MARIE WORT.
There never was one of my forefathers could read, or knew so much as a
horn-book when he saw it; and therefore I, though a clerk, have a
brain pan that will stand as much as any scholar's and more than many
a simple man's. Otherwise the blow I got that night must have done me
some great mischief, instead of merely throwing me into a swoon, in
which I lay until the morning was well advanced.
When I came to myself with an aching head and a dry mouth, I was hard
put to it for a time to think what had happened to me. The place in
which I lay was dark, with spots of red lights like flaming eyes here
and there. An odour of fire and leather and iron filled my nostrils. A
hoarse soughing as of a winded horse came and went regularly, with a
dull rumbling and creaking that seemed to shake the place. Dizzy as I
was, I rose on my elbow with an effort, and looked round. But my eyes
swam, I could see nothing which enlightened me, and with a groan I
fell back. Then I found that I was lying on a straw-bed, with bandages
round my head, and gradually the events of the night came back to me.
My mind grew clearer. Yet it still failed to tell me where I was, or
whence came the hoarse choking sound, like the sighing of some giant
of the Harz, which I heard.
At last, while I lay wondering and fearing, a door opened and let into
the dark place a flood of ruddy light. Framed in this light a young
girl appeared, standing on the threshold. She held a tray in her hand,
and paused to close the door behind her. The bright glow which shone
round her, gave her a strange unearthly air, picking out gold in her
black locks and warming her pale cheeks; but for all that I recognised
her, and never was I more astonished. She was no other than the
daughter of the Papist Wort--the girl to rescue whom we had gone down
to the Red Hart.
I could not restrain an exclamation of surprise, and the girl started
and stopped, peering into the corner in which I lay.
'Master Martin,' she said in a low tone, 'was that you?'
I had never heard her speak before, and I found, perhaps by reason of
my low state, and a softness which pain induces in the roughest, a
peculiar sweetness in her voice. I would not answer for a moment. I
made her speak again.
'Master Martin,' she said, advancing timidly, 'are you yourself
again?'
'I don't know,' I muttered. In very fact I was so much puzzled that
this was nearly the truth. 'If you will tell me where I am, I may be
able to say,' I added, turning my head with an effort.
'You are in the kitchen behind the locksmith's forge,' she answered
plainly. 'He is a good man, and you are in no danger. The window is
shuttered to keep the light from your eyes.'
'And the noise I hear is the bellows at work?'
'Yes,' she answered, coming near. 'It is almost noon. If you will
drink this broth you will get your strength again.'
I seized the bowl and drank greedily. When I set it down, my eyes
seemed clearer and my mind stronger.
'You escaped?' I said. The more I grew able to think, the more
remarkable it seemed to me that the girl should be here--here in the
same house in which I lay.
'Through the window,' she answered, in a faint voice.
As she spoke she turned from me, and I knew that she was thinking of
her father and would fain hide her face.
'But the bars?' I said.
'I am very small,' she answered in the same low tone.
I do not know why, but perhaps because of the weakness and softness I
have mentioned, I found something very pitiful in the answer. It
stirred a sudden rush of anger in my heart. I pictured this, helpless
girl chased through the streets by the howling pack of cravens we had
encountered, and for a few seconds, bruised and battered as I was, I
felt the fighting spirit again. I half rose, then turned giddy, and
sank back again. It was a minute or more before I could ask another
question. At last I murmured--
'You have not told me how you came here?'
'I was coming up the alley,' she answered, shuddering, 'when at the
corner by this house I met men coming to meet me. I fled into the
passage to escape them, and finding no outlet, and seeing a light
here, I knocked. I thought that some woman might pity me and take me
in.'
'And Peter did?'
'Yes,' she answered simply. 'May Our Lady reward him.'
'We were the men you met,' I said drowsily. 'I remember now. You were
carrying your brother.'
'My brother?'
'Yes, the child.'
'Oh, yes,' she answered, in rather a strange fashion; but I was too
dull to do more than notice it. 'The child of course.'
