LYSBETH by H. RIDER HAGGARD (best book club books for discussion txt) 📕

So Lysbeth yielded, for the great peace of this lake pleased her. Oh! after all that she had gone through it was like heaven to watch the sun sinking towards the quiet water, to hear the wild-fowl call, to see the fish leap and the halcyons flash by, and above all to be sure that by nothing short of a miracle could this divine silence, broken only by Nature's voices, be defiled with the sound of the hated accents of the man who had ruined and betrayed her. Yes, she was weary, and a strange unaccustomed langour crept over her; she would rest there this night also.

So they went back to the hut, and made ready their evening meal, and as she fried the fish over the fire of peats, verily Lysbeth found herself laughing like a girl again. Then they ate it with appetite, and after it was done, Mother Martha prayed aloud; yes, and without fear, although she knew Lysbeth to be a Catholic, read from her one treasure, a Testament, crouching there in the light of the fire and saying:

"See, lady, what a place this is for a heretic to hide in. Where else may a woman read from the Bible and fear no spy or priest?" Remembering a certain story, Lysbeth shivered at her words.

"Now," said the Mare, when she had finished reading, "tell me before you sleep, what it was that brought you into the waters of the Haarlemer Meer, and what that Spanish man has done to you. Do not be afraid, for though I am mad, or so they say, I can keep counsel, and between you and me are many bonds, Carolus van Hout's daughter, some of which you know and see, and some that you can neither know nor see, but which God will weave in His own season."

Lysbeth looked at the weird countenance, distorted and made unhuman by long torment of body and mind, and found in it something to trust; yes, even signs of that sympathy which she so sorely needed. So she told her all the tale from the first word of it to the last.

The Mare listened in silence, for no story of evil perpetrated by a Spaniard seemed to move or astonish her, only when Lysbeth had done, she said:

"Ah! child, had you but known of me, and where to find me, you should have asked my aid."

"Why, mother, what could you have done?" answered Lysbeth.

"Done? I would have followed him by night until I found my chance in some lonely place, and there I would have----" Then she stretched out her bony hand to the red light of the fire, and Lysbeth saw that in it was a knife.

She sank back aghast.

"Why are you frightened, my pretty lady?" asked the Mare. "I tell you that I live on for only one thing--to kill Spaniards, yes, priests first and then the others. Oh! I have a long count to pay; for every time that he was tortured a life, for every groan he uttered at the stake a life; yes, so many for the father and half as many for the son. Well, I shall live to be old, I know that I shall live to be old, and the count will be discharged, ay, to the last stiver."

As she spoke, the outlawed Water Wife had risen, and the flare of the fire struck full upon her. It was an awful face that Lysbeth beheld by the light of it, full of fierceness and energy, the face of an inspired avenger, dread and unnatural, yet not altogether repulsive. Indeed, that countenance was such as an imaginative artist might give to one of the beasts in the Book of Revelation. Amazed and terrified, Lysbeth said nothing.

"I frighten you, gentle one," went on the Mare, "you who, although you have suffered, are still full of the milk of human kindness. Wait, woman, wait till they have murdered the man you love, till your heart is like my heart, and you also live on, not for love's sake, not for life's sake, but to be a Sword, a Sword, a Sword in the hand of God!"

"Cease, I pray you," said Lysbeth in a low voice; "I am faint, I am ill."

Ill she was indeed, and before morning there, in that lonely hovel on the island of the mere, a son was born to her.

When she was strong enough her nurse spoke:

"Will you keep the brat, or shall I kill it?" she asked.

"How can I kill my child?" said Lysbeth.

"It is the Spaniard's child also, and remember the curse you told me of, your own curse uttered on this thing before ever you were married? If it lives that curse shall cling to it, and through it you, too, shall be accursed. Best let me kill it and have done."

"How can I kill my own child? Touch it not," answered Lysbeth sullenly.

So the black-eyed boy lived and throve.

Somewhat slowly, lying there in the island hut, Lysbeth won back her strength. The Mare, or Mother Martha, as Lysbeth had now learned to call her, tended her as few midwives would have done. Food, too, she had in plenty, for Martha snared the fowl and caught the fish, or she made visits to the mainland, and thence brought eggs and milk and flesh, which, so she said, the boors of that country gave her as much as she wanted of them. Also, to while away the hours, she would read to her out of the Testament, and from that reading Lysbeth learnt many things which until then she had not known. Indeed, before it was done with--Catholic though she was--she began to wonder in what lay the wickedness of these heretics, and how it came about that they were worthy of death and torment, since, sooth to say, in this Book she could find no law to which their lives and doctrine seemed to give offence.

