CHAPTER XLVIII
"WHAT makes you here?" was Catherine's greeting.
"I came to seek after Margaret."
"Well, we know no such person."
"Say not so, dame; sure you know her by name, Margaret Brandt."
"We have heard of her for that matter—to our cost."
"Come, dame, prithee tell me at least where she bides."
"I know not where she bides, and care not."
Denys felt sure this was a deliberate untruth. He bit his lip. "Well, I looked to find myself in an enemy's country at this Tergou; but maybe if ye knew all ye would not be so dour."
"I do know all," replied Catherine bitterly. "This morn I knew nought." Then suddenly setting her arms akimbo she told him with a raised voice and flashing eyes she wondered at his cheek sitting down by that hearth of all hearths in the world.
"May Satan fly away with your hearth to the lake of fire and brimstone," shouted Denys, who could speak Flemish fluently. "Your own servant bade me sit there till you came, else I had ne'er troubled your hearth. My malison on it, and on the churlish roof-tree that greets an unoffending stranger this way," and he strode scowling to the door.
"Oh! oh!" ejaculated Catherine frightened, and also a little conscience-stricken; and the virago sat suddenly down and burst into tears. Her daughter followed suit quietly, but without loss of time.
A shrewd writer, now unhappily lost to us, has somewhere the following dialogue:—
She.] "I feel all a woman's weakness."
He.] "Then you are invincible."
Denys, by anticipation, confirmed that valuable statement; he stood at the door looking ruefully at the havoc his thunderbolt of eloquence had made.
"Nay, wife," said he, "weep not neither for a soldier's hasty word. I mean not all I said. Why your house is your own, and what right in it have I? There now, I'll go."
"What is to do?" said a grave manly voice. It was Eli; he had come in from the shop.
"Here is a ruffian been a-scolding of your womenfolk and making them cry," explained Denys.
"Little Kate, what is't? for ruffians do not use to call themselves ruffians," said Eli the sensible.
Ere she could explain, "Hold your tongue, girl," said Catherine; "Muriel bade him sat down, and I knew not that, and wyted on him; and he was going and leaving his malison on us, root and branch. I was never so becursed in all my days, oh! oh! oh!"
"You were both somewhat to blame; both you and he," said Eli calmly. "However, what the servant says the master should still stand to. We keep not open house, but yet we are not poor enough to grudge a seat at our hearth in a cold day to a wayfarer with an honest face, and as, I think, a wounded man. So, end all malice, and sit ye down!"
"Wounded?" cried mother and daughter in a breath.
"Think you a soldier slings his arm for sport?"
"Nay, 'tis but an arrow," said Denys cheerfully.
"But an arrow?" said Kate with concentrated horror. "Where were our eyes, mother?"
"Nay, in good sooth, a trifle. Which however I will pray mesdames to accept as an excuse for my vivacity. 'Tis these little foolish trifling wounds that fret a man, worthy sir. Why, look ye now, sweeter temper than our Gerard never breathed, yet, when the bear did but strike a piece no bigger than a crown out of his calf, he turned so hot and choleric y'had said he was no son of yours, but got by the good knight Sir John Pepper on his wife dame Mustard; who is this? a dwarf? your servant, master Giles."
"Your servant, soldier," roared the new-comer. Denys started. He had not counted on exchanging greetings with a petard.
Denys's words had surprised his hosts, but hardly more than their deportment now did him. They all three came creeping up to where he sat, and looked down into him with their lips parted, as if he had been some strange phenomenon.
And growing agitation succeeded to amazement.
"Now hush!" said Eli, "let none speak but I. Young man," said he solemnly, "in God's name who are you, that know us though we know you not, and that shake our hearts speaking to us of—the absent—our poor rebellious son: whom Heaven forgive and bless?"
"What, master," said Denys lowering his voice, "hath he not writ to you? hath he not told you of me, Denys of Burgundy?"
"He hath writ, but three lines, and named not Denys of Burgundy, nor any stranger."
"Ay, I mind the long letter was to his sweetheart, this Margaret, and she has decamped, plague take her, and how I am to find her Heaven knows."
"What, she is not your sweetheart, then?"
"Who, dame? an't please you."
"Why, Margaret Brandt."
"How can my comrade's sweetheart be mine? I know her not from Noah's niece; how should I? I never saw her."
"Whist with this idle chat, Kate," said Eli impatiently, "and let the young man answer me. How came you to know Gerard, our son? Prithee now think on a parent's cares, and answer me straightforward, like a soldier as thou art."
"And shall. I was paid off at Flushing, and started for Burgundy. On the German frontier I lay at the same inn with Gerard. I fancied him. I said 'Be my comrade.' He was loth at first: consented presently. Many a weary league we trode together. Never were truer comrades: never will be while earth shall last. First I left my route a bit to be with him: then he his to be with me. We talked of Sevenbergen, and Tergou, a thousand times; and of all in this house. We had our troubles on the road: but battling them together made them light. I saved his life from a bear; he mine in the Rhine: for he swims like a duck and I like a hod o' bricks; and one another's lives at an inn in Burgundy, where we two held a room for a good hour against seven cutthroats, and crippled one and slew two; and your son did his devoir like a man, and met the stoutest champion I ever countered, and spitted him like a sucking-pig. Else I had not been here. But just, when all was fair, and I was to see him safe aboard ship for Rome, if not to Rome itself, met us that son of a —— the Lord Anthony of Burgundy, and his men, making for Flanders, then in insurrection, tore us by force apart, took me where I got some broad pieces in hand, and a broad arrow in my shoulder, and left my poor Gerard lonesome. At that sad parting, soldier though I be, these eyes did rain salt scalding tears, and so did his, poor soul. His last word to me was 'Go comfort Margaret!' so here I be. Mine to him was 'Think no more of Rome. Make for Rhine, and down stream home.' Now say, for you know best, did I advise him well or ill?"
