The Laughing Cavalier Part 39

A fortune if he brought her back! And when he had brought her back she would tell of his share in her abduction, and instead of the fortune mayhap the gallows would be meted out to him.

'Twas a puzzle, a hard nut for a philosopher to crack. It would be the work of an adventurer, of a man accustomed to take every risk on the mere chance of success.

But Gilda's image never left him for one moment while his thoughts were busy with that difficult problem. For the first time now he realized the utter pathos of her helplessness. The proud little vixen, as he had dubbed her a while ago, was after all but a poor defenceless girl tossed hither and thither just to suit the ambitions of men. Did she really love that unscrupulous and cruel Stoutenburg, he wondered. Surely she must love him, for she did not look the kind of woman who would plight her troth against her will. She loved him and would marry him, her small white hand, which had the subtle fragrance of tulips, would be placed in one which was deeply stained with blood.

Poor young vixen, with the sharp tongue that knew how to hurt and the blue eyes that could probe a wound like steel! It was strange to think that their soft glances were reserved for a man whose heart was more filled with hate for men than with love for one woman.

"If I loved you, little vixen," he once murmured apostrophizing the elusive vision which lightened the darkness around him, "if I loved you, I would break my word to that dastard who is your brother ... I would not take you to Rotterdam to further his ambition, but I would carry you off to please myself. I would take you to some distant land, mayhap to my unknown father's home in England, where the sounds of strife and hatred amongst men would only come as a faint and intangible echo. I would take you to where roses bloom in profusion, and where in the spring the petals of apple-blossoms would cover you like a mantle of fragrant snow. There I would teach that sharp tongue of yours to murmur words of tenderness and those perfect blue eyes to close in the ecstasy of a kiss. But," he added with his habitual light-hearted laugh, "I do not love you, little vixen, for heigh-ho! if I did 'twere hard for my peace of mind."

When Diogenes neared the town of Leyden he heard its church clocks ring out the hour of three. Close by the city walls he took off his skates, preferring to walk the short league which lay between him and Houdekerk.

He was more tired than he cared to own even to himself, and the last tramp along the road was inexpressibly wearisome. But he had seen or heard nothing more of his pursuers; he was quite convinced that they had lost track of him some hours ago. The south wind blew in heavy gusts from over the marshlands far away, and the half-melted snow clung sticky and dank against the soles and heels of his boots. A smell of dampness in the air proclaimed the coming triumph of the thaw. The roads, thought Diogenes, would be heavy on the morrow, impa.s.sable mayhap to a sledge, and the jongejuffrouw would have to travel in great discomfort in a jolting vehicle.

At last in the near distance a number of tiny lights proclaimed the presence of a group of windmills. It was in one of these that Pythagoras and Socrates had been ordered to ask for shelter--in the fifth one down the road, which stood somewhat isolated from the others; even now its long, weird arms showed like heavy lines of ink upon the black background of the sky.

Diogenes almost fell up against the door; he could hardly stand. But the miller was on the look-out for him, having slept only with half an eye, waiting for the stranger whose emissaries had already paid him well. He carried a lanthorn and a bunch of keys; his thin, sharp head was surmounted with a cotton nightcap and his feet were encased in thick woollen hose.

It took him some time to undo the many heavy bolts which protected the molens against the unwelcome visits of night marauders, and before he pushed back the final one, he peered through a tiny judas in the door and in a querulous voice asked the belated traveller's name.

"Never mind my name," quoth Diogenes impatiently, "and open thy door, miller, ere I break it in. I am as tired as a nag, as thirsty as a dog and as hungry as a cat. The jongejuffrouw is I trust safe: I am her major domo and faithful servant, so open quickly, or thy shoulder will have to smart for the delay."

I have Diogenes' own a.s.surance that the miller was thereupon both obedient and prompt. He--like all his compeers in the neighborhood--found but scanty living in the grinding of corn for the neighbouring peasantry, there was too much compet.i.tion nowadays and work had not multiplied in proportion. Optimists said that in a few years time the paralysing effects of the constant struggle against Spain would begin to wear off, that the tilling of the soil would once more become a profitable occupation and that the molens which now stood idle through many days in the year would once more become a vast storehouse of revenue for those who had continued to work them.

But in the meanwhile the millers and their families were oft on the verge of starvation, and some of them eked out a precarious livelihood by taking in wayfarers who were on their way to and from the cities and had sundry reasons--into which it was best not to inquire--for preferring to sleep and eat at one of these out-of-the-way places rather than in one of the city hostelries.

