The First Sir Percy · I · Chapter 1 4 (2/3)

Heemskerk, just as swiftly, had already stepped back into the barn and closed the door again noiselessly.

“Useless!” commented Stoutenburg curtly. “The horses are outside.”

“Where is Jan?” he added after an imperceptible pause, during which Heemskerk felt as if his very heartbeats had become audible.

“On the watch, outside,” replied the young man.

Even whilst he spoke the door was cautiously opened from the outside, and a grizzled head wrapped in a fur bonnet was thrust in through the orifice.

“What is it, Jan?” the two men queried simultaneously.

“A man and horse,” Jan replied in a rapid whisper.

“Coming from over Amersfoort way. He must have caught sight of the molen, for he has left the track and is heading straight for us.”

“Some wretched traveler lost on this Godforsaken waste,” Stoutenburg said, with a careless shrug of the shoulders. “I have seen them come this way before.”

“But not at this hour of the night?” murmured Heemskerk.

“Mostly at night. It is easier to follow the track by day.”

“What shall we do?”

“Nothing. Let the man come. We’ll soon see if he is dangerous. Are we not three to one?”

The taunt struck home. Heemskerk looked abashed. Jan remained standing in the doorway, waiting for further orders. Stoutenburg went on quietly collecting the scanty provisions. He found a couple of mugs, and with a perfectly steady hand filled the first one and then the other with the wine.

“Drink this Heemskerk,” he said lightly; and held out the two mugs at arm’s length. “It will calm your nerves. You too, Jan.”

Jan took the mug and drank with avidity, but Heemskerk appeared to hesitate.

“Afraid of the poison?” Stoutenburg queried with a sneer. Then, as the other, half-ashamed, took the mug and drank at a draught, he added coolly: “You need not be afraid. I could not afford to waste such precious stuff on you.”

Then he turned to Jan.

“Remain outside,” he commanded; “well wrapped in your blanket, and when the traveler hails you pretend to be wakened from pleasant dreams. Then leave the rest to chance.”

Jan at once obeyed. He went out of the molen, closing the door carefully behind him.

Five minutes later, the hapless traveler had put his horse to a trot. He had perceived the molen looming at the top of the rising ground, dense and dark against the sky, and looking upon it as a veritable God-sent haven of refuge for wearied tramps, was making good haste to reach it, fearing lest he himself dropped from sheer exhaustion out of his saddle ere he came to his happy goal.

That terrible contingency, however, did not occur, and presently he was able to draw rein and to drop gently if somewhat painfully to the ground without further mishap. Then he looked about him. The mill in truth appeared to be uninhabited, which was a vast pity, seeing that a glass of spiced ale would⁠—but no matter, ’twas best not to dwell on such blissful thoughts! A roof over one’s head for the night was the most urgent need.

He led his horse by the bridle, and tethered him to a heavy, supporting rafter under the overhanging platform; was on the point of ministering to the poor, half-frozen beast, when his ear caught a sound which caused him instantly to pause first and then start on a tour around the molen. He had not far to go. The very next moment he came upon a couple of horses tethered like his own, and upon Jan, who was snoring lustily, curled up in a horse-blanket in the angle of the porch.

To hail the sleeper with lusty shouts at first, and then with a vigorous kick, was but the work of a few seconds; after which Jan’s snores were merged in a series of comprehensive curses against the disturber of his happy dreams.

“Dondersteen!” he murmured, still apparently half asleep. “And who is this verfloekte plepshurk who ventures a weary traveler from his sleep?”

“Another weary traveler, verfloekte plepshurk yourself,” the other cried aloud. Nor were it possible to render with any degree of accuracy the language which he subsequently used when Jan persistently refused to move.

“Then, dondersteen,” retorted Jan thickly, “do as I do⁠—wrap yourself up in a blanket and go to sleep.”

“Not until I have discovered how it comes that one wearied traveler happens to be abroad with two equally wearied and saddled horses. And I am not mistaken, plepshurk, thou are but a varlet left on guard outside, whilst thy master feasts and sleeps within.”

Whereupon, without further parley, he strode across Jan’s outstretched body and, with a vigorous kick of his heavy boot, thrust open the door which gave on the interior of the mill.

Here he paused, just beneath the lintel, took off his hat, and stood at respectful attention; for he had realized at once that he was in the presence of his betters⁠—of two gentlemen, in fact, one of whom had a mug of wine in his hand and the other a bottle. These were the two points which, as it were, jumped most directly to the eye of the weary, frozen, and thirsty traveler: two gentlemen who haply were now satiated, and would spare a drop even to a humble varlet if he stood before them in his full, pitiable plight.

“Who are you man? And what do you want?” one of these gentlemen queried peremptorily. It was the one who had a bottle of wine⁠—a whole bottle⁠—in his hand; but he looked peculiarly stern and forbidding, with his close-cropped, grizzled head and hard, birdlike features.