"Soldier, take my hand," said Eli. "God bless thee! God bless thee!" and his lip quivered. It was all his reply, but more eloquent than many words.
Catherine did not answer at all, but she darted from the room and bade Muriel bring the best that was in the house, and returned with wood in both arms, and heaped the fire, and took out a snow-white cloth from the press, and was going in a great hurry to lay it for Gerard's friend, when suddenly she sat down and all the power ebbed rapidly out of her body.
"Father!" cried Kate, whose eye was as quick as her affection. Denys started up; but Eli waived him back and flung a little water sharply in his wife's face. This did her instant good. She gasped, "So sudden. My poor boy!" Eli whispered Denys, "Take no notice! she thinks of him night and day." They pretended not to observe her, and she shook it off, and bustled and laid the cloth with her own hands; but, as she smoothed it, her hands trembled and a tear or two stole down her cheeks.
They could not make enough of Denys. They stuffed him, and crammed him: and then gathered round him and kept filling his glass in turn, while by that genial blaze of fire and ruby wine and eager eyes he told all that I have related, and a vast number of minor details which an artist, however minute, omits.
But how different the effect on my readers and on this small circle! To them the interest was already made before the first word came from his lips. It was all about Gerard, and he, who sat there telling it them, was warm from Gerard and an actor with him in all these scenes.
The flesh and blood around that fire quivered for their severed member, hearing its struggles and perils.
I shall ask my readers to recall to memory all they can of Gerard's journey with Denys, and in their mind's eye to see those very matters told by his comrade to an exile's father, all stoic outside, all father within, and to two poor women, an exile's mother and a sister, who were all love and pity and tender anxiety both outside and in. Now would you mind closing this book for a minute and making an effort to realize all this? It will save us so much repetition.
Then you will not be surprised when I tell you that after a while Giles came softly and curled himself up before the fire, and lay gazing at the speaker with a reverence almost canine; and that, when the rough soldier had unconsciously but thoroughly betrayed his better qualities, and above all his rare affection for Gerard, Kate, though timorous as a bird, stole her little hand into the warrior's huge brown palm, where it lay an instant like a teaspoonful of cream spilt on a platter, then nipped the ball of his thumb and served for a Kardiometer. In other words Fate is just even to rival story-tellers, and balances matters. Denys had to pay a tax to his audience which I have not. Whenever Gerard was in too much danger, the female faces became so white, and their poor little throats gurgled so, he was obliged in common humanity to spoil his recital. Suspense is the soul of narrative, and thus dealt Rough-and-Tender of Burgundy with his best suspenses. "Now, dame, take not on till ye hear the end: Ma'amselle, let not your cheek blanch so, courage! it looks ugly: but you shall hear how we wond through. Had he miscarried, and I at hand, would I be alive?"
And I called Kate's little hand a Kardiometer, or heart-measurer, because it graduated emotion, and pinched by scale. At its best it was by no means a high-pressure engine. But all is relative. Denys soon learned the tender gamut; and when to water the suspense, and extract the thrill as far as possible. On one occasion only he cannily indemnified his narrative for this drawback. Falling personally into the Rhine, and sinking, he got pinched, he Denys, to his surprise and satisfaction. "Oho!" thought he, and on the principle of the anatomists, "experimentum in corpore vili," kept himself a quarter of an hour under water; under pressure all the time. And even when Gerard had got hold of him, he was loth to leave the river, so, less conscientious than I was, swam with Gerard to the east bank first, and was about to land, but detected the officers, and their intent, chaffed them a little space, treading water, then turned and swam wearily all across, and at last was obliged to get out, for very shame, or else acknowledge himself a pike; so permitted himself to land, exhausted: and the pressure relaxed.
It was eleven o'clock, an unheard-of hour, but they took no note of time this night; and Denys had still much to tell them, when the door was opened quietly, and in stole Cornelis and Sybrandt looking hang-dog. They had this night been drinking the very last drop of their mysterious funds.
Catherine feared her husband would rebuke them before Denys: but he only looked sadly at them, and motioned them to sit down quietly.
Denys it was who seemed discomposed. He knitted his brows and eyed them thoughtfully and rather gloomily. Then turned to Catherine. "What say you, dame? the rest tomorrow? for I am somewhat weary and it waxes late."
"So be it," said Eli. But when Denys rose to go to his inn, he was instantly stopped by Catherine.
"And think you to lie from this house? Gerard's room has been got ready for you hours agone: the sheets I'll not say much for, seeing I spun the flax and wove the web."
"Then would I lie in them blindfold," was the gallant reply.
"Ah, dame, our poor Gerard was the one for fine linen. He could hardly forgive the honest Germans their coarse flax, and, whene'er my traitors of countrymen did amiss, a would excuse them saying, 'Well, well; bonnes toiles sont en Bourgogne:' that means 'there be good lenten cloths in Burgundy.' But indeed he beat all for bywords and cleanliness."
"Oh Eli! Eli! doth not our son come back to us at each word?"
"Ay. Buss me, my poor Kate. You and I know all that passeth in each other's hearts this night. None other can, but God."