A Century Too Soon Part 18

"Be done with them at once. Marry! send them hence without delay."

The good dame ruled the household, and he hastily returned to the porch where the stranger and his child were sitting, and said:

"I cannot make room for you!"

Half starting from his seat, the traveller fixed his terrible eyes on the host and asked:

"What mean you? Be you afraid of your payment? Verily, I will give you the money before I eat your bread," and once more he put his hand into the pocket of the blouse to pull forth the purse; but the landlord raised his own hand and, with a restraining gesture and averted his head, as if he dreaded a sight of the other's gold, answered:

"Nay, it is not that."

"Pray, what is it?"

"I doubt not that you have the money."

"Then why refuse me what I ask?"

"I have no spare beds. When I said you could remain, I knew not that all my rooms were taken."

The child raised her beautiful but dirt-stained face to the host in mute appeal, while her father quietly continued:

"Put us in the stables; we are used to it."

"I cannot."

"Pray why not? Surely the enemies of the son of G.o.d would not refuse him that."

The host started at the awful reply, which to him was sacrilege, and answered in a faltering voice:

"The horses take up all the room."

The stranger seemed not entirely put out by the persistent refusal of the landlord and said:

"We will find some corner in which to lie after supper."

"I will give you no supper."

This declaration, made in a firm tone, brought the mysterious traveller to his feet.

"Can you, a Christian, speak thus?" he cried. "We are dying of hunger. I have been on my legs since sunrise, and have walked ten leagues to-day, for most part carrying my child on my back. I have the money, I am hungry, and I will have food."

"I have none for you," said the landlord.

"What are you cooking in your kitchen, the savory odors of which are maddening to a hungry man?"

"It is all ordered."

"By whom?"

"Merchants and travellers from Plymouth and New Amsterdam."

"You can surely spare a crust for my child, she is starving."

The stern landlord hesitated, when a loud authoritative "Ahem!" from his invisible wife strengthened him, and he said:

"I have not a morsel to spare."

"I am at an inn. I am hungry, I have money, and I shall remain,"

answered the stranger, sitting by the side of the little girl, who nervously clutched his arm. The landlord seemed quite put out, if not a little awed by the determined manner of the stranger, and turning about re-entered the house, where he held a whispered consultation with some one. Terror overcame the hunger of the tired child, and, clinging to her father, she whispered:

"Let us go from this house. I am not hungry now, let us go to some other place where we will not be injured."

He laid his hard, rough hand a.s.suringly on the shoulder of the frightened child and sought to soothe her fears. At this moment the landlord, who had had his courage renewed by his wife, came quite up to the stranger and, in a voice that was terribly in earnest, said:

"I know more of you by far than you realize. I am usually polite to everybody, so pray be off."

For a single instant a flash blazed from the eyes of the stranger, then his face grew deathly white, and he rose, taking the hand of his child in his own and went off. They walked along the streets at hap-hazard, keeping close to the houses like a sad and humiliated pair. His tired child was at his side, uncomplaining, though scarcely able to drag one weary little foot after the other. They did not look back once. Had they done so they would have seen that the landlord stood with all his guests and the pa.s.sers-by, talking eagerly and pointing to them. Judging from the looks of suspicion and terror, they might have guessed that ere long their arrival would be the event of the whole town. They saw nothing of this, for people who are oppressed do not look back, they know too well that evil destiny is following them.

Though sad and humiliated, the man was proud, and had the consciousness of right on his side. Only for his child, he might have defied the landlord and all the people, but the dread of leaving her alone and uncared for almost made a coward of a lion. They walked on for a long time, turning down streets new and strange to them, and in their sorrow forgetting their fatigue. The sun had set and darkness was falling over the landscape, when the father, roused once more to a sense of duty for his child, began to look around for some sort of shelter. The best inn was closed against them, so he sought a very humble ale-house, a wretched den which he would have shuddered to have his child enter under other circ.u.mstances. The candles had been lighted and the travellers paused for a moment to look through the windows. Even that miserable place had something cheerful and inviting about it. Some cavaliers who had come from England since the restoration were drinking beer, while over the fire in the broad chimney bubbled a caldron hanging from an iron hook. The traveller went to the front entrance and timidly raised the latch and entered the room, bringing his child after him.

"Who is there?" the landlord asked.

"A traveller and his child who want supper and bed."

"Very good. They are to be had here."

A long wooden bench was in the room, and the traveller sat down on it and stretched out his tired feet, swollen with fatigue. The child fell into the seat at his side and, laying her soft curly head on his lap, despite the fact she had travelled all day without food, fell asleep. As the stranger sat there in the gloom of twilight, for no candle had been brought into the room, all that could be distinguished of his face was his prominent nose, and firm mouth covered with beard. It was a firm, energetic and sad profile. The face was strangely composed, for it began by being proud and ended with humility, it commenced in stern austerity and ended in kindness. One moment the eyes beneath the s.h.a.ggy eyebrows gleamed with fires of hate, next they were softened in love as the glance fell on the sleeping, supperless child. The hand was hardened by grasping the sword-hilt, and the heart, which had so often defied the bullets of the enemy, was humble and child-like in the presence of the little girl.

The landlord was about to prepare supper for the hungry wanderers, when a man suddenly entered by the kitchen door, quite out of breath with running. His eyes were opened wide with terror, and he was trembling from head to foot. He proceeded to whisper some words in the ears of the landlord, which caused him to start and quake with dread.

"What would I better do?" asked the landlord in amazement.

"Drive them hence. No good ever comes to one harboring such."

This being made the plain Christian duty of the landlord, he was not slow to act. He went into the adjoining room, walked up almost to the stranger, holding his sleeping child on his knee, and said:

"You must be off."

At first the eyes glared at the host fiercely, then became more gentle, as he remarked:

"You know me?"

"Yes."

"We were turned away from the other inn."

"So you will be from this."

"Where would you have us go?"