GHYSBRECHT VAN SWIETEN was an artful man. He opened on the novice with something quite wide of the mark he was really aiming at. "The town records," said he, "are crabbedly written, and the ink rusty with age."
He offered Gerard the honour of transcribing them fair.
Gerard inquired what he was to be paid.
Ghysbrecht offered a sum that would have just purchased the pens, ink, and parchment.
"But, burgomaster, my labour? Here is a year"s work."
"Your labour? Call you marking parchment labour? Little sweat goes to that, I trow."
""Tis labour, and skilled labour to boot: and that is better paid in all crafts than rude labour, sweat or no sweat. Beside, there"s my time."
"Your time? Why what is time to you, at two-and-twenty?" Then fixing his eyes keenly on Gerard, to mark the effect of his words, he said: "Say rather, you are idle grown. You are in love. Your body is with these chanting monks, but your heart is with Peter Brandt and his red-haired girl."
"I know no Peter Brandt."
"This denial confirmed Ghysbrecht"s suspicion that the caster-out of demons was playing a deep game.
"Ye lie!" he shouted. "Did I not find you at her elbow, on the road to Rotterdam?"
"Ah!"
"Ah. And you were seen at Sevenbergen but t"other day."
"Was I?"
"Ay; and at Peter"s house."
"At Sevenbergen?"
"Ay, at Sevenbergen."
Now, this was what in modern days is called a draw. It was a guess, put boldly forth as fact, to elicit by the young man"s answer, whether he had been there lately or not.
The result of the artifice surprised the crafty one. Gerard started up in a strange state of nervous excitement.
"Burgomaster," said he, with trembling voice, "I have not been at Sevenbergen this three years, and I knew not the name of those you saw me with, nor where they dwelt; but as my time is precious, though you value it not, give you good day." And he darted out with his eyes sparkling.
Ghysbrecht started up in huge ire; but he sank into his chair again.
"He fears me not. He knows something if not all."
Then he called hastily to his trusty servant, and almost dragged him to a window.
"See you yon man?" he cried. "Haste! Follow him! But let him not see you. He is young, but old in craft. Keep him in sight all day. Let me know whither he goes and what he does."
It was night when the servant returned.
"Well? well?" cried Van Swieten, eagerly.
"Master, the young man went from you to Sevenbergen."
Ghysbrecht groaned.
"To the house of Peter the Magician."
CHAPTER VI
"LOOK into your own heart and write!" said Herr Cant; and earth"s cuckoos echoed the cry. Look into the Rhine where it is deepest, and the Thames where it is thickest, and paint the bottom. Lower a bucket into a well of self-deception, and what comes up must be immortal truth, mustn"t it? Now, in the first place no son of Adam ever reads his own heart at all, except by the habit acquired, and the light gained, from some years" perusal of other hearts; and even then, with his acquired sagacity and reflected light, he can but spell and decipher his own heart, not read it fluently. Half way to Sevenbergen Gerard looked into his own heart, and asked it why he was going to Sevenbergen. His heart replied without a moment"s hesitation. "We are going out of curiosity, to know why she jilted us, and to show her it has not broken our hearts, and that we are quite content with our honours and our benefice in prospectu, and don"t want her nor any of her fickle s.e.x."
He soon found out Peter Brandt"s cottage; and there sat a girl in the doorway, plying her needle, and a stalwart figure leaned on a long bow and talked to her. Gerard felt an unaccountable pang at the sight of him. However, the man turned out to be past fifty years of age, an old soldier, whom Gerard remembered to have seen shoot at the b.u.t.ts with admirable force and skill. Another minute and the youth stood before them. Margaret looked up and dropped her work, and uttered a faint cry, and was white and red by turns. But these signs of emotion were swiftly dismissed, and she turned far more chill and indifferent than she would if she had not betrayed this agitation.
"What! is it you, Master Gerard? What on earth brings you here, I wonder?"
"I was pa.s.sing by and saw you; so I thought I would give you good day and ask after your father."
"My father is well. He will be here anon."
"Then I may as well stay till he comes."
"As you will. Good Martin, step into the village and tell my father here is a friend of his."
"And not of yours?"
"My father"s friends are mine."
"That is doubtful. It was not like a friend to promise to wait for me, and then make off the moment my back was turned. Cruel Margaret! you little know how I searched the town for you; how for want of you nothing was pleasant to me."
"These are idle words; if you had desired my father"s company, or mine, you would have come back. There I had a bed laid for you, sir, at my cousin"s, and he would have made much of you, and, who knows, I might have made much of you too. I was in the humour that day. You will not catch me in the same mind again, neither you nor any young man, I warrant me."
"Margaret, I came back the moment the countess let me go; but you were not there."
"Nay, you did not, or you had seen Hans Cloterman at our table; we left him to bring you on."
"I saw no one there, but only a drunken man that had just tumbled down."
"At our table? How was he clad?"
"Nay, I took little heed: in sad coloured garb."