"Amen!" said Denys, and lifted up his cap.
The pair trudged manfully on, and Denys enlivened the weary way. He chattered about battles and sieges, and things which were new to Gerard; and he was one of those who make little incidents wherever they go. He passed nobody without addressing him. "They don't understand it, but it wakes them up," said he. But, whenever they fell in with a monk or priest, he pulled a long face and sought the reverend father's blessing, and fearlessly poured out on him floods of German words in such order as not to produce a single German sentence. He doffed his cap to every woman, high or low, he caught sight of, and complimented her in his native tongue, well adapted to such matters; and at each carrion crow or magpie down came his crossbow, and he would go a furlong off the road to circumvent it; and indeed he did shoot one old crow with laudable neatness, and carried it to the nearest hen-roost, and there slipped in and sat it upon a nest. "The good-wife will say, 'Alack, here is Beelzebub a hatching of my eggs.'"
But the time came for parting and Denys, with a letter from Gerard to Margaret Brandt, reached Tergon, and found Eli and Catherine and gave them news of their son. "Many a weary league we trode together," said Denys. "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 Tergon 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 we saved one another's lives at an inn in Burgundy, where we two held a room for a good hour against seven cut-throats, and crippled one and slew two; and your son met the stoutest champion I ever countered, and spitted him like a sucking-pig, else I had not been here. And at our 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.'"
Margaret Brandt had removed to Rotterdam, and there was no love lost between her and Catherine; but Gerard's letter drew them to a reconciliation, and from that day Catherine treated Margaret as her own daughter, and made much of Gerard's child when it was born. Eli and his son Richart, now a wealthy merchant, decided that Gerard must be bidden return home on the instant, for they longed to see him, and since he was married to Margaret, it was useless for any further strife on the matter.
But Ghysbrecht, the burgomaster, knew by this time that Gerard had obtained the parchment relating to Peter Brandt's lands, and was anxious that Gerard should not return. Cornelis and Sybrandt were also against their brother, and willing to aid the burgomaster in any diabolical adventure. So a letter was concocted and Margaret Van Eyck's signature forged to it, and in this letter it was said that Margaret Brandt was dead.
In the meantime, Gerard had reached Rome. The ship he sailed in was wrecked off the coast between Naples and Rome, and here Gerard was nearly drowned. He and a Dominican friar clung to a mast when the ship had struck.
It was a terrible situation; one moment they saw nothing, and seemed down in a mere basin of watery hills; the next they caught glimpses of the shore speckled bright with people, who kept throwing up their arms to encourage them.
When they had tumbled along thus a long time, suddenly the friar said quietly: "I touched the ground."
"Impossible, father," said Gerard. "We are more than a hundred yards from shore. Prythee, leave not our faithful mast."
"My son," said the friar, "you speak prudently. But know that I have business of Holy Church on hand, and may not waste time floating, when I can walk in her service. There, I felt it with my toes again! Thy stature is less than mine; keep to the mast; I walk." He left the mast accordingly, and extending his powerful arms, rushed through the water. Gerard soon followed him. At each overpowering wave the monk stood like a tower, and, closing his mouth, threw his head back to encounter it, then emerged and ploughed lustily on. At last they came close to the shore, and then the natives sent stout fishermen into the sea, holding by long spears, and so dragged them ashore.