THREE WAKINGS
There were three persons in Leyden whose reflections when they awoke on
the morning after the sledge race are not without interest, at any rate
to the student of their history. First there was Dirk van Goorl, whose
work made an early riser of him—to say nothing of a splitting headache
which on this morning called him into consciousness just as the clock
in the bell tower was chiming half-past four. Now there are few things
more depressing than to be awakened by a bad headache at half-past four
in the black frost of a winter dawn. Yet as Dirk lay and thought a
conviction took hold of him that his depression was not due entirely to
the headache or to the cold.
One by one he recalled the events of yesterday. First he had been late
for his appointment with Lysbeth, which evidently vexed her. Then the
Captain Montalvo had swooped down and carried her away, as a hawk bears
off a chicken under the very eyes of the hen-wife, while he—donkey that
he was—could find no words in which to protest. Next, thinking it his
duty to back the sledge wherein Lysbeth rode, although it was driven by
a Spaniard, he had lost ten florins on that event, which, being a
thrifty young man, did not at all please him. The rest of the fete he
had spent hunting for Lysbeth, who mysteriously vanished with the
Spaniard, an unentertaining and even an anxious pastime. Then came the
supper, when once more the Count swooped down on Lysbeth, leaving him
to escort his Cousin Clara, whom he considered an old fool and
disliked, and who, having spoilt his new jacket by spilling wine over
it, ended by abusing his taste in dress. Nor was that all—he had drunk
a great deal more strong wine than was wise, for to this his head
certified. Lastly he had walked home arm in arm with his lady-snatching
Spaniard, and by Heaven! yes, he had sworn eternal friendship with him
on the doorstep.
Well, there was no doubt that the Count was an uncommonly good
fellow—for a Spaniard. As for that story of the foul he had explained
it quite satisfactorily, and he had taken his beating like a gentleman.
Could anything be nicer or in better feeling than his allusions to
Cousin Pieter in his after-supper speech? Also, and this was a graver
matter, the man had shown that he was tolerant and kindly by the way in
which he dealt with the poor creature called the Mare, a woman whose
history Dirk knew well; one whose sufferings had made of her a crazy
and rash-tongued wanderer, who, so it was rumoured, could use a knife.
In fact, for the truth may as well be told at once, Dirk was a
Lutheran, having been admitted to that community two years before. To
be a Lutheran in those days, that is in the Netherlands, meant, it need
scarcely be explained, that you walked the world with a halter round
your neck and a vision of the rack and the stake before your eyes;
circumstances under which religion became a more earnest and serious
thing than most people find it in this century. Still even at that date
the dreadful penalties attaching to the crime did not prevent many of
the burgher and lower classes from worshipping God in their own
fashion. Indeed, if the truth had been known, of those who were present
at Lysbeth’s supper on the previous night more than half, including
Pieter van de Werff, were adherents of the New Faith.
To dismiss religious considerations, however, Dirk could have wished
that this kindly natured Spaniard was not quite so good-looking or
quite so appreciative of the excellent points of the young Leyden
ladies, and especially of Lysbeth’s, with whose sterling character, he
now remembered, Montalvo had assured him he was much impressed. What he
feared was that this regard might be reciprocal. After all a Spanish
hidalgo in command of the garrison was a distinguished person, and,
alas! Lysbeth also was a Catholic. Dirk loved Lysbeth; he loved her
with that patient sincerity which was characteristic of his race and
his own temperament, but in addition to and above the reasons that have
been given already it was this fact of the difference of religion which
hitherto had built a wall between them. Of course she was unaware of
anything of the sort. She did not know even that he belonged to the New
Faith, and without the permission of the elders of his sect, he would
not dare to tell her, for the lives of men and of their families could
not be confided lightly to the hazard of a girl’s discretion.
Herein lay the real reason why, although Dirk was so devoted to
Lysbeth, and although he imagined that she was not indifferent to him,
as yet no word had passed between them of love or marriage. How could
he who was a Lutheran ask a Catholic to become his wife without telling
her the truth? And if he told her the truth, and she consented to take
the risk, how could he drag her into that dreadful net? Supposing even
that she kept to her own faith, which of course she would be at liberty
to do, although equally, of course, he was bound to try to convert her,
their children, if they had any, must be brought up in his beliefs.