Diogenes had made previous acquaintance with his present landlord; he knew him to be a man of discretion and of boundless cupidity, two very useful qualities when there is a secret to be kept and plenty of money wherewith to guard it.

Therefore did Diogenes order his companions to convey the jongejuffrouw to the molens of Mynheer Patz, and there to keep guard over her until his own return.

Patz looked well after his belated guest's material comfort. There was some bread and cheese and a large mug of ale waiting for him in the wheel-house and a clean straw pailla.s.se in a corner. The place smelt sweetly of freshly ground corn, of flour and of dry barley and maize, and a thin white coating of flour--soft to the touch as velvet--lay over everything.

Diogenes ate and drank and asked news of the jongejuffrouw. She was well but seemed over sad, the miller explained; but his wife had prepared a comfortable bed for her in the room next to the tiny kitchen. It was quite warm there and Mevrouw Patz had spread her one pair of linen sheets over the bed. The jongejuffrouw's serving woman was asleep on the kitchen floor; she declared herself greatly ill-used, and had gone to sleep vowing that she was so uncomfortable she would never be able to close an eye.

As for the two varlets who had accompanied the n.o.ble lady, they were stretched out on a freshly made bed of straw in the weighing-room.

Patz and his wife seemed to have felt great sympathy for the jongejuffrouw, and Diogenes had reason to congratulate himself that she was moneyless, else she would have found it easy enough to bribe the over-willing pair into helping her to regain her home.

He dreamt of her all night; her voice rang in his ear right through the soughing of the wind which beat against the ill-fitting windows of the wheel-house. Alternately in his dream she reviled him, pleaded with him, heaped insults upon him, but he was securely bound and gagged and could not reply to her insults or repulse her pleadings. He made frantic efforts to tear the gag from his mouth, for he wished to tell her that he had not lost his heart to her and cared nothing for the misery which she felt.

CHAPTER XXVII

THENCE TO ROTTERDAM

He only caught sight of the jongejuffrouw later on in the morning when she came out of the molens and stepped into the sledge which stood waiting for her at the door.

The thaw had not been sufficiently heavy, nor had it lasted a sufficient number of hours to make a deep impression on the thick covering of snow which still lay over the roads. The best and quickest mode of travelling--at any rate for the next few hours--would still be by sledge, the intervening half-dozen leagues that lay between Houdekerk and Rotterdam could be easily covered in the day provided an early start was made and no long halts allowed for meals.

Diogenes had made arrangements for the start to be made by seven o'clock. A dull light of pale rosy grey hung over the snow-covered landscape, and far away on the horizon line that same rose-grey light was just a.s.suming a more brilliant hue. He sent Mevrouw Patz up to the jongejuffrouw to acquaint her with the plans for the day, and to beg her to give these her approval.

Mevrouw Patz returned with the message that the jongejuffrouw was ready to start at any hour which Mynheer would command and was otherwise prepared to obey him in all things.

So Diogenes, standing well out of sight, watched Gilda as she came out of the door of the molens and remained for one moment quite still, waiting for the sledge to draw up. She looked fragile this morning, he thought, and her face looked tiny and very pale within the soft frame of the fur hood which covered her head. For a second or two it seemed to him as if she was looking round somewhat anxiously, with a frown upon her smooth forehead--puzzled and almost frightened--as if she expected and at the same time feared to see some one or something.

The next second the cloud appeared to lift from her face and Diogenes even thought--but in this he may have been mistaken--that a sigh of relief escaped her lips.

After that she stepped into the sledge, closely followed by Maria.

Pythagoras and Socrates had been well drilled in their duties toward the jongejuffrouw and Diogenes noted with satisfaction that his brother philosophers did their best to make the lady as comfortable as possible with a pillow or two bought at Leyden the day previously and the warm rugs from Haarlem which they wrapped carefully round her feet. Maria, dignified and unbending, did her best to prevent those rascals from doing their duty in this manner, but soon her own wants got the better of her pride, and s.h.i.+vering with cold she was glad enough to allow Pythagoras to roll a thick horse-cloth about her knees.

A few moments later a start was made to the accompaniment of l.u.s.ty cheering from the miller and his wife, both of whom were pleasant--even obsequious to the last.

The stolid peasant who held the reins urged his horses on to a brisk trot as soon as they had reached the flat open road. The three philosophers rode at some little distance behind the sledge, ready only to push forward if some marauder or footpad showed signs of molesting the sledge.

