Georg descended the stairs in a state of bewilderment. Both halves of
the book, in which ever since the wedding at Delft he had written a
succession of verses to Maria, lay in his hand.
The light of the kitchen-fire streamed into the entry. He followed it,
and before answering Barbara’s kind greeting, went to the hearth
and flung into the fire the sheets, which contained the pure, sweet
fragrance of a beautiful flower of youth.
“Oho! Junker!” cried the widow. “A quick fire doesn’t suit every kind of
food. What is burning there?”
“Foolish paper!” he answered. “Have no fear. At the utmost it might weep
and put out the flames. It will be ashes directly. There go the sparks,
flying in regular rows through the black, charred pages. How pretty it
looks! They appear, leap forth and vanish--like a funeral
procession with torches in a pitch-dark night. Good-night, poor
children--good-night, dear songs! Look, Frau Barbara! They are rolling
themselves up tightly, convulsively, as if it hurt them to burn.”
“What sort of talk is that?” replied Barbara, thrusting the charred book
deeper into the fire with the tongs. Then pointing to her own forehead,
she continued: “One often feels anxious about you. High-sounding words,
such as we find in the Psalms, are not meant for every-day life and our
kitchen. If you were my own son, you’d often have something to listen
to. People who travel at a steady pace reach their goal soonest.”
“That’s good advice for a journey,” replied Georg, holding out his hand
to the widow. “Farewell, dear mother. I can’t bear it here any longer.
In half an hour I shall turn my back on this good city.”
“Go then--just as you choose--Or is the young lady taking you in tow?
Nobleman’s son and nobleman’s daughter! Like to like--Yet, no; there
has been nothing between you. Her heart is good, but I should wish you
another wife than that Popish Everyday-different.”
“So Henrica has told you--”
“She has just gone. Dear me-she has her relatives outside; and we--it’s
hard to divide a plum into twelve pieces. I said farewell to her
cheerfully; but you, Georg, you--”
“I shall take her out of the city, and then--you won’t blame me for
it--then I shall make my way through to the Beggars.”
“The Beggars! That’s a different matter, that’s right. You’ll be in your
proper place there! Cheer up, Junker, and go forth boldly? Give me your
hand, and if you meet my boy--he commands a ship of his own.--Dear me, I
remember something. You can wait a moment longer. Come here, Trautchen.
The woollen stockings I knit for him are up in the painted chest. Make
haste and fetch them. He may need them on the water in the damp autumn
weather. You’ll take them with you?”
“Willingly, most willingly; and now let me thank you for all your
kindness. You have been like an own mother to me.” Georg clasped the
widow’s hand, and neither attempted to conceal how dear each had become
to the other and how hard it was to part. Trautchen had given Barbara
the stockings, and many tears fell upon them, while the widow was
bidding the Junker farewell. When she noticed they were actually wet,
she waved them in the air and handed them to the young man.
The night was dark but still, even sultry. The travellers were received
at the Hohenort Gate by Captain Van Duivenvoorde, preceded by an old
sergeant, carrying a lantern, who opened the gate. The captain
embraced his brave, beloved comrade, Dornburg; a few farewell words
and god-speeds echoed softly from the fortification walls, and the trio
stepped forth into the open country.
For a time they walked silently through the darkness. Wilhelm knew the
way and strode in front of Henrica; the Junker kept close at her side.
All was still, except from time to time they heard a word of command
from the walls, the striking of a clock, or the barking of a dog.
Henrica had recognized Georg by the light of the lantern, and when
Wilhelm stopped to ascertain whether there was any water in the ditch
over which he intended to guide his companions, she said, under her
breath:
“I did not expect your escort, Junker.”
“I know it, but I, too, desired to leave the city.”
“And wish to avail yourself of our knowledge of the watchword. Then stay
with us.”
“Until I know you are safe, Fraulein.”
“The walls of Leyden already lie between you and the peril from which
you fly.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“So much the better.”