Then, sooner or later, might come the informer, that dreadful informer
whose shadow already lay heavy upon thousands of homes in the
Netherlands, and after the informer the officer, and after the officer
the priest, and after the priest the judge, and after the judge—the
executioner and the stake.
In this case, what would happen to Lysbeth? She might prove herself
innocent of the horrible crime of heresy, if by that time she was
innocent, but what would life become to the loving young woman whose
husband and children, perhaps, had been haled off to the slaughter
chambers of the Papal Inquisition? This was the true first cause why
Dirk had remained silent, even when he was sorely tempted to speak;
yes, although his instinct told him that his silence had been
misinterpreted and set down to over-caution, or indifference, or to
unnecessary scruples.
The next to wake up that morning was Lysbeth, who, if she was not
troubled with headache resulting from indulgence—and in that day women
of her class sometimes suffered from it—had pains of her own to
overcome. When sifted and classified these pains resolved themselves
into a sense of fiery indignation against Dirk van Goorl. Dirk had been
late for his appointment, alleging some ridiculous excuse about the
cooling of a bell, as though she cared whether the bell were hot or
cold, with the result that she had been thrown into the company of that
dreadful Martha the Mare. After the Mare—aggravated by Black Meg—came
the Spaniard. Here again Dirk had shown contemptible indifference and
insufficiency, for he allowed her to be forced into the Wolf sledge
against her will. Nay, he had actually consented to the thing. Next, in
a fateful sequence followed all the other incidents of that hideous
carnival; the race, the foul, if it was a foul; the dreadful nightmare
vision called into her mind by the look upon Montalvo’s face; the trial
of the Mare, her own unpremeditated but indelible perjury; the lonely
drive with the man who compelled her to it; the exhibition of herself
before all the world as his willing companion; and the feast in which
he appeared as her cavalier, and was accepted of the simple company
almost as an angel entertained by chance.
What did he mean? Doubtless, for on that point she could scarcely be
mistaken, he meant to make love to her, for had he not in practice said
as much? And now—this was the terrible thing—she was in his power,
since if he chose to do so, without doubt he could prove that she had
sworn a false oath for her own purposes. Also that lie weighed upon her
mind, although it had been spoken in a good cause; if it was good to
save a wretched fanatic from the fate which, were the truth known,
without doubt her crime deserved.
Of course, the Spaniard was a bad man, if an attractive one, and he had
behaved wickedly, if with grace and breeding; but who expected anything
else from a Spaniard, who only acted after his kind and for his own
ends? It was Dirk—Dirk—that was to blame, not so much—and here again
came the rub—for his awkwardness and mistakes of yesterday, as for his
general conduct. Why had he not spoken to her before, and put her
beyond the reach of such accidents as these to which a woman of her
position and substance must necessarily be exposed? The saints knew
that she had given him opportunity enough. She had gone as far as a
maiden might, and not for all the Dirks on earth would she go one inch
further. Why had she ever come to care for his foolish face? Why had
she refused So-and-so, and So-and-so and So-and-so—all of them
honourable men—with the result that now no other bachelor ever came
near her, comprehending that she was under bond to her cousin? In the
past she had persuaded herself that it was because of something she
felt but could not see, of a hidden nobility of character which after
all was not very evident upon the surface, that she loved Dirk van
Goorl. But where was this something, this nobility? Surely a man who
was a man ought to play his part, and not leave her in this false
position, especially as there could be no question of means. She would
not have come to him empty-handed, very far from it, indeed. Oh! were
it not for the unlucky fact that she still happened to care about
him—to her sorrow—never, never would she speak to him again.
