Lysbeth Part 8

Foy looked at him and hesitated.

"No," said Martin, answering the question in his eyes. "I have nothing against him, but he always sees the other side, and that's bad. Also he is Spanish--"

"And you don't like Spaniards," broke in Foy. "Martin, you are a pig-headed, prejudiced, unjust jacka.s.s."

Martin smiled. "No, master, I don't like Spaniards, nor will you before you have done with them. But then it is only fair as they don't like me."

"I say, Martin," said Foy, following a new line of thought, "how did you manage that business so quietly, and why didn't you let me do my share?"

"Because you'd have made a noise, master, and we didn't want the watch on us; also, being fulled armed, they might have bettered you."

"Good reasons, Martin. How did you do it? I couldn't see much."

"It is a trick I learned up there in Friesland. Some of the Northmen sailors taught it me. There is a place in a man's neck, here at the back, and if he is squeezed there he loses his senses in a second. Thus, master-" and putting out his great hand he gripped Foy's neck in a fas.h.i.+on that caused him the intensest agony.

"Drop it," said Foy, kicking at his s.h.i.+ns.

"I didn't squeeze; I was only showing you," answered Martin, opening his eyes. "Well, when their wits were gone of course it was easy to knock their heads together, so that they mightn't find them again. You see," he added, "if I had left them alive-well, they are dead anyway, and getting a hot supper by now, I expect. Which shall it be, master? Dutch stick or Spanish point?"

"Stick first, then point," answered Foy.

"Good. We need 'em both nowadays," and Martin reached down a pair of ash plants fitted into old sword hilts to protect the hands of the players.

They stood up to each other on guard, and then against the light of the lanterns it could be seen how huge a man was Martin. Foy, although well-built and st.u.r.dy, and like all his race of a stout habit, looked but a child beside the bulk of this great fellow. As for their stick game, which was in fact sword exercise, it is unnecessary to follow its details, for the end of it was what might almost have been expected. Foy sprang to and fro slas.h.i.+ng and cutting, while Martin the solid scarcely moved his weapon. Then suddenly there would be a parry and a reach, and the stick would fall with a thud all down the length of Foy's back, causing the dust to start from his leathern jerkin.

"It's no good," said Foy at last, rubbing himself ruefully. "What's the use of guarding against you, you great brute, when you simply crash through my guard and hit me all the same? That isn't science."

"No, master," answered Martin, "but it is business. If we had been using swords you would have been in pieces by now. No blame to you and no credit to me; my reach is longer and my arm heavier, that is all."

"At any rate I am beaten," said Foy; "now take the rapiers and give me a chance."

Then they went at it with the thrusting-swords, rendered harmless by a disc of lead upon their points, and at this game the luck turned. Foy was active as a cat in the eye of a hawk, and twice he managed to get in under Martin's guard.

"You're dead, old fellow," he said at the second thrust.

"Yes, young master," answered Martin, "but remember that I killed you long ago, so that you are only a ghost and of no account. Although I have tried to learn its use to please you, I don't mean to fight with a toasting fork. This is my weapon," and, seizing the great sword which stood in the corner, he made it hiss through the air.

Foy took it from his hand and looked at it. It was a long straight blade with a plain iron guard, or cage, for the hands, and on it, in old letters, was engraved one Latin word, Silentium, "Silence."

"Why is it called 'Silence,' Martin?"

"Because it makes people silent, I suppose, master."

"What is its history, and how did you come by it?" asked Foy in a malicious voice. He knew that the subject was a sore one with the huge Frisian.

Martin turned red as his own beard and looked uncomfortable. "I believe," he answered, staring upwards, "that it was the ancient Sword of Justice of a little place up in Friesland. As to how I came by it, well, I forget."

"And you call yourself a good Christian," said Foy reproachfully. "Now I have heard that your head was going to be chopped off with this sword, but that somehow you managed to steal it first and got away."

"There was something of the sort," mumbled Martin, "but it is so long ago that it slips my mind. I was so often in broils and drunk in those days-may the dear Lord forgive me-that I can't quite remember things. And now, by your leave, I want to go to sleep."

"You old liar," said Foy shaking his head at him, "you killed that poor executioner and made off with his sword. You know you did, and now you are ashamed to own the truth."

"May be, may be," answered Martin vacuously; "so many things happen in the world that a fool man cannot remember them all. I want to go to sleep."

"Martin," said Foy, sitting down upon a stool and dragging off his leather jerkin, "what used you to do before you turned holy? You have never told me all the story. Come now, speak up. I won't tell Adrian."

"Nothing worth mentioning, Master Foy."

"Out with it, Martin."

"Well, if you wish to know, I am the son of a Friesland boor."

