CHAPTER XII

Martha opened the door to us so quickly as to give me the notion she had been waiting behind it in expectation of our coming. She showed me into a room which looked wondrous comfortable after the one I had just left; and a cold chicken, bread, and a bottle of wine were pleasant things to see, for I had the hunger of a famishing dog. Anna came in, and compelled me to sit down to eat and drink, untidy and dirty as I was, with the horse-blanket round my body. She would not suffer me to talk much, and Martha bustled in with fresh supplies until I declared I could eat no more. Then the doctor came to examine my arm. He whistled as he laid it bare.

"How droll you English are!" he exclaimed. "To think of using an arm in this condition! But, after all, it is fortunate you did."

Then, with much learned language, he endeavoured to explain to me how well it was that my wound had broken out afresh. He bathed and cleansed the arm, anointed and tied it up, talking all the time to Anna and Martha, who stood by to hand him things he wanted; but I was too heavy to pay attention, being half asleep before he had done with me.

I felt some surprise at the appearance of Luke on the scene, but he had me speedily to bed.

Late the next day I awoke, brighter and fresher than I had been for many days, but exceedingly feeble. Luke brought me a draught of some strange kind of beer, which revived me greatly, and when I had taken it, he told me how he had returned late yesterday from Doncaster with the physician, and found everybody at Temple Belwood in much trouble about my disappearance. No one had surmised I might be gone to Sandtoft, but Luke naturally guessed my purpose; so, taking pole, lantern and cleat-boards, he made off to Belshaw, where he heard of my doings, and struck across the fen in a bee-line for the settlement. He had only to make the signals which had been agreed on between him and Martha, a whistle like that of the grey plover, followed by an owl's cry, to bring his sweetheart to their trysting place, but was confounded to learn that nothing had been seen or heard of me at Doctor Goel's. Prowling cautiously about, Martha keeping watch, he found the punt, and having this a.s.surance of my being in the neighbourhood, he returned to Martha. As they entered within the palisade through an opening concealed by a clump of willows, a flare of cressets and torches showed me and my conductors going from the guard-room to the gallows, and they hurried to the doctor's house with the news. What followed is already written.

When I spoke of going home, the doctor took a tone of authority, and vowed he would detain me, by force, if need were, until he had satisfied himself I ran no more danger of losing my arm. I made no stout resistance, but despatched Luke to Temple to set my father's mind at ease, and bring me a change of clothing and other matters of which I stood in need, and settled myself down in the doctor's household most contentedly. A marvellous change had come over me, which may have been due to the removal of the venom from my blood, as the doctor affirmed, or to my being under the same roof with Anna, as I inclined to believe.

No one seemed to apprehend further trouble from Vliet, and I began to doubt whether my experience of the previous evening had been real or only a nightmare. Doctor Goel sat in his own room, pipe in mouth, over leaves and roots and such like rubbish, now and then coming out to ask me questions, giving as his reason for so doing that I had a quick eye, and a habit of observation remarkable in one unskilled in the sciences, but I thought his true intent was to hinder my being alone with his daughter, albeit there was small chance of that, for Anna had housewifely duties (or made them), which caused her to be going and coming continually. Now it was to make up medicine for her father's patients; now to confer with Martha about kitchen matters; now to look out old clothing for some of the poorer sort among the settlers; always something to break off our converse as I approached the topic nearest my heart. So, despairing of a talk with her for the present, I made bold to interrupt the doctor in his curious pastime. He bore the interruption courteously, though he sighed as he put down his gla.s.s and ceased to pore over the stuff on the table. I asked him whether Vliet had abandoned his drunken freak at Mistress Goel's intercession.

"Freak? That is joke, is it not?" he replied. "It was no joke, Mr.

Vavasour. Sebastian was enraged by the mischief done on the previous night, and he would have hanged you, but for my daughter's intervention. Oh yes. Perhaps he would have endangered his own neck.

I know not. The law appears to be in abeyance in this part of England.

But Sebastian would have taken his chance of that. It was inconvenient for you at the time, but what says your proverb? 'All's well that ends well.' My daughter was at hand to save your life. I was at hand to save your arm. I have the satisfaction to be of some service to a gentleman who has laid me under obligation. And there is now an end to a misunderstanding between my daughter and her affianced husband. She has consented to marriage within three months, and I have some hope of being permitted to return to my own country by that time. So 'all's well,'" the doctor concluded, smiling.

Married within three months! I wished Luke had lost his way, or Vliet had been more stubborn. What was my life worth to me, Anna being lost?

But chained to a drunken ruffian! Better far, if I had been strangled last night. It could not be. It should not be.

