The Cloister and the Hearth

C >> Charles Reade >> The Cloister and the Hearth


"We had better all go and doctor her, then."

"Oh, yes! and frighten her into the churchyard. Her father is a doctor,
and I have roused him, and set him to bring her round. Let us see the
fire, will ye?"

His off-hand way disarmed all suspicion. And soon after the party agreed
that the kitchen of the "Three Kings" was much warmer than Peter's
house, and they departed, having first untied Martin.

"Take note, mate, that I was right, and the burgomaster wrong," said
Dierich Brower at the door; "I said we should be too late to catch him,
and we were too late."


Thus Gerard, in one terrible night, grazed the prison and the grave.

And how did he get clear at last? Not by his cunningly contrived
hiding-place, nor by Margaret's ready wit; but by a good impulse in
one of his captors, by the bit of humanity left in a somewhat reckless
fellow's heart, aided by his desire of gain. So mixed and seemingly
incongruous are human motives, so shortsighted our shrewdest counsels.

They whose moderate natures or gentle fates keep them, in life's
passage, from the fierce extremes of joy and anguish our nature is
capable of, are perhaps the best, and certainly the happiest of
mankind. But to such readers I should try in vain to convey what bliss
unspeakable settled now upon these persecuted lovers, Even to those who
have joyed greatly and greatly suffered, my feeble art can present but a
pale reflection of Margaret's and Gerard's ecstasy.

To sit and see a beloved face come back from the grave to the world, to
health and beauty, by swift gradations; to see the roses return to the
loved cheek, love's glance to the loved eye, and his words to the loved
mouth--this was Margaret's--a joy to balance years of sorrow. It
was Gerard's to awake from a trance, and find his head pillowed on
Margaret's arm; to hear the woman he adored murmur new words of eloquent
love, and shower tears and tender kisses and caresses on him. He never
knew, till this sweet moment, how ardently, how tenderly, she loved
him. He thanked his enemies. They wreathed their arms sweetly round each
other, and trouble and danger seemed a world, an age behind them. They
called each other husband and wife. Were they not solemnly betrothed?
And had they not stood before the altar together? Was not the blessing
of Holy Church upon their union?--her curse on all who would part them?

But as no woman's nerves can bear with impunity so terrible a strain.
presently Margaret turned faint, and sank on Gerard's shoulder, smiling
feebly, but quite, quite unstrung. Then Gerard was anxious, and would
seek assistance. But she held him with a gentle grasp, and implored him
not to leave her for a moment.

"While I can lay my hand on you, I feel you are safe, not else. Foolish
Gerard! nothing ails me. I am weak, dearest, but happy, oh! so happy!"

Then it was Gerard's turn to support that dear head, with its great
waves of hair flowing loose over him, and nurse her, and soothe her,
quivering on his bosom, with soft encouraging words and murmurs of love,
and gentle caresses. Sweetest of all her charms is a woman's weakness to
a manly heart.

Poor things! they were happy. To-morrow they must part. But that was
nothing to them now. They had seen Death, and all other troubles seemed
light as air. While there is life there is hope; while there is hope
there is joy. Separation for a year or two, what was it to them, who
were so young, and had caught a glimpse of the grave? The future was
bright, the present was Heaven: so passed the blissful hours.

Alas! their innocence ran other risks besides the prison and the grave.
They were in most danger from their own hearts and their inexperience,
now that visible danger there was none.



CHAPTER XVIII

Ghysbrecht Van Swieten could not sleep all night for anxiety. He was
afraid of thunder and lightning, or he would have made one of the party
that searched Peter's house. As soon as the storm ceased altogether,
he crept downstairs, saddled his mule, and rode to the "Three Kings" at
Sevenbergen. There he found his men sleeping, some on the chairs, some
on the tables, some on the floor. He roused them furiously, and heard
the story of their unsuccessful search, interlarded with praises of
their zeal.

"Fool! to let you go without me," cried the burgomaster. "My life on't
he was there all the time. Looked ye under the girl's bed?"

"No; there was no room for a man there."

"How know ye that, if ye looked not?" snarled Ghysbrecht. "Ye should
have looked under her bed, and in it too, and sounded all the panels
with your knives. Come, now, get up, and I shall show ye how to search."

Dierich Brower got up and shook himself. "If you find him, call me a
horse and no man."

In a few minutes Peter's house was again surrounded.

The fiery old man left his mule in the hands of Jorian Ketel, and, with
Dierich Brower and the others, entered the house.

The house was empty.

