Lochinvar: A Novel

"We will e'en give him other ten minutes," quoth the sailor, imperturbably.

And he stood with his ship's watch in his hand, swinging his lantern up and down in answer to some signal from the ship, too faint for ordinary eyes to catch across the whip and swirl of the uneasy waves.

But he was spared any long time of waiting; for a man in uniform rode up, whose horse, even in the faint light, showed evident signs of fatigue.

"You are to proceed on board at once with your charge. My lord has been stricken down by an assassin. He lies in the palace of Amersfort, dangerously but not fatally hurt. Nevertheless, you are to carry out his directions to the letter, and at the end of your journeying he or his steward will meet you, and you shall receive the reward."

"That will not do for Captain Smith," cried the sailor, emphatically. "He must have the doubloons in hand ere a soul of you quit the coast."

The man who had held Kate in his arms during her night-ride turned sharply about.

"Quit your huxtering! I have it here!" cried he, indignantly, slapping his pocket as he spoke.

"Run out the boat!" shouted the man, promptly, and half a dozen sailors squattered mid-thigh in the foam and swelter of the sea.

"Now, on board with you this instant!" he cried, as one accustomed to command where boats and water were in question.

Then the man with the money took Kate again in his arms and carried her easily through the surf to where the men held the leaping craft. One by one the dripping crew and passengers scrambled in, and presently, with four stout fellows bending at the long oars, the boat gathered way through the cold gray waves of the bar towards the masts of the ship which tossed and heaved in the offing.

CHAPTER XVI

THE BREAKING OF THE PRISON

Black Peter Hals stood grumbling and snarling at the door of the prison of Amersfort. It was almost sundown, and the outer city ports were closed at that hour. A crowd of merrymakers had just passed on their way to sup at a dancing-tavern. They had cried tauntingly to him as they went by, and the laughing, loose-haired girls had beckoned tantalizingly with their hands.

"Come, thou grizzled old bunch of keys," cried one of them, in a voice that tinkled like a bell, "learn to be young again for an hour. So shalt thou cheat both Father Time, and eke Jack Ketch, thy near kinsman."

"I am waxing old, indeed, when Bonnibel taunts me unscathed," muttered Peter Hals, grimly, to himself, as he watched them out of sight; "it is true there are gray hairs in my poll. But, Lord knows, I have yet in me the fire of youth. My natural strength is noneways abated. I can stand on my feet and swig down the sturdy Hollands with any man – aye, even with a city councillor at a feast of the corporation. But I rust here and mildew in this God-forsaken prison. 'Tis six o'clock of a morning, open the doors! Seven o'clock, take about the breakfast! Ten o'clock, comes a jackanapes spick-and-span officer for inspection! Two o'clock, a dozen new prisoners, and no cells to put them in! Six o'clock, supper and complaints! Then click the bolts and rattle the keys – to bed, sleep, and begin all the pother over again on the morrow! Pshaw! – a dog's life were livelier, a-scratching for fleas. They at least bite not twice on the same spot."

Thus Black Peter Hals, discontentedly ruffling his gray badger's cockscomb on the steps of the prison of Amersfort.

As he watched, a dainty slip of a maid came up the street with a pitcher of coarse blue delft on her shoulder. In the by-going she raised her eyes to those of Peter Hals. It was but a single long glance, yet it sent his ideas every way in a fine scatter, and eke Peter's hand to his mustache that he might feel whether it were in order.

At this moment a dog ran against the girl, and the pitcher clattered to the ground, where it broke into a thousand pieces.

The maid stopped, clasped her hands pitifully, and burst into tears.

"It is all your fault," she cried, looking up at the keeper of the prison.

Peter ran down the steps and took her by the hand.

"Do not weep, sweet maid," he said, "I will buy thee a pitcher ten times better, and fill it with the best of white wine or the choicest oil, only do not cry your pretty eyes all red."

The girl stole a shy glance at Black Peter.

"Are you of the servants of the prince?" said she, bashfully looking at the orange facing of his tunic.

Black Peter erected himself a little and squared out his chest. It was the first time that his grim prison uniform had been so distinguished.

"I am indeed the keeper of this castle of the prince," he said, with dignity.

"It is a fine castle, in truth," said the maid, looking at it up and down and crossways, with blue, wide-open, most ingenuous eyes.

"You come from the country, perhaps?" asked Peter. For such innocence was wellnigh impossible to any maid of the city.

