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

"Ah!" laughed Ramiro, "there speaks the voice of small experience. Oh! youth, so easily exalted and so easily depressed! Joyous, chequered youth! How many happy marriages have I not known begin with such hate as this? Well, there it is, you must take my word for it. If you want to marry Elsa Brant, I can manage it for you, and if not, why, you can leave it alone."

Adrian reflected, then as his mind had a practical side, he put a question.

"You spoke of the prospect of enormous wealth; what is it?"

"I will tell you, I will tell you," whispered his parent, looking about him cautiously; "it is the vast hoard of Hendrik Brant which I intend to recover; indeed, my search for it has been at the root of all this trouble. And now, son, you can see how open I have been with you, for if you marry Elsa that money will legally be your property, and I can only claim whatever it may please you to give me. Well, as to that question, in the spirit of the glorious motto of our race, 'Trust to God and me,' I shall leave it to your sense of honour, which, whatever its troubles, has never yet failed the house of Montalvo. What does it matter to me who is the legal owner of the stuff, so long as it remains in the family?"

"Of course not," replied Adrian, loftily, "especially as I am not mercenary."

"Ah! well," went on Ramiro, "we have talked for a long while, and if I continue to live there are affairs to which I ought to attend. You have heard all I have to say, and you have the swords in your hand, and, of course, I am--only your prisoner on parole. So now, my son, be so good as to settle this matter without further delay. Only, if you make up your mind to use the steel, allow me to show you where to thrust, as I do not wish to undergo any unnecessary discomfort"--and he stood before him and bowed in a very courtly and dignified fashion.

Adrian looked at him and hesitated. "I don't trust you," he said; "you have tricked me once and I daresay that you will trick me again. Also I don't think much of people who masquerade under false names and lay such traps as you laid to get my evidence against the rest of them. But I am in a bad place and without friends. I want to marry Elsa and recover my position in the world; also, as you know well, I can't cut the throat of my own father in cold blood," and he threw down one of the swords.

"Your decision is just such as I would have expected from my knowledge of your noble nature, son Adrian," remarked Ramiro as he picked up his weapon and restored it to the scabbard. "But now, before we enter upon this perfect accord, I have two little stipulations to make on my side."

"What are they?" asked Adrian.

"First, that our friendship should be complete, such as ought to exist between a loving father and son, a friendship without reservations. Secondly--this is a condition that I fear you may find harder--but, although fortune has led me into stony paths, and I fear some doubtful expedients, there was always one thing which I have striven to cherish and keep pure, and that in turn has rewarded me for my devotion in many a dangerous hour, my religious belief. Now I am Catholic, and I could wish that my son should be Catholic also; these horrible errors, believe me, are as dangerous to the soul as just now they happen to be fatal to the body. May I hope that you, who were brought up but not born in heresy, will consent to receive instruction in the right faith?"

"Certainly you may," answered Adrian, almost with enthusiasm. "I have had enough of conventicles, psalm-singing, and the daily chance of being burned; indeed, from the time when I could think for myself I always wished to be a Catholic."

"Your words make me a happy man," answered Ramiro. "Allow me to unbolt the door, I hear our hosts. Worthy Simon and Vrouw, I make you parties to a solemn and joyful celebration. This young man is my son, and in token of my fatherly love, which he has been pleased to desire, I now take him in my arms and embrace him before you," and he suited the action to the word.

But Black Meg, watching his face in astonishment from over Adrian's shoulder, saw its one bright eye suddenly become eclipsed. Could it be that the noble Master had winked?

Two days after his reconciliation with his father, Adrian was admitted as a member of the Catholic Church. His preparation had been short; indeed, it consisted of three interviews with a priest who was brought to the house at night. The good man found in his pupil so excellent a disposition and a mind so open to his teaching that, acting on a hint given him by Ramiro, who, for reasons of his own not altogether connected with religion, was really anxious to see his son a member of the true and Catholic Church, he declared it unnecessary to prolong the period of probation. Therefore, on the third day, as the dusk of evening was closing, for in the present state of public feeling they dared not go out while it was light, Adrian was taken to the baptistry of the Groote Kerke. Here he made confession of his sins to a certain Abbe known as Father Dominic, a simple ceremony, for although the list of them which he had prepared was long, its hearing proved short. Thus all his offences against his family, such as his betrayal of his stepfather, were waived aside by the priest as matters of no account; indeed, crimes of this nature, he discovered, to the sacerdotal eye wore the face of virtue. Other misdoings also, such as a young man might have upon his mind, were not thought weighty. What really was considered important proved to be the earnestness of his recantation of heretical errors, and when once his confessor was satisfied upon that point, the penitent soul was relieved by absolution full and free.

