry.” And the old lady ended despondently a discourse which she had commenced in a'mighty defiant tone.
“Well, you know, dame,” observed Catherine, “you must think it would go to the poor girl's heart, and she so fond of ye?”
Margaret Van Eyck only sighed.
The Frisian girl, after biting her lips impatiently a little while, turned upon Catherine. “Why, dame, think you 'twas for that alone Margaret and Peter hath left Sevenbergen? Nay.”
“For what else, then?”
“What else? Why, because Gerard's people slight her so cruel. Who would bide among hard-hearted folk that ha' driven her lad t' Italy, and now he is gone, relent not, but face it out, and ne'er come anigh her that is left?”
“Reicht, I was going.”
“Oh, ay, going, and going, and going. Ye should ha' said less or else done more. But with your words you did uplift her heart and let it down wi' your deeds. 'They have never been,' said the poor thing to me, with such a sigh. Ay, here is one can feel for her: for I too am far from my friends, and often, when first I came to Holland, I did used to take a hearty cry all to myself. But ten times liever would I be Reicht Heynes with nought but the leagues atw'een me and all my kith, than be as she is i' the midst of them that ought to warm to her, and yet to fare as lonesome as I.”
“Alack, Reicht, I did go but yestreen, and had gone before, but one plaguy thing or t'other did still come and hinder me.”
“Mistress, did aught hinder ye to eat your dinner any one of those days? I trow not. And had your heart been as good towards your own flesh and blood, as 'twas towards your flesher's meat, nought had prevailed to keep you from her that sat lonely, a watching the road for you and comfort, wi' your child's child a beating 'neath her bosom.”
Here this rude young woman was interrupted by an incident not uncommon in a domestic's bright existence. The Van Eyck had been nettled by the attack on her, but with due tact had gone into ambush. She now sprang out of it. “Since you disrespect my guests, seek another place!”
“With all my heart,” said Reicht stoutly.
“Nay, mistress,” put in the good-natured Catherine. “True folk will still speak out. Her tongue is a stinger.” Here the water came into the speaker's eyes by way of confirmation. “But better she said it than thought it. So now 't won't rankle in her. And part with her for me, that shall ye not. Beshrew the wench, she wots she is a good servant, and takes advantage. We poor wretches which keep house must still pay 'em tax for value. I had a good servant once, when I was a young woman. Eh dear, how she did grind me down into the dust. In the end, by Heaven's mercy, she married the baker, and I was my own woman again. 'So,' said I, 'no more good servants shall come hither, a hectoring o' me.' I just get a fool and learn her; and whenever she knoweth her right hand from her left, she sauceth me: then out I bundle her neck and crop, and take another dunce in her place. Dear heart, 'tis wearisome, teaching a string of fools by ones; but there—I am mistress:” here she forgot that she was defending Reicht, and turning rather spitefully upon her, added, “and you be mistress here, I trow.”
“No more than that stool,” said the Van Eyck loftily. “She is neither mistress nor servant; but Gone. She is dismissed the house, and there's an end of her. What, did ye not hear me turn the saucy baggage off?”
“Ay, ay. We all heard ye,” said Reicht, with vast indifference.
“Then hear me!” said Denys solemnly.
They all went round like things on wheels, and fastened their eyes on him.
“Ay, let us hear what the man says,” urged the hostess. “Men are fine fellows, with their great hoarse voices.”
“Mistress Reicht,” said Denys, with great dignity and ceremony, indeed so great as to verge on the absurd, “you are turned off. If on a slight acquaintance I might advise, I'd say, since you are a servant no more, be a mistress, a queen.”
“Easier said than done,” replied Reicht bluntly.
“Not a jot. You see here one who is a man, though but half an arbalestrier, owing to that devilish Englishman's arrow, in whose carcass I have, however, left a like token, which is a comfort. I have twenty gold pieces” (he showed them) “and a stout arm. In another week or so I shall have twain. Marriage is not a habit of mine; but I capitulate to so many virtues. You are beautiful, good-hearted, and outspoken, and above all, you take the part of my she-comrade. Be then an arbalestriesse!”
“And what the dickens is that?” inquired Reicht.
“I mean, be the wife, mistress, and queen of Denys of Burgundy here present.”
A dead silence fell on all.
It did not last long, though; and was followed by a burst of unreasonable indignation.
