Part 24 (1/2)

He nodded eagerly.

”I shall soon send it you,” she said, ”and ask you to do something for my sake.”

”Command me,” he implored, ”and it shall be done.”

IV

Then at last the farewells were all spoken and Lenora and her husband started on their way. It had rained in torrents all the morning--therefore departure was delayed until long past midday. The wagons for the effects were to be round almost immediately, but their progress would be very slow owing to the bad state of the roads.

The road between Ghent and Brussels runs parallel with the Schelde for the first two or three leagues. The river had overflowed its banks, and in places the road was so deep under water that the horses sank in it almost up to their bellies. Everywhere it was fetlock-deep in mud, and more like a ploughed field than a chaussee owing to the continual pa.s.sage recently of cavalry and artillery.

Mark and Lenora were travelling alone, which was distinctly unseemly in a lady of her rank, but the distance was not great, and Inez had to be left behind to finish up the packing, whilst Mark refused to take a serving man with him, declaring that the roads were perfectly safe now and free from footpads, and that they would surely be in Brussels before nightfall. Lenora, who was an absolute stranger in the country and did not know one Flemish town from another--and who moreover had done the journey from Brussels to Ghent ten days ago in a covered coach drawn by four horses--was ready to accept any suggestion or any itinerary with the blindness of ignorance.

She hardly noticed that they seemed to be making very slow progress, nor that the sky which had cleared up brilliantly in the early part of the afternoon was once more heavily overcast. Mark at first had made one or two attempts at cheerful conversation, but since Lenora only answered in monosyllables he too relapsed into silence after awhile.

The flat, monotonous country--sodden with rain--looked unspeakably dreary to the girl accustomed to the snow-clad vistas of the Sierras and the blue skies of Castille. As they left Ghent further and further behind them, the country bore traces of the terrible ravages of Alva's relentless occupation. Poverty and wretchedness were writ largely upon every tiny village or hamlet which they pa.s.sed: everywhere the houses bore a miserable and forlorn aspect, with broken chimneys and shattered roofs, trees cut down to make way for the pa.s.sage of cavalry or merely for the supplying of firewood for Alva's army. In the little town of Wetteren through which they pa.s.sed, the houses looked deserted and dilapidated: the people looked ill-clad and sullen, and as they crossed the market-place a crowd of beggars--men, women and children in miserable rags--flocked around their horses' heels begging for alms.

So much had Spanish occupation done for this proud country which only a very few years ago had boasted that not one of its children ever lacked clothing or food. Tears of pity gathered in Lenora's eyes: she, of course, did not know that the misery which she witnessed was due to her people, to her country and to her King ... and in no small measure to her father. She gave the poor folk money and said kindly words of compa.s.sion to them. Then she turned to Mark.

”It is dreadful,” she said navely, ”to see so much misery in the land, when our Sovereign Lord the King does so much for its welfare. It is these wretched internal dissensions, I suppose, that are ruining the country. Surely all those abominable rebels must see that their obstinacy and treachery redounds upon their own kith and kin.”

”They ought to see that, oughtn't they?” was Mark's dry and curt comment. And Lenora, chilled by such strange indifference, once more relapsed into her former silence.

V

When they neared the walls of Dendermonde, Mark announced that his horse had cast a shoe. He dismounted, and leading his horse by the bridle he advanced to the city gate. Here, however, both he and Lenora were summarily stopped by a young provost who demanded to see their papers of identification, their travelling permits, and their permit to enter this fortified city.

To Lenora's astonishment Mark, who was always so good-humoured and placid, became violent and abusive at this formality imposed upon him.

It was in no way different to those which the munic.i.p.ality of Ghent would have enjoined on any stranger who desired to enter the city.

These had been rendered necessary by the many stringent edicts formulated by the Lieutenant-Governor against the harbouring of rebels in fortified towns, and all law-abiding citizens were in consequence obliged to provide themselves with the necessary pa.s.ses and permits whenever they desired to travel.

Lenora--whose ignorance of every law, every formality, every duty imposed upon this once free and proud country by its Spanish masters was unbounded--could not quite understand why her husband, who was the son of a high civic dignitary, had not taken care that all his papers were in order, before he embarked upon this journey. It surely had been his duty to do that, in order to save himself and his wife from the humiliation of being thus held up at a city gate by an insolent provost, who had the power to make his authority felt, and was not sparing of abuse of loutish Netherlanders who were wilfully ignorant of the law, or else impudent enough to flout it. An unpleasant quarrel between the two men would undoubtedly have ensued and would inevitably have ended in disaster for Mark, but for the intervention of Lenora who spoke to the provost in Spanish.

”I am this n.o.ble gentleman's wife,” she said haughtily in response to an insolent look from the young soldier, ”and the daughter of senor Juan de Vargas, who will make you responsible, sirrah, for any inconvenience you may cause me.”

At mention of the all-powerful and dreaded name, the provost's manner immediately underwent a change. At the same time he was not prepared to accept the statement quite so unconditionally as Lenora had supposed.

”This n.o.ble gentleman,” he retorted half-sullenly, ”hath no papers whereby I can verify the truth of what he a.s.serts. He has none whereby he can prove to me that he is the son of the High-Bailiff of Ghent, and that you are his wife and the daughter of don Juan de Vargas.”

”You have my word for both these a.s.sertions, you accursed fool,”

exclaimed Mark hotly.

”And I'll make you rue your insolence, you dog of a Netherlander,”