After this came the service of his baptism, which, because Ramiro wished it, for a certain secret reason, was carried out with as much formal publicity as the circumstances would allow. Indeed, several priests officiated at the rite, Adrian's sponsors being his father and the estimable Hague Simon, who was paid a gold piece for his pains. While the sacrament was still in progress, an untoward incident occurred. From its commencement the trampling and voices of a mob had been heard in the open space in front of the church, and now they began to hammer on the great doors and to cast stones at the painted windows, breaking the beautiful and ancient glass. Presently a beadle hurried into the baptistery, and whispered something in the ear of the Abbe which caused that ecclesiastic to turn pale and to conclude the service in a somewhat hasty fashion.

"What is it?" asked Ramiro.

"Alas! my son," said the priest, "these heretic dogs saw you, or our new-found brother, I know not which--enter this holy place, and a great mob of them have surrounded it, ravening for our blood."

"Then we had best begone," said Ramiro.

"Senor, it is impossible," broke in the sacristan; "they watch every door. Hark! hark! hark!" and as he spoke there came the sound of battering on the oaken portals.

"Can your reverences make any suggestions?" asked Ramiro, "for if not--" and he shrugged his shoulders.

"Let us pray," said one of them in a trembling voice.

"By all means, but I should prefer to do so as I go. Fool, is there any hiding place in this church, or must we stop here to have our throats cut?"

Then the sacristan, with white lips and knocking knees, whispered:

"Follow me, all of you. Stay, blow out the lights."

So the candles were extinguished, and in the darkness they grasped each other's hands and were led by the verger whither they knew not. Across the wide spaces of the empty church they crawled, its echoing silence contrasting strangely with the muffled roar of angry voices without and the dull sound of battering on the doors. One of their number, the fat Abbe Dominic, became separated from them in the gloom, and wandered away down an arm of the vast transept, whence they could hear him calling to them. The sacristan called back, but Ramiro fiercely bade him to be silent, adding:

"Are we all to be snared for the sake of one priest?"

So they went on, till presently in that great place his shouts grew fainter, and were lost in the roar of the multitude without.

"Here is the spot," muttered the sacristan, after feeling the floor with his hands, and by a dim ray of moonlight which just then pierced the windows of the choir, Adrian saw that there was a hole in the pavement before him.

"Descend, there are steps," said their guide. "I will shut the stone," and one by one they passed down six or seven narrow steps into some darksome place.

"Where are we?" asked a priest of the verger, when he had pulled the stone close and joined them.

"In the family vault of the noble Count van Valkenburg, whom your reverence buried three days ago. Fortunately the masons have not yet come to cement down the stone. If your Excellencies find it close, you can get air by standing upon the coffin of the noble Count."

Adrian did find it close, and took the hint, to discover that in a line with his head was some filigree stonework, pierced with small apertures, the front doubtless of the marble tomb in the church above, for through them he could see the pale moon rays wavering on the pavement of the choir. As he looked the priest at his side muttered:

"Hark! The doors are down. Aid us, St. Pancras!" and falling upon his knees he began to pray very earnestly.

Yielding at last to the blows of the battering-beam, the great portals had flown open with a crash, and now through them poured the mob. On they came with a rush and a roar, like that of the sea breaking through a dyke, carrying in their hands torches, lanterns hung on poles, axes, swords and staves, till at length they reached the screen of wonderful carved oak, on the top of which, rising to a height of sixty feet above the floor of the church, stood the great Rood, with the images of the Virgin and St. John on either side. Here, of a sudden, the vastness and the silence of the holy place which they had known, every one, from childhood, with its echoing aisles, the moonlit, pictured windows, its consecrated lamps twinkling here and there like fisher lights upon the darkling waters, seemed to take hold of them. As at the sound of the Voice Divine sweeping down the wild waves at night, the winds ceased their raving and the seas