"-And an Englishwoman from Yarmouth: I know all that."

"Yes," repeated Martin, "an Englishwoman from Yarmouth. She was very strong, my mother; she could hold up a cart on her shoulders while my father greased the wheels, that is for a bet; otherwise she used to make my father hold the cart up while she greased the wheels. Folk would come to see her do the trick. When I grew up I held the cart and they both greased the wheels. But at last they died of the plague, the pair of them, G.o.d rest their souls! So I inherited the farm--"

"And-" said Foy, fixing him with his eye.

"And," jerked out Martin in an unwilling fas.h.i.+on, "fell into bad habits."

"Drink?" suggested the merciless Foy.

Martin sighed and hung his great head. He had a tender conscience.

"Then you took to prize-fighting," went on his tormentor; "you can't deny it; look at your nose."

"I did, master, for the Lord hadn't touched my heart in those days, and," he added, brisking up, "it wasn't such a bad trade, for n.o.body ever beat me except a Brussels man once when I was drunk. He broke my nose, but afterwards, when I was sober-" and he stopped.

"You killed the Spanish boxer here in Leyden," said Foy sternly.

"Yes," echoed Martin, "I killed him sure enough, but-oh! it was a pretty fight, and he brought it on himself. He was a fine man, that Spaniard, but the devil wouldn't play fair, so I just had to kill him. I hope that they bear in mind up above that I had to kill him."

"Tell me about it, Martin, for I was at The Hague at the time, and can't remember. Of course I don't approve of such things"-and the young rascal clasped his hands and looked pious-"but as it is all done with, one may as well hear the story of the fight. To spin it won't make you more wicked than you are."

Then suddenly Martin the unreminiscent developed a marvellous memory, and with much wealth of detail set out the exact circ.u.mstances of that historic encounter.

"And after he had kicked me in the stomach," he ended, "which, master, you will know he had no right to do, I lost my temper and hit out with all my strength, having first feinted and knocked up his guard with my left arm--"

"And then," said Foy, growing excited, for Martin really told the story very well, "what happened?"

"Oh, his head went back between his shoulders, and when they picked him up, his neck was broken. I was sorry, but I couldn't help it, the Lord knows I couldn't help it; he shouldn't have called me 'a dirty Frisian ox' and kicked me in the stomach."

"No, that was very wrong of him. But they arrested you, didn't they, Martin?"

"Yes, for the second time they condemned me to death as a brawler and a manslayer. You see, the other Friesland business came up against me, and the magistrates here had money on the Spaniard. Then your dear father saved me. He was burgomaster of that year, and he paid the death fine for me-a large sum-afterwards, too, he taught me to be sober and think of my soul. So you know why Red Martin will serve him and his while there is a drop of blood left in his worthless carcase. And now, Master Foy, I'm going to sleep, and G.o.d grant that those dirty Spanish dogs mayn't haunt me."

"Don't you fear for that, Martin," said Foy as he took his departure, "absolvo te for those Spaniards. Through your strength G.o.d smote them who were not ashamed to rob and insult a poor new widowed woman after helping to murder her husband. Yes, Martin, you may enter that on the right side of the ledger-for a change-for they won't haunt you at night. I'm more afraid lest the business should be traced home to us, but I don't think it likely since the street was quite empty."

"Quite empty," echoed Martin nodding his head. "n.o.body saw me except the two soldiers and Vrouw Jansen. They can't tell, and I'm sure that she won't. Good-night, my young master."

CHAPTER X

ADRIAN GOES OUT HAWKING

In a house down a back street not very far from the Leyden prison, a man and a woman sat at breakfast on the morning following the burning of the Heer Jansen and his fellow martyr. These also we have met before, for they were none other than the estimable Black Meg and her companion, named the Butcher. Time, which had left them both strong and active, had not, it must be admitted, improved their personal appearance. Black Meg, indeed, was much as she had always been, except that her hair was now grey and her features, which seemed to be covered with yellow parchment, had become sharp and haglike, though her dark eyes still burned with their ancient fire. The man, Hague Simon, or the Butcher, scoundrel by nature and spy and thief by trade, one of the evil sp.a.w.n of an age of violence and cruelty, boasted a face and form that became his reputation well. His countenance was villainous, very fat and flabby, with small, pig-like eyes, and framed, as it were, in a fringe of sandy-coloured whiskers, running from the throat to the temple, where they faded away into a great expanse of utterly bald head. The figure beneath was heavy, pot-haunched, and supported upon a pair of bowed but st.u.r.dy legs.