Catherine. “Well, did you ever?”
Margaret. “Never in all my born days.”
Catherine. “Before our very faces.”
Margaret. “Of all the absurdity, and insolence of this ridiculous sex—”
Then Denys observed somewhat drily, that the female to whom he had addressed himself was mute; and the others, on whose eloquence there was no immediate demand, were fluent: on this the voices stopped, and the eyes turned pivot-like upon Reicht.
She took a sly glance from under her lashes at her military assailant, and said, “I mean to take a good look at any man ere I leap into his arms.”
Denys drew himself up majestically. “Then look your fill, and leap away.”
This proposal led to a new and most unexpected result. A long white finger was extended by the Van Eyck in a line with the speaker's eye, and an agitated voice bade him stand, in the name of all the saints. “You are beautiful, so,” cried she. “You are inspired—with folly. What matters that? you are inspired. I must take off your head.” And in a moment she was at work with her pencil. “Come out, hussy,” she screamed to Reicht, “more in front of him, and keep the fool inspired and beautiful. Oh, why had I not this maniac for my good centurion? They went and brought me a brute with a low forehead and a shapeless beard.”
Catherine stood and looked with utter amazement at this pantomime, and secretly resolved that her venerable hostess had been a disguised lunatic all this time, and was now busy throwing off the mask. As for Reicht, she was unhappy and cross. She had left her caldron in a precarious state, and made no scruple to say so, and that duties so grave as hers left her no “time to waste a playing the statee and the fool all at one time.” Her mistress in reply reminded her that it was possible to be rude and rebellious to one's poor, old, affectionate, desolate mistress, without being utterly heartless and savage; and a trampler on arts.
On this Reicht stopped, and pouted, and looked like a little basilisk at the inspired model who caused her woe. He retorted with unshaken admiration. The situation was at last dissolved by the artist's wrist becoming cramped from disuse; this was not, however, until she had made a rough but noble sketch. “I can work no more at present,” said she sorrowfully.
“Then, now, mistress, I may go and mind my pot?”
“Ay, ay, go to your pot! And get into it, do; you will find your soul in it: so then you will all be together.”
“Well, but, Reicht,” said Catherine, laughing, “she turned you off.”
“Boo, boo, boo!” said Reicht contemptuously. “When she wants to get rid of me, let her turn herself off and die. I am sure she is old enough for't. But take your time, mistress; if you are in no hurry, no more am I. When that day doth come, 'twill take a man to dry my eyes; and if you should be in the same mind then, soldier, you can say so; and if you are not, why, 'twill be all one to Reicht Heynes.”
And the plain speaker went her way. But her words did not fall to the ground. Neither of her female hearers could disguise from herself that this blunt girl, solitary herself, had probably read Margaret Brandt aright, and that she had gone away from Sevenbergen broken-hearted.
Catherine and Denys bade the Van Eyck adieu, and that same afternoon Denys set out on a wild goose chase. His plan, like all great things, was simple. He should go to a hundred towns and villages, and ask in each after an old physician with a fair daughter, and an old long-bow soldier. He should inquire of the burgomasters about all new-comers, and should go to the fountains and watch the women and girls as they came with their pitchers for water.
And away he went, and was months and months on the tramp, and could not find her.
Happily, this chivalrous feat of friendship was in some degree its own reward.
Those who sit at home blindfolded by self-conceit, and think camel or man out of the depths of their inner consciousness, alias their ignorance, will tell you that in the intervals of war and danger, peace and tranquil life acquire their true value and satisfy the heroic mind. But those who look before they babble or scribble will see and say that men who risk their lives habitually thirst for exciting pleasures between the acts of danger, are not for innocent tranquility.
To this Denys was no exception. His whole military life had been half sparta, half Capua. And he was too good a soldier and too good a libertine to have ever mixed either habit with the other. But now for the first time he found himself mixed; at peace and yet on duty; for he took this latter view of his wild goose chase, luckily. So all these months he was a demi-Spartan; sober, prudent, vigilant, indomitable; and happy, though constantly disappointed, as might have been expected. He flirted gigantically on the road; but wasted no time about it. Nor in these his wanderings did he tell a single female that “marriage was not one of his habits, etc.”
And so we leave him on the tramp, “Pilgrim of Friendship,” as his poor comrade was of Love.