"Welcome, welcome, my fair nephew!" cried Martin Fruse, who looked upon Albert with no small pride and deference. "Sirs, here is my nephew Albert, come, at a lucky hour, to give us his good counsel and assistance in the strange and momentous circumstances in which we are placed."
"Welcome, most welcome, good Master Maurice!" cried a number of voices at once. "Welcome, most welcome!" and the young traveller, instantly surrounded by his fellow-citizens, was eagerly congratulated on his return, which had apparently been delayed longer than they had expected or had wished. At the same time, the often repeated words, "Perilous times, extraordinary circumstances, dangers to the state, anxious expectations," and a number of similar expressions, showed him that the opinion he had formed, from the appearance of the town as he passed through the streets, was perfectly correct, and that some events of general and deep importance had taken place.
"I see," he said, in reply, after having answered their first salutations, "I see that something must have occurred with which I am unacquainted. Remember, my good friends, that I have been absent from the city for some weeks; and, for the last four or five days, I have been in places where I was not likely to hear any public tidings."
"What!" cried one, "have you not heard the news? that the duke has been beaten near the lake of Neufchatel, and all the forces with which he was besieging Morat, have been killed or taken?"
"How!" exclaimed another, "have you not heard that the Duke of Lorrain is advancing towards Flanders with all speed?"
"Some say he will be at Ghent in a week," cried a third.
"But the worst news of all," said a fourth, in a solemn and mysterious tone, "is, that a squire, who arrived at the palace last night, saw the duke stricken from his horse by a Swiss giant with a two-handed sword; and, according to all accounts, he never rose again."
"Good God! is it possible?" exclaimed Albert Maurice, as all these baleful tidings poured in at once upon his ear, with a rapidity which afforded him scarcely an opportunity of estimating the truth of each as he received it, and left him no other feeling for the time than pain at the ocean of misfortunes which had overwhelmed his country, though he looked upon the prince, who had immediately suffered, as a brutal despot; and upon the nobles, who in general bore the brunt of battle or defeat, as a number of petty tyrants more insupportable than one great one. "Good God! is it possible?" he exclaimed: "but are you sure, my friends," he continued, after a moment's pause, "that all this news is true? Rumour is apt to exaggerate, and increases evil tidings tenfold, where she only doubles good news? Are these reports quite sure?"
"Oh! they are beyond all doubt," replied one of the merchants, with a slight curl of the lip. "The Lord of Imbercourt, who was on his march to join the army, when he was found by couriers bearing these evil tidings, returned with his spears in all haste to Ghent, in order to guard against any disturbance, as he said, and to keep the rebellious commons under the rule of law."
The man who spoke thus, was a small, dark, insignificant looking person, whose figure would not have attracted a moment's attention, and whose face might have equally passed without notice, had not the keen sparkling light of two clear black eyes, which seemed to wander constantly about in search of other people's thoughts, given at least some warning that there was a subtle, active, and intriguing soul concealed within that diminutive and unprepossessing form. His name was Ganay: by profession he was a druggist, and the chief, in that city, of a trade, which differed considerably from that of the druggist of the present day. It was, indeed, one of no small importance in a great manufacturing town like Ghent, where all the different fabrics required, more or less, some of those ingredients which he imported from foreign countries.