In the big watch-house that had been erected beside the citadel,
during the siege of the city, raised ten months before, city-guards and
volunteers sat together in groups after sunset, talking over their beer
or passing the time in playing cards by the feeble light of thin tallow
candles.
The embrasure where the officers’ table stood was somewhat better
lighted. Wilhelm, who, according to his friend’s advice, appeared in
the uniform of an ensign of the city-guards, seated himself at the empty
board just after the clock in the steeple had struck ten. While ordering
the waiter to bring him a mug of beer, Captain Allertssohn appeared with
Junker von Warmond, who had taken part in the consultation at Peter Van
der Werff’s, and bravely earned his captain’s sash two years before
at the capture of Brill. As this son of one of the richest and most
aristocratic families in Holland, a youth whose mother had borne the
name of Egmont, entered, he drew his hand, encased in a fencing glove,
from the captain’s arm and said, countermanding the musician’s order:
“Nothing of that sort, waiter! The little keg from the Wurzburger Stein
can’t be empty yet. We’ll find the bottom of it this evening. What do
you say, Captain?”
“Such an arrangement will lighten the keg and not specially burden us,”
replied the other. “Good-evening, Herr Wilhelm, punctuality adorns the
soldier. People are beginning to understand how much depends upon it.
I have posted the men, so that they can overlook the country in
every direction. I shall have them relieved from time to time, and at
intervals look after them myself. This is good liquor, Junker. All honor
to the man who melts his gold into such a fluid. The first glass must be
a toast to the Prince.”
The three men touched their glasses, and soon after drank to the liberty
of Holland and the prosperity of the good city of Leyden. Then the
conversation took a lively turn, but duty was not forgotten, for at the
end of half an hour the captain rose to survey the horizon himself and
urge the sentinels to vigilant watchfulness.
When he returned, Wilhelm and Junker von Warmond were so engaged in
eager conversation, that they did not notice his entrance. The musician
was speaking of Italy, and Allertssohn heard him exclaim impetuously:
“Whoever has once seen that country can never forget it, and when I am
sitting on the house-top with my doves, my thoughts only too often fly
far away with them, and my eyes no longer see our broad, monotonous
plains and grey, misty sky.”
“Oh! ho! Meister Wilhelm,” interrupted the captain, throwing himself
into the arm-chair and stretching out his booted legs. “Oh! ho! This
time I’ve discovered the crack in your brain. Italy, always Italy!
I know Italy too, for I’ve been in Brescia, looking for good steel
sword-blades for the Prince and other nobles, I crossed the rugged
Apennines and went to Florence to see fine pieces of armor. From Livorno
I went by sea to Genoa, where I obtained chased gold and silverwork for
shoulder-belts and sheaths. Truth is truth the brown-skinned rascals can
do fine work. But the country--the country! Roland, my fore man--how any
sensible man can prefer it to ours is more than I understand.”
“Holland is our mother,” replied von Warmond. “As good sons we believe
her the best of women; yet we can admit, without shame, that there are
more beautiful ones in the world.”
“Do you blow that trumpet too?” exclaimed the fencing-master, pushing
his glass angrily further upon the table. “Did you ever cross the Alps?”
“No, but--”
“But you believe the color-daubers of the artist guild, whose eyes are
caught by the blue of the sky and sea, or the musical gentry who allow
themselves to be deluded by the soft voices and touching melodies there,
but you would do well to listen to a quiet man too for once.”
“Go on, Captain.”
“Very well. And if anybody can get an untruthful word out of me, I’ll
pay his score till the Day of Judgment. I’ll begin the story at the
commencement. First you must cross the horrible Alps. There you see
barren, dreary rocks, cold snow, wild glacier torrents on which no boat
can be used. Instead of watering meadows, the mad waves fling stones on
their banks. Then we reach the plains, where it is true many kinds
of plants grow. I was there in June, and made my jokes about the tiny
fields, where small trees stood, serving as props for the vines. It
didn’t look amiss, but the heat, Junker, the heat spoiled all pleasure.
And the dirt in the taverns, the vermin, and the talk about bravos,
who shed the blood of honest Christians in the dark for a little paltry
money. If your tongue dries up in your mouth, you’ll find nothing but
hot wine, not a sip of cool beer. And the dust, gentlemen, the frightful
dust. As for the steel in Brescia--it’s worthy of all honor. But the
feather was stolen from my hat in the tavern, and the landlord devoured
onions as if they were white bread. May God punish me if a single piece
of honest beef, such as my wife can set before me every day--and we
don’t live like princes--ever came between my teeth.
“And the butter, Junker, the butter! We burn oil in lamps, and grease
door-hinges with it, when they creak, but the Italians use it to fry
chickens and fish. Confound such doings!”
“Beware, Captain,” cried Wilhelm, “or I shall take you at your word and
you’ll be obliged to pay my score for life. Olive-oil is a pure, savory
seasoning.”
