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

"You smell, Martin," he said, "and no wonder. Look, there is blood upon your jerkin. Have you been killing pigs and forgotten to change it?"

Martin's round blue eyes flashed, then went pale and dead again.

"Yes, master," he answered, in his thick voice, "I have been killing pigs. But your dress also smells of blood and fire; perhaps you went too near the stake." At that moment, to put an end to the conversation, Dirk rose and said grace. Then he went out of the room accompanied by his wife and Foy, leaving Adrian to finish his meal alone, which he did reflectively and at leisure.

When he left the eating chamber Foy followed Martin across the courtyard to the walled-in stables, and up a ladder to the room where the serving man slept. It was a queer place, and filled with an extraordinary collection of odds and ends; the skins of birds, otters, and wolves; weapons of different makes, notably a very large two- handed sword, plain and old-fashioned, but of excellent steel; bits of harness and other things.

There was no bed in this room for the reason that Martin disdained a bed, a few skins upon the floor being all that he needed to lie on. Nor did he ask for much covering, since so hardy was he by nature, that except in the very bitterest weather his woollen vest was enough for him. Indeed, he had been known to sleep out in it when the frost was so sharp that he rose with his hair and beard covered with icicles.

Martin shut the door and lit three lanterns, which he hung to hooks upon the wall.

"Are you ready for a turn, master?" he asked.

Foy nodded as he answered, "I want to get the taste of it all out of my mouth, so don't spare me. Lay on till I get angry, it will make me forget," and taking a leathern jerkin off a peg he pulled it over his head.

"Forget what, master?"

"Oh! the prayings and the burnings and Vrouw Jansen, and Adrian's sea- lawyer sort of talk."

"Ah, yes, that's the worst of them all for us," and the big man leapt forward and whispered. "Keep an eye on him, Master Foy."

"What do you mean?" asked Foy sharply and flushing.

"What I say."

"You forget; you are talking of my brother, my own mother's son. I will hear no harm of Adrian; his ways are different to ours, but he is good-hearted at bottom. Do you understand me, Martin?"

"But not your father's son, master. It's the sire sets the strain; I have bred horses, and I know."

Foy looked at him and hesitated.

"No," said Martin, answering the question in his eyes. "I have nothing against him, but he always sees the other side, and that's bad. Also he is Spanish----"

"And you don't like Spaniards," broke in Foy. "Martin, you are a pig- headed, prejudiced, unjust jackass."

Martin smiled. "No, master, I don't like Spaniards, nor will you before you have done with them. But then it is only fair as they don't like me."

"I say, Martin," said Foy, following a new line of thought, "how did you manage that business so quietly, and why didn't you let me do my share?"

"Because you'd have made a noise, master, and we didn't want the watch on us; also, being fulled armed, they might have bettered you."

"Good reasons, Martin. How did you do it? I couldn't see much."

"It is a trick I learned up there in Friesland. Some of the Northmen sailors taught it me. There is a place in a man's neck, here at the back, and if he is squeezed there he loses his senses in a second. Thus, master--" and putting out his great hand he gripped Foy's neck in a fashion that caused him the intensest agony.

"Drop it," said Foy, kicking at his shins.

"I didn't squeeze; I was only showing you," answered Martin, opening his eyes. "Well, when their wits were gone of course it was easy to knock their heads together, so that they mightn't find them again. You see," he added, "if I had left them alive--well, they are dead anyway, and getting a hot supper by now, I expect. Which shall it be, master? Dutch stick or Spanish point?"

"Stick first, then point," answered Foy.

"Good. We need 'em both nowadays," and Martin reached down a pair of ash plants fitted into old sword hilts to protect the hands of the players.

They stood up to each other on guard, and then against the light of the lanterns it could be seen how huge a man was Martin. Foy, although well-built and sturdy, and like all his race of a stout habit, looked but a child beside the bulk of this great fellow. As for their stick game, which was in fact sword exercise, it is unnecessary to follow its details, for the end of it was what might almost have been expected. Foy sprang to and fro slashing and cutting, while Martin the solid scarcely moved his weapon. Then suddenly there would be a parry and a reach, and the stick would fall with a thud all down the length of Foy's back, causing the dust to start from his leathern jerkin.

"It's no good," said Foy at last, rubbing himself ruefully. "What's the use of guarding against you, you great brute, when you simply crash through my guard and hit me all the same? That isn't science."

"No, master," answered Martin, "but it is business. If we had been using swords you would have been in pieces by now. No blame to you and no credit to me; my reach is longer and my arm heavier, that is all."

"At any rate I am beaten," said Foy; "now take the rapiers and give me a chance."

Then they went at it with the thrusting-swords, rendered harmless by a disc of lead upon their points, and at this game the luck turned. Foy was active as a cat in the eye of a hawk, and twice he managed to get in under Martin's guard.