The last of our three friends to awake on this particular morning,
between nine and ten o’clock, indeed, when Dirk had been already two
hours at his factory and Lysbeth was buying provisions in the market
place, was that accomplished and excellent officer, Captain the Count
Juan de Montalvo. For a few seconds after his dark eyes opened he
stared at the ceiling collecting his thoughts. Then, sitting up in bed,
he burst into a prolonged roar of laughter. Really the whole thing was
too funny for any man of humour to contemplate without being moved to
merriment. That gaby, Dirk van Goorl; the furiously indignant but
helpless Lysbeth; the solemn, fat-headed fools of Netherlanders at the
supper, and the fashion in which he had played his own tune on the
whole pack of them as though they were the strings of a fiddle—oh! it
was delicious.
As the reader by this time may have guessed, Montalvo was not the
typical Spaniard of romance, and, indeed, of history. He was not gloomy
and stern; he was not even particularly vengeful or bloodthirsty. On
the contrary, he was a clever and utterly unprincipled man with a sense
of humour and a gift of _bonhomie_ which made him popular in all
places. Moreover, he was brave, a good soldier; in a certain sense
sympathetic, and, strange to say, no bigot. Indeed, which seems to have
been a rare thing in those days, his religious views were so enlarged
that he had none at all. His conduct, therefore, if from time to time
it was affected by passing spasms of acute superstition, was totally
uninfluenced by any settled spiritual hopes or fears, a condition
which, he found, gave him great advantages in life. In fact, had it
suited his purpose, Montalvo was prepared, at a moment’s notice, to
become Lutheran or Calvinist, or Mahomedan, or Mystic, or even
Anabaptist; on the principle, he would explain, that it is easy for the
artist to paint any picture he likes upon a blank canvas.
And yet this curious pliancy of mind, this lack of conviction, this
absolute want of moral sense, which ought to have given the Count such
great advantages in his conflict with the world, were, in reality, the
main source of his weakness. Fortune had made a soldier of the man, and
he filled the part as he would have filled any part. But nature
intended him for a play-actor, and from day to day he posed and mimed
and mouthed through life in this character or in that, though never in
his own character, principally because he had none. Still, far down in
Montalvo’s being there was something solid and genuine, and that
something not good but bad. It was very rarely on view; the hand of
circumstance must plunge deep to find it, but it dwelt there; the
strong, cruel Spanish spirit which would sacrifice anything to save, or
even to advance, itself. It was this spirit that Lysbeth had seen
looking out of his eyes on the yesterday, which, when he knew that the
race was lost, had prompted him to try to kill his adversary, although
he killed himself and her in the attempt. Nor did she see it then for
the last time, for twice more at least in her life she was destined to
meet and tremble at its power.
In short, although Montalvo was a man who really disliked cruelty, he
could upon occasion be cruel to the last degree; although he
appreciated friends, and desired to have them, he could be the foulest
of traitors. Although without a cause he would do no hurt to a living
thing, yet if that cause were sufficient he would cheerfully consign a
whole cityful to death. No, not cheerfully, he would have regretted
their end very much, and often afterwards might have thought of it with
sympathy and even sorrow. This was where he differed from the majority
of his countrymen in that age, who would have done the same thing, and
more brutally, from honest principle, and for the rest of their lives
rejoiced at the memory of the deed.
Montalvo had his ruling passion; it was not war, it was not women; it
was money. But here again he did not care about the money for itself,
since he was no miser, and being the most inveterate of gamblers never
saved a single stiver. He wanted it to spend and to stake upon the
dice. Thus again, in variance to the taste of most of his countrymen,
he cared little for the other sex; he did not even like their society,
and as for their passion and the rest he thought it something of a
bore. But he did care intensely for their admiration, so much so that
if no better game were at hand, he would take enormous trouble to
fascinate even a serving maid or a fish girl. Wherever he went it was
his ambition to be reported the man the most admired of the fair in
that city, and to attain this end he offered himself upon the altar of
numerous love affairs which did not amuse him in the least. Of course,
the indulgence of this vanity meant expense, since the fair require
money and presents, and he who pursues them should be well dressed and
horsed and able to do things in the very finest style. Also their
relatives must be entertained, and when they were entertained impressed
with the sense that they had the honour to be guests of a grandee of
Spain.
