The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade (most interesting books to read .TXT) 📕

“For what do you take me? I carry no messages, I keep the gate.”

He then bawled, in a stentorian voice, inexorably:

“No strangers enter here, but the competitors and their companies.”

“Come, old man,” cried a voice in the crowd, “you have gotten your answer; make way.”

Margaret turned half round imploringly:

“Good people, we are come from far, and my father is old; and my cousin has a new servant that knows us not, and would not let us sit in our cousin's house.”

At this the crowd laughed hoarsely. Margaret shrank as if they had struck her. At that moment a hand grasped hers—a magic grasp; it felt like heart meeting heart, or magnet steel. She turned quickly round at it, and it was Gerard. Such a little cry of joy and appeal came from her bosom, and she began to whimper prettily.

They had hustled her and frightened her, for one thing; and her cousin's thoughtlessness, in not even telling his servant they were coming, was cruel; and the servant's caution, however wise and faithful to her master, was bitterly mortifying to her father and her. And to her so mortified, and anxious and jostled, came suddenly this kind hand and face. “Hinc illae lacrimae.”

“All is well now,” remarked a coarse humourist; “she hath gotten her sweetheart.”

“Haw! haw! haw!” went the crowd.

She dropped Gerard's hand directly, and turned round, with eyes flashing through her tears:

“I have no sweetheart, you rude men. But I am friendless in your boorish town, and this is a friend; and one who knows, what you know not, how to treat the aged and the weak.”

The crowd was dead silent. They had only been thoughtless, and now felt the rebuke, though severe, was just. The silence enabled Gerard to treat with the porter.

“I am a competitor, sir.”

“What is your name?” and the man eyed him suspiciously.

“Gerard, the son of Elias.”

The janitor inspected a slip of parchment he held in his hand:

“Gerard Eliassoen can enter.”

“With my company, these two?”

“Nay; those are not your company they came before you.”

“What matter? They are my friends, and without them I go not in.”

“Stay without, then.”

“That will I not.”

“That we shall see.”

“We will, and speedily.” And with this, Gerard raised a voice of astounding volume and power, and routed so that the whole street rang:

“Ho! PHILIP, EARL OF HOLLAND!”

“Are you mad?” cried the porter.

“HERE IS ONE OF YOUR VARLETS DEFIES YOU.”

“Hush, hush!”

“AND WILL NOT LET YOUR GUESTS PASS IN.”

“Hush! murder! The Dukes there. I'm dead,” cried the janitor, quaking.

Then suddenly trying to overpower Gerard's thunder, he shouted, with all his lungs:

“OPEN THE GATE, YE KNAVES! WAY THERE FOR GERARD ELIASSOEN AND HIS COMPANY! (The fiends go with him!)”

The gate swung open as by magic. Eight soldiers lowered their pikes halfway, and made an arch, under which the victorious three marched in triumphant. The moment they had passed, the pikes clashed together horizontally to bar the gateway, and all but pinned an abdominal citizen that sought to wedge in along with them.

Once past the guarded portal, a few steps brought the trio upon a scene of Oriental luxury. The courtyard was laid out in tables loaded with rich meats and piled with gorgeous plate. Guests in rich and various costumes sat beneath a leafy canopy of fresh-cut branches fastened tastefully to golden, silver, and blue silken cords that traversed the area; and fruits of many hues, including some artificial ones of gold, silver, and wax, hung pendant, or peeped like fair eyes among the green leaves of plane-trees and lime-trees. The Duke's minstrels swept their lutes at intervals, and a fountain played red Burgundy in six jets that met and battled in the air. The evening sun darted its fires through those bright and purple wine spouts, making them jets and cascades of molten rubies, then passing on, tinged with the blood of the grape, shed crimson glories here and there on fair faces, snowy beards, velvet, satin, jewelled hilts, glowing gold, gleaming silver, and sparkling glass. Gerard and his friends stood dazzled, spell-bound. Presently a whisper buzzed round them, “Salute the Duke! Salute the Duke!” They looked up, and there on high, under the dais, was their sovereign, bidding them welcome with a kindly wave of the hand. The men bowed low, and Margaret curtsied with a deep and graceful obeisance. The Duke's hand being up, he gave it another turn, and pointed the new-comers out to a knot of valets. Instantly seven of his people, with an obedient start, went headlong at our friends, seated them at a table, and put fifteen many-coloured soups before them, in little silver bowls, and as many wines in crystal vases.

“Nay, father, let us not eat until we have thanked our good friend,” said Margaret, now first recovering from all this bustle.

“Girl, he is our guardian angel.”

Gerard put his face into his hands.

“Tell me when you have done,” said he, “and I will reappear and have my supper, for I am hungry. I know which of us three is the happiest at meeting again.”

“Me?” inquired Margaret.

“No: guess again.”

“Father?”

“No.”

“Then I have no guess which it can be;” and she gave a little crow of happiness and gaiety. The soup was tasted, and vanished in a twirl of fourteen hands, and fish came on the table in a dozen forms, with patties of lobster and almonds mixed, and of almonds and cream, and an immense variety of brouets known to us as rissoles. The next trifle was a wild boar, which smelt divine. Why, then, did Margaret start away from it with two shrieks of dismay, and pinch so good a friend as Gerard? Because the Duke's cuisinier had been too clever; had made this excellent dish too captivating to the sight as well as taste. He had restored to the animal, by elaborate mimicry with burnt sugar and other edible colours, the hair and bristles he had robbed him of by fire and water. To make him still more enticing, the huge tusks were carefully preserved in the brute's jaw, and gave his mouth the winning smile that comes of tusk in man or beast; and two eyes of coloured sugar glowed in his head. St. Argus! what eyes! so bright, so bloodshot, so threatening—they followed