I know not how my outward bearing betrayed my feelings, but the doctor perceived something of them, for he went on--

"There is a little irregularity, almost impropriety, in what I am about to say, but there will be mutual advantage, perhaps. I am aware you admire my daughter, and imagine yourself in love with her. Stay: listen to me for a short time. Doubtless you would describe your feeling in stronger terms. We will say you love her. Consider, will you, please, how impossible it is that her father should entertain a proposal of marriage from you. Your inheritance of your father's estate depends on your father's pleasure, if I am rightly informed?"

(Who had informed him? I asked myself, as I nodded.) "The estate is heavily burdened, or so I am told?" Again I nodded, and wondered.

"But, supposing your prospects were as good as they appear to be bad, could I consent to my daughter's being buried in a half-savage region like this? Could I allow her, esteemed as an ornament of the most intellectual society of Europe, to become the despised a.s.sociate of fat farmers' wives, to whom the sale of poultry and b.u.t.ter is the main business of life, and whose amus.e.m.e.nts are coa.r.s.e and frivolous in the extreme? It would be an unheard of folly on my part, even if there were no precontracted arrangement for my daughter's settlement in life.

But it so happens she is affianced to a gentleman of large fortune, who has shown the sincerity of his attachment by striking proofs" ("And particularly last night," I murmured to myself), "not the least being that he has forsaken agreeable scenes and companions to endure exile to be near the lady of his choice."

I could hold my tongue no longer.

"You have brought Mynherr Vliet into discussion, doctor, so you must pardon me for asking whether you believe any lady can love the drunken brute? And, if not----"

"There is no need to treat the matter hypothetically," the doctor interrupted. "I can a.s.sure you my daughter has all the affection for Mynherr Vliet which her betrothed could reasonably look for. We are somewhat indelicate to touch on such a subject, but as I desire to clear away any delusion which may exist in your mind, I give you my word that any inclination toward yourself which you may have imagined, was nothing more than a pa.s.sing sentiment. Young women of a certain turn of mind, nourished by poetry and the drama, are apt to entertain a transient fancy for a handsome young man, encountered in new scenes, especially when they are somewhat piqued by the supposed desertion of the accepted lover."

I looked at the old gentleman, who smiled on me benignly, as if confident in his knowledge of the heart of woman, and wondered whether he could by any possibility be right. Or was he deluding himself about his daughter's happiness, because he longed so much himself to be restored to home and friends and congenial pursuits? It might be true enough that Anna did not really love me, that I could well believe; but it was incredible she could love a beast like Vliet. While I sat silent, word was brought of Vermuijden's arrival, and of his wish to see the doctor and Anna. So I was left alone to ruminate. Some things which the doctor had said puzzled me not a little. As for what he had spoken against the Isle, I cared not a jot, nor was I much troubled about the low state of my fortune, which, in my youthful confidence, I hoped to mend in no long time. Could he be speaking truth when he said that Anna really chose to become the wife of Vliet? That was the question. I could not but think that her avoidance of me pointed that way. And yet, what pa.s.sed near the gallows looked rather as if she gave her word to Vliet out of pure desire to save my life. But that promise, extorted under threat, and a threat which Vliet himself could not in his sober senses attempt to justify, could not be held binding.

It was absurd to think it a sacred pledge. Nor could I believe Anna light-minded and fickle, even if her father accused her. Only one thing was clear to me--that I must have speech with Anna. While I sat pondering, I heard a knock at the door, and the buxom Martha came in to say Luke had returned and awaited my pleasure. Her bright, honest face was good to see, and I fell into talk with her. I asked her whether she had heard what pa.s.sed between Mistress Goel and Vliet last evening.

"Nearly all, sir," she answered, "and wished I was a man for the first time in my life."

"Why so?"

"That I might have the strength to kill him then and there for torturing the brightest, sweetest lady on earth."

"He demanded a promise that she would marry him within three months, did he not?"

"Oh yes. He took no heed of reason or warning. He said you should die, whatever might afterwards happen to him, unless she gave him her word on the spot before witnesses."

"And Doctor Goel can think his daughter will be happy with him!" I said to myself, in amazement.

"Oh, the doctor!" cried Martha contemptuously. "He has wasted his brains on weeds and creeping things, until he has none left to understand his fellow-creatures with. He thinks of Sebastian Vliet as he used to be, before his cheeks were bloated and his hands shaky.

