Lysbeth Part 32

"No, sir, her strength and mind were much broken by the horrors which she pa.s.sed through in the siege of Haarlem, and by other events more personal to her. Therefore, when the Spaniards threatened their first leaguer of this place, I sent her and my mother to Norwich in England, where they may sleep in peace."

"You were wise indeed, Heer van Goorl," replied the Prince with a sigh, "but it seems that you stopped behind?"

"Yes, sir, Martin and I thought it our duty to see this war out. When Leyden is safe from the Spaniards, then we go to England, not before."

"When Leyden is safe from the Spaniards--" and again the Prince sighed, adding, "well, you have a true heart, young sir, and a right spirit, for which I honour both of you. But I fear that things being thus the Jufvrouw cannot sleep so very peacefully in Norwich after all."

"We must each bear our share of the basket," answered Foy sadly; "I must do the fighting and she the watching."

"It is so, I know it, who have both fought and watched. Well, I hope that a time will come when you will both of you do the loving. And now for the rest of the story."

"Sir, it is very short. We read your proclamation in the streets this morning, and learned from it for certain what we have heard before, that you are in sore want of money for the defence of Leyden and the war at large. Therefore, hearing that you were still in the city, and believing this proclamation of yours to be the summons and clear command for which we waited, we have brought you Hendrik Brant's treasure. It is there upon the cart."

The Prince put his hand to his forehead and reeled back a step.

"You do not jest with me, Foy van Goorl?" he said.

"Indeed no."

"But stay; this treasure is not yours to give, it belongs to Elsa Brant."

"Sir, the legal t.i.tle to it is in myself, for my father was Brant's lawful heir and executor, and I inherit his rights. Moreover, although a provision for her is charged upon it, it is Elsa's desire-I have it written here under her hand and witnessed-that the money should be used, every ducat of it, for the service of the country in such way as I might find good. Lastly, her father, Hendrik Brant, always believed that this wealth of his would in due season be of such service. Here is a copy of his will, in which he directs that we are to apply the money 'for the defence of our country, the freedom of religious Faith, and the destruction of the Spaniards in such fashion and at such time or times as G.o.d shall reveal to us.' When he gave us charge of it also, his words to me were: 'I am certain that thousands and tens of thousands of our folk will live to bless the gold of Hendrik Brant.' On that belief too, thinking that G.o.d put it into his mind, and would reveal His purpose in His own hour, we have acted all of us, and therefore for the sake of this stuff we have gone to death and torture. Now it has come about as Brant foretold; now we understand why all these things have happened, and why we live, this man and I, to stand before you, sir, to-day, with the h.o.a.rd unminished by a single florin, no, not even by Martin's legacy."

"Man, you jest, you jest!" said Orange.

Foy made a sign, and Martin going to the cart, pulled off the sail-cloth, revealing the five mud-stained barrels painted, each of them, with the mark B. There, too, ready for the purpose, were a hammer, mallet, and chisel. Resting the shafts of the cart upon a table, Martin climbed into it, and with a few great blows of the mallet, drove in the head of a cask selected at hazard. Beneath appeared wool, which he removed, not without fear lest there might be some mistake; then, as he could wait no longer, he tilted the barrel up and shot its contents out upon the floor.

As it chanced this was the keg that contained the jewels into which, foreseeing troublous days, from time to time Brant had converted the most of his vast wealth. Now in one glittering stream of red and white and blue and green, breaking from their cases and wrappings that the damp had rotted, save for those pearls, the most valuable of them all, which were in the watertight copper box-they fell jingling to the open floor, where they rolled hither and thither like beans shot from a sack in the steading.

"I think there is only this one tub of jewels," said Foy quietly; "the rest, which are much heavier, are full of gold coin. Here, sir, is the inventory so that you may check the list and see that we have kept back nothing."

But William of Orange heeded him not, only he looked at the priceless gems and muttered, "Fleets of ships, armies of men, convoys of food, means to bribe the great and buy goodwill-aye, and the Netherlands themselves wrung from the grip of Spain, the Netherlands free and rich and happy! O G.o.d! I thank Thee Who thus hast moved the hearts of men to the salvation of this Thy people from sore danger."

Then in the sudden ecstasy of relief and joy, the great Prince hid his face in his hands and wept.

Thus it came about that the riches of Hendrik Brant, when Leyden lay at her last gasp, paid the soldiers and built the fleets which, in due time, driven by a great wind sent suddenly from heaven across the flooded meadows, raised the dreadful siege and signed the doom of Spanish rule in Holland. Therefore it would seem that not in vain was Hendrik Brant stubborn and foresighted, that his blood and the blood of Dirk van Goorl were not shed in vain; that not in vain also did Elsa suffer the worst torments of a woman's fear in the Red Mill on the marshes; and Foy and Martin play their parts like men in the shot-tower, the Gevangenhuis and the siege, and Mother Martha the Sword find a grave and rest in the waters of the Haarlem Meer.