“For a man that likes it. I commend Holland butter. Olive-oil has its
value for polishing steel, but butter is the right thing for roasting
and frying; so that’s enough! But I beg you to hear me farther. From
Lombardy I went to Bologna, and then crossed the Apennines. Sometimes
the road ascended, then suddenly plunged downward again, and it’s a
queer pleasure, which, thank God, we are spared in this country, to sit
in the saddle going down a mountain. On the right and left, lofty
cliffs tower like walls. Your breathing becomes oppressed in the narrow
valleys, and if you want to get a distant view--there’s nothing to
be seen, for everywhere some good-for-nothing mountain thrusts itself
directly before your nose. I believe the Lord created those humps for
a punishment to men after Adam’s fall. On the sixth day of creation the
earth was level. It was in August, and when the noon sun was reflected
from the rocks, the heat was enough to kill one; it’s a miracle, that
I’m not sitting beside you dried up and baked. The famous blue of the
Italian sky! Always the same! We have it here in this country too, but
it alternates with beautiful clouds. There are few things in Holland I
like better than our clouds. When the rough Apennines at last lay behind
me, I reached the renowned city of Florence.”
“And can you deny it your approval?” asked the musician.
“No, sir, there are many proud, stately palaces and beautiful churches
and no lack of silk and velvet everywhere, the trade of cloth-weaving
too is flourishing; but my health, my health was not good in your
Florence, principally on account of the heat, and besides I found many
things different from what I expected. In the first place, there’s the
river Arno! The stream is a puddle, nothing but a puddle! Do you know
what the water looks like? Like the pools that stand between the broken
fragments and square blocks in a stonecutter’s yard, after a heavy
thunder-shower.”
“The score, Captain, the score!”
“I mean the yard of a stone-cutter, who does a large business, and pools
of tolerable width. Will you still contradict me if I maintain--the
Arno is a shallow, narrow stream, just fit to sail a boy’s bark-boat.
It spreads over a wide surface of grey pebbles, very much as the gold
fringe straggles over the top of Junker von Warmond’s fencing-glove.”
“You saw it at the end of a hot summer,” replied Wilhelm, “it’s very
different in spring.”
“Perhaps so; but I beg you to remember the Rhine, the Meuse, and our
other rivers, even the Marne, Drecht and whatever the smaller streams
are called. They remain full and bear stately ships at all seasons of
the year. Uniform and reliable is the custom of this country; to-day one
way, to-morrow another, is the Italian habit. It’s just the same with
the blades in the fencing-school.”
“The Italians wield dangerous weapons,” said von Warmond.
“Very true, but they bend to and fro and lack firmness. I know what
I’m talking about, for I lodged with my colleague Torelli, the best
fencing-master in the city. I’ll say nothing of the meals he set
before me. To-day macaroni, to-morrow macaroni with a couple of chicken
drumsticks to boot, and so on. I’ve often drawn my belt tighter after
dinner. As for the art of fencing, Torelli is certainly no bungler, but
he too has the skipping fashion in his method. You must keep your eyes
open in a passado with him, but if I can once get to my quarte, tierce,
and side-thrust, I have him.”
“An excellent series,” said Junker von Warmond. “It has been useful to
me.”
“I know, I know,” replied the captain eagerly. “You silenced the
French brawler with it at Namur. There’s the catch in my throat again.
Something will happen to-day, gentlemen, something will surely happen.”
The fencing-master grasped the front of his ruff with his left hand and
set the glass on the table with his right. He had often done so far more
carelessly, but to-day the glass shattered into many fragments.
“That’s nothing,” cried the young nobleman. “Waiter, another glass for
Captain Allertssohn.”
The fencing-master pushed his chair back from the table, and looking
at the broken pieces of greenish glass, said in an altered tone, as if
speaking to himself rather than his companions:
“Yes, yes, something serious will happen to-day. Shattered into a
thousand pieces. As God wills! I know where my place is.”
Von Warmond filled a fresh glass, saying with a slight shade of reproof
in his tone: “Why, Captain, Captain, what whims are these? Before the
battle of Brill I fell in jumping out of the boat and broke my sword.
I soon found another, but the idea came into my head: ‘you’ll meet your
death to-day.’ Yet here I sit, and hope to empty many a beaker with
you.”
“It has passed already,” said the fencing-master, raising his hat and
wiping the perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Every one must meet his death-hour, and if mine is approaching
to-day--be it as God wills! My family won’t starve. The house on the new
Rhine is free from mortgage, and though they don’t inherit much else, I
shall leave my children an honest name and trustworthy friends. I know
you won’t lose sight of my second boy, the musician, Wilhelm. Nobody is
indispensable, and if Heaven wishes to call me from this command, Junker
von Nordwyk, Jan Van der Does, can fill my place. You, Herr von Warmond,
are in just the right spot, and the good cause will reach a successful
end even without me.”
The musician listened with surprise to the softened tone of the strange
man’s voice, but the young nobleman raised his drinking-cup, exclaiming:
“Such heavy thoughts for a light glass! You make too much of the matter,
Captain. Take your bumper again, and pledge me: Long live the noble art
of fencing, and your series: quarte, tierce and side-thrust!”
