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

"Adrian, is this so?" asked Dirk in the silence which followed.

"No, stepfather," answered Adrian.

"You hear," said Dirk addressing Foy. "In future, son, I trust that you will be more careful with your words. It is no charge to bring lightly against a man that he has been seen in the fellowship of one of the most infamous wretches in Leyden, a creature whose hands are stained red with the blood of innocent men and women, and who, as your mother knows, once brought me near to the scaffold."

Suddenly the laughing boyish look passed out of the face of Foy, and it grew stern.

"I am sorry for my words," he said, "since Black Meg does other things besides spying, and Adrian may have had business of his own with her which is no affair of mine. But, as they are spoke, I can't eat them, so you must decide which of us is--not truthful."

"Nay, Foy, nay," interposed Arentz, "do not put it thus. Doubtless there is some mistake, and have I not told you before that you are over rash of tongue?"

"Yes, and a great many other things," answered Foy, "every one of them true, for I am a miserable sinner. Well, all right, there is a mistake, and it is," he added, with an air of radiant innocency that somehow was scarcely calculated to deceive, "that I was merely poking a stick into Adrian's temper. I never saw him talking to Black Meg. Now, are you satisfied?"

Then the storm broke, as Elsa, who had been watching the face of Adrian while he listened to Foy's artless but somewhat fatuous explanation, saw that it must break.

"There is a conspiracy against me," said Adrian, who had grown white with rage; "yes, everything has conspired against me to-day. First the ragamuffins in the street make a mock of me, and then my hawk is killed. Next it chances that I rescue this lady and her companions from robbers in the wood. But, do I get any thanks for this? No, I come home to find that I am so much forgotten that no place is even laid for me at table; more, to be jeered at for the humble services that I have done. Lastly, I have the lie given to me, and without reproach, by my brother, who, were he not my brother, should answer for it at the sword's point."

"Oh! Adrian, Adrian," broke in Foy, "don't be a fool; stop before you say something you will be sorry for."

"That isn't all," went on Adrian, taking no heed. "Whom do I find at this table? The worthy Heer Arentz, a minister of the New Religion. Well, I protest. I belong to the New Religion myself, having been brought up in that faith, but it must be well known that the presence of a pastor here in our house exposes everybody to the risk of death. If my stepfather and Foy choose to take that risk, well and good, but I maintain that they have no right to lay its consequences upon my mother, whose eldest son I am, nor even upon myself."

Now Dirk rose and tapped Adrian on the shoulder. "Young man," he said coldly and with glittering eyes, "listen to me. The risks which I and my son, Foy, and my wife, your mother, take, we run for conscience sake. You have nothing to do with them, it is our affair. But since you have raised the question, if your faith is not strong enough to support you I acknowledge that I have no right to bring you into danger. Look you, Adrian, you are no son of mine; in you I have neither part nor lot, yet I have cared for you and supported you since you were born under very strange and unhappy circumstances. Yes, you have shared whatever I had to give with my own son, without preference or favour, and should have shared it even after my death. And now, if these are your opinions, I am tempted to say to you that the world is wide and that, instead of idling here upon my bounty, you would do well to win your own way through it as far from Leyden as may please you."

"You throw your benefits in my teeth, and reproach me with my birth," broke in Adrian, who by now was almost raving with passion, "as though it were a crime in me to have other blood running in my veins than that of Netherlander tradesfolk. Well, if so, it would seem that the crime was my mother's, and not mine, who----"

"Adrian, Adrian!" cried Foy, in warning, but the madman heeded not.

"Who," he went on furiously, "was content to be the companion, for I understand that she was never really married to him, of some noble Spaniard before she became the wife of a Leyden artisan."

He ceased, and at this moment there broke from Lysbeth's lips a low wail of such bitter anguish that it chilled even his mad rage to silence.

"Shame on thee, my son," said the wail, "who art not ashamed to speak thus of the mother that bore thee."

"Ay," echoed Dirk, in the stillness that followed, "shame on thee! Once thou wast warned, but now I warn no more."

Then he stepped to the door, opened it, and called, "Martin, come hither."

Presently, still in that heavy silence, which was broken only by the quick breath of Adrian panting like some wild beast in a net, was heard the sound of heavy feet shuffling down the passage. Then Martin entered the room, and stood there gazing about him with his large blue eyes, that were like the eyes of a wondering child.

"Your pleasure, master," he said at length.

"Martin Roos," replied Dirk, waving back Arentz who rose to speak, "take that young man, my stepson, the Heer Adrian, and lead him from my house--without violence if possible. My order is that henceforth you are not to suffer him to set foot within its threshold; see that it is not disobeyed. Go, Adrian, to-morrow your possessions shall be sent to you, and with them such money as shall suffice to start you in the world."