There are other morals to this story also, applicable, perhaps, to our life to-day, but the reader is left to guess them.

Scene the Second Leyden is safe at last, and through the broken d.y.k.es Foy and Martin, with the rescuing ships, have sailed, shouting and red-handed, into her famine-stricken streets. For the Spaniards, those that are left of them, are broken and have fled away from their forts and flooded trenches.

So the scene changes from warring, blood-stained, triumphant Holland to the quiet city of Norwich and a quaint gabled house in Tombland almost beneath the shadow of the tall spire of the cathedral, which now for about a year had been the home of Lysbeth van Goorl and Elsa Brant. Here to Norwich they had come in safety in the autumn of 1573 just before the first siege of Leyden was begun, and here they had dwelt for twelve long, doubtful, anxious months. News, or rather rumours, of what was pa.s.sing in the Netherlands reached them from time to time; twice even there came letters from Foy himself, but the last of these had been received many weeks ago just as the iron grip of the second leaguer was closing round the city. Then Foy and Martin, so they learned from the letter, were not in the town but with the Prince of Orange in Delft, working hard at the fleet which was being built and armed for its relief.

After this there was a long silence, and none could tell what had happened, although a horrible report reached them that Leyden had been taken, sacked, and burnt, and all its inhabitants ma.s.sacred. They lived in comfort here in Norwich, for the firm of Munt and Brown, Dirk van Goorl's agents, were honest, and the fortune which he had sent over when the clouds were gathering thick, had been well invested by them and produced an ample revenue. But what comfort could there be for their poor hearts thus agonised by doubts and sickening fears?

One evening they sat in the parlour on the ground floor of the house, or rather Lysbeth sat, for Elsa knelt by her, her head resting upon the arm of the chair, and wept.

"Oh! it is cruel," she sobbed, "it is too much to bear. How can you be so calm, mother, when perhaps Foy is dead?"

"If my son is dead, Elsa, that is G.o.d's Will, and I am calm, because now, as many a time before, I resign myself to the Will of G.o.d, not because I do not suffer. Mothers can feel, girl, as well as sweethearts."

"Would that I had never left him," moaned Elsa.

"You asked to leave, child; for my part I should have bided the best or the worst in Leyden."

"It is true, it is because I am a coward; also he wished it."

"He wished it, Elsa, therefore it is for the best; let us await the issue in patience. Come, our meal is set."

They sat themselves down to eat, these two lonely women, but at their board were laid four covers as though they expected guests. Yet none were bidden-only this was Elsa's fancy.

"Foy and Martin might come," she said, "and be vexed if it seemed that we did not expect them." So for the last three months or more she had always set four covers at the table, and Lysbeth did not gainsay her. In her heart she too hoped that Foy might come.

That very night Foy came, and with him Red Martin, the great sword Silence still strapped about his middle.

"Hark!" said Lysbeth suddenly, "I hear my son's footsteps at the door. It seems, Elsa, that, after all, the ears of a mother are quicker than those of a lover."

But Elsa never heard her, for now-now at length, she was wrapped in the arms of Foy; the same Foy, but grown older and with a long pale scar across his forehead.

"Yet," went on Lysbeth to herself, with a faint smile on her white and stately face, "the son's lips are for the lover first."

An hour later, or two, or three, for who reckoned time that night when there was so much to hear and tell, while the others knelt before her, Foy and Elsa hand in hand, and behind them Martin like a guardian giant, Lysbeth put up her evening prayer of praise and thanksgiving.

"Almighty G.o.d," she said in her slow, sonorous voice, "Thy awful Hand that by my own faithless sin took from me my husband, hath given back his son and mine who shall be to this child a husband, and for us as for our country over sea, out of the night of desolation is arisen a dawn of peace. Above us throughout the years is Thy Everlasting Will, beneath us when our years are done, shall by Thy Everlasting Arms. So for the bitter and the sweet, for the evil and the good, for the past and for the present, we, Thy servants, render Thee glory, thanks, and praise, O G.o.d of our fathers, That fashioneth us and all according to Thy desire, remembering those things which we have forgotten and foreknowing those things which are not yet. Therefore to Thee, Who through so many dreadful days hast led us to this hour of joy, be glory and thanks, O Lord of the living and the dead. Amen."

And the others echoed "To Thee be glory and thanks, O Lord of the living and the dead. Amen."

Then, their prayer ended, the living rose, and, with separations done and fears appeased at last, leant towards each other in the love and hope of their beautiful youth.

But Lysbeth sat silent in the new home, far from the land where she was born, and turned her stricken heart towards the dead.

FINISH.