Now that of a grandee has never been a cheap profession; indeed, as
many a pauper peer knows to-day, rank without resources is a terrific
burden. Montalvo had the rank, for he was a well-born man, whose sole
heritage was an ancient tower built by some warlike ancestor in a
position admirably suited to the purpose of the said ancestor, namely,
the pillage of travellers through a neighbouring mountain pass. When,
however, travellers ceased to use that pass, or for other reasons
robbery became no longer productive, the revenues of the Montalvo
family declined till at the present date they were practically nil.
Thus it came about that the status of the last representative of this
ancient stock was that of a soldier of fortune of the common type,
endowed, unfortunately for himself, with grand ideas, a gambler’s fatal
fire, expensive tastes, and more than the usual pride of race.
Although, perhaps, he had never defined them very clearly, even to
himself, Juan de Montalvo had two aims in life: first to indulge his
every freak and fancy to the full, and next—but this was secondary and
somewhat nebulous—to re-establish the fortunes of his family. In
themselves they were quite legitimate aims, and in those times, when
fishers of troubled waters generally caught something, and when men of
ability and character might force their way to splendid positions,
there was no reason why they should not have led him to success. Yet so
far, at any rate, in spite of many opportunities, he had not succeeded
although he was now a man of more than thirty. The causes of his
failures were various, but at the bottom of them lay his lack of
stability and genuineness.
A man who is always playing a part amuses every one but convinces
nobody. Montalvo convinced nobody. When he discoursed on the mysteries
of religion with priests, even priests who in those days for the most
part were stupid, felt that they assisted in a mere intellectual
exercise. When his theme was war his audience guessed that his object
was probably love. When love was his song an inconvenient instinct was
apt to assure the lady immediately concerned that it was love of self
and not of her. They were all more or less mistaken, but, as usual, the
women went nearest to the mark. Montalvo’s real aim was self, but he
spelt it, Money. Money in large sums was what he wanted, and what in
this way or that he meant to win.
Now even in the sixteenth century fortunes did not lie to the hand of
every adventurer. Military pay was small, and not easily recoverable;
loot was hard to come by, and quickly spent. Even the ransom of a rich
prisoner or two soon disappeared in the payment of such debts of honour
as could not be avoided. Of course there remained the possibility of
wealthy marriage, which in a country like the Netherlands, that was
full of rich heiresses, was not difficult to a high-born, handsome, and
agreeable man of the ruling Spanish caste. Indeed, after many chances
and changes the time had come at length when Montalvo must either marry
or be ruined. For his station his debts, especially his gaming debts,
were enormous, and creditors met him at every turn. Unfortunately for
him, also, some of these creditors were persons who had the ear of
people in authority. So at last it came about that an intimation
reached him that this scandal must be abated, or he must go back to
Spain, a country which, as it happened, he did not in the least wish to
visit. In short, the sorry hour of reckoning, that hour which overtakes
all procrastinators, had arrived, and marriage, wealthy marriage, was
the only way wherewith it could be defied. It was a sad alternative to
a man who for his own very excellent reasons did not wish to marry, but
this had to be faced.
Thus it came about that, as the only suitable _partie_ in Leyden, the
Count Montalvo had sought out the well-favoured and well-endowed
Jufvrouw Lysbeth van Hout to be his companion in the great sledge race,
and taken so much trouble to ensure to himself a friendly reception at
her house.
So far, things went well, and, what was more, the opening of the chase
had proved distinctly entertaining. Also, the society of the place,
after his appropriation of her at a public festival and their long
moonlight _tête-à-tête_, which by now must be common gossip’s talk,
would be quite prepared for any amount of attention which he might see
fit to pay to Lysbeth. Indeed, why should he not pay attention to an
unaffianced woman whose rank was lower if her means were greater than
his own? Of course, he knew that her name had been coupled with that of
Dirk van Goorl. He was perfectly aware also that these two young people
were attached to each other, for as they walked home together on the
previous night Dirk, possibly for motives of his own, had favoured him
with a semi-intoxicated confidence to that effect. But as they were not
affianced what did that matter? Indeed, had they been affianced, what
would it matter? Still, Dirk van Goorl was an obstacle, and, therefore,
although he seemed to be a good fellow, and he was sorry for him, Dirk
van Goorl must be got out of the way, since he was convinced that
Lysbeth was one of those stubborn-natured creatures who would probably
decline to marry himself until this young Leyden lout had vanished. And
yet he did not wish to be mixed up with duels, if for no other reason
because in a duel the unexpected may always happen, and that would be a
poor end. Certainly also he did not wish to be mixed up with murder;
first, because he intensely disliked the idea of killing anybody,
unless he was driven to it; and secondly, because murder has a nasty
way of coming out. One could never be quite sure in what light the
despatching of a young Netherlander of respectable family and fortune
would be looked at by those in authority.
