The Cloister and the Hearth

  CHAPTER XIV

  As if this had been a concerted signal, the back door was struck asrudely the next instant. They were hemmed in. But at these alarmingsounds Margaret seemed to recover some share of self-possession. Shewhispered, "Say he was here, but is gone." And with this she seizedGerard and almost dragged him up the rude steps that led to her father'ssleeping-room. Her own lay next beyond it.

  The blows on the door were repeated.

  "Who knocks at this hour?"

  "Open, and you will see!"

  "I open not to thieves--honest men are all abed now."

  "Open to the law, Martin Wittenhaagen, or you shall rue it."

  "Why, that is Dirk Brower's voice, I trow. What make you so far fromTergou?"

  "Open, and you will know."

  Martin drew the bolt very slowly, and in rushed Dierich and four more.They let in their companion who was at the back door.

  "Now, Martin, where is Gerard Eliassoen?"

  "Gerard Eliassoen? Why, he was here but now!"

  "Was here?" Dierich's countenance fell. "And where is he now?"

  "They say he has gone to Italy. Why, what is to do?"

  "No matter. When did he go? Tell me not that he went in such a storm asthis!"

  "Here is a coil about Gerard Eliassoen," said Martin contemptuously.Then he lighted the candle, and seating himself coolly by the fire,proceeded to whip some fine silk round his bow-string at the place wherethe nick of the arrow frets it.

  "I'll tell you," said he carelessly. "Know you his brother Giles?--alittle misbegotten imp, all head and arms? Well, he came tearing overhere on a mule, and bawled out something, I was too far off to hear thecreature's words, but only its noise. Any way, he started Gerard. For assoon as he was gone, there was such crying and kissing, and then Gerardwent away. They do tell me he has gone to Italy--mayhap you know wherethat is, for I don't."

  Dierich's countenance fell lower and lower at this account. There wasno flaw in it, A cunninger man than Martin would perhaps have told alie too many and raised suspicion. But Martin did his task well. He onlytold the one falsehood he was bade to tell, and of his own head inventednothing.

  "Mates," said Dierich, "I doubt he speaks sooth. I told the burgomasterhow 'twould be. He met the dwarf galloping Peter Buyskens's mule fromSevenbergen. 'They have sent that imp to Gerard,' says he, 'so, then,Gerard is at Sevenbergen.' 'Ah, master!' says I, ''tis too late now. Weshould have thought of Sevenbergen before, instead of wasting our timehunting all the odd corners of Tergou for those cursed parchments thatwe shall never find till we find the man that took 'em. If he was atSevenbergen,' quoth I, 'and they sent the dwarf to him, it must havebeen to warn him we are after him. He is leagues away by now,' quoth I.Confound that chalk-faced girl! she has outwitted us bearded men; andso I told the burgomaster, but he would not hear reason. A wet jerkinapiece, that is all we shall get, mates, by this job."

  Martin grinned coolly in Dierich's face.

  "However," added the latter, "to content the burgomaster, we will searchthe house."

  Martin turned grave directly.

  This change of countenance did not escape Dierich. He reflected amoment.

  "Watch outside two of you, one on each side of the house, that no onejump from the upper windows. The rest come with me."

  And he took the candle and mounted the stairs, followed by three of hiscomrades.

  Martin was left alone.

  The stout soldier hung his head. All had gone so well at first; and nowthis fatal turn! Suddenly it occurred to him that all was not yet lost.Gerard must be either in Peter's room or Margaret's; they were not sovery high from the ground. Gerard would leap out. Dierich had left a manbelow; but what then? For half a minute Gerard and he would be two toone, and in that brief space, what might not be done?

  Martin then held the back door ajar and watched. The light shone inPeter's room. "Curse the fool!" said he, "is he going to let them takehim like a girl?"

  The light now passed into Margaret's bedroom. Still no window wasopened. Had Gerard intended to escape that way, he would not have waitedtill the men were in the room. Martin saw that at once, and left thedoor, and came to the foot-stair and listened.

  He began to think Gerard must have escaped by the window while all themen were in the house. The longer the silence continued, the strongergrew this conviction. But it was suddenly and rudely dissipated.

  Faint cries issued from the inner bedroom--Margaret's.

  "They have taken him," groaned Martin; "they have got him."

  It now flashed across Martin's mind that if they took Gerard away, hislife was not worth a button and that, if evil befell him, Margaret'sheart would break. He cast his eyes wildly round like some savage beastseeking an escape, and in a twinkling formed a resolution terriblycharacteristic of those iron times and of a soldier driven to bay. Hestepped to each door in turn, and imitating Dierich Brower's voice,said sharply, "Watch the window!" He then quietly closed and boltedboth doors. He then took up his bow and six arrows; one he fitted to hisstring, the others he put into his quiver. His knife he placed upon achair behind him, the hilt towards him; and there he waited at the footof the stair with the calm determination to slay those four men, or beslain by them. Two, he knew, he could dispose of by his arrows, erethey could get near him, and Gerard and he must take their chancehand-to-hand with the remaining pair. Besides, he had seen menpanic-stricken by a sudden attack of this sort. Should Brower and hismen hesitate but an instant before closing with him, he should shootthree instead of two, and then the odds would be on the right side.

  He had not long to wait. The heavy steps sounded in Margaret's room, andcame nearer and nearer.

  The light also approached, and voices.

  Martin's heart, stout as it was, beat hard, to hear men coming thus totheir death, and perhaps to his; more likely so than not: for four islong odds in a battlefield of ten feet square, and Gerard might be boundperhaps, and powerless to help. But this man, whom we have seen shake inhis shoes at a Giles-o'-lanthorn, never wavered in this awful moment ofreal danger, but stood there, his body all braced for combat, and hiseye glowing, equally ready to take life and lose it. Desperate game! towin which was exile instant and for life, and to lose it was to die thatmoment upon that floor he stood on.

  Dierich Brower and his men found Peter in his first sleep. They openedhis cupboards, they ran their knives into an alligator he had nailed tohis wall; they looked under his bed: it was a large room, and apparentlyfull of hiding-places, but they found no Gerard.

  Then they went on to Margaret's room, and the very sight of it wasdiscouraging--it was small and bare, and not a cupboard in it; therewas, however, a large fireplace and chimney. Dierich's eye fell on thesedirectly. Here they found the beauty of Sevenbergen sleeping on an oldchest not a foot high, and no attempt made to cover it; but the sheetswere snowy white, and so was Margaret's own linen. And there she lay,looking like a lily fallen into a rut.

  Presently she awoke, and sat up in the bed, like one amazed; then,seeing the men, began to scream faintly, and pray for mercy.

  She made Dierich Brower ashamed of his errand.

  "Here is a to-do," said he, a little confused. "We are not going to hurtyou, my pretty maid. Lie you still, and shut your eyes, and think ofyour wedding-night, while I look up this chimney to see if Master Gerardis there."

  "Gerard! in my room?"

  "Why not? They say that you and he--"

  "Cruel! you know they have driven him away from me--driven him from hisnative place. This is a blind. You are thieves; you are wicked men; youare not men of Sevenbergen, or you would know Margaret Brandt betterthan to look for her lover in this room of all others in the world. Oh,brave! Four great hulking men to come, armed to the teeth, to insult onepoor honest girl! The women that live in your own houses must be naught,or you would respect them too much to insult a girl of good character."

  "There! come away, before we hear worse," said Dierich hastily. "Heis not in the chimney
. Plaster will mend what a cudgel breaks; but awoman's tongue is a double-edged dagger, and a girl is a woman with hermother's milk still in her." And he beat a hasty retreat. "I told theburgomaster how 'twould be."