The Cloister and the Hearth Part 22

"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," said Martin to Margaret scornfully, "_he is a priest at heart still_: and when he is not in ire, St. Paul, what a milk-sop!"

"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 G.o.d."

"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."

"Hus.h.!.+" 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 pa.s.sed?"

"The one we pa.s.sed?"

"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 fort.i.tude, 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 unsteel 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 to 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," said she "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?"