Not a creature to be seen, not even Peter. They went upstairs, and
then suddenly one of the men gave a shout, and pointed through Peter's
window, which was open. The others looked, and there, at some little
distance, walking quietly across the fields with Margaret and Martin,
was the man they sought. Ghysbrecht, with an exulting yell, descended
the stairs and flung himself on his mule; and he and his men set off in
hot pursuit.



CHAPTER XIX

Gerard warned by recent peril, rose before daybreak and waked Martin.
The old soldier was astonished. He thought Gerard had escaped by the
window last night. Being consulted as to the best way for him to leave
the country and elude pursuit, he said there was but one road safe. "I
must guide you through the great forest to a bridle-road I know of. This
will take you speedily to a hostelry, where they will lend you a swift
horse; and then a day's gallop will take you out of Holland. But let us
start ere the folk here quit their beds."

Peter's house was but a furlong and a half from the forest. They
started, Martin with his bow and three arrows, for it was Thursday;
Gerard with nothing but a stout oak staff Peter gave him for the
journey.

Margaret pinned up her kirtle and farthingale, for the road was wet.
Peter went as far as his garden hedge with them, and then with more
emotion than he often bestowed on passing events, gave the young man his
blessing.

The sun was peeping above the horizon as they crossed the stony field
and made for the wood. They had crossed about half, when Margaret, who
kept nervously looking back every now and then, uttered a cry, and,
following her instinct, began to run towards the wood, screaming with
terror all the way.

Ghysbrecht and his men were in hot pursuit.

Resistance would have been madness. Martin and Gerard followed
Margaret's example. The pursuers gained slightly on them; but Martin
kept shouting, "Only win the wood! only win the wood!"

They had too good a start for the men on foot, and their hearts bounded
with hope at Martin's words, for the great trees seemed now to stretch
their branches like friendly arms towards them, and their leaves like a
screen.

But an unforeseen danger attacked them. The fiery old burgomaster flung
himself on his mule, and, spurring him to a gallop, he headed not his
own men only, but the fugitives. His object was to cut them off. The
old man came galloping in a semicircle, and got on the edge of the wood,
right in front of Gerard; the others might escape for aught he cared.

Margaret shrieked, and tried to protect Gerard by clasping him; but he
shook her off without ceremony.

Ghysbrecht in his ardour forgot that hunted animals turn on the hunter;
and that two men can hate, and two can long to kill the thing they hate.

Instead of attempting to dodge him, as the burgomaster made sure he
would, Gerard flew right at him, with a savage, exulting cry, and struck
at him with all his heart, and soul and strength. The oak staff came
down on Ghysbrecht's face with a frightful crash, and laid him under
his mule's tail beating the devil's tattoo with his heels, his face
streaming, and his collar spattered with blood.

The next moment the three were in the wood. The yell of dismay and
vengeance that burst from Ghysbrecht's men at that terrible blow which
felled their leader, told the fugitives that it was now a race for life
or death.

"Why run?" cried Gerard, panting. "You have your bow, and I have this,"
and he shook his bloody staff.

"Boy!" roared Martin; "the GALLOWS! Follow me," and he fled into the
wood. Soon they heard a cry like a pack of hounds opening on sight of
the game. The men were in the wood, and saw them flitting amongst the
trees. Margaret moaned and panted as she ran; and Gerard clenched his
teeth and grasped his staff. The next minute they came to a stiff hazel
coppice. Martin dashed into it, and shouldered the young wood aside as
if it were standing corn.

Ere they had gone fifty yards in it they came to four blind paths.

Martin took one. "Bend low," said he. And, half creeping, they glided
along. Presently their path was again intersected with other little
tortuous paths. They took one of them. It seemed to lead back; but
it soon took a turn, and, after a while, brought them to a thick pine
grove, where the walking was good and hard. There were no paths here;
and the young fir-trees were so thick, you could not see three yards
before your nose.

When they had gone some way in this, Martin sat down; and, having
learned in war to lose all impression of danger with the danger itself,
took a piece of bread and a slice of ham out of his wallet, and began
quietly to eat his breakfast.

The young ones looked at him with dismay. He replied to their looks.

"All Sevenbergen could not find you now; you will lose your purse,
Gerard, long before you get to Italy; is that the way to carry a purse?"

Gerard looked, and there was a large triangular purse, entangled by its
chains to the buckle and strap of his wallet.

"This is none of mine," said he. "What is in it, I wonder?" and he
tried to detach it; but in passing through the coppice it had become
inextricably entangled in his strap and buckle. "It seems loath to leave
me," said Gerard, and he had to cut it loose with his knife. The purse,
on examination, proved to be well provided with silver coins of all
sizes, but its bloated appearance was greatly owing to a number of
pieces of brown paper folded and doubled. A light burst on Gerard. "Why,
it must be that old thief's; and see! stuffed with paper to deceive the
world!"

