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

Ten minutes later they were seated at their meal. The reader may remember the room; it was that wherein Montalvo, ex-count and captain, made the speech which charmed all hearers on the night when he had lost the race at the ice-carnival. The same chandelier hung above them, some portion of the same plate, even, repurchased by Dirk, was on the table, but how different were the company and the feast! Aunt Clara, the fatuous, was long dead, and with her many of the companions of that occasion, some naturally, some by the hand of the executioner, while others had fled the land. Pieter van de Werff still lived, however, and though regarded with suspicion by the authorities, was a man of weight and honour in the town, but to-night he was not present there. The food, too, if ample was plain, not on account of the poverty of the household, for Dirk had prospered in his worldly affairs, being hard-working and skilful, and the head of the brass foundry to which in those early days he was apprenticed, but because in such times people thought little of the refinements of eating. When life itself is so doubtful, its pleasures and amusements become of small importance. The ample waiting service of the maid Greta, who long ago had vanished none knew where, and her fellow domestics was now carried on by the man, Martin, and one old woman, since, as every menial might be a spy, even the richest employed few of them. In short all the lighter and more cheerful parts of life were in abeyance.

“Where is Adrian?” asked Dirk.

“I do not know,” answered Lysbeth. “I thought that perhaps——”

“No,” replied her husband hastily; “he did not accompany us; he rarely does.”

“Brother Adrian likes to look underneath the spoon before he licks it,” said Foy with his mouth full.

The remark was enigmatic, but his parents seemed to understand what Foy meant; at least it was followed by an uncomfortable and acquiescent silence. Just then Adrian came in, and as we have not seen him since, some four and twenty years ago, he made his entry into the world on the secret island in the Haarlemer Meer, here it may be as well to describe his appearance.

He was a handsome young man, but of quite a different stamp from his half-brother, Foy, being tall, slight, and very graceful in figure; advantages which he had inherited from his mother Lysbeth. In countenance, however, he differed from her so much that none would have guessed him to be her son. Indeed, Adrian’s face was pure Spanish, there was nothing of a Netherlander about his dark beauty. Spanish were the eyes of velvet black, set rather close together, Spanish also the finely chiselled features and the thin, spreading nostrils, Spanish the cold, yet somewhat sensual mouth, more apt to sneer than smile; the straight, black hair, the clear, olive skin, and that indifferent, half-wearied mien which became its wearer well enough, but in a man of his years of Northern blood would have seemed unnatural or affected.

He took his seat without speaking, nor did the others speak to him till his stepfather Dirk said:

“You were not at the works to-day, Adrian, although we should have been glad of your help in founding the culverin.”

“No, father”—he called him father—answered the young man in a measured and rather melodious voice. “You see we don’t quite know who is going to pay for that piece. Or at any rate I don’t quite know, as nobody seems to take me into confidence, and if it should chance to be the losing side, well, it might be enough to hang me.”

Dirk flushed up, but made no answer, only Foy remarked:

“That’s right, Adrian, look after your own skin.”

“Just now I find it more interesting,” went on Adrian loftily and disregardful of his brother, “to study those whom the cannon may shoot than to make the cannon which is to shoot them.”

“Hope you won’t be one of them,” interrupted Foy again.

“Where have you been this evening, son?” asked Lysbeth hastily, fearing a quarrel.

“I have been mixing with the people, mother, at the scene on the market-place yonder.”

“Not the martyrdom of our good friend, Jansen, surely?”

“Yes, mother, why not? It is terrible, it is a crime, no doubt, but the observer of life should study these things. There is nothing more fascinating to the philosopher than the play of human passions. The emotions of the brutal crowd, the stolid indifference of the guard, the grief of the sympathisers, the stoical endurance of the victims animated by religious exaltation——”

“And the beautiful logic of the philosopher, with his nose in the air, while he watches his friend and brother in the Faith being slowly burnt to death,” broke out Foy with passion.

“Hush! hush!” said Dirk, striking his fist upon the table with a blow that caused the glasses to ring, “this is no subject for word-chopping. Adrian, you would have been better with us than down below at that butchery, even though you were less safe,” he added, with meaning. “But I wish to run none into danger, and you are of an age to judge for yourself. I beg you, however, to spare us your light talk about scenes that we think dreadful, however interesting you may have found them.”

Adrian shrugged his shoulders and called to Martin to bring him some more meat. As the great man approached him he spread out his fine-drawn nostrils and sniffed.

“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 fully 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