Without comment or any expression of surprise, the huge Martin shuffled forward towards Adrian, his hand outstretched as though to take him by the arm.

"What!" exclaimed Adrian, as Martin advanced down the room, "you set your mastiff on me, do you? Then I will show you how a gentleman treats dogs," and suddenly, a naked dagger shining in his hand, he leaped straight at the Frisian's throat. So quick and fierce was the onslaught that only one issue to it seemed possible. Elsa gasped and closed her eyes, thinking when she opened them to see that knife plunged to the hilt in Martin's breast, and Foy sprang forward. Yet in this twinkling of an eye the danger was done with, for by some movement too quick to follow, Martin had dealt his assailant such a blow upon the arm that the poniard, jarred from his grasp, flew flashing across the room to fall in Lysbeth's lap. Another second and the iron grip had closed upon Adrian's shoulder, and although he was strong and struggled furiously, yet he could not loose the hold of that single hand.

"Please cease fighting, Mynheer Adrian, for it is quite useless," said Martin to his captive in a voice as calm as though nothing unusual had happened. Then he turned and walked with him towards the door.

On the threshold Martin stopped, and looking over his shoulder said, "Master, I think that the Heer is dead, do you still wish me to put him into the street?"

They crowded round and stared. It was true, Adrian seemed to be dead; at least his face was like that of a corpse, while from the corner of his mouth blood trickled in a thin stream.

CHAPTER XII

THE SUMMONS

"Wretched man!" said Lysbeth wringing her hands, and with a shudder shaking the dagger from her lap as though it had been a serpent, "you have killed my son."

"Your pardon, mistress," replied Martin placidly; "but that is not so. The master ordered me to remove the Heer Adrian, whereon the Heer Adrian very naturally tried to stab me. But I, having been accustomed to such things in my youth," and he looked deprecatingly towards the Pastor Arentz, "struck the Heer Adrian upon the bone of his elbow, causing the knife to jump from his hand, for had I not done so I should have been dead and unable to execute the commands of my master. Then I took the Heer Adrian by the shoulder, gently as I might, and walked away with him, whereupon he died of rage, for which I am very sorry but not to blame."

"You are right, man," said Lysbeth, "it is you who are to blame, Dirk; yes, you have murdered my son. Oh! never mind what he said, his temper was always fierce, and who pays any heed to the talk of a man in a mad passion?"

"Why did you let your brother be thus treated, cousin Foy?" broke in Elsa quivering with indignation. "It was cowardly of you to stand still and see that great red creature crush the life out of him when you know well that it was because of your taunts that he lost his temper and said things that he did not mean, as I do myself sometimes. No, I will never speak to you again--and only this afternoon he saved me from the robbers!" and she burst into weeping.

"Peace, peace! this is no time for angry words," said the Pastor Arentz, pushing his way through the group of bewildered men and overwrought women. "He can scarcely be dead; let me look at him, I am something of a doctor," and he knelt by the senseless and bleeding Adrian to examine him.

"Take comfort, Vrouw van Goorl," he said presently, "your son is not dead, for his heart beats, nor has his friend Martin injured him in any way by the exercise of his strength, but I think that in his fury he has burst a blood-vessel, for he bleeds fast. My counsel is that he should be put to bed and his head cooled with cold water till the surgeon can be fetched to treat him. Lift him in your arms, Martin."

So Martin carried Adrian, not to the street, but to his bed, while Foy, glad of an excuse to escape the undeserved reproaches of Elsa and the painful sight of his mother's grief, went to seek the physician. In due course he returned with him, and, to the great relief of all of them, the learned man announced that, notwithstanding the blood which he had lost, he did not think that Adrian would die, though, at the best, he must keep his bed for some weeks, have skilful nursing and be humoured in all things.

While his wife Lysbeth and Elsa were attending to Adrian, Dirk and his son, Foy, for the Pastor Arentz had gone, sat upstairs talking in the sitting-room, that same balconied chamber in which once Dirk had been refused while Montalvo hid behind the curtain. Dirk was much disturbed, for when his wrath had passed he was a tender-hearted man, and his stepson's plight distressed him greatly. Now he was justifying himself to Foy, or, rather, to his own conscience.

"A man who could speak so of his own mother, was not fit to stop in the same house with her," he said; "moreover, you heard his words about the pastor. I tell you, son, I am afraid of this Adrian."

"Unless that bleeding from his mouth stops soon you will not have cause to fear him much longer," replied Foy sadly, "but if you want my opinion about the business, father, why here it is--I think that you have made too much of a small matter. Adrian is--Adrian; he