I could ask no more, for my head was already splitting with pain. I
lay back, and I suppose went off into a swoon again, sleeping all that
day and until the morning of the next was far advanced.
Then I awoke to find the place in which I lay changed from a cave of
mystery to a low-roofed dingy room; the shutter of the window standing
half-open, admitted a ray of sunshine and a breath of pure air. A
small fire burned on the hearth, a black pot bubbled beside it.
For the room itself, a litter of old iron stood in every corner;
bunches of keys and rows of rusty locks--padlocks, fetter-locks, and
door-locks--hung on all the walls. One or two chests, worm-eaten and
rickety, but prized by their present possessor for the antiquity of
their fastenings, stood here and there; with a great open press full
of gun-locks, matchlocks, wheel-locks, spring-locks and the like. Half
a dozen arquebuses and pistols decorated the mantel-piece, giving the
room something of the air of an armoury.
In the midst of all this litter sat old Peter himself, working away,
with a pair of horn glasses on his forehead, at a small lock; which
seemed to be giving him a vast amount of trouble. A dozen times at
least I watched him fit a number of tiny parts together, only to
scatter them again in his leather apron, and begin to pare one or
other of them with a little file. At length he laid the work down, as
if he were tired, and looking up found my eyes fixed upon him.
He nodded cheerfully. 'Good,' he said. 'Now you look yourself, Martin.
No more need of febrifuges. Another night's sleep, and you may go
abroad.'
'What day is it?' I said, striving to collect my thoughts.
'Friday,' he answered, looking at me with his shrewd, pleasant eyes.
He was an old man, over sixty, a widower with two young children, and
clever at his trade. I never knew a better man. 'Wednesday night you
came here,' he continued, showing in his countenance the pleasure it
gave him to see me recovering.
'I must go to the castle,' I exclaimed, rising abruptly and sitting
up. 'Do you hear? I must go.'
'I do not see the necessity,' he answered, looking at me coolly, and
without budging an inch.
'My lady will need me.'
'Not at all,' he answered, in the same quiet tone. 'You may make your
mind easy about that. The Countess is safe and well. She is in the
castle, and the gates are shut.'
'But she has not----' Then I stopped. I was going to say too much.
'She has not half a dozen men with her, you would say,' he replied.
'Well, no. But one is a man, it seems. The young lord has turned a
couple of cannon on the town, and all our valiant scoundrels are
shaking in their shoes.'
'A couple of cannon! But there are no cannon in the castle!'
'You are mistaken,' Peter answered drily. He had a very dry way with
him at times. 'I have seen the muzzles of them, myself, and you can
see them, if you please, from the attic window. One is trained on the
market-place, and one to fire down the High Street. To-morrow morning
our Burgomaster and the Minister are to go up and make their peace.
And I can tell you some of our brisk boys feel the rope already round
their necks.'
'Is this true?' I said, hardly able to believe the tale.
'As true as you please,' he answered. 'If you will take my advice you
will lie quietly here until to-morrow morning, and then go up to the
castle. No one will molest you. The townsfolk will be only too glad to
find you alive, and that they have so much the less to pay for. I
should not wonder if you saved half a dozen necks,' Peter added
regretfully. 'For I hear the Countess is finely mad about you.'
At this mention of my lady's regard my eyes filled so that I had much
ado to hide my feelings. Affecting to find the light too strong I
turned my back on Peter, and then for the first time became aware that
I had a companion in misfortune. On a heap of straw behind me lay
another man, so bandaged about the head that I could see nothing of
his features.
'Hallo!' I exclaimed, raising myself that I might have a better view
of him. 'Who is this?'
'Your man Steve,' Peter said briefly. 'But for him and another, Master
Martin, I do not think that you would be here.'
'You do well to remind me,' I answered, feeling shame that I had not
yet thanked him, or asked how I came to be in safety. 'How was it?'
