“Don’t you, don’t you? How should you; but I’ll explain. When you’re as old as I am, young man, you’ll experience it too. There are few perfectly sound trees in the forest, few horses without a blemish, few swords without a stain, and scarcely a man who has passed his fortieth year that has not a worm in his breast. Some gnaw slightly, others torture with sharp fangs, and mine—mine.—Do you want to cast a glance in here?”
The fencing-master struck his broad chest as he uttered these words and, without waiting for his companion’s reply, continued:
“You know me and my life, Herr Wilhelm. What do I do, what do I practise? Only chivalrous work.
“My life is based upon the sword. Do you know a better blade or surer hand than mine? Do my soldiers obey me? Have I spared my blood in fighting before the red walls and towers yonder? No, by my fore man Roland, no, no, a thousand times no.”
“Who denies it, Meister Allerts? But tell me, what do you mean by your cry: Roland, my fore man?”
“Another time, Wilhelm; you mustn’t interrupt me now. Hear my story about where the worm hides in me. So once more: What I do, the calling I follow, is knightly work, yet when a Wibisma, who learned how to use his sword from my father, treats me ill and stirs up my bile, if I should presume to challenge him, as would be my just right, what would he do? Laugh and ask: ‘What will the passado cost, Fencing-master Allerts? Have you polished rapiers?’ Perhaps he wouldn’t even answer at all, and we saw just now how he acts. His glance slipped past me like an eel, and he had wax in his ears. Whether I reproach, or a cur yelps at him, is all the same to his lordship. If only a Renneberg or Brederode had been in my place just now, how quickly Wibisma’s sword would have flown from its sheath, for he understands how to fight and is no coward. But I—I? Nobody would willingly allow himself to be struck in the face, yet so surely as my father was a brave man, even the worst insult could be more easily borne, than the feeling of being held in too slight esteem to be able to offer an affront. You see, Wilhelm, when the Glipper looked past me—”
“Your beard lost its calmness.”
“It’s all very well for you to jest, you don’t know—”
“Yes, yes, Herr Allerts; I understand you perfectly.”
“And do you also understand, why I took myself and my sword out of doors so quickly?”