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

"See here, aunt," broke in Dirk with suppressed fury, "I think I have heard enough about Spaniards and the Captain Montalvo for one night. First of all he spirits off Lysbeth and is absent with her for four hours; then he invites himself to supper and places himself at the head of the table with her, setting me down to the dullest meal I ever ate at the other end----"

"Cousin Dirk," said Aunt Clara with dignity, "your temper has got the better of your manners. Certainly you might learn courtesy as well as dress, even from so humble a person as a Spanish hidalgo and commander." Then she rose from the table, adding--"Come, Lysbeth, if you are ready, let us leave these gentlemen to their wine."

After the ladies had gone the supper went on merrily. In those days, nearly everybody drank too much liquor, at any rate at feasts, and this company was no exception. Even Montalvo, his game being won and the strain on his nerves relaxed, partook pretty freely, and began to talk in proportion to his potations. Still, so clever was the man that in his cups he yet showed a method, for his conversation revealed a sympathy with Netherlander grievances and a tolerance of view in religious matters rarely displayed by a Spaniard.

From such questions they drifted into a military discussion, and Montalvo, challenged by Van de Werff, who, as it happened, had not drunk too much wine, explained how, were he officer in command, he would defend Leyden from attack by an overwhelming force. Very soon Van de Werff saw that he was a capable soldier who had studied his profession, and being himself a capable civilian with a thirst for knowledge pressed the argument from point to point.

"And suppose," he asked at length, "that the city were starving and still untaken, so that its inhabitants must either fall into the hands of the enemy or burn the place over their heads, what would you do then?"

"Then, Mynheer, if I were a small man I should yield to the clamour of the starving folk and surrender----"

"And if you were a big man, captain?"

"If I were a big man--ah! if I were a big man, why then--I should cut the dykes and let the sea beat once more against the walls of Leyden. An army cannot live in salt water, Mynheer."

"That would drown out the farmers and ruin the land for twenty years."

"Quite so, Mynheer, but when the corn has to be saved, who thinks of spoiling the straw?"

"I follow you, Senor, your proverb is good, although I have never heard it."

"Many good things come from Spain, Mynheer, including this red wine. One more glass with you, for, if you will allow me to say it, you are a man worth meeting over a beaker--or a blade."

"I hope that you will always retain the same opinion of me," answered Van de Werff as he drank, "at the trencher or in the trenches."

Then Pieter went home, and before he slept that night made careful notes of all the Spaniard's suggested military dispositions, both of attackers and attacked, writing underneath them the proverb about the corn and the straw. There existed no real reason why he should have done so, as he was only a civilian engaged in business, but Pieter van de Werff chanced to be a provident young man who knew many things might happen which could not precisely be foreseen. As it fell out in after years, a time came when he was able to put Montalvo's advice to good use. All readers of the history of the Netherlands know how the Burgomaster Pieter van de Werff saved Leyden from the Spanish.

As for Dirk van Goorl, he sought his lodging rather tipsy, and arm-in- arm with none other than Captain the Count Don Juan de Montalvo.

There were three persons in Leyden whose reflections when they awoke on the morning after the sledge race are not without interest, at any rate to the student of their history. First there was Dirk van Goorl, whose work made an early riser of him--to say nothing of a splitting headache which on this morning called him into consciousness just as the clock in the bell tower was chiming half-past four. Now there are few things more depressing than to be awakened by a bad headache at half-past four in the black frost of a winter dawn. Yet as Dirk lay and thought a conviction took hold of him that his depression was not due entirely to the headache or to the cold.

One by one he recalled the events of yesterday. First he had been late for this appointment with Lysbeth, which evidently vexed her. Then the Captain Montalvo had swooped down and carried her away, as a hawk bears off a chicken under the very eyes of the hen-wife, while he-- donkey that he was--could find no words in which to protest. Next, thinking it his duty to back the sledge wherein Lysbeth rode, although it was driven by a Spaniard, he had lost ten florins on that event, which, being a thrifty young man, did not at all please him. The rest of the fete he had spent hunting for Lysbeth, who mysteriously vanished with the Spaniard, an unentertaining and even an anxious pastime. Then came the supper, when once more the Count swooped down on Lysbeth, leaving him to escort his Cousin Clara, whom he considered an old fool and disliked, and who, having spoilt his new jacket by spilling wine over it, ended by abusing his taste in dress. Nor was that all--he had drunk a great deal more strong wine than was wise, for to this his head certified. Lastly he had walked home arm in arm with his lady-snatching Spaniard, and by Heaven! yes, he had sworn eternal friendship with him on the doorstep.