'Well,' he said, 'it began with the girl. The doings on Wednesday
night were not much to my mind, as you may suppose, and I shut up
early and kept myself close. About seven, when the racket had not yet
risen to its height, there came a knocking at my door. For a while I
took no notice of it, but presently, as it continued, I went to
listen, and heard such a sobbing on the step as the heart of man could
not resist. So I opened and found the Papist girl there with a child.
I do not know,' Peter continued, pushing forward his greasy old cap
and rubbing his head, 'that I should have opened it if I had been sure
who it was. But as the door was open, the girl had to come in.'
'I do not think you will repent it!' I said.
'I don't know that I shall,' he answered thoughtfully. 'However, she
had not been long inside and the bolts shot on us, when there began a
most tremendous skirmish in the lane, which lasted off and on for half
an hour. Then followed a sudden silence. I had given the girl some
food, and told her she might sleep with the children upstairs, and we
were sitting before the fire while she cried a bit--she was all over
of a shake, you understand--when on a sudden she stood up, and
listened.
'"What is it?" I said.
'She did not answer for a while, but still stood listening, looking
now at me and now towards the forge in a queer eager kind of way. I
told her to sit down, but she did not seem to hear, and presently she
cried, "There is some one there!"
'"Well," said I, "they will stop there then. I don't open that door
again to-night."
'She looked at me pitifully, but sat down for all the world as if I
had struck her. Not for long, however. In a minute she was up again,
and began to go to and fro between the kitchen and the forge door like
nothing else but a cat looking for her kittens. "Sit down, wench," I
said. But this time she took no heed, and at last the sight of her
going up and down like a dumb creature in pain was too much for me,
and I got up and undid the door. She was out in a minute, seeming not
a bit afraid for herself, and sure enough, there were you and Steve
lying one on the top of the other on the step, and so still that I
thought you gone. Heaven only knows how she heard you.'
'Peter,' I said abruptly, 'have you any water handy?'
'To be sure,' he replied, starting up. 'Are you thirsty?'
I nodded, and he went to get it, blaming himself for his
thoughtlessness. He need not have reproached himself, however. I was
not thirsty; but I could not bear that he should sit and look at me at
that moment. The story he had told had touched me--and I was still
weak; and I could not answer for it, I should not burst into tears
like a woman. The thought of this girl's persistence, who in
everything else was so weak, of her boldness who in her own defence
was a hare, of her strange instinct on our behalf who seemed made only
to be herself protected--the thought of these things touched me to the
heart and filled me with an odd mixture of pity and gratitude! I had
gone to save her, and she had saved me! I had gone to shield her from
harm, and heaven had led me to her door, not in strength but in
weakness. She had fled from me who came to help her; that when I
needed help, she might be at hand to give it!
'Where is she?' I muttered, when he came back and I had drunk.
'Who? Marie?' he asked.
'Yes, if that is her name,' I said, drinking again.
'She is lying down upstairs,' he answered. 'She is worn out, poor
child. Not that in one sense, Master Martin,' he continued, dropping
his voice and nodding with a mysterious air, 'she _is_ poor. Though
you might think it.'
'How do you mean?' I said, raising my head and meeting his eyes. He
nodded.
'It is between ourselves,' he said; 'but I am afraid there is a good
deal in what our rascals here say. I am afraid, to be plain, Master
Martin, that the father was like all his kind: plundered many an
honest citizen, and roasted many a poor farmer before his own fire. It
is the way of soldiers in that army; and God help the country they
march in, be it friend's or foe's!'
'Well?' I said impatiently; 'but what of that now?' The mention of
these things fretted me. I wanted to hear nothing about the father.
'The man is dead,' I said.
'Ay, he is,' Peter answered slowly and impressively. 'But the
daughter? She has got a necklace round her neck now, worth--worth I
dare say two hundred men at arms.'
'What, ducats?'
'Ay, ducats! Gold ducats. It is worth all that.'
'How do you know?' I said, staring at him. 'I have never seen such a
thing on her. And I have seen the girl two or three times.'