Then the doctor has lost his money, or as good as lost it, in this mad business, and he wants to make up the loss to my mistress. He thinks Vliet has plenty of it, and hasn't sense to see that money melts like snow in April, when it is in the hands of a drunken gambler. And that is what Vliet is. Every night, when Vermuijden is away, he is toping and playing--and losing, for the men he plays with know all his tricks and more. Then he is rooked by the lord who comes to see him, and by another rascal who fetches and carries for the lord. Vliet's money is going at a great rate. But what does Vliet matter?"

"He seems to be of some importance, since he has Mistress Goel's word to marry him, and her father is well pleased it should be so."

"And what does that avail against a gentleman who loves her? Every lover I've heard of snapped his fingers at foolish old people, pinked his rival, and rode off with the lady."

"Unluckily," thought I, "one needs a purse as well as a rapier for that, and somewhere to ride to." What I said was: "But the lady must consent before even the hero of a ballad can run away with her."

"Consent!" repeated Martha. "And what's a lover good for, if he does not save her the trouble of consenting, cut all arguments short by stopping her mouth, and have it out with her parents when the ring is on her finger and the happy blush on her cheek? You may think me a bold hussy to talk so. But I know what I know. And my heart is sore to hear sobbing and praying all last night, and to see the dear angel with swollen eyelids, and a pitiful quiver on her lips this morning.

One thing is certain, Sebastian Vliet will never call her wife. If he escapes drunken surfeit, shooting by the men he bullies, the knife of a boozing companion, the Almighty's lightning, I'll put rats-bane in his meat myself."

She looked as if she meant it, her face pale, her eyes glowing.

"Shall I send Luke to you, sir?" she asked in another voice.

Luke had much to tell me, but the sum of it was that my father's displeasure over my visit to Sandtoft and my continuance there was great; and Mr. Butharwick had charged Luke to entreat me to return without delay, the good old man being much alarmed by my father's anger. Neither had heard of my narrow escape from the gallows, as I had forbidden Luke to mention it.

Not until the evening of the next day did I get five minutes talk with Anna, who avoided me with astonishing skill; but, by Martha's help, I contrived to meet her as she came out of a house which was used as a hospital for sick and wounded Dutchmen. Even then she tried to escape me, but I would take no nay. She must go with me where there might be a talk without interruption, and that was on the river. When she had yielded, and we had got into a boat, she began to speak of her hope that the feud between the Dutch and the Islonians might be abated by a measure agreed upon at the council held the previous evening. Large pay was to be offered to such of the natives as could be induced to labour in cutting trenches, rearing embankments and carrying material.

If the labour should not be directly profitable, the employment of it might help toward more amicable feeling. I suffered her to speak on, well knowing who had advised this course, until we came to a broad water with a small bank in mid-stream, on which grew an old birch tree.

I ran the boat close under the tree, gave the painter a twist or two round an overhanging bough, shipped the oars, and took my turn to speak.

"The questions between Dutch and Islonians will keep, but not the question between us two. You know I love you, Anna. I can't tell you so in fine language, but never man loved woman more since the beginning of the world, or ever will to the end of it. I am a plain, rough fellow, and I have nothing to offer you but my love--not money, or land, or rank, or anything; but I will make or cut my way to something, please G.o.d, if you will come to me when I've done it. I think you love me, but you have never said so. Say 'I love you, Frank,' and----"

She stopped my long speech with one word--"Cruel!" and burst into weeping.

Then I nearly capsized the boat. It was a slight crazy thing, and my weight considerable, but I scrambled to her side, and, putting my arm round her, drew her head on to my breast. She did not see how narrowly we escaped an overturn, nor did she resist my embrace, but went on sobbing, as though her heart would break.

Then I found out that one can be heavenly happy and full of sorrow at the same time, for every sob of hers seemed to tear my bosom, while I knew not how to contain my joy. When she had recovered breath a little, she made as if to withdraw herself, but that I would not allow.

"But, Frank, I shall be doubly, trebly perjured, and grieve and shame my father beyond endurance."

"Say 'I love you, Frank,'" I insisted.

At last she did, and hid her blushing face against my breast. Then I told her--what I shall not repeat. And in a great trembling, I gave her a blundering, clumsy kiss. How long I should have talked in my rapture, trying to hearten my love, I know not, but the sun set without our perceiving it, until the deepening dusk made Anna exclaim about the time. So I took the oars and rowed away from the loveliest islet in the world. Martha stood at the door, watching for our coming, and as we entered the house, she seized my hand and lifted it to her lips.

CHAPTER XIII

The doctor had been summoned to a conference with his chief, so I had hope we might have a long evening to ourselves, but Anna nipped it in the bud.

"Fortune is kind," said she. "I will give you something to eat, and then you must away home."

"Away home? Why?" I demanded.