“No, Excellency. I wanted the life, that heretic’s life. I wanted to baste her while she burned, or to tread her down while she was buried. I have a grudge against the woman because I know, yes, because I know,” she repeated fiercely, “that if I do not kill her she will try to kill me. Her husband and her young son were burnt, upon my evidence mostly, but this is the third time she has escaped me.”
“Patience, mother, patience, and I dare say that everything will come right in the end. You have bagged two of the family—Papa heretic and Young Hopeful. Really you should not grumble if the third takes a little hunting, or wonder that in the meanwhile you are not popular with Mama. Now, listen. You know the young woman whom it was necessary that I should humour yesterday. She is rich, is she not?”
“Yes, I know her, and I knew her father. He left her house, furniture, jewellery, and thirty thousand crowns, which are placed out at good interest. A nice fortune for a gallant who wants money, but it will be Dirk van Goorl’s, not yours.”
“Ah! that is just the point. Now what do you know about Dirk van Goorl?”
“A respectable, hard-working burgher, son of well-to-do parents, brass-workers who live at Alkmaar. Honest, but not very clever; the kind of man who grows rich, becomes a Burgomaster, founds a hospital for the poor, and has a fine monument put up to his memory.”
“Mother, the cold water has dulled your wits. When I ask you about a man I want to learn what you know against him.”
“Naturally, Excellency, naturally, but against this one I can tell you nothing. He has no lovers, he does not gamble, he does not drink except a glass after dinner. He works in his factory all day, goes to bed early, rises early, and calls on the Jufvrouw van Hout on Sundays; that is all.”
“Where does he attend Mass?”
“At the Groote Kerke once a week, but he does not take the Sacrament or go to confession.”
“That sounds bad, mother, very bad. You don’t mean to say that he is a heretic?”