"You're dead, old fellow," he said at the second thrust.

"Yes, young master," answered Martin, "but remember that I killed you long ago, so that you are only a ghost and of no account. Although I have tried to learn its use to please you, I don't mean to fight with a toasting fork. This is my weapon," and, seizing the great sword which stood in the corner, he made it hiss through the air.

Foy took it from his hand and looked at it. It was a long straight blade with a plain iron guard, or cage, for the hands, and on it, in old letters, was engraved one Latin word, /Silentium/, "Silence."

"Why is it called 'Silence,' Martin?"

"Because it makes people silent, I suppose, master."

"What is its history, and how did you come by it?" asked Foy in a malicious voice. He knew that the subject was a sore one with the huge Frisian.

Martin turned red as his own beard and looked uncomfortable. "I believe," he answered, staring upwards, "that it was the ancient Sword of Justice of a little place up in Friesland. As to how I came by it, well, I forget."

"And you call yourself a good Christian," said Foy reproachfully. "Now I have heard that your head was going to be chopped off with this sword, but that somehow you managed to steal it first and got away."

"There was something of the sort," mumbled Martin, "but it is so long ago that it slips my mind. I was so often in broils and drunk in those days--may the dear Lord forgive me--that I can't quite remember things. And now, by your leave, I want to go to sleep."

"You old liar," said Foy shaking his head at him, "you killed that poor executioner and made off with his sword. You know you did, and now you are ashamed to own the truth."

"May be, may be," answered Martin vacuously; "so many things happen in the world that a fool man cannot remember them all. I want to go to sleep."

"Martin," said Foy, sitting down upon a stool and dragging off his leather jerkin, "what used you to do before you turned holy? You have never told me all the story. Come now, speak up. I won't tell Adrian."

"Nothing worth mentioning, Master Foy."

"Out with it, Martin."

"Well, if you wish to know, I am the son of a Friesland boor."

"--And an Englishwoman from Yarmouth: I know all that."

"Yes," repeated Martin, "an Englishwoman from Yarmouth. She was very strong, my mother; she could hold up a cart on her shoulders while my father greased the wheels, that is for a bet; otherwise she used to make my father hold the cart up while /she/ greased the wheels. Folk would come to see her do the trick. When I grew up I held the cart and they both greased the wheels. But at last they died of the plague, the pair of them, God rest their souls! So I inherited the farm----"

"And--" said Foy, fixing him with his eye.

"And," jerked out Martin in an unwilling fashion, "fell into bad habits."

"Drink?" suggested the merciless Foy.

Martin sighed and hung his great head. He had a tender conscience.

"Then you took to prize-fighting," went on his tormentor; "you can't deny it; look at your nose."

"I did, master, for the Lord hadn't touched my heart in those days, and," he added, brisking up, "it wasn't such a bad trade, for nobody ever beat me except a Brussels man once when I was drunk. He broke my nose, but afterwards, when I was sober--" and he stopped.

"You killed the Spanish boxer here in Leyden," said Foy sternly.

"Yes," echoed Martin, "I killed him sure enough, but--oh! it was a pretty fight, and he brought it on himself. He was a fine man, that Spaniard, but the devil wouldn't play fair, so I just had to kill him. I hope that they bear in mind up above that I /had/ to kill him."

"Tell me about it, Martin, for I was at The Hague at the time, and can't remember. Of course I don't approve of such things"--and the young rascal clasped his hands and looked pious--"but as it is all done with, one may as well hear the story of the fight. To spin it won't make you more wicked than you are."

Then suddenly Martin the unreminiscent developed a marvellous memory, and with much wealth of detail set out the exact circumstances of that historic encounter.

"And after he had kicked me in the stomach," he ended, "which, master, you will know he had no right to do, I lost my temper and hit out with all my strength, having first feinted and knocked up his guard with my left arm----"

"And then," said Foy, growing excited, for Martin really told the story very well, "what happened?"

"Oh, his head went back between his shoulders, and when they picked him up, his neck was broken. I was sorry, but I couldn't help it, the Lord knows I couldn't help it; he shouldn't have called me 'a dirty Frisian ox' and kicked me in the stomach."

"No, that was very wrong of him. But they arrested you, didn't they, Martin?"

"Yes, for the second time they condemned me to death as a brawler and a manslayer. You see, the other Friesland business came up against me, and the magistrates here had money on the Spaniard. Then your dear father saved me. He was burgomaster of that year, and he paid the death fine for me--a large sum--afterwards, too, he taught me to be sober and think of my soul. So you know why Red Martin will serve him and his while there is a drop of blood left in his worthless carcase. And now, Master Foy, I'm going to sleep, and God grant that those dirty Spanish dogs mayn't haunt me."

"Don't you fear for that, Martin," said