Also, there was another thing to be considered. If this young man died
it was impossible to know exactly how Lysbeth would take his death.
Thus she might elect to refuse to marry or decide to mourn him for four
or five years, which for all practical purposes would be just as bad.
And yet while Dirk lived how could he possibly persuade her to transfer
her affections to himself? It seemed, therefore, that Dirk ought to
decease. For quite a quarter of an hour Montalvo thought the matter
over, and then, just as he had given it up and determined to leave
things to chance, for a while at least, inspiration came, a splendid, a
heaven-sent inspiration.
Dirk must not die, Dirk must live, but his continued existence must be
the price of the hand of Lysbeth van Hout. If she was half as fond of
the man as he believed, it was probable that she would be delighted to
marry anybody else in order to save his precious neck, for that was
just the kind of sentimental idiocy of which nine women out of ten
really enjoyed the indulgence. Moreover, this scheme had other merits;
it did every one a good turn. Dirk would be saved from extinction for
which he should be grateful: Lysbeth, besides earning the honour of an
alliance, perhaps only temporary, with himself, would be able to go
through life wrapped in a heavenly glow of virtue arising from the
impression that she had really done something very fine and tragic,
while he, Montalvo, under Providence, the humble purveyor of these
blessings, would also benefit to some small extent.
The difficulty was: How could the situation be created? How could the
interesting Dirk be brought to a pass that would give the lady an
opportunity of exercising her finer feelings on his behalf? If only he
were a heretic now! Well, by the Pope why shouldn’t he be a heretic? If
ever a fellow had the heretical cut this fellow had; flat-faced,
sanctimonious-looking, and with a fancy for dark-coloured stockings—he
had observed that all heretics, male and female, wore dark-coloured
stockings, perhaps by way of mortifying the flesh. He could think of
only one thing against it, the young man had drunk too much last night.
But there were certain breeds of heretics who did not mind drinking too
much. Also the best could slip sometimes, for, as he had learned from
the old Castilian priest who taught him Latin, _humanum est_, etc.
This, then, was the summary of his reflections. (1) That to save the
situation, within three months or so he must be united in holy
matrimony with Lysbeth van Hout. (2) That if it proved impossible to
remove the young man, Dirk van Goorl, from his path by overmatching him
in the lady’s affections, or by playing on her jealousy (Query: Could a
woman be egged into becoming jealous of that flounder of a fellow and
into marrying some one else out of pique?), stronger measures must be
adopted. (3) That such stronger measures should consist of inducing the
lady to save her lover from death by uniting herself in marriage with
one who for her sake would do violence to his conscience and manipulate
the business. (4) That this plan would be best put into execution by
proving the lover to be a heretic, but if unhappily this could not be
proved because he was not, still he must figure in that capacity for
this occasion only. (5) That meanwhile it would be well to cultivate
the society of Mynheer van Goorl as much as possible, first because he
was a person with whom, under the circumstances, he, Montalvo, would
naturally wish to become intimate, and secondly, because he was quite
certain to be an individual with cash to lend.
Now, these researches after heretics invariably cost money, for they
involved the services of spies. Obviously, therefore, friend Dirk, the
Dutch Flounder, was a man to provide the butter in which he was going
to be fried. Why, if any Hollander had a spark of humour he would see
the joke of it himself—and Montalvo ended his reflections as he had
begun them, with a merry peal of laughter, after which he rose and ate
a most excellent breakfast.