Wilhelm turned and, in a muffled voice, requested his companions to keep
silence. They now walked noiselessly on, until just outside the camp
they reached the broad road around which they had made a circuit. A
Spanish sentinel challenged them.
“Lepanto!” was the answer, and they passed on through the camp
unmolested. A coach drawn by four horses, a mere box hung between two
tiny fore-wheels and a pair of gigantic hind-wheels, drove slowly past
them. It was conveying Magdalena Moons, the daughter of an aristocratic
Holland family, distinguished among the magistracy, back to the Hague
from a visit to her lover and future husband, Valdez. No one noticed
Henrica, for there were plenty of women in the camp. Several poorly-clad
ones sat before the tents, mending the soldiers’ clothes. Some
gaily-bedizened wenches were drinking wine and throwing dice with their
male companions in front of an officer’s tent. A brighter light glowed
from behind the general’s quarters, where, under a sort of shed, several
confessionals and an altar had been erected. Upon this altar candles
were burning, and over it hung a silver lamp; a dark, motionless stream
pressed towards it; Castilian soldiers, among whom individuals could be
recognized only when the candle-light flashed upon a helmet or coat of
mail.
The loud singing of carousing German mercenaries, the neighing and
stamping of the horses, and the laughter of the officers and girls,
drowned the low chanting of the priests and the murmur of the penitents,
but the shrill sounding of the bell calling to mass from time to time
pierced, with its swift vibrations, through the noise of the camp. Just
outside the village the watch-word was again used, and they reached the
first house unmolested.
“Here we are,” said Wilhelm, with a sigh of relief. “Profit by the
darkness, Junker, and keep on till you have the Spaniards behind you.”
“No, my friend; you will remain here. I wish to share your danger. I
shall return with you to Leyden and from thence try to reach Delft;
meantime I’ll keep watch and give you warning, if necessary.”
“Let us bid each other farewell now, Georg; hours may pass before I
return.”
“I have time, a horrible amount of time. I’ll wait. There goes the
door.”
The Junker grasped his sword, but soon removed his hand from the hilt,
for it was Belotti, who came out and greeted the signorina.
Henrica followed him into the house and there talked with him in a low
tone, until Georg called her, saying:
“Fraulein Van Hoogstraten, may I ask for a word of farewell?”
“Farewell, Herr von Dornburg!” she answered distantly, but advanced a
step towards him.
Georg had also approached, and now held out his hand. She hesitated a
moment, then placed hers in it, and said so softly, that only he could
hear:
“Do you love Maria?”
“So I am to confess?”
“Don’t refuse my last request, as you did the first. If you can be
generous, answer me fearlessly. I’ll not betray your secret to any one.
Do you love Frau Van der Werff?”
“Yes, Fraulein.”
Henrica drew a long breath, then continued: “And now you are rushing out
into the world to forget her?”
“No, Fraulein.”
“Then tell me why you have fled from Leyden?”
“To find an end that becomes a soldier.”
Henrica advanced close to his side, exclaiming so scornfully, that it
cut Georg to the heart:
“So it has grasped you too! It seizes all: Knights, maidens, wives and
widows; not one is spared. Never ending sorrow! Farewell, Georg! We can
laugh at or pity each other, just as we choose. A heart pierced with
seven swords: what an exquisite picture! Let us wear blood-red knots of
ribbon, instead of green and blue ones. Give me your hand once more, now
farewell.”
Henrica beckoned to the musician and both followed Belotti up the steep,
narrow stairs. Wilhelm remained behind in a little room, adjoining a
second one, where a beautiful boy, about three years old, was being
tended by an Italian woman. In a third chamber, which like all the other
rooms in the farm-house, was so low that a tall man could scarcely stand
erect, Henrica’s sister lay on a wide bedstead, over which a screen,
supported by four columns, spread like a canopy. Links dimly lighted
the long narrow room. The reddish-yellow rays of their broad flames were
darkened by the canopy, and scarcely revealed the invalid’s face.