'Well, I will tell you,' he answered, glancing first at the window and
then at Steve to be sure that we were not overheard. 'I'll tell you.
When we had carried you into the house the other night she took off
her kerchief, to tear a piece from it to bind up your head. That
uncovered the necklace. She was quick to cover it up, when she
remembered herself, but not quick enough.'
'Is it of gold?' I asked.
He nodded. 'Fifteen or sixteen links I should say, and each as big as
a small walnut. Carved and shaped like a walnut too.'
'It may be silver-gilt.'
He laughed. 'I am a smith, though only a locksmith,' he said. 'Trust
me for knowing gold. I doubt it came from Magdeburg; I doubt it did.
Magdeburg, or Halle, which my Lord Tilly ravaged about that time. And
if so there is blood upon it. It will bring the girl no luck, depend
upon it.'
'If we talk about it, I'll be sworn it will not!' I answered savagely.
'There are plenty here who would twist her neck for so much as a link
of it.'
'You are right, Master Martin,' he answered meekly. 'Perhaps I should
not have mentioned it; but I know that you are safe. And after all the
girl has done nothing.'
That was true, but it did not content me. I wished he had not seen
what he had, or that he had not told me the tale. A minute before I
had been able to think of the girl with pure satisfaction; to picture
with a pleasant warmth about my heart her gentleness, her courage, her
dark mild beauty that belonged as much to childhood as womanhood, the
thought for others that made her flight a perpetual saving. But this
spoiled all. The mere possession of this necklace, much more the use
of it, seemed to sully her in my eyes, to taint her freshness, to
steal the perfume from her youth.
[Illustration: ... she came presently to me with a bowl of broth in
her hands and a timid smile on her lips....]
For I am peasant born, of those on whom the free-companions have
battened from the beginning; and spoil won in such a way seemed to me
to be accursed. Whether I would or no, horrid tales of the storming of
Magdeburg came into my mind: tales of streets awash with blood, of
churches blocked with slain, of women lying dead with living babes in
their arms. And I shuddered. I felt the necklace a blot on all. I
shrank from one, who, with the face of a saint, wore under her
kerchief gold dyed in such a fashion!
That was while I lay alone, tossing from side to side, and troubling
myself unreasonably about the matter; since the girl was nothing to
me, and a Papist. But when she came presently to me with a bowl of
broth in her hands and a timid smile on her lips--a smile which gave
the lie to the sadness of her eyes and the red rims that surrounded
them--I forgot all, necklace and creed. I took the bowl silently, as
she gave it. I gave it back with only one 'Thank you,' which sounded
hoarse and rustic in my ears; but I suppose my eyes were more
eloquent, for she blushed and trembled. And in the evening she did not
come. Instead one of the children brought my supper, and sitting down
on the straw beside me, twittered of Marie and 'Go' and other things.
'Who is Go?' I said.
'Go is Marie's brother,' the child answered, open-eyed at my
ignorance. 'You not know Go?'
'It is a strange name,' I said, striving to excuse myself.
'_He_ is a strange man,' the little one retorted, pointing to Steve.
'He does not speak. Now you speak. Marie says--'
'What does Marie say?' I asked.
'Marie says you saved his life.'
'Well, you can tell her it was the other way,' I exclaimed roughly.
Twice that night when I awoke I heard a light footstep, and turned to
see the girl, moving to and fro among the rusty locks and ancient
chests in attendance on Steve. He mended but slowly. She did not come
near me at these times, and after a glance I pretended to fall asleep
that I might listen unnoticed to her movements, and she be more free
to do her will. But whenever I heard her and opened my eyes to see her
slender figure moving in that dingy place, I felt the warmth about my
heart again. I forgot the gold necklace; I thought no more of the
rosary, only of the girl. For what is there which so well becomes a
woman as tending the sick; an office which in a lover's eyes should
set off his mistress beyond velvet and Flanders lace.