It was about half-past five o’clock that afternoon before the Captain
and Acting-Commandant Montalvo returned from some duty to which he had
been attending, for it may be explained that he was a zealous officer
and a master of detail. As he entered his lodgings the soldier who
acted as his servant, a man selected for silence and discretion,
saluted and stood at attention.
“Is the woman here?” he asked.
“Excellency, she is here, though I had difficulty enough in persuading
her to come, for I found her in bed and out of humour.”
“Peace to your difficulties. Where is she?”
“In the small inner room, Excellency.”
“Good, then see that no one disturbs us, and—stay, when she goes out
follow her and note her movements till you trace her home.”
The man saluted, and Montalvo passed upstairs into the inner room,
carefully shutting both doors behind him. The place was unlighted, but
through the large stone-mullioned window the rays of the full moon
poured brightly, and by them, seated in a straight-backed chair,
Montalvo saw a draped form. There was something forbidding, something
almost unnatural, in the aspect of this sombre form perched thus upon a
chair in expectant silence. It reminded him—for he had a touch of
inconvenient imagination—of an evil bird squatted upon the bough of a
dead tree awaiting the dawn that it might go forth to devour some
appointed prey.
“Is that you, Mother Meg?” he asked in tones from which most of the
jocosity had vanished. “Quite like old times at The Hague—isn’t it?”
The moonlit figure turned its head, for he could see the light shine
upon the whites of the eyes.
“Who else, Excellency,” said a voice hoarse and thick with rheum, a
voice like the croak of a crow, “though it is little thanks to your
Excellency. Those must be strong who can bathe in Rhine water through a
hole in the ice and take no hurt.”
“Don’t scold, woman,” he answered, “I have no time for it. If you were
ducked yesterday, it served you right for losing your cursed temper.
Could you not see that I had my own game to play, and you were spoiling
it? Must I be flouted before my men, and listen while you warn a lady
with whom I wish to stand well against me?”
“You generally have a game to play, Excellency, but when it ends in my
being first robbed and then nearly drowned beneath the ice—well, that
is a game which Black Meg does not forget.”
“Hush, mother, you are not the only person with a memory. What was the
reward? Twelve florins? Well, you shall have them, and five more;
that’s good pay for a lick of cold water. Are you satisfied?”
“No, Excellency. I wanted the life, that heretic’s life. I wanted to
baste her while she burned, or to tread her down while she was buried.
I have a grudge against the woman because I know, yes, because I know,”
she repeated fiercely, “that if I do not kill her she will try to kill
me. Her husband and her young son were burnt, upon my evidence mostly,
but this is the third time she has escaped me.”
“Patience, mother, patience, and I dare say that everything will come
right in the end. You have bagged two of the family—Papa heretic and
Young Hopeful. Really you should not grumble if the third takes a
little hunting, or wonder that in the meanwhile you are not popular
with Mama. Now, listen. You know the young woman whom it was necessary
that I should humour yesterday. She is rich, is she not?”
“Yes, I know her, and I knew her father. He left her house, furniture,
jewellery, and thirty thousand crowns, which are placed out at good
interest. A nice fortune for a gallant who wants money, but it will be
Dirk van Goorl’s, not yours.”
“Ah! that is just the point. Now what do you know about Dirk van
Goorl?”
“A respectable, hard-working burgher, son of well-to-do parents,
brass-workers who live at Alkmaar. Honest, but not very clever; the
kind of man who grows rich, becomes a Burgomaster, founds a hospital
for the poor, and has a fine monument put up to his memory.”
“Mother, the cold water has dulled your wits. When I ask you about a
man I want to learn what you know _against_ him.”
“Naturally, Excellency, naturally, but against this one I can tell you
nothing. He has no lovers, he does not gamble, he does not drink except
a glass after dinner. He works in his factory all day, goes to bed
early, rises early, and calls on the Jufvrouw van Hout on Sundays; that
is all.”
“Where does he attend Mass?”
“At the Groote Kerke once a week, but he does not take the Sacrament or
go to confession.”