Henrica had given the Italian woman and the child in the second room but
a hasty greeting, and now impetuously pressed forward into the third,
rushed to the bed, threw herself on her knees, clasped her arms
passionately around her sister, and covered her face with owing kisses.
She said nothing but “Anna,” and the sick woman and no other word than
“Henrica.” Minutes elapsed, then the young girl started up, seized one
of the torches and cast its light on her regained sister’s face. How
pale, how emaciated it looked! But it was still beautiful, still
the same as before. Strangely-blended emotions of joy and grief took
possession of Henrica’s soul. Her cold hard feelings grew warm and
melted, and in this hour the comfort of tears, of which she had been so
long deprived, once more became hers.
Gradually the flood tide of emotion began to ebb, and the confusion of
loving exclamations and incoherent words gained some order and separated
into question and answer. When Anna learned that the musician had
accompanied her sister, she wished to see him, and when he entered, held
out both hands, exclaiming:
“Meister, Meister, in what a condition you find me again! Henrica, this
is the best of men; the only unselfish friend I have found on earth.”
The succeeding hours were full of sorrowful agitation.
Belotti and the old Italian woman often undertook to speak for the
invalid, and gradually the image of a basely-destroyed life, that had
been worthy of a better fate, appeared before Henrica and Wilhelm. Fear,
anxiety and torturing doubt had from the first saddened Anna’s existence
with the unprincipled adventurer and gambler, who had succeeded in
beguiling her young, experienced heart. A short period of intoxication
was followed by an unexampled awakening. She was clasping her first
child to her breast, when the unprecedented outrage occurred--Don Luis
demanded that she should move with him into the house of a notorious
Marchesa, in whose ill-famed gambling-rooms he had spent his evenings
and nights for months. She indignantly refused, but he coldly and
threateningly persisted in having his will. Then the Hoogstraten blood
asserted itself, and without a word of farewell she fled with her
child to Lugano. There the boy was received by his mother’s former
waiting-maid, while she herself went to Rome, not as an adventuress, but
with a fixed, praiseworthy object in view. She intended to fully perfect
her musical talents in the new schools of Palestrina and Nanini, and
thus obtain the ability, by means of her art, to support her child
independently of his father and hers. She risked much, but very definite
hopes hovered before her eyes, for a distinguished prelate and lover of
music, to whom she had letters of introduction from Brussels, and who
knew her voice, had promised that after her return from her musical
studies he would give her the place of singing-mistress to a young girl
of noble birth, who had been educated in a convent at Milan. She was
under his guardianship, and the worthy man took care to provide Anna,
before her departure, with letters to his friends in the eternal city.
Her hasty flight from Rome had been caused by the news, that Don Luis
had found and abducted his son. She could not lose her child, and when
she did not find the boy in Milan, followed and at last discovered him
in Naples. There d’Avila restored the child, after she had declared her
willingness to make over to him the income she still received from her
aunt. The long journey, so full of excitement and fatigue, exhausted her
strength, and she returned to Milan feeble and broken in health.
Her patron had been anxious to keep the place of singing-mistress open
for her, but she could only fulfil for a short time the duties to which
the superior of the convent kindly summoned her, for her sickness was
increasing and a terrible cough spoiled her voice. She now returned to
Lugano, and there sought to compensate her poor honest friend by the
sale of her ornaments, but the time soon came when the generous artist
was forced to submit to be supported by the charity of a servant. Until
the last six months she had not suffered actual want, but when her
maid’s husband died, anxiety about the means of procuring daily bread
arose, and now maternal love broke down Anna’s pride: she wrote to her
father as a repentant daughter, bowed down by misfortune, but received
no reply. At last, reduced to starvation with her child, she undertook
the hardest possible task, and besought the man, of whom she could only
think with contempt and loathing, not to let his son grow up like a
beggar’s child. The letter, which contained this cry of distress, had
reached Don Luis just before his death. No help was to come to her from
him. But Belotti appeared, and now she was once more at home, her friend
and sister were standing beside her bed, and Henrica encouraged her to
hope for her father’s forgiveness.