“Only a poor tramp, my lord,” replied the unfortunate wayfarer, in high-pitched, flute-like tones, “who hath lost his way, and has been wandering on this verdommte plain since midnight.”

“What do you want?” reiterated Stoutenburg sternly.

“Only shelter for the rest of the night, my lord, and⁠—and⁠—a little drink⁠—a very little drink⁠—for I am mightily weary, and my throat is dry as tinder.”

“What is your name?”

At this very simple question the man’s round, florid face with the tiny, upturned nose, slightly tinged with pink, and the small, round eyes, bright and shiny like new crowns, took on an expression of comical puzzlement. He scratched his head, pursed up his lips, emitted a prolonged and dubious whistle.

“I haven’t a name, so please your lordship,” he said, after a while. “That is, not a name such as other people have. I have a name, in truth, a name by which I am known to my friends; a name⁠—”

“Thy name, plepshurk,” command Stoutenburg roughly, “ere I throw thee out again into the night.”

“So please your lordship,” replied the man, “I am called Pythagoras⁠—a name which I believe belongs by right to a philosopher of ancient times, but to which I will always answer, so please your High and Mightiness.”

But this time his High and Mightiness did not break in upon the worthy philosopher’s volubility. Indeed, at the sound of that highly ludicrous name⁠—ludicrous, that is, when applied to its present bearer⁠—he had deliberately put mug and bottle down, and then become strangely self-absorbed, even whilst his friend had given an involuntary start.

“H’m! Pythagoras!” his lordship resumed, after a while. “Have I ever seen thine ugly face before?”

“Not to my knowledge, my lord,” replied the other, marvelling when it would please these noble gentlemen to give him something wherewith to moisten his gullet.

“Ah! Methought I had once met another who bore an equally strange name. Was it Demosthenes, or Euripides, or⁠—”

“Diogenes, no doubt, my lord,” replied the thirsty philosopher glibly. “The most gallant gentleman in the whole wide world, one who honours me with his friendship, was pleased at one time to answer to that name.”

Now, when Pythagoras made his announcement he felt quite sure that lavish hospitality would promptly follow. These gentlemen had no doubt heard of Diogenes, his comrade in arms, the faithful and gallant friend for whom he⁠—Pythagoras⁠—would go through fire and water and the driest of deserts. They would immediately accord a welcome to one who had declared himself honoured by the friendship of so noble a cavalier. Great was the unfortunate man’s disappointment, therefore, when his glib speech was received in absolute silence; and he himself was still left standing upon the lintel of the door, with an icy cold draught playing upon him from behind.

It was only after a considerable time that my lord deigned to resume his questionings again.

“Where dost come from, fellow?” he asked.

“From Ede, so please your lordship,” Pythagoras replied dolefully, “where I partook⁠—”

“And whither art going?” Stoutenburg broke in curtly.

“I was going to Amersfoort, my lord, when I lost my way.”

“To Amersfoort?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Mynheer Beresteyn hath a house at Amersfoort,” Stoutenburg said, as if to himself.

“It was to Mynheer Beresteyn’s house that I was bound, my lord, when I unfortunately lost my way.”

“Ah!” commented my lord dryly. “Thou was on thy way to the house of Mynheer Beresteyn in Amersfoort?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“With a message?”

“No, my lord. Not with a message; I was just going there for the wedding.”

“The wedding?” ejaculated Stoutenburg, and it seemed to Pythagoras as if my lord’s haggard face took on suddenly an almost cadaverous hue. “Whose wedding fellow?” he added more calmly.

“That of my friend Diogenes, so please your lordship, with the jongejuffrouw Beresteyn, he⁠—”

“Take care, man, take care!” came with an involuntary call of alarm from Heemskerk; for Stoutenburg, uttering a hoarse cry like that of a wounded beast, had raised his arm and now strode on the unfortunate philosopher with clenched fist and a look in his hollow eyes which boded no good to the harbinger of those simple tidings.

At sound of his friend’s voice, Stoutenburg dropped his arm. He turned on his heel, ashamed no doubt that this stranger-varlet should see his face distorted as it was with passion.

This paroxysm of uncontrolled fury did not, however, last longer than a moment or two; the next instant the lord of Stoutenburg, outwardly calm and cynical as before had resumed his haughty questionings, looked the awestruck philosopher up and down; and he, somewhat scared by the danger which he only appeared to have escaped through the timely intervention of the other gentleman, was marvelling indeed if he had better not take to his heels at once and run, and trust his safety and his life to the inhospitable wild, rather than in the company of this irascible noble lord.

I think, if fact, that he would have fled the very next moment, but that my lord with one word kept him rooted to the spot.