“That sounds bad, mother, very bad. You don’t mean to say that he is a
heretic?”
“Probably he is, Excellency; most of them are about here.”
“Dear me, how very shocking. Do you know, I should not like that
excellent young woman, a good Catholic too, like you and me, mother, to
become mixed up with one of these dreadful heretics, who might expose
her to all sorts of dangers. For, mother, who can touch pitch and not
be defiled?”
“You waste time, Excellency,” replied his visitor with a snort. “What
do you want?”
“Well, in the interests of this young lady, I want to prove that this
man _is_ a heretic, and it has struck me that—as one accustomed to this
sort of thing—you might be able to find the evidence.”
“Indeed, Excellency, and has it struck you what my face would look like
after I had thrust my head into a wasp’s nest for your amusement? Do
you know what it means to me if I go peering about among the heretics
of Leyden? Well, I will tell you; it means that I should be killed.
They are a strong lot, and a determined lot, and so long as you leave
them alone they will leave you alone, but if you interfere with them,
why then it is good night. Oh! yes, I know all about the law and the
priests and the edicts and the Emperor. But the Emperor cannot burn a
whole people, and though I hate them, I tell you,” she added, standing
up suddenly and speaking in a fierce, convinced voice, “that in the end
the law and the edicts and the priests will get the worst of this
fight. Yes, these Hollanders will beat them all and cut the throats of
you Spaniards, and thrust those of you who are left alive out of their
country, and spit upon your memories and worship God in their own
fashion, and be proud and free, when you are dogs gnawing the bones of
your greatness; dogs kicked back into your kennels to rot there. Those
are not my own words,” said Meg in a changed voice as she sat down
again. “They are the words of that devil, Martha the Mare, which she
spoke in my hearing when we had her on the rack, but somehow I think
that they will come true, and that is why I always remember them.”
“Indeed, her ladyship the Mare is a more interesting person than I
thought, though if she can talk like that, perhaps, after all, it would
have been as well to drown her. And now, dropping prophecy and leaving
posterity to arrange for itself, let us come to business. How much? For
evidence which would suffice to procure his conviction, mind.”
“Five hundred florins, not a stiver less, so, Excellency, you need not
waste your time trying to beat me down. You want good evidence,
evidence on which the Council, or whoever they may appoint, will
convict, and that means the unshaken testimony of two witnesses. Well,
I tell you, it isn’t easy to come by; there is great danger to the
honest folk who seek it, for these heretics are desperate people, and
if they find a spy while they are engaged in devil-worship at one of
their conventicles, why—they kill him.”
“I know all that, mother. What are you trying to cover up that you are
so talkative? It isn’t your usual way of doing business. Well, it is a
bargain—you shall have your money when you produce the evidence. And
now really if we stop here much longer people will begin to make
remarks, for who shall escape aspersion in this censorious world? So
good-night, mother, good-night,” and he turned to leave the room.
“No, Excellency,” she croaked with a snort of indignation, “no pay, no
play; I don’t work on the faith of your Excellency’s word alone.”
“How much?” he asked again.
“A hundred florins down.”
Then for a while they wrangled hideously, their heads held close
together in the patch of moonlight, and so loathsome did their faces
look, so plainly was the wicked purpose of their hearts written upon
them, that in that faint luminous glow they might have been mistaken
for emissaries from the under-world chaffering over the price of a
human soul. At last the bargain was struck for fifty florins, and
having received it into her hand Black Meg departed.
“Sixty-seven in all,” she muttered to herself as she regained the
street. “Well, it was no use holding out for any more, for he hasn’t
got the cash. The man’s as poor as Lazarus, but he wants to live like
Dives, and, what is more, he gambles, as I learned at The Hague. Also,
there’s something queer about his past; I have heard as much as that.
It must be looked into, and perhaps the bundle of papers which I helped
myself to out of his desk while I was waiting”—and she touched the
bosom of her dress to make sure that they were safe—“may tell me a
thing or two, though likely enough they are only unpaid bills. Ah! most
noble cheat and captain, before you have done with her you may find
that Black Meg knows how to pay back hot water for cold!”