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

Many years had gone by since Lysbeth found her love again upon the island in the Haarlemer Meer. The son that she bore there was now a grown man, as was her second son, Foy, and her own hair showed grey beneath the lappets of her cap.

Fast, fast wove the loom of God during those fateful years, and the web thereof was the story of a people's agony and its woof was dyed red with their blood. Edict had followed edict, crime had been heaped upon crime. Alva, like some inhuman and incarnate vengeance, had marched his army, quiet and harmless as is the tiger when he stalks his prey, across the fields of France. Now he was at Brussels, and already the heads of the Counts Egmont and Hoorn had fallen; already the Blood Council was established and at its work. In the Low Countries law had ceased to exist, and there anything might happen however monstrous or inhuman. Indeed, with one decree of the Holy Office, confirmed by a proclamation of Philip of Spain, all the inhabitants of the Netherlands, three millions of them, had been condemned to death. Men's minds were full of terror, for on every side were burnings and hangings and torturings. Without were fightings, within were fears, and none knew whom they could trust, since the friend of to-day might be the informer or judge of to-morrow. All this because they chose to worship God in their own fashion unaided by images and priests.

Although so long a time had passed, as it chanced those personages with whom we have already made acquaintance in this history were still alive. Let us begin with two of them, one of whom we know and one of whom, although we have heard of him before, will require some introduction--Dirk van Goorl and his son Foy.

Scene--an upper room above a warehouse overlooking the market-place of Leyden, a room with small windows and approached by two staircases; time, a summer twilight. The faint light which penetrated into this chamber through the unshuttered windows, for to curtain them would have been to excite suspicion, showed that about twenty people were gathered there, among whom were one or two women. For the most part they were men of the better class, middle-aged burghers of sober mien, some of whom stood about in knots, while others were seated upon stools and benches. At the end of the room addressing them was a man well on in middle life, with grizzled hair and beard, small and somewhat mean of stature, yet one through whose poor exterior goodness seemed to flow like light through some rough casement of horn. This was Jan Arentz, the famous preacher, by trade a basket-maker, a man who showed himself steadfast to the New Religion through all afflictions, and who was gifted with a spirit which could remain unmoved amidst the horrors of perhaps the most terrible persecution that Christians have suffered since the days of the Roman Emperors. He was preaching now and these people were his congregation.

"I come not to bring peace but a sword," was his text, and certainly this night it was most appropriate and one easy of illustration. For there, on the very market-place beneath them, guarded by soldiers and surrounded with the rabble of the city, two members of his flock, men who a fortnight before had worshipped in that same room, at this moment were undergoing martyrdom by fire!

Arentz preached patience and fortitude. He went back into recent history and told his hearers how he himself had passed a hundred dangers; how he had been hunted like a wolf, how he had been tried, how he had escaped from prisons and from the swords of soldiers, even as St. Paul had done before him, and how yet he lived to minister to them this night. He told them that they must have no fear, that they must go on quite happy, quite confident, taking what it pleased God to send them, feeling that it would all be for the best; yes, that even the worst would be for the best. What was the worst? Some hours of torment and death. And what lay beyond the death? Ah! let them think of that. The whole world was but a brief and varying shadow, what did it matter how or when they walked out of that shadow into the perfect light? The sky was very black, but behind it the sun shone. They must look forward with the eye of faith; perhaps the sufferings of the present generation were part of the scheme of things; perhaps from the earth which they watered with their blood would spring the flower of freedom, that glorious freedom in whose day all men would be able to worship their Creator responsible only to the Bible law and their own conscience, not to the dogmas or doctrines of other men.

As Arentz spoke thus, eloquently, sweetly, spoke like one inspired, the twilight deepened and the flare of those sacrificial fires flickered on the window pane, and the mixed murmurs of the crowd of witnesses broke upon his listeners' ears. The preacher paused and looked down upon the dreadful scene below, for from where he stood he could behold it all.

"Mark is dead," he said, "and our dear brother, Andreas Jansen, is dying; the executioners heap the faggots round him. You think it cruel, you think it piteous, but I say to you, No. I say that it is a holy and a glorious sight, for we witness the passing of souls to bliss. Brethren, let us pray for him who leaves us, and for ourselves who stay behind. Yes, and let us pray for those who slay him that know not what they do. We watch his sufferings, but I tell you that Christ his Lord watches also; Christ who hung upon the Cross, the victim of such men as these. He stands with him in the fire, His hand compasses him, His voice supports him. Brethren, let us pray."