"Aye," said the girl, "I have come from La Haye Sainte in the Flemish country of the West, where they speak French. So, therefore, I do not know your customs nor yet your speech very well. I bide with my aunt in the street but one to the right. I was sent to bring home a gallon of white wine in a new pitcher. And now it is spilled – all with looking up at you, Sir Officer, standing at the gate of your tower."

And she sped another glance at the castle-keeper from under the dark, seductive lashes of her almond eyes.

Black Peter stroked his mustache. It was certainly a risk, but, after all, there was no likelihood that the new provost-marshal would make that night the first of his visitations. Indeed, it was by no means so certain that there had been as yet any provost appointed, after the sad accident which had happened to my Lord of Barra – "whom," said Black Peter, "may Abraham take to his bosom. For he had no mercy on poor men, who could not get their sleep for his surprises and inspections. A meddlesome Scots crow, all in his rusty black, ever croaking of duty and penalties, as if he were the hangman of Amersfort calling a poor hussy's crimes at the cart-tail."

"Come thou in by, my girl," said Black Peter, "and in a trice, if so be you can tell me the name of the shop, I will get thee a new pitcher full of wine, better far than the first. Deign to wait with me but a moment here in the castle-hall, where there is a fine fire of sea-coal and none save ourselves to sit by it."

"I know not if my aunt would approve," said the maid, uncertainly. "But, after all, you are most wondrously like my brother, who is a baker of bread at La Haye Sainte. Ah," she continued, clasping her hands, innocently, "at this time o' night he will be unharnessing Herminius (that is our market-dog) and bringing in the white flour and the brown flour and the little parcel of salt."

So poignant was the recollection that the maid was compelled to put her hands to her eyes and begin to sob.

"Weep not," said Black Peter, coming down and putting one hand on her shoulder, and with the other drawing gently her fingers from her face, "I will be as your brother. Deign but to step within my castle, and I will send a servant for the jar of wine. You shall only bide with me a matter of ten short minutes, sufficient to tell me of the good brother and of Herminius, your market-dog."

The pretty country girl let her eyes slowly rise to his face, and again the bewitching innocence of the appeal sent Peter's hand complacently to his beard. He stroked it as he regarded her.

"This is what it is to have a way with women. It hath been like this all my life," he confided to himself, with a sigh.

"Then I will come with you," she said, suddenly, "and that gladly, for you are wonderfully like my brother John. His beard also is handsome and of the fine tissue. It is the very moral of yours."

Peter led the way up the steps.

Then he inquired from his new acquaintance the name of the wine-shop and the brand of the wine.

He put his hand to his side and rattled a little alarm shaped like a triangle. In a trice a young beardless youth appeared, all whose body incessantly wriggled and squirmed, like a puppy's which fears the rod or desires the milk-pail.

"Here, restless one!" cried Black Peter Hals, "go swiftly to the Inn of the Gouda Cheese, and bring from thence a jar of the wine of Hochheim. And, hark ye, also a couple of bottles of Hollands of the best brands. Here is money for thee to pay for all."

He went to the door with the wriggler.

"Now, do you understand?" he said, in a loud tone. And then, under his breath, he added, "Come not too soon back. An you so much as show your ugly face here for an hour and a half, with the buckle of a belly-band I will thrash the soul out of your miserable, whimpering body."

"I would as lief stop by the fire and watch," said the object, casting a sheep's-glance at the country-maid, who stood warming her toes, one pretty foot held up to the blaze; "if, perchance, it might be Mynheer Peter's desire to refresh himself at the sign of the Gouda Cheese for an hour, as is his custom of a night."

"Out with thee, wastrel!" cried Peter, angrily, kicking him down the steps; "and mind, come not back for an hour on the peril of your life, and the flaying off of thy skin in handbreadths."

So saying, Peter went back into the wide stone hall. He found his dainty new friend sweeping up the fireplace and setting the sticks for kindling in order at the back.

"We always do it so in our village," she said, simply, "but the men in cities and in great castles like this have, of course, no time for such trifles."

"What is your name, pretty maiden?" asked Peter, standing up beside her as she knelt and swept vigorously, raising a rare dust – and, to any eyes but those of a man, doing the work most awkwardly.

"I am called 'the Little Marie,'" said the girl, demurely, "but, of course, among those who are not my friends I am called by another name."