"Well, meantime?"
"Dear father, dear mother, what can we do to pleasure the absent, but be kind to his poor la.s.s; and her own trouble afore her?"
""Tis well!" said Eli; "but I am older than thou." Then he turned gravely to Margaret: "Wilt answer me a question, my pretty mistress?"
"If I may, sir," faltered Margaret.
"What are these marriage lines Gerard speaks of in the letter?"
"Our marriage lines, sir. His and mine. Know you not we are betrothed?"
"Before witnesses?"
"Ay, sure. My poor father and Martin Wittenhaagen."
"This is the first I ever heard of it. How came they in his hands? They should be in yours."
"Alas, sir, the more is my grief; but I ne"er doubted him: and he said it was a comfort to him to have them in his bosom."
"Y"are a very foolish la.s.s."
"Indeed I was, sir. But trouble teaches the simple."
""Tis a good answer. Well, foolish or no, y"are honest. I had shown ye more respect at first, but I thought y"had been his leman, and that is the truth."
"G.o.d forbid, sir! Denys, methinks "tis time for us to go. Give me my letter, sir!"
"Bide ye! bide ye! be not so hot, for a word! Natheless, wife, methinks her red cheek becomes her."
"Better than it did you to give it her, my man."
"Softly, wife, softly. I am not counted an unjust man thof I be somewhat slow."
Here Richart broke in. "Why, mistress, did ye shed your blood for our Gerard?"
"Not I, sir. But maybe I would."
"Nay, nay. But he says you did. Speak sooth, now!"
"Alas! I know not what ye mean. I rede ye believe not all that my poor lad says of me. Love makes him blind."
"Traitress!" cried Denys. "Let not her throw dust in thine eyes, Master Richart. Old Martin tells me--ye need not make signals to me, she-comrade; I am as blind as love. Martin tells me she cut her arm, and let her blood flow, and smeared her heels when Gerard was hunted by the bloodhounds, to turn the scent from her lad."
"Well, and if I did, "twas my own, and spilled for the good of my own,"
said Margaret, defiantly. But, Catherine suddenly clasping her, she began to cry at having found a bosom to cry on, of one who would have also shed her blood for Gerard in danger.
Eli rose from his chair. "Wife," said he, solemnly, "you will set another chair at our table for every meal: also another plate and knife.
They will be for Margaret and Peter. She will come when she likes, and stay away when she pleases. None may take her place at my left hand.
Such as can welcome her are welcome to me. Such as cannot, I force them not to bide with me. The world is wide and free. Within my walls I am master, and my son"s betrothed is welcome."
Catherine bustled out to prepare supper. Eli and Richart sat down and concocted a letter to bring Gerard home. Richart promised it should go by sea to Rome that very week. Sybrandt and Cornelis exchanged a gloomy wink, and stole out. Margaret, seeing Giles deep in meditation, for the dwarf"s intelligence had taken giant strides, asked him to bring her the letter. "You have heard but half, good Master Giles," said she. "Shall I read you the rest?"
"I shall be much beholden to you," shouted the courtier.
She gave him her stool: curiosity bowed his pride to sit on it: and Margaret murmured the first part of the letter into his ear very low, not to disturb Eli and Richart. And, to do this, she leaned forward and put her lovely face cheek by jowl with Giles"s hideous one: a strange contrast, and worth a painter"s while to try and represent. And in this att.i.tude Catherine found her, and all the mother warmed towards her, and she exchanged an eloquent glance with little Kate.
The latter smiled, and sewed, with drooping lashes.
"Get him home on the instant," roared Giles. "I"ll make a man of him. I can do aught with the duke."
"Hear the boy!" said Catherine, half comically, half proudly.
"We hear him," said Richart: "a mostly makes himself heard when a do speak."
_Sybrandt._] "Which will get to him first?"
_Cornelis._] (Gloomily.) "Who can tell?"
CHAPTER LVII
ABOUT two months before this scene in Eli"s home, the natives of a little maritime place between Naples and Rome might be seen flocking to the sea beach, with eyes cast seaward at a ship, that laboured against a stiff gale blowing dead on the sh.o.r.e.
At times she seemed likely to weather the danger, and then the spectators congratulated her aloud: at others the wind and sea drove her visibly nearer, and the lookers-on were not without a secret satisfaction they would not have owned even to themselves.
Non quia vexari quemquam est jucunda voluptas Sed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suave est.
And the poor ship, though not scientifically built for sailing, was admirably constructed for going ash.o.r.e, with her extravagant p.o.o.p that caught the wind, and her lines like a c.o.c.ked hat reversed. To those on the beach that battered labouring frame of wood seemed alive, and struggling against death with a panting heart. But could they have been transferred to her deck they would have seen she had not one beating heart but many, and not one nature but a score were coming out clear in that fearful hour.
The mariners stumbled wildly about the deck, handling the ropes as each thought fit, and cursing and praying alternately.
The pa.s.sengers were huddled together round the mast, some sitting, some kneeling, some lying prostrate, and grasping the bulwarks as the vessel rolled and pitched in the mighty waves. One comely young man, whose ashy cheek, but compressed lips, showed how hard terror was battling in him with self-respect, stood a little apart, holding tight by a shroud, and wincing at each sea. It was the ill-fated Gerard. Meantime prayers and vows rose from the trembling throng amidships, and, to hear them, it seemed there were almost as many G.o.ds about as men and women. The sailors, indeed, relied on a single G.o.ddess. They varied her t.i.tles only, calling on her as "Queen of Heaven," "Star of the Sea," "Mistress of the World," "Haven of Safety." But among the landsmen Polytheism raged. Even those who by some strange chance hit on the same divinity did not hit on the same edition of that divinity. An English merchant vowed a heap of gold to our lady of Walsingham. But a Genoese merchant vowed a silver collar of four pounds to our lady of Loretto; and a Tuscan n.o.ble promised ten pounds of wax lights to our lady of Ravenna; and with a similar rage for diversity they pledged themselves, not on the true Cross, but on the true Cross in this, that, or the other, modern city.
Suddenly a more powerful gust than usual catching the sail at a disadvantage, the rotten shrouds gave way, and the sail was torn out with a loud crack and went down the wind smaller and smaller, blacker and blacker, and fluttered into the sea, half a mile off, like a sheet of paper; and, ere the helmsman could put the ship"s head before the wind, a wave caught her on the quarter and drenched the poor wretches to the bone, and gave them a foretaste of chill death. Then one vowed aloud to turn Carthusian monk, if St. Thomas would save him. Another would go a pilgrim to Compostella, bareheaded, barefooted, with nothing but a coat of mail on his naked skin, if St. James would save him. Others invoked Thomas, Dominic, Denys, and, above all, Catherine of Sienna.
Two petty Neapolitan traders stood shivering.
One shouted at the top of his voice, "I vow to St. Christopher at Paris a waxen image of his own weight, if I win safe to land."
On this the other nudged him, and said, "Brother, brother, take heed what you vow. Why, if you sell all you have in the world by public auction, "twill not buy his weight in wax."
"Hold your tongue, you fool," said the vociferator. Then in a whisper,