“So,” resumed Stoutenburg coolly after awhile, “thou, fellow, art a bidden guest at the marriage feast, which it seems is to be solemnized ’twixt the jongejuffrouw Beresteyn and another plepshurk as low as thyself. Truly doth democracy tread hard on the heels of such tyranny as the United Provinces have witnessed of late. Dost owe allegiance, sirrah, to the Stadtholder?”

“Where Diogenes leads, my lord,” replied Pythagoras, with a degree of earnestness which sat whimsically upon his rotund person, “there do Socrates and I follow unquestioningly.”

“Which means that ye are three rascals, ready to sell your skins to the highest bidder. Were ye not in the pay of the lord of Stoutenburg during the last conspiracy against the Stadtholder’s life?”

“We may have been, your honour,” the man replied naively; “although, to my knowledge, I have never set eyes on the lord of Stoutenburg.”

“ ’Twere lucky for thee knave, if thou didst,” rejoined Stoutenburg with a harsh laugh, “for there’s a price of two thousand guilders upon his head, and I doubt not but thy scurrilous friend Diogenes would add another two thousand to that guerdon.”

Then, as Pythagoras, almost dropping with fatigue, was swaying upon his short, fat legs, he jerked his thumb in the direction where the tantalizing bottles and mugs were faintly discernible in the gloom. My lord continued curtly:

“There! Drink thy fill! Amersfoort is not far. My man will put thee on thy way when thou hast quenched thy thirst!”

Quench his thirst! Where was that cellar which could have worked this magic trick? In the corner to which my lord was pointing so casually there was but one bottle, which my lord had put down a while ago, and that, after all, was only half full.

Still, half a bottle of wine was better than no wine at all, and my lord, having granted his gracious leave, took no more notice of the philosopher and his unquenchable thirst, turned to his friend, and together the two gentlemen retired to a distant corner of the place and there whispered eagerly with one another.

Pythagoras tiptoed up to the spot where unexpected bliss awaited him. There was another bottle of wine there beside the half-empty one⁠—a bottle that was full up to the neck, and the shape of which proclaimed that it came from Spain. Good, strong, heady Spanish wine!

And my lord had said “Drink thy fill!” Pythagoras did not hesitate, save for one brief second, while he marvelled whether he had accidentally wandered into Elysian fields, or whether he was only dreaming. Then he poured out for himself a mugful of wine.

Twenty minutes later, the last drop of the second bottle of strong, heady Spanish wine had trickled down the worthy Pythagoras’ throat. He was in a state of perfect bliss, babbling words of supreme contentment, and seeing pleasing visions of gorgeous feasts in the murky angles of the old millhouse.

“ ’Tis time the plepshurk got to horse,” Stoutenburg said at last.

He strode across to where Pythagoras, leaning against the raftered wall, his round head on one side, his sugar-loaf hat set at the back of his head, was gazing dreamily into his empty mug.

“To horse, fellow!” he commanded curtly. “ ’Tis but a league to Amersfoort, and thy friend will be waiting thee.”

The old instinct of deference and good behaviour before a noble lord lent some semblance of steadiness to Pythagoras’ legs. He struggled to his feet, vainly endeavored to keep an upright and dignified position⁠—an attempt which, however, proved utterly futile.

Whereupon my lord called peremptorily to Jan, who appeared so suddenly in the doorway that, to Pythagoras’ blurred vision, it seemed as if he had been put there by some kind of witchery. He approached his master, and there ensued a brief, whispered colloquy between those two⁠—a colloquy in which Heemskerk took no part. After which, the lord of Stoutenburg said aloud:

“Set this worthy fellow on his horse, my good Jan, and put him on the track which leads to Amersfoort. He has had a rest and a good warm drink. He is not like to lose his way again.”

Vaguely Pythagoras felt that he wished to protest. He did not want to be set on his horse, nor yet to go to Amersfoort just yet. The wedding was not until the morrow⁠—no, the day after the morrow⁠—and for the nonce he wanted to sleep. Yes, sleep! Curled up in a blanket in any corner big enough and warm enough to shelter a dog.

Sleep! That was what he wanted; for he was so confoundedly sleepy, and this verfloekte darkness interfered with his eyes so that he could not see very clearly in front of him. All this he explained with grave deliberation to Jan, who had him tightly by the elbow and was leading him with absolutely irresistible firmness out through the door into the white, inhospitable open.

“I don’t want to get to horse,” the philosopher babbled thickly. “I want to curl up in a blanket and I want to go to sleep.”

But, despite his protestations, he found himself presently in the saddle. How he got up there, he certainly could not have told you. Instinct, however, kept him there. Never could it be said that Pythagoras had tumbled off a horse. Anon he felt that the horse was moving, and that the air around him was bitterly cold.

The dull, even carpet of snow dazzled him, though it was pitch dark now both overhead and down below; of darkness that enveloped one like a mantle, and which felt as if it could have been cut through with a knife.