Well, there was no doubt that the Count was an uncommonly good fellow --for a Spaniard. As for that story of the foul he had explained it quite satisfactorily, and he had taken his beating like a gentleman. Could anything be nicer or in better feeling than his allusions to Cousin Pieter in his after-supper speech? Also, and this was a graver matter, the man had shown that he was tolerant and kindly by the way in which he dealt with the poor creature called the Mare, a woman whose history Dirk knew well; one whose sufferings had made of her a crazy and rash-tongued wanderer, who, so it was rumoured, could use a knife.

In fact, for the truth may as well be told at once, Dirk was a Lutheran, having been admitted to that community two years before. To be a Lutheran in those days, that is in the Netherlands, meant, it need scarcely be explained, that you walked the world with a halter round your neck and a vision of the rack and the stake before your eyes; circumstances under which religion became a more earnest and serious thing than most people find it in this century. Still even at that date the dreadful penalties attaching to the crime did not prevent many of the burgher and lower classes from worshipping God in their own fashion. Indeed, if the truth had been known, of those who were present at Lysbeth's supper on the previous night more than half, including Pieter van de Werff, were adherents of the New Faith.

To dismiss religious considerations, however, Dirk could have wished that this kindly natured Spaniard was not quite so good-looking or quite so appreciative of the excellent points of the young Leyden ladies, and especially of Lysbeth's, with whose sterling character, he now remembered, Montalvo had assured him he was much impressed. What he feared was that this regard might be reciprocal. After all a Spanish hidalgo in command of the garrison was a distinguished person, and, alas! Lysbeth also was a Catholic. Dirk loved Lysbeth; he loved her with that patient sincerity which was characteristic of his race and his own temperament, but in addition to and above the reasons that have been given already it was this fact of the difference of religion which hitherto had built a wall between them. Of course she was unaware of anything of the sort. She did not know even that he belonged to the New Faith, and without the permission of the elders of his sect, he would not dare to tell her, for the lives of men and of their families could not be confided lightly to the hazard of a girl's discretion.

Herein lay the real reason why, although Dirk was so devoted to Lysbeth, and although he imagined that she was not indifferent to him, as yet no word had passed between them of love or marriage. How could he who was a Lutheran ask a Catholic to become his wife without telling her the truth? And if he told her the truth, and she consented to take the risk, how could he drag her into that dreadful net? Supposing even that she kept to her own faith, which of course she would be at liberty to do, although equally, of course, he was bound to try to convert her, their children, if they had any, must be brought up in his beliefs. Then, sooner or later, might come the informer, that dreadful informer whose shadow already lay heavy upon thousands of homes in the Netherlands, and after the informer the officer, and after the officer the priest, and after the priest the judge, and after the judge--the executioner and the stake.

In this case, what would happen to Lysbeth? She might prove herself innocent of the horrible crime of heresy, if by that time she was innocent, but what would life become to the loving young woman whose husband and children, perhaps, had been haled off to the slaughter chambers of the Papal Inquisition? This was the true first cause why Dirk had remained silent, even when he was sorely tempted to speak; yes, although his instinct told him that his silence had been misinterpreted and set down to over-caution, or indifference, or to unnecessary scruples.

The next to wake up that morning was Lysbeth, who, if she was not troubled with headache resulting from indulgence--and in that day women of her class sometimes suffered from it--had pains of her own to overcome. When sifted and classified these pains resolved themselves into a sense of fiery indignation against Dirk van Goorl. Dirk had been late for his appointment, alleging some ridiculous excuse about the cooling of a bell, as though she cared whether the bell were hot or cold, with the result that she had been thrown into the company of that dreadful Martha the Mare. After the Mare--aggravated by Black Meg --came the Spaniard. Here again Dirk had shown contemptible indifference and insufficiency, for he allowed her to be forced into the Wolf sledge against her will. Nay, he had actually consented to the thing. Next, in a fateful sequence followed