Lysbeth, a Tale of the Dutch by H. Rider Haggard (fantasy books to read txt) 📕

She wrapped herself in a long cloak and drew its hood over her head. Then she slipped from the house and stole like a ghost through the darkling streets and out of the Maren or Sea Poort, where the guard let her pass thinking that she was a country woman returning to her village. Now the moon was rising, and by the light of it Lysbeth recognised the place. Here was the spot where she had stood on the day of the ice carnival, when that woman who was called Martha the Mare, and who said that she had known her father, had spoken to her. On that water she had galloped in Montalvo’s sledge, and up yonder canal the race was run. She followed along its banks, remembering the reedy mere some miles away spotted with islets that were only visited from time to time by fishermen and wild-fowlers; the great Haarlemer Meer which covered many thousands of acres of ground. That mere she felt must look very cool and beautiful on such a night as this, and the wind would whisper sweetly among the tall bulrushes which fringed its banks.

On Lysbeth went and on; it was a long, long walk, but at last she came there, and, oh! the place was sweet and vast and lonely. For so far as her eye could reach in the light of the low moon there was nothing but glimmering water broken here and there by the reed-wreathed islands. Hark! how the frogs croaked and the bitterns boomed among the rushes. Look where the wild ducks swam leaving behind them broad trails of silver as their breasts broke the surface of the great mere into rippling lines.

There, on an island, not a bowshot from her, grew tufts of a daisy-like marsh bloom, white flowers such as she remembered gathering when she was a child. A desire came upon her to pluck some of these flowers, and the water was shallow; surely she could wade to the island, or if not what did it matter? Then she could turn to the bank again, or she might stay to sleep a while in the water; what did it matter? She stepped from the bank—how sweet and cool it felt to her feet! Now it was up to her knees, now it reached her middle, and now the little wavelets beat against her breast. But she would not go back, for there ahead of her was the island, and the white flowers were so close that she could count them, eight upon one bunch and twelve upon the next. Another step and the water struck her in the face, one more and it closed above her head. She rose, and a low cry broke from her lips.

Then, as in a dream, Lysbeth saw a skiff glide out from among the rushes before her. She saw also a strange mutilated face, which she remembered dimly, bending over the edge of the boat, and a long, brown hand stretched out to clasp her, while a hoarse voice bade her keep still and fear nothing.

After this came a sound of singing in her ears and—darkness.

When Lysbeth woke again she found herself lying upon the ground, or rather upon a soft mattress of dry reeds and aromatic grasses. Looking round her she saw that she was in a hut, reed-roofed and plastered with thick mud. In one corner of this hut stood a fireplace with a chimney artfully built of clay, and on the fire of turfs boiled an earthen pot. Hanging from the roof by a string of twisted grass was a fish, fresh caught, a splendid pike, and near to it a bunch of smoked eels. Over her also was thrown a magnificent rug of otter skins. Noting these things, she gathered that she must be in the hovel of some fisherman.

Now by degrees the past came back to Lysbeth, and she remembered her parting with the man who called himself her husband; remembered also her moonlight flight and how she had waded out into the waters of the great mere to pluck the white flowers, and how, as they closed above her head a hand had been stretched out to save her. Lysbeth remembered, and remembering, she sighed aloud. The sound of her sighing seemed to attract the attention of some one who was listening outside the hut; at any rate a rough door was opened or pushed aside and a figure entered.

“Are you awake, lady?” asked a hoarse voice.

“Yes,” answered Lysbeth, “but tell me, how did I come here, and who are you?”

The figure stepped back so that the light from the open door fell full upon it. “Look, Carolus van Hout’s daughter and Juan Montalvo’s wife; those who have seen me once do not forget me.”

Lysbeth sat up on the bed and stared at the gaunt, powerful form, the deep-set grey eyes, the wide-spread nostrils, the scarred, high cheek-bones, the teeth made prominent by some devil’s work upon the lips, and the grizzled lock of hair that hung across the forehead. In an instant she knew her.

“You are Martha the Mare,” she said.

“Yes, I am the Mare, none other, and you are in the Mare’s stable. What has he been doing to you, that Spanish dog, that you came last night to ask the Great Water to hide you and your shame?”

Lysbeth made no answer; the story seemed hard to begin with this strange woman. Then Martha went on:

“What did I tell you, Lysbeth van Hout? Did I not say that your blood should warn you against the Spaniards? Well, well, you saved me from the ice and I have saved you from the water. Ah! who was it that led me to row round by that outer isle last night because I could not sleep? But what does it matter; God willed it so, and here you lie in the Mare’s stable. Nay, do not answer me, first you must eat.”

Then, going to the pot, she took it from the fire, pouring its contents into an earthen basin, and, at the smell of them, for the first time for days Lysbeth felt hungry. Of what that stew was compounded she never learned, but she ate it to the last spoonful and was thankful, while Martha, seated on the ground beside her, watched her with delight, from time to time stretching out a long, thin hand to touch the brown hair that hung about her shoulders.

