Part 24 (2/2)
They saw Gerard and Margaret running along at a prodigious distance; they looked like gnats; and Martin galloping after them _ventre a terre_.
The hunters were outwitted as well as outrun. A few words will explain Martin's conduct. We arrive at causes by noting coincidences: yet, now and then, coincidences are deceitful. As we have all seen a hare tumble over a briar just as the gun went off, and so raise expectations, then dash them to earth by scudding away untouched, so the burgomaster's mule put her foot in a rabbit-hole at or about the time the cross-bow bolt whizzed innocuous over her head: she fell and threw both her riders.
Gerard caught Margaret, but was carried down by her weight and impetus; and behold, the soil was strewn with dramatis personae.
The docile mule was up again directly, and stood trembling. Martin was next, and looking round saw there was but one in pursuit; on this he made the young lovers fly on foot, while he checked the enemy as I have recorded.
He now galloped after his companions, and, when after a long race he caught them, he instantly put Gerard and Margaret on the mule, and ran by their side till his breath failed, then took his turn to ride, and so in rotation. Thus the runner was always fresh, and, long ere they relaxed their speed, all sound and trace of them was hopelessly lost to Dierich and his men. These latter went crest-fallen back to look after their chief, and their winged bloodhound.
CHAPTER XXIII
LIFE and liberty, while safe, are little thought of: for why? they are matters of course. Endangered, they are rated at their real value. In this, too, they are like suns.h.i.+ne, whose beauty men notice not at noon when it is greatest, but towards evening when it lies in flakes of topaz under shady elms. Yet it is feebler then; but gloom lies beside it, and contrast reveals its fire. Thus Gerard and Margaret, though they started at every leaf that rustled louder than its fellows, glowed all over with joy and thankfulness as they glided among the friendly trees in safety and deep tranquil silence, baying dogs and brutal voices yet ringing in their mind's ears.
But presently Gerard found stains of blood on Margaret's ankles.
”Martin! Martin! help! they have wounded her: the crossbow!”
”No, no,” said Margaret, smiling to re-a.s.sure him. ”I am not wounded, nor hurt at all.”
”But what is it, then, in Heaven's name?” cried Gerard, in great agitation.
”Scold me not then!” and Margaret blushed.
”Did I ever scold you?”
”No, dear Gerard. Well, then, Martin said it was blood those cruel dogs followed; so I thought, if I could but have a little blood on my shoon, the dogs would follow me instead, and let my Gerard wend free. So I scratched my arm with Martin's knife--forgive me! Whose else could I take? Yours, Gerard? Ah, no. You forgive me?” said she beseechingly, and lovingly and fawningly, all in one.
”Let me see this scratch first,” said Gerard, choking with emotion.
”There, I thought so. A scratch? I call it a cut--a deep terrible, cruel cut.”
Gerard shuddered at sight of it.
”She might have done it with her bodkin,” said the soldier. ”Milksop!
that sickens at sight of a scratch and a little blood.”
”No, no. I could look on a sea of blood; but not on hers. Oh, Margaret!
how could you be so cruel?”
Margaret smiled with love ineffable. ”Foolish Gerard,” murmured she, ”to make so much of nothing.” And she flung the guilty arm round his neck.
”As if I would not give all the blood in my heart for you, let alone a few drops from my arm.” And, with this, under the sense of his recent danger, she wept on his neck for pity and love: and he wept with her.
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