The wonder was how the burgomaster's purse came on Gerard.

They hit at last upon the right solution. The purse must have been
at Ghysbrecht's saddle-bow, and Gerard rushing at his enemy, had
unconsciously torn it away, thus felling his enemy and robbing him, with
a single gesture.

Gerard was delighted at this feat, but Margaret was uneasy.

"Throw it away, Gerard, or let Martin take it back. Already they call
you a thief. I cannot bear it."

"Throw it away! give it him back? not a stiver! This is spoil lawfully
won in battle from an enemy. Is it not, Martin?"

"Why, of course. Send him back the brown paper, and you will; but the
purse or the coin--that were a sin."

"Oh, Gerard!" said Margaret, "you are going to a distant land. We need
the goodwill of Heaven. How can we hope for that if we take what is not
ours?"

But Gerard saw it in a different light.

"It is Heaven that gives it me by a miracle, and I shall cherish it
accordingly," said this pious youth. "Thus the favoured people spoiled
the Egyptians, and were blessed."

"Take your own way," said Margaret humbly; "you are wiser than I am. You
are my husband," added she, in a low murmuring voice; "is it for me to
gainsay you?"

These humble words from Margaret, who, till that day, had held the
whip-hand, rather surprised Martin for the moment. They recurred to him
some time afterwards, and then they surprised him less.

Gerard kissed her tenderly in return for her wife-like docility, and
they pursued their journey hand in hand, Martin leading the way,
into the depths of the huge forest. The farther they went, the more
absolutely secure from pursuit they felt. Indeed, the townspeople never
ventured so far as this into the trackless part of the forest.

Impetuous natures repent quickly. Gerard was no sooner out of all danger
than his conscience began to prick him.

"Martin, would I had not struck quite so hard."

"Whom? Oh! let that pass, he is cheap served."

"Martin, I saw his grey hairs as my stick fell on him. I doubt they will
not from my sight this while."

Martin grunted with contempt. "Who spares a badger for his grey hairs?
The greyer your enemy is, the older; and the older the craftier and the
craftier the better for a little killing."

"Killing? killing, Martin? Speak not of killing!" and Gerard shook all
over.

"I am much mistook if you have not," said Martin cheerfully.

"Now Heaven forbid!"

"The old vagabond's skull cracked like a walnut. Aha!"

"Heaven and the saints forbid it!"

"He rolled off his mule like a stone shot out of a cart. Said I to
myself, 'There is one wiped out,'" and the iron old soldier grinned
ruthlessly.

Gerard fell on his knees and began to pray for his enemy's life.

At this Martin lost his patience. "Here's mummery. What! you that set up
for learning, know you not that a wise man never strikes his enemy but
to kill him? And what is all this coil about killing of old men? If it
had been a young one, now, with the joys of life waiting for him, wine,
women, and pillage! But an old fellow at the edge of the grave, why not
shove him in? Go he must, to-day or to-morrow; and what better place for
greybeards? Now, if ever I should be so mischancy as to last so long
as Ghysbrecht did, and have to go on a mule's legs instead of Martin
Wittenhaagen's, and a back like this (striking the wood of his bow),
instead of this (striking the string), I'll thank and bless any
young fellow who will knock me on the head, as you have done that old
shopkeeper; malison on his memory.

"Oh, culpa mea! culpa mea!" cried Gerard, and smote upon his breast.

"Look there!" cried Martin to Margaret scornfully, "he is a priest at
heart still--and when he is not in ire, St. Paul, what a milksop!"

"Tush, Martin!" cried Margaret reproachfully: then she wreathed her arms
round Gerard, and comforted him with the double magic of a woman's sense
and a woman's voice.

"Sweetheart!" murmured she, "you forget: you went not a step out of the
way to harm him, who hunted you to your death. You fled from him. He it
was who spurred on you. Then did you strike; but in self-defence and
a single blow, and with that which was in your hand. Malice had drawn
knife, or struck again and again. How often have men been smitten with
staves not one but many blows, yet no lives lost! If then your enemy
has fallen, it is through his own malice, not yours, and by the will of
God."

"Bless you, Margaret; bless you for thinking so!"

"Yes; but, beloved one, if you have had the misfortune to kill that
wicked man, the more need is there that you fly with haste from Holland.
Oh, let us on."

