The Laughing Cavalier · Chapter 7 (2/2)

“The rich jongejuffrouw might even have fallen in love with you,” he said sternly to Diogenes, “and endowed you with her father’s wealth and influence.”

“That’s just my complaint,” said Pythagoras, “but no! what else do you think he said earlier in the evening?”

“Well?”

“Tonight we’ll behave like gentlemen,” quoted the other with ever-growing disgust, “and not like common thieves.”

“Why tonight?” queried Gutter-rat in amazement. “Why more especially tonight?”

Pythagoras and Socrates both shrugged their shoulders and suggested no explanation. After which there was more vigorous clapping of mugs against the tabletop and Diogenes was loudly summoned to explain.

“Why tonight? why tonight?” was shouted at him from every side.

Diogenes’ face became for one brief moment quite grave⁠—quite grave be it said, but for his eyes which believe me could not have looked grave had they tried.

“Because,” he said at last when the shouts around him had somewhat subsided, “I had three guilders in my wallet, because my night’s lodging is assured for the next three nights and because my chief creditor has died like a hero. Therefore, O comrades all! I could afford the luxury.”

“What luxury?” sneered Gutter-rat in disgust, “to refuse the patronage of an influential burgher of this city, backed by the enthusiasm of the beauteous damsel, his daughter?”

“To refuse all patronage, good comrade,” assented Diogenes with emphasis.

“Bah! for twenty-four hours!⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes! for twenty-four hours, friend Gutter-rat, while those three florins last and I have a roof over my head for which I have already paid⁠ ⁠… I can for those four and twenty hours afford the luxury of doing exactly and only what it pleases me to do.”

He threw up his head and stretched out his massive limbs with a gesture of infinite satisfaction, his merry mocking glance sweeping over the company of watch-night revellers, out-at-elbows ragamuffins, and sober burghers with their respectable vrouws, all of whom were gaping on him open-mouthed.

“For four and twenty hours, my dear Gutter-rat,” he continued after a long sigh of contentment, “that is during this day which has just dawned and the night which must inevitably follow it, I am going to give myself the luxury of speaking only when I choose and of being dumb if the fancy so takes me⁠ ⁠… while my three florins last and I know that I need not sleep under the stars, I shall owe my fealty only to my whim⁠—I shall dream when and what I like, sing what I like, walk in company or alone. For four and twenty hours I need not be the ivy that clings nor the hose that is ragged at the knee. I shall be at liberty to wear my sash awry, my shoes