“Come out and look,” said Martha when her guest had done eating. And she led her through the doorway of the hut.

Lysbeth gazed round her, but in truth there was not much to see. The hut itself was hidden away in a little clump of swamp willows that grew upon a mound in the midst of a marshy plain, broken here and there by patches of reed and bulrushes. Walking across this plain for a hundred yards or so, they came to more reeds, and in them a boat hidden cunningly, for here was the water of the lake, and, not fifty paces away, what seemed to be the shore of an island. The Mare bade her get into the boat and rowed her across to this island, then round it to another, and thence to another and yet another.

“Now tell me,” she said, “upon which of them is my stable built?”

Lysbeth shook her head helplessly.

“You cannot tell, no, nor any living man; I say that no man lives who could find it, save I myself, who know the path there by night or by day. Look,” and she pointed to the vast surface of the mere, “on this great sea are thousands of such islets, and before they find me the Spaniards must search them all, for here upon the lonely waters no spies or hound will help them.” Then she began to row again without even looking round, and presently they were in the clump of reeds from which they had started.

“I must be going home,” faltered Lysbeth.

“No,” answered Martha, “it is too late, you have slept long. Look, the sun is westering fast, this night you must stop with me. Oh! do not be afraid, my fare is rough, but it is sweet and fresh and plenty; fish from the mere as much as you will, for who can catch them better than I? And water-fowl that I snare, yes, and their eggs; moreover, dried flesh and bacon which I get from the mainland, for there I have friends whom sometimes I meet at night.”

So Lysbeth yielded, for the great peace of this lake pleased her. Oh! after all that she had gone through it was like heaven to watch the sun sinking towards the quiet water, to hear the wild-fowl call, to see the fish leap and the halcyons flash by, and above all to be sure that by nothing short of a miracle could this divine silence, broken only by Nature’s voices, be defiled with the sound of the hated accents of the man who had ruined and betrayed her. Yes, she was weary, and a strange unaccustomed languor crept over her; she would rest there this night also.

So they went back to the hut, and made ready their evening meal, and as she fried the fish over the fire of peats, verily Lysbeth found herself laughing like a girl again. Then they ate it with appetite, and after it was done, Mother Martha prayed aloud; yes, and without fear, although she knew Lysbeth to be a Catholic, read from her one treasure, a Testament, crouching there in the light of the fire and saying:

“See, lady, what a place this is for a heretic to hide in. Where else may a woman read from the Bible and fear no spy or priest?” Remembering a certain story, Lysbeth shivered at her words.

“Now,” said the Mare, when she had finished reading, “tell me before you sleep, what it was that brought you into the waters of the Haarlemer Meer, and what that Spanish man has done to you. Do not be afraid, for though I am mad, or so they say, I can keep counsel, and between you and me are many bonds, Carolus van Hout’s daughter, some of which you know and see, and some that you can neither know nor see, but which God will weave in His own season.”

Lysbeth looked at the weird countenance, distorted and made unhuman by long torment of body and mind, and found in it something to trust; yes, even signs of that sympathy which she so sorely needed. So she told her all the tale from the first word of it to the last.

The Mare listened in silence, for no story of evil perpetrated by a Spaniard seemed to move or astonish her, only when Lysbeth had done, she said:

“Ah! child, had you but known of me, and where to find me, you should have asked my aid.”

“Why, mother, what could you have done?” answered Lysbeth.

“Done? I would have followed him by night until I found my chance in some lonely place, and there I would have——” Then she stretched out her bony hand to the red light of the fire, and Lysbeth saw that in it was a knife.

She sank back aghast.

“Why are you frightened, my pretty lady?” asked the Mare. “I tell you that I live on for only one thing—to kill Spaniards, yes, priests first and then the others. Oh! I have a long count to pay; for every time that he was tortured a life, for every groan he uttered at the stake a life; yes, so many for the father and half as many for the son. Well, I shall live to be old, I know that I shall live to be old, and the count will be discharged, ay, to the last stiver.”

As she spoke, the outlawed Water Wife had risen, and the flare of the fire struck full upon her. It was an awful face that Lysbeth beheld by the light of it, full of fierceness and energy, the face of an inspired avenger, dread and unnatural, yet not altogether repulsive. Indeed, that countenance was such as an imaginative artist might give to one of the beasts in the Book of Revelation. Amazed and terrified, Lysbeth said nothing.

“I frighten you, gentle one,” went on the Mare, “you who, although you have suffered, are still full of the milk of human kindness. Wait, woman, wait till they have murdered the man you love, till your heart is like my heart, and you also live on, not for love’s sake, not for life’s sake, but to be a Sword, a Sword, a Sword in