But if they were no longer young, and such good looks as they ever possessed had vanished, the years had brought them certain compensations. Indeed, it was a period in which spies and all such wretches flourished, since, besides other pickings, by special enactment a good proportion of the realized estates of heretics was paid over to the informers as blood-money. Of course, however, humble tools like the Butcher and his wife did not get the largest joints of the heretic sheep, for whenever one was slaughtered, there were always many honest middlemen of various degree to be satisfied, from the judge down to the executioner, with others who never showed their faces.

Still, when the burnings and torturings were brisk, the amount totalled up very handsomely. Thus, as the pair sat at their meal this morning, they were engaged in figuring out what they might expect to receive from the estate of the late Heer Jansen, or at least Black Meg was so employed with the help of a deal board and a bit of chalk. At last she announced the result, which was satisfactory. Simon held up his fat hands in admiration.

"Clever little dove," he said, "you ought to have been a lawyer's wife with your head for figures. Ah! it grows near, it grows near."

"What grows near, you fool?" asked Meg in her deep mannish voice.

"That farm with an inn attached of which I dream, standing in rich pasture land with a little wood behind it, and in the wood a church. Not too large; no, I am not ambitious; let us say a hundred acres, enough to keep thirty or forty cows, which you would milk while I marketed the b.u.t.ter and the cheeses--"

"And slit the throats of the guests," interpolated Meg.

Simon looked shocked. "No, wife, you misjudge me. It is a rough world, and we must take queer cuts to fortune, but once I get there, respectability for me and a seat in the village church, provided, of course, that it is orthodox. I know that you come of the people, and your instincts are of the people, but I can never forget that my grandfather was a gentleman," and Simon puffed himself out and looked at the ceiling.

"Indeed," sneered Meg, "and what was your grandmother, or, for the matter of that, how do you know who was your grandfather? Country house! The old Red Mill, where you hide goods out there in the swamp, is likely to be your only country house. Village church? Village gallows more likely. No, don't you look nasty at me, for I won't stand it, you dirty little liar. I have done things, I know; but I wouldn't have got my own aunt burned for an Anabaptist, which she wasn't, in order to earn twenty florins, so there."

Simon turned purple with rage; that aunt story was one which touched him on the raw. "Ugly--" he began.

Instantly Meg's hand shot out and grasped the neck of a bottle, whereon he changed his tune.

"The s.e.x, the s.e.x!" he murmured, turning aside to mop his bald head with a napkin; "well, it's only their pretty way, they will have their little joke. Hullo, there is someone knocking at the door."

"And mind how you open it," said Meg, becoming alert. "Remember we have plenty of enemies, and a pike blade comes through a small crack."

"Can you live with the wise and remain a greenhorn? Trust me." And placing his arm about his spouse's waist, Simon stood on tiptoe and kissed her gently on the cheek in token of reconciliation, for Meg had a nasty memory in quarrels. Then he skipped away towards the door as fast as his bandy legs would carry him.

The colloquy there was long and for the most part carried on through the keyhole, but in the end their visitor was admitted, a beetle-browed brute of much the same stamp as his host.

"You are nice ones," he said sulkily, "to be so suspicious about an old friend, especially when he comes on a job."

"Don't be angry, dear Hans," interrupted Simon in a pleading voice. "You know how many bad characters are abroad in these rough times; why, for aught we could tell, you might have been one of these desperate Lutherans, who stick at nothing. But about the business?"

"Lutherans, indeed," snarled Hans; "well, if they are wise they'd stick at your fat stomach; but it is a Lutheran job that I have come from The Hague to talk about."

"Ah!" said Meg, "who sent you?"

"A Spaniard named Ramiro, who has recently turned up there, a humorous dog connected with the Inquisition, who seems to know everybody and whom n.o.body knows. However, his money is right enough, and no doubt he has authority behind him. He says that you are old friends of his."

"Ramiro? Ramiro?" repeated Meg reflectively, "that means Oarsman, doesn't it, and sounds like an alias? Well, I've lots of acquaintances in the galleys, and he may be one of them. What does he want, and what are the terms?"

Hans leant forward and whispered for a long while. The other two listened in silence, only nodding from time to time.

"It doesn't seem much for the job," said Simon when Hans had finished.

"Well, friend, it is easy and safe; a fat merchant and his wife and a young girl. Mind you, there is no killing to be done if we can help it, and if we can't help it the Holy Office will s.h.i.+eld us. Also it is only the letter which he thinks that the young woman may carry that the n.o.ble Ramiro wants. Doubtless it has to do with the sacred affairs of the Church. Any valuables about them we may keep as a perquisite over and above the pay."

Simon hesitated, but Meg announced with decision, "It is good enough; these merchant woman generally have jewels hidden in their stays."

"My dear," interrupted Simon.