Thus it happened that Martha, the fierce, half-crazy water-dweller, sowed the seed in Lysbeth's heart that was to bear fruit in due season.

When three weeks had gone by and Lysbeth was on her feet again, though as yet scarcely strong enough to travel, Martha told her that she had business which would keep her from home a night, but what the business was she refused to say. Accordingly on a certain afternoon, having left good store of all things to Lysbeth's hand, the Mare departed in her skiff, nor did she return till after midday on the morrow. Now Lysbeth talked of leaving the island, but Martha would not suffer it, saying that if she desired to go she must swim, and indeed when Lysbeth went to look she found that the boat had been hidden elsewhere. So, nothing loth, she stayed on, and in the crisp autumn air her health and beauty came back to her, till she was once more much as she had been before the day when she went sledging with Juan de Montalvo.

On a November morning, leaving her infant in the hut with Martha, who had sworn to her on the Bible that she would not harm it, Lysbeth walked to the extremity of the island. During the night the first sharp frost of late autumn had fallen, making a thin film of ice upon the surface of the lake, which melted rapidly as the sun grew high. The air too was very clear and calm, and among the reeds, now turning golden at their tips, the finches flew and chirped, forgetful that winter was at hand. So sweet and peaceful was the scene that Lysbeth, also forgetful of many things, surveyed it with a kind of rapture. She knew not why, but her heart was happy that morning; it was as though a dark cloud had passed from her life; as though the blue skies of peace and joy were spread about her. Doubtless other clouds might appear upon the horizon; doubtless in their season they would appear, but she felt that this horizon was as yet a long way off, and meanwhile above her bent the tender sky, serene and sweet and happy.

Upon the crisp grass behind her suddenly she heard a footfall, a new footfall, not that of the long, stealthy stride of Martha, who was called the Mare, and swung round upon her heel to meet it.

Oh, God! Who was this? Oh, God! there before her stood Dirk van Goorl. Dirk, and no other than Dirk, unless she dreamed, Dirk with his kind face wreathed in a happy smile, Dirk with his arms outstretched towards her. Lysbeth said nothing, she could not speak, only she stood still gazing, gazing, gazing, and always he came on, till now his arms were round her. Then she sprang back.

"Do not touch me," she cried, "remember what I am and why I stay here."

"I know well what you are, Lysbeth," he answered slowly; "you are the holiest and purest woman who ever walked this earth; you are an angel upon this earth; you are the woman who gave her honour to save the man she loved. Oh! be silent, be silent, I have heard the story; I know it every word, and here I kneel before you, and, next to my God, I worship you, Lysbeth, I worship you."

"But the child," she murmured, "it lives, and it is mine and the man's."

Dirk's face hardened a little, but he only answered:

"We must bear our burdens; you have borne yours, I must bear mine," and he seized her hands and kissed them, yes, and the hem of her garment and kissed it also.

So these two plighted their troth.

Afterwards Lysbeth heard all the story. Montalvo had been put upon his trial, and, as it chanced, things went hard with him. Among his judges one was a great Netherlander lord, who desired to uphold the rights of his countrymen; one was a high ecclesiastic, who was furious because of the fraud that had been played upon the Church, which had been trapped into celebrating a bigamous marriage; and a third was a Spanish grandee, who, as it happened, knew the family of the first wife who had been deserted.

Therefore, for the luckless Montalvo, when the case had been proved to the hilt against him by the evidence of the priest who brought the letter, of the wife's letters, and of the truculent Black Meg, who now found an opportunity of paying back "hot water for cold," there was little mercy. His character was bad, and it was said, moreover, that because of his cruelties and the shame she had suffered at his hands, Lysbeth van Hout had committed suicide. At least, this was certain, that she was seen running at night towards the Haarlemer Meer, and that after this, search as her friends would, nothing more could be heard of her.

So, that an example might be made, although he writhed and fenced his best, the noble captain, Count Juan de Montalvo, was sent to serve for fourteen years in the galleys as a common slave. And there, for the while, was an end of him.

There also was an end of the strange and tragic courtship of Dirk van Goorl and Lysbeth van Hout.

Six months afterwards they were married, and by Dirk's wish took the child, who was christened Adrian, to live with them. A few months later Lysbeth entered the community of the New Religion, and less than two years after her marriage a son was born to her, the hero of this story, who was named Foy.

As it happened, she bore no other children.

BOOK THE SECOND

THE RIPENING