“They’ll live,” replied Allertssohn, “ay, they’ll live. Many hundreds of
noble gentlemen use the sword in this country, and the man who sits here
has taught them to wield it according to the rules. My series has served
many in duelling, and I, Andreas, their master, have made tierce follow
quarte and side-thrust tierce thousands of times, but always with
buttons on the foils and against padded doublets. Outside the walls, in
the battle-field, no one, often as I have pressed upon the leaders, has
ever stood against me in single combat. This Brescian sword-blade has
more than once pierced a Spanish jerkin, but the art I teach, gentlemen,
the art I love, to which my life has been devoted, I have never
practised in earnest. That is hard to bear, gentlemen, and if Heaven is
disposed, before calling him away from earth, to grant a poor man, who
is no worse than his neighbors, one favor, I shall be permitted to cross
blades once in a true, genuine duel, and try my series against an able
champion in a mortal struggle. If God would grant Andreas this--”
Before the fencing-master had finished the last sentence, an armed man
dashed the door open, shouting: “The light is raised at Leyderdorp!”
At these words Allertssohn sprang from his chair as nimbly as a youth,
drew himself up to his full height, adjusted his shoulder-belt and drew
down his sash, exclaiming:
“To the citadel, Hornist, and sound the call for assembling the troops.
To your volunteers, Captain Van Duivenvoorde. Post yourself with four
companies at the Hohenort Gate, to be ready to take part, if the battle
approaches the city-walls. The gunners must provide matches. Let the
garrisons in the towers be doubled. Klaas, go to the sexton of St.
Pancratius and tell him to ring the alarm-bell, to warn the people at
the fair. Your hand, Junker. I know you will be at your post, and you,
Meister Wilhelm.”
“I’ll go with you,” said the musician resolutely. “Don’t reject me. I
have remained quiet long enough; I shall stifle here.”
Wilhelm’s cheeks flushed, and his eyes sparkled with a lustre so bright
and angry, that Junker von Warmond looked at his phlegmatic friend in
astonishment, while the captain called:
“Then station yourself in the first company beside my ensign. You don’t
look as if you felt like jesting, and the work will be in earnest now,
bloody earnest.”
Allertssohn walked out of doors with a steady step, addressed his men
in a few curt, vigorous words, ordered the drummers to beat their drums,
while marching through the city, to rouse the people at the fair, placed
himself at the head of his trusty little band, and led them towards the
new Rhine.
The moon shone brightly down into the quiet streets, was reflected from
the black surface of the river, and surrounded the tall peaked gables of
the narrow houses with a silvery lustre. The rapid tramp of the soldiers
was echoed loudly back from the houses through the silence of the night,
and the vibration of the air, shaken by the beating of the drums, made
the panes rattle.
This time no merry children with paper flags and wooden swords preceded
the warriors, this time no gay girls and proud mothers followed them,
not even an old man, who remembered former days, when he himself bore
arms. As the silent troops reached the neighborhood of Allertssohn’s
house, the clock in the church-steeple slowly struck twelve, and
directly after the alarm-bell began to sound from the tower of
Pancratius.
A window in the second story of the fencing-toaster’s house was thrown
open, and his wife’s face appeared. An anxious married life with her
strange husband had prematurely aged pretty little Eva’s countenance,
but the mild moonlight transfigured her faded features. The beat of her
husband’s drums was familiar to her, and when she saw him at midnight
marching past to the horrible call of the alarm-bell, a terrible dread
overpowered her and would scarcely allow her to call: “Husband, husband!
What is the matter, Andreas?”
He did not hear, for the roll of the drums, the tramp of the soldiers’
feet on the pavement and the ringing of the alarm-bell drowned her
voice; but he saw her distinctly, and a strange feeling stole over him.
Her face, framed in a white kerchief and illumined by the moonlight,
seemed to him fairer than he had ever seen it since the days of his
wooing, and he felt so youthful and full of chivalrous daring, on his
way to the field of danger, that he drew himself up to his full height
and marched by, keeping most perfect time to the beat of the drums,
as in lover-like fashion he threw her a kiss with his left hand, while
waving his sword in the right.
The beating of drums and waving of banners had banished every gloomy
thought from his mind. So he marched on to the Gansort. There stood a
cart, the home of travelling traders, who had been roused from sleep by
the alarm-bell, and were hastily collecting their goods. An old woman,
amid bitter lamentations, was just harnessing a thin horse to the
shafts, and from a tiny window a child’s wailing voice was heard
calling, “mother, mother,” and then, “father, father.”
The fencing-master heard the cry. The smile faded from his lips, and his
step grew heavier. Then he turned and shouted a loud “Forward” to
his men. Wilhelm was marching close behind him and at a sign from the
captain approached; but Allertssohn, quickening his pace, seized the
musician’s arm, saying in a low tone:
“You’ll take the boy to teach?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Good; you’ll be rewarded for it some day,” replied the fencing-master,
and waving his sword, shouted: “Liberty to Holland, death to the
Spaniard, long live Orange!”
The soldiers joyously joined in the shout, and marched rapidly with him
through the Hohenort Gate into the open country and towards Leyderdorp.