"Don't 'my dear' me," said Meg fiercely. "I have made up my mind, so there's an end. We meet by the Boshhuysen at five o'clock at the big oak in the copse, where we will settle the details."

After this Simon said no more, for he had this virtue, so useful in domestic life-he knew when to yield.

On this same morning Adrian rose late. The talk at the supper table on the previous night, especially Foy's coa.r.s.e, uneducated sarcasm, had ruffled his temper, and when Adrian's temper was ruffled he generally found it necessary to sleep himself into good humour. As the bookkeeper of the establishment, for his stepfather had never been able to induce him to take an active part in its work, which in his heart he considered beneath him, Adrian should have been in the office by nine o'clock. Not having risen before ten, however, nor eaten his breakfast until after eleven, this was clearly impossible. Then he remembered that here was a good chance of finis.h.i.+ng a sonnet, of which the last lines were running in his head. It chanced that Adrian was a bit of a poet, and, like most poets, he found quiet essential to the art of composition. Somehow, when Foy was in the house, singing and talking, and that great Frisian brute, Martin, was tramping to and fro, there was never any quiet, for even when he could not hear them, the sense of their presence exasperated his nerves. So now was his opportunity, especially as his mother was out-marketing, she said-but in all probability engaged upon some wretched and risky business connected with the people whom she called martyrs. Adrian determined to avail himself of it and finish his sonnet.

This took some time. First, as all true artists know, the Muse must be summoned, and she will rarely arrive under an hour's appropriate and gloomy contemplation of things in general. Then, especially in the case of sonnets, rhymes, which are stubborn and remorseless things, must be found and arranged. The pivot and object of this particular poem was a certain notable Spanish beauty, Isabella d'Ovanda by name. She was the wife of a decrepit but exceedingly n.o.ble Spaniard, who might almost have been her grandfather, and who had been sent as one of a commission appointed by King Philip II. to inquire into certain financial matters connected with the Netherlands.

This grandee, who, as it happened, was a very industrious and conscientious person, among other cities, had visited Leyden in order to a.s.sess the value of the Imperial dues and taxes. The task did not take him long, because the burghers rudely and vehemently declared that under their ancient charter they were free from any Imperial dues or taxes whatsoever, nor could the n.o.ble marquis's arguments move them to a more rational view. Still, he argued for a week, and during that time his wife, the lovely Isabella, dazzled the women of the town with her costumes and the men with her exceedingly attractive person.

Especially did she dazzle the romantic Adrian; hence the poetry. On the whole the rhymes went pretty well, though there were difficulties, but with industry he got round them. Finally the sonnet, a high-flown and very absurd composition, was completed.

By now it was time to eat; indeed, there are few things that make a man hungrier than long-continued poetical exercise, so Adrian ate. In the midst of the meal his mother returned, pale and anxious-faced, for the poor woman had been engaged in making arrangements for the safety of the beggared widow of the martyred Jansen, a pathetic and even a dangerous task. In his own way Adrian was fond of his mother, but being a selfish puppy he took but little note of her cares or moods. Therefore, seizing the opportunity of an audience he insisted upon reading to her his sonnet, not once but several times.

"Very pretty, my son, very pretty," murmured Lysbeth, through whose bewildered brain the stilted and meaningless words buzzed like bees in an empty hive, "though I am sure I cannot guess how you find the heart in such times as these to write poetry to fine ladies whom you do not know."

"Poetry, mother," said Adrian sententiously, "is a great consoler; it lifts the mind from the contemplation of petty and sordid cares."

"Petty and sordid cares!" repeated Lysbeth wonderingly, then she added with a kind of cry: "Oh! Adrian, have you no heart that you can watch a saint burn and come home to philosophise about his agonies? Will you never understand? If you could have seen that poor woman this morning who only three months ago was a happy bride." Then bursting into tears Lysbeth turned and fled from the room, for she remembered that what was the fate of the Vrouw Jansen to-day to-morrow might be her own.

This show of emotion quite upset Adrian whose nerves were delicate, and who being honestly attached to his mother did not like to see her weeping.

"Pest on the whole thing," he thought to himself, "why can't we go away and live in some pleasant place where they haven't got any religion, unless it is the wors.h.i.+p of Venus? Yes, a place of orange groves, and running streams, and pretty women with guitars, who like having sonnets read to them, and--"

At this moment the door opened and Martin's huge and flaming poll appeared.

"The master wants to know if you are coming to the works, Heer Adrian, and if not will you be so good as to give me the key of the strong-box as he needs the cash book."

With a groan Adrian rose to go, then changed his mind. No, after that perfumed vision of green groves and lovely ladies it was impossible for him to face the malodorous and prosaic foundry.