"Nay, Margaret," said Gerard. "I fear not man's vengeance, thanks to
Martin here and this thick wood: only Him I fear whose eye pierces the
forest and reads the heart of man. If I but struck in self-defence,
'tis well; but if in hate, He may bid the avenger of blood follow me to
Italy--to Italy? ay, to earth's remotest bounds."

"Hush!" said Martin peevishly. "I can't hear for your chat."

"What is it?"

"Do you hear nothing, Margaret; my ears are getting old."

Margaret listened, and presently she heard a tuneful sound, like a
single stroke upon a deep ringing bell. She described it so to Martin.

"Nay, I heard it," said he.

"And so did I," said Gerard; "it was beautiful. Ah! there it is again.
How sweetly it blends with the air. It is a long way off. It is before
us, is it not?"

"No, no! the echoes of this wood confound the ear of a stranger. It
comes from the pine grove."

"What! the one we passed?"

"Why, Martin, is this anything? You look pale."

"Wonderful!" said Martin, with a sickly sneer. "He asks me is it
anything? Come, on, on! at any rate, let us reach a better place than
this."

"A better place--for what?"

"To stand at bay, Gerard," said Martin gravely; "and die like soldiers,
killing three for one."

"What's that sound?"

"IT IS THE AVENGER OF BLOOD."

"Oh, Martin, save him! Oh, Heaven be merciful What new mysterious peril
is this?"

"GIRL, IT'S A BLOODHOUND."



CHAPTER XX

The courage, like the talent, of common men, runs in a narrow groove.
Take them but an inch out of that, and they are done. Martin's courage
was perfect as far as it went. He had met and baffled many dangers in
the course of his rude life, and these familiar dangers he could face
with Spartan fortitude, almost with indifference; but he had never
been hunted by a bloodhound, nor had he ever seen that brute's unerring
instinct baffled by human cunning. Here then a sense of the supernatural
combined with novelty to ungenteel his heart. After going a few steps,
he leaned on his bow, and energy and hope oozed out of him. Gerard, to
whom the danger appeared slight in proportion as it was distant, urged
him to flight.

"What avails it?" said Martin sadly; "if we get clear of the wood we
shall die cheap; here, hard by, I know a place where we may die dear."

"Alas! good Martin," cried Gerard, "despair not so quickly; there must
be some way to escape."

"Oh, Martin!" cried Margaret, "what if we were to part company? Gerard's
life alone is forfeit. Is there no way to draw the pursuit on us twain
and let him go safe?"

"Girl, you know not the bloodhound's nature. He is not on this man's
track or that; he is on the track of blood. My life on't they have taken
him to where Ghysbrecht fell, and from the dead man's blood to the man
that shed it that cursed hound will lead them, though Gerard should run
through an army or swim the Meuse." And again he leaned upon his bow,
and his head sank.

The hound's mellow voice rang through the wood.

A cry more tunable
Was never halloed to, nor cheered with horn,
In Crete, in Sparta, or in Thessaly.

Strange that things beautiful should be terrible and deadly' The eye
of the boa-constrictor, while fascinating its prey, is lovely. No royal
crown holds such a jewel; it is a ruby with the emerald's green light
playing ever upon it. Yet the deer that sees it loses all power of
motion, and trembles, and awaits his death and even so, to compare
hearing with sight, this sweet and mellow sound seemed to fascinate
Martin Wittenhaagen. He stood uncertain, bewildered, and unnerved.
Gerard was little better now. Martin's last words had daunted him, He
had struck an old man and shed his blood, and, by means of that very
blood, blood's four-footed avenger was on his track. Was not the finger
of Heaven in this?

Whilst the men were thus benumbed, the woman's brain was all activity.
The man she loved was in danger.

"Lend me your knife," said she to Martin. He gave it her.

"But 'twill be little use in your hands," said he.

Then Margaret did a sly thing. She stepped behind Gerard, and furtively
drew the knife across her arm, and made it bleed freely; then stooping,
smeared her hose and shoes; and still as the blood trickled she smeared
them; but so adroitly that neither Gerard nor Martin saw. Then she
seized the soldier's arm.

"Come, be a man!" she said, "and let this end. Take us to some thick
place, where numbers will not avail our foes."

"I am going," said Martin sulkily. "Hurry avails not; we cannot shun the
hound, and the place is hard by;" then turning to the left, he led the
way, as men go to execution.

He soon brought them to a thick hazel coppice, like the one that had
favoured their escape in the morning.

"There," said he, "this is but a furlong broad, but it will serve our
turn."

"What are we to do?"

"Get through this, and wait on the other side; then as they come
straggling through, shoot three, knock two on the head, and the rest
will kill us."

