Part 66 (2/2)
”'Tis false,” cried Jorian, made suspicious by the other's suspicion.
”'Tis a trick to rob me of my hundred crowns. Oh! I know you, burgomaster.” And Jorian was ready to whimper.
A mellow voice fell on them both like oil upon the waves. ”No, good man, it is not false, nor yet is it quite true: there was another parchment.”
”There, there, there! Where is it?”
”But,” continued Margaret calmly, ”it was not a town record (so you have gained your hundred crowns, good man): it was but a private deed between the burgomaster here and my grandfather Flor----”
”Hush, hus.h.!.+”
”--is Brandt.”
”Where is it, girl? that is all we want to know.”
”Have patience, and I shall tell you.” Gerard read the t.i.tle of it, and he said, ”This is as much yours as the burgomaster's,” and he put it apart, to read it with me at his leisure.”
”It is in the house, then?” said the burgomaster, recovering his calmness.
”No, sir,” said Margaret, bravely, ”it is not.” Then, in a voice that faltered suddenly, ”You hunted--my poor Gerard--so hard--and so close--that you gave him--no time--to think of aught--but his life--and his grief.--The parchment was in his bosom, and he hath ta'en it with him.”
”Whither, whither?”
”Ask me no more, sir. What right is yours to question me thus? It was for _your_ sake, good man, I put force upon my heart, and came out here, and bore to speak at all to this hard old man. For, when I think of the misery he has brought on _him_ and me, the sight of him is more than I can bear:” and she gave an involuntary shudder, and went slowly in, with her hand to her head, crying bitterly.
Remorse for the past, and dread of the future--the slow, but, as he now felt, the inevitable future--avarice, and fear, all tugged in one short moment at Ghysbrecht's tough heart. He hung his head, and his arms fell listless by his sides. A coa.r.s.e chuckle made him start round, and there stood Martin Wittenhaagen leaning on his bow, and sneering from ear to ear. At sight of the man and his grinning face, Ghysbrecht's worst pa.s.sions awoke.
”Ho! attach him, seize him, traitor and thief!” cried he. ”Dog, thou shalt pay for all.”
Martin, without a word, calmly thrust the duke's pardon under Ghysbrecht's nose. He looked, and had not a word to say. Martin followed up his advantage.
”The duke and I are soldiers. He won't let you greasy burghers trample on an old comrade. He bade me carry you a message too.”
”The duke send a message to me?”
”Ay! I told him of your masterful doings, of your imprisoning Gerard for loving a girl; and says he, 'Tell him this is to be a king, not a burgomaster. I'll have no kings in Holland but one. Bid him be more humble, or I'll hang him at his own door'” (Ghysbrecht trembled. He thought the duke capable of the deed) ”'as I hanged the burgomaster of Thingembob.' The duke could not mind which of you he had hung, or in what part; such trifles stick not in a soldier's memory, but he was sure he had hanged one of you for grinding poor folk, 'and I'm the man to hang another,' quoth the good duke.”
These repeated insults from so mean a man, coupled with his invulnerability, s.h.i.+elded as he was by the duke, drove the choleric old man into a fit of impotent fury: he shook his fist at the soldier, and tried to threaten him, but could not speak for the rage and mortification that choked him: then he gave a sort of screech, and coiled himself up in eye and form like a rattle-snake about to strike; and spat furiously upon Martin's doublet.
The thick-skinned soldier treated this ebullition with genuine contempt.
”Here's a venomous old toad! he knows a kick from this foot would send him to his last home; and he wants me to cheat the gallows. But I have slain too many men in fair fight to lift limb against anything less than a man: and this I count no man; what is it, in Heaven's name? an old goat's-skin bag full o' rotten bones.”
”My mule! my mule!” screamed Ghysbrecht.
Jorian helped the old man up trembling in every joint. Once in the saddle, he seemed to gather in a moment unnatural vigour; and the figure that went flying to Tergou was truly weirdlike and terrible: so old and wizened the face; so white and reverend the streaming hair; so baleful the eye; so fierce the fury which shook the bent frame that went spurring like mad; while the quavering voice yelled, ”I'll make their hearts ache.--I'll make their hearts ache.--I'll make their hearts ache.--I'll make their hearts ache. All of them. All!--all!--all!”
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