So gentle and touching were the tones of the young man's voice, that the hostess wondered, and could not understand how one so sorely ill-treated could speak thus mildly. For a moment the woman got the better of the trader, and, with something like a tear glistening in her eye, she took up the coin Gerard had given her, and threw it over to him.
"There," she said; "I want not thy money; take it, and go in peace."
The man who had thrown the beer in Gerard's face picked the coin from the floor, looked at it, and threw it upon a table with a gesture of disgust.
"See!" he cried, "there is blood upon it—human blood!"
His companions crowded round the table, and started back in horror, as from a fresh and bleeding corpse. A murmur of loathing and aversion assailed the ears of Gerard, who well knew the charge was false, for he had taken the piece of money in change that very evening, from a woman who let out praying-chairs in the church. The injustice of his foes so irritated him, that his face turned white with passion, as a linen cloth. Pressing his hat more firmly upon his head, he sprang forward to the table, and confronted his enemies with the fierce bold brow of an exasperated lion.
"Scoundrels!" he shouted, "what speak you of blood? See you not that the metal is alloyed, and looks red, like all other coins of the kind? But no, you are blinded by hate, and know not justice. You say I am the hangman's son. 'Tis true,—God so willed it. But yet are ye more despicable than I am; and proud am I to resemble neither in name nor deed such base and heartless men!"
The words were scarcely uttered when from all sides blows and kicks rained upon the imprudent speaker. Manfully did he defend himself, and brought more than one assailant to the ground; but the numbers were too great for his strength. Oaths and abuse resounded through the apartment, tables and benches were upset, jugs and glasses broken; the hostess screamed for help. But the strife and tumult were brief; and Gerard suddenly found himself in the street, stunned and bruised by the blows he had received. Settling his cloak, and smoothing his crushed hat, he went his way, scarce bestowing another thought upon the scuffle; for things far weightier, far more painful and engrossing, crowded upon his excited mind.
CHAP. II—THE LOVERS.
Whilst the above occurred in the beer-house, a fair young girl waited Gerard's coming, her heart beating fast from apprehension that some evil had befallen him. To the headsman's son she was the angel of hope and consolation; she alone loved him,—partly, perhaps, because she knew that the world hated and despised him. Her love had braved her mother's censure, her neighbours' reproaches, her companions' sneers. Nay, more than this,—when they shouted after her, by way of scoff, the office of Gerard's father, or called her the headsman's bride, and the like, she rejoiced and was glad; for then she felt her love was noble and pure, and acceptable in the sight of God. For was she not, in loving Gerard, doing as she would be done by, comforting and supporting him whom all men oppressed and persecuted?
This poor girl, whose name was Lina, lived in a small apartment in the Vlier Street, with her old mother and her brother Franz, a good-hearted, hard-handed fellow, who worked like a slave for five days out of the seven, spent half a day in church, and a day and a half in the beer-house, where he drank and sang to his heart's content, and which he seldom left without a black eye. During the five days allotted to labour, there was not in Antwerp a more clever and indefatigable carpenter; and punctually each Saturday night he brought his mother a round sum from his earnings, wherefore the old woman had him in particular affection.