Then at his bidding every member of that little congregation knelt in prayer for the passing spirit of Andreas Jansen.

Again Arentz looked through the window.

"He dies!" he cried; "a soldier has thrust him through with a pike in mercy, his head falls forward. Oh! God, if it be Thy will, grant to us a sign."

Some strange breath passed through that upper chamber, a cold breath which blew upon the brows of the worshippers and stirred their hair, bringing with it a sense of the presence of Andreas Jansen, the martyr. Then, there upon the wall opposite to the window, at the very spot where their brother and companion, Andreas, saint and martyr, was wont to kneel, appeared the sign, or what they took to be a sign. Yes, there upon the whitewashed wall, reflected, mayhap, from the fires below, and showing clearly in the darkened room, shone the vision of a fiery cross. For a second it was seen. Then it was gone, but to every soul in this room the vision of that cross had brought its message; to each a separate message, an individual inspiration, for in the light of it they read strange lessons of life and death. The cross vanished and there was silence.

"Brethren," said the voice of Arentz, speaking in the darkness, "you have seen. Through the fire and through the shadow, follow the Cross and fear not."

The service was over, and below in the emptied market-place the executioners collected the poor calcined fragments of the martyrs to cast them with contumely and filthy jests into the darkling waters of the river. Now, one by one and two by two, the worshippers slipped away through some hidden door opening on an alley. Let us look at three of their number as they crept through bye streets back to a house on the Bree Straat with which we are acquainted, two of them walking in front and one behind.

The pair were Dirk van Goorl and his son Foy--there was no mistaking their relationship. Save that he had grown somewhat portly and thoughtful, Dirk was the Dirk of five and twenty years ago, thickset, grey-eyed, bearded, a handsome man according to the Dutch standard, whose massive, kindly countenance betrayed the massive, kindly mind within. Very like him was his son Foy, only his eyes were blue instead of grey, and his hair was yellow. Though they seemed sad enough just now, these were merry and pleasant eyes, and the round, the somewhat childlike face was merry also, the face of a person who looked upon the bright side of things.

There was nothing remarkable or distinguished about Foy's appearance, but from it the observer, who met him for the first time, received an impression of energy, honesty, and good-nature. In truth, such were apt to set him down as a sailor-man, who had just returned from a long journey, in the course of which he had come to the conclusion that this world was a pleasant place, and one well worth exploring. As Foy walked down the street with his quick and nautical gait, it was evident that even the solemn and dreadful scene which he had just experienced had not altogether quenched his cheery and hopeful spirit. Yet of all those who listened to the exhortation of the saint-like Arentz, none had laid its burden of faith and carelessness for the future to heart more entirely than Foy van Goorl.

But of this power of looking on the bright side of things the credit must be given to his nature and not to his piety, for Foy could not be sad for long. /Dum spiro, spero/ would have been his motto had he known Latin, and he did not mean to grow sorrowful--over the prospect of being burnt, for instance--until he found himself fast to the stake. It was this quality of good spirits in a depressing and melancholy age that made of Foy so extraordinarily popular a character.

Behind these two followed a much more remarkable-looking personage, the Frisian, Martin Roos, or Red Martin, so named from his hair, which was red to the verge of flame colour, and his beard of a like hue that hung almost to his breast. There was no other such beard in Leyden; indeed the boys, taking advantage of his good nature, would call to him as he passed, asking him if it was true that the storks nested in it every spring. This strange-looking man, who was now perhaps a person of forty years of age, for ten years or more had been the faithful servant of Dirk van Goorl, whose house he had entered under circumstances which shall be told of in their place.

Any one glancing at Martin casually would not have said that he was a giant, and yet his height was considerable; to be accurate, when he stood upright, something over six feet three inches. The reason why he did not appear to be tall was that in truth his great bulk shortened him to the eye, and also because his carried himself ill, more from a desire to conceal his size than for any other reason. It was in girth of chest and limb that Martin was really remarkable, so much so that a short-armed man standing before him could not make his fingers touch behind his back. His face was fair as a girl's, and almost as flat as a full moon, for of nose