Peter spoke so eagerly and confidently, that for a moment Margaret felt hopeful; but she caught Martin's eye dwelling upon him with an expression of benevolent contempt.
“It passes the powers of man's invention,” said she, with a deep sigh.
“Invention!” cried the old man. “A fig for invention. What need we invention at this time of day? Everything has been said that is to be said, and done that ever will be done. I shall tell you how a Florentine knight was shut up in a tower higher than Gerard's; yet did his faithful squire stand at the tower foot and get him out, with no other engine than that in your hand, Martin, and certain kickshaws I shall buy for a crown.”
Martin looked at his bow, and turned it round in his hand, and seemed to interrogate it. But the examination left him as incredulous as before.
Then Peter told them his story, how the faithful squire got the knight out of a high tower at Brescia. The manoeuvre, like most things that are really scientific, was so simple, that now their wonder was they had taken for impossible what was not even difficult.
The letter never went to Rotterdam. They trusted to Peter's learning and their own dexterity.
It was nine o'clock on a clear moonlight night; Gerard, senior, was still away; the rest of his little family had been some time abed.
A figure stood by the dwarf's bed. It was white, and the moonlight shone on it.
With an unearthly noise, between a yell and a snarl, the gymnast rolled off his bed and under it by a single unbroken movement. A soft voice followed him in his retreat.
“Why, Giles, are you afeard of me?”