Diogenes caught only a few brief glimpses of the jongejuffrouw during the day; once at Zegwaard where there was a halt for dinner, then at Zevenhuisen and Hillegersberg where horses and men were ready for a rest. But she never seemed to see him, pa.s.sing quickly in and out of the small huts or cottages to which Pythagoras or Socrates escorted her from a respectful distance. She never spoke to either of these worthies on those occasions, nor did she question any orders for halting or re-starting.

To those who attended on her, however, at the halting places, to the cottagers or millers who brought her milk and bread to eat she was graciousness itself, and whenever it was time to go, Diogenes before leaving had invariably to listen to the loud praises of the beautiful jongejuffrouw with the sweet, sad face.

As to his own existence, she seemed hardly aware of it; at Zevenhuisen, when she went back to the sledge, Diogenes was not very far from where she pa.s.sed. Moreover he was quite sure that she had seen him, for her head was turned straight in the direction where he stood, hat in hand, waiting to see her comfortably settled in the sledge, before remounting.

It was in the early part of the afternoon and once more bitterly cold--no doubt she felt the return of the frost, for she seemed to give a little s.h.i.+ver and pulled the hood more closely over her face.

The roads had been very heavy earlier in the day with their carpet of partially melted snow, but now this surface had frozen once more and the track was slippery like gla.s.s under the sledge, but terribly trying for the horses.

Progress was necessarily slow and wearisome both to man and beast, and the shades of evening were beginning to gather in very fast when at last the wooden spire of Rotterdam's Groote Kerk emerged out of the frozen mist.

Diogenes--as he had done before at Leyden and at Zegwaard--pushed on ahead now; he wanted to reach the house of Ben Isaje in advance of the jongejuffrouw and prepare the Hebraic gentleman against her coming. The little town with its intricate network of narrow streets intersected by ca.n.a.ls did not seem imposing to the eye. Diogenes marvelled with what thoughts the jongejuffrouw would survey it--wondering no doubt if it would prove the end of her journey or merely a halt on the way to some other place more distant still from her home.

Ben Isaje appeared to be a person of some consequence in Rotterdam, for the moment he questioned a pa.s.ser-by as to where the Jewish Mynheer resided, there were plenty of willing tongues ready to give him information.

Having followed accurately the instructions which were given to him, Diogenes found himself presently at the top of a street which was so narrow that he reckoned if he stretched out his legs, his feet would be knocking against opposite walls. Anyhow, it looked almost impa.s.sable for a rider. He peered down it somewhat dubiously. It was very badly lighted; two feeble lamps alone glimmered at either end of it, and not a soul was in sight.

Close to where his horse was standing at the corner of that same street the word "Tapperij" writ in bold letters and well lit by a lamp placed conveniently above it, invited the tired wayfarer to enter. This philosopher was not the man to refuse so insinuating an invitation. He dismounted and leaving his horse in charge of an ostler, he entered the tap-room of the tiny hostel and, being both tired and thirsty, he refreshed himself with a draught of good Rhyn wine.

After which he collected more information about the house of Mynheer Ben Isaje. It was situate about midway down that narrow street round the corner, and was easily distinguishable through its crooked and woe-begone appearance, and the closely shuttered projecting window on the ground floor.

A very few minutes later Diogenes had identified the house from the several descriptions which had been given him. Ben Isaje's abode proved to be a tiny shop with a tall pointed gable sitting above it like a sugar-loaf hat. Its low cas.e.m.e.nt window was securely barred with stout wooden shutters, held in place by thick iron bars. The upper part of the house looked to be at perpetual enmity with the lower, for it did not sit straight, or even securely above the humble ground floor below. The upper floor moreover projected a good three feet over the front door and the shop window, whilst the single gable sat askew over the lot.

From the house itself--as Diogenes stood somewhat doubtfully before it--there came the pungent odour of fried onions, and from the one next door an equally insistent one of damp leather. The philosopher thought that it was high time to swear, and this he did l.u.s.tily, anathematizing in one comprehensive oath every dirty Hebrew and every insalubrious Dutch city that he had ever come across.

After which he examined the abode of Mynheer Ben Isaje more closely. In the pointed gable, just under the roof, a tiny window with a light behind it seemed to be blinking out of the darkness like the single eye of some inebriate loafer. Seeing that the small cas.e.m.e.nt was partially open and concluding that some one at any rate must be making use of that light up there, Diogenes at last made up his mind to knock at the door; and as there was no knocker and he never carried a riding whip he gave the substantial oak panel a vigorous kick with his boot.

Whereupon the light up above immediately went out, just as if the one-eyed inebriate had dropped off to sleep.