"Is that all you can think of?" said Gerard.

"That is all."

"Then, Martin Wittenhaagen, I take the lead, for you have lost your
head. Come, can you obey so young a man as I am?"

"Oh, yes, Martin," cried Margaret, "do not gainsay Gerard! He is wiser
than his years."

Martin yielded a sullen assent.

"Do then as you see me do," said Gerard; and drawing his huge knife, he
cut at every step a hazel shoot or two close by the ground, and turning
round twisted them breast-high behind him among the standing shoots.
Martin did the same, but with a dogged hopeless air. When they had
thus painfully travelled through the greater part of the coppice, the
bloodhound's deep bay came nearer and nearer, less and less musical,
louder and sterner.

Margaret trembled.

Martin went down on his stomach and listened.

"I hear a horse's feet."

"No," said Gerard; "I doubt it is a mule's. That cursed Ghysbrecht is
still alive: none other would follow me up so bitterly."

"Never strike your enemy but to slay him," said Martin gloomily.

"I'll hit harder this time, if Heaven gives me the chance," said Gerard.

At last they worked through the coppice, and there was an open wood. The
trees were large, but far apart, and no escape possible that way.

And now with the hound's bay mingled a score of voices hooping and
hallooing.

"The whole village is out after us," said Martin.

"I care not," said Gerard. "Listen, Martin. I have made the track smooth
to the dog, but rough to the men, that we may deal with them apart.
Thus the hound will gain on the men, and as soon as he comes out of the
coppice we must kill him."

"The hound? There are more than one."

"I hear but one."

"Ay! but one speaks, the others run mute; but let the leading hound lose
the scent, then another shall give tongue. There will be two dogs, at
least, or devils in dog's hides."

"Then we must kill two instead of one. The moment they are dead, into
the coppice again, and go right back."

"That is a good thought, Gerard," said Martin, plucking up heart.

"Hush! the men are in the wood."

Gerard now gave his orders in a whisper.

"Stand you with your bow by the side of the coppice--there, in the
ditch. I will go but a few yards to yon oak-tree, and hide behind it;
the dogs will follow me, and, as they come out, shoot as many as you
can, the rest will I brain as they come round the tree."

Martin's eye flashed. They took up their places.

The hooping and hallooing came closer and closer, and soon even the
rustling of the young wood was heard, and every now and then the
unerring bloodhound gave a single bay.

It was terrible! the branches rustling nearer and nearer, and the
inevitable struggle for life and death coming on minute by minute,
and that death-knell leading it. A trembling hand was laid on Gerard's
shoulder. It made him start violently, strung up as he was.

"Martin says if we are forced to part company, make for that high
ash-tree we came in by."

"Yes! yes! yes! but go back for Heaven's sake! don't come here, all out
in the open!"

She ran back towards Martin; but, ere she could get to him, suddenly a
huge dog burst out of the coppice, and stood erect a moment. Margaret
cowered with fear, but he never noticed her. Scent was to him what sight
is to us. He lowered his nose an instant, and the next moment, with an
awful yell, sprang straight at Gerard's tree and rolled head-over-heels
dead as a stone, literally spitted with an arrow from the bow that
twanged beside the coppice in Martin's hand. That same moment out came
another hound and smelt his dead comrade. Gerald rushed out at him;
but ere he could use his cudgel, a streak of white lightning seemed to
strike the hound, and he grovelled in the dust, wounded desperately, but
not killed, and howling piteously.

Gerard had not time to despatch him: the coppice rustled too near: it
seemed alive. Pointing wildly to Martin to go back, Gerard ran a few
yards to the right, then crept cautiously into the thick coppice just as
three men burst out. These had headed their comrades considerably: the
rest were following at various distances. Gerard crawled back almost on
all-fours. Instinct taught Martin and Margaret to do the same upon their
line of retreat. Thus, within the distance of a few yards, the pursuers
and pursued were passing one another upon opposite tracks.

A loud cry announced the discovery of the dead and the wounded hound.
Then followed a babble of voices, still swelling as fresh pursuers
reached the spot. The hunters, as usual on a surprise, were wasting
time, and the hunted ones were making the most of it.

"I hear no more hounds," whispered Martin to Margaret, and he was
himself again.

It was Margaret's turn to tremble and despair.

"Oh, why did we part with Gerard? They will kill my Gerard, and I not
near him."

"Nay, nay! the head to catch him is not on their shoulders. You bade him
meet us at the ash-tree?"

"And so I did. Bless you, Martin, for thinking of that. To the
ash-tree!"