It was past midnight, yet Georg still awaited his friend’s return. The
noise and bustle of the camp began to die away and the lantern, which at
first had but feebly lighted the spacious lower-room of the farmhouse,
burned still more dimly. The German shared this apartment with
agricultural implements, harnesses, and many kinds of grain and
vegetables heaped in piles against the walls, but he lacked inclination
to cast even a glance at his motley surroundings. There was nothing
pleasant to him in the present or future. He felt humiliated, guilty,
weary of life. His self-respect was trampled under foot, love and
happiness were forfeited, there was naught before him save a colorless,
charmless future, full of bitterness and mental anguish. Nothing seemed
desirable save a speedy death. At times the fair image of his home
rose before his memory--but it vanished as soon as he recalled the
burgomaster’s dignified figure, his own miserable weakness and the
repulse he had experienced. He was full of fierce indignation against
himself, and longed with passionate impatience for the clash of swords
and roar of cannon, the savage struggle man to man.
Time passed without his perceiving it, but a torturing desire for food
began to torment the starving man. There were plenty of turnips piled
against the wall, and he eat one after another, until he experienced
the feeling of satiety he had so long lacked. Then he sat down on a
kneading-trough and considered how he could best get to the Beggars. He
did not know his way, but woe betide those who ventured to oppose him.
His arm and sword were good, and there were Spaniards enough at hand
whom he could make feel the weight of both. His impatience began to
rise, and it seemed like a welcome diversion, when he heard steps
approaching and a man’s figure entered the house. He had stationed
himself by the wall with his sword between his folded arms, and now
shouted a loud “halt” to the new-comer.
The latter instantly drew his sword, and when Georg imperiously demanded
what he wanted, replied in a boyish voice, but a proud, resolute tone:
“I ask you that question! I am in my father’s house.”
“Indeed!” replied the German smiling, for he had now recognized the
speaker’s figure by the dim light. “Put up your sword. If you are young
Matanesse Van Wibisma, you have nothing to fear from me.”
“I am. But what are you doing on our premises at night, sword in hand?”
“I’m warming the wall to my own satisfaction, or, if you want to know
the truth, mounting guard.”
“In our house?”
“Yes, Junker. There is some one up-stairs with your cousins, who
wouldn’t like to be surprised by the Spaniards. Go up. I know from
Captain Van Duivenvoorde what a gallant young fellow you are.”
“From Herr von Warmond?” asked Nicolas eagerly. “Tell me! what brings
you here, and who are you?”
“One who is fighting for your liberty, a German, Georg von Dornburg.”
“Oh, wait here, I entreat you. I’ll come back directly. Do you know
whether Fraulein Van Hoogstraten--”
“Up there,” replied Georg, pointing towards the ceiling.
Nicolas sprang up the stairs in two or three bounds, called his cousin,
and hastily told her that her father had had a severe fall from his
horse while hunting, and was lying dangerously ill. When Nicolas spoke
of Anna he had at first burst into a furious passion, but afterwards
voluntarily requested him to tell him about her, and attempted to
leave his bed to accompany him. He succeeded in doing so, but fell back
fainting. When his father came early the next morning, she might tell
him that he, Nicolas, begged his forgiveness; he was about to do what he
believed to be his duty.
He evaded Henrica’s questions, and merely hastily enquired about Anna’s
health and the Leyden citizen, whom Georg had mentioned.
When he heard the name of the musician Wilhelm, he begged her to warn
him to depart in good time, and if possible in his company, then bade
her a hurried farewell and ran down-stairs.
Wilhelm soon followed. Henrica accompanied him to the stairs to see
Georg once more, but as soon as she heard his voice, turned defiantly
away and went back to her sister.
The musician found Junker von Dornburg engaged in an eager conversation
with Nicolas.
“No, no, my boy,” said the German cordially, “my way cannot be yours.”
“I am seventeen years old.”
“That’s not it; you’ve just confronted me bravely, and you have a man’s
strength of will--but life ought still to bear flowers for you, if
such is God’s will--you are going forth to fight sword-in-hand to win
a worthy destiny of peace and prosperity, for yourself and your native
land, in freedom--but I, I--give me your hand and promise--”
“My hand? There it is; but I must refuse the promise. With or without
you--I shall go to the Beggars!”
Georg gazed at the brave boy in delight, and asked gently:
“Is your mother living?”
“No.”
“Then come. We shall probably both find what we seek with the Beggars.”
Nicolas clasped the hand Georg offered, but Wilhelm approached the
Junker, saying:
“I expected this from you, after what I saw at St. Peter’s church and
Quatgelat’s tavern.”
“You first opened my eyes,” replied Nicolas. “Now come, we’ll go
directly through the camp; they all know me.”
In the road the boy pressed close to Georg, and in answer to his remark
that he would be in a hard position towards his father, replied:
“I know it, and it causes me such pain--such pain.--But I can’t help it.
I won’t suffer the word ‘traitor’ to cling to our name.”
“Your cousin Matanesse, Herr von Riviere, is also devoted to the good
cause.”
“But my father thinks differently. He has the courage to expect good
deeds from the Spaniards. From the Spaniards! I’ve learned to know
them during the last few months. A brave lad from Leyden, you knew him
probably by his nickname, Lowing, which he really deserved, was captured
by them in fair fight, and then--it makes me shudder even now when I
think of it--they hung him up head downward, and tortured him to death.
I was present, and not one word of theirs escaped my ears. Such ought
to be the fate of all Holland, country and people, that was what they
wanted. And remarks like these can be heard every day. No abuse of us
is too bad for them, and the King thinks like his soldiers. Let some one
else endure to be the slave of a master, who tortures and despises us!
My holy religion is eternal and indestructible. Even if it is hateful to
many of the Beggars, that shall not trouble me--if only they will help
break the Spanish chains.” Amid such conversation they walked through
the Castilian camp, where all lay buried in sleep. Then they reached
that of the German troops, and here gay carousing was going on under
many a tent. At the end of the encampment a sutler and his wife were
collecting together the wares that remained unsold.
Wilhelm had walked silently behind the other two, for his heart was
deeply stirred, joy and sorrow were striving for the mastery. He felt
intoxicated with lofty, pure emotions, but suddenly checked his
steps before the sutler’s stand and pointed to the pastry gradually
disappearing in a chest.
Hunger had become a serious, nay only too serious and mighty power,
in the city beyond, and it was not at all surprising that Wilhelm
approached the venders, and with sparkling eyes bought their last ham
and as much bread as they had left.
Nicolas laughed at the bundle he carried under his arm, but Georg said:
“You haven’t yet looked want in the face, Junker. This bread is a remedy
for the most terrible disease.” At the Hohenort Gate Georg ordered
Captain von Warmond to be waked, and introduced Nicolas to him as a
future Beggar. The captain congratulated the boy and offered him money
to supply himself in Delft with whatever he needed, and defray his
expenses during the first few weeks; but Nicolas rejected his wealthy
friend’s offer, for a purse filled with gold coins hung at his girdle.
A jeweller in the Hague had given them to him yesterday in payment for
Fraulein Van Hoogstraten’s emerald ring.
Nicolas showed the captain his treasure, and then exclaimed:
“Now forward, Junker von Dornburg, I know where we shall find them; and
you, Captain Van Duivenvoorde, tell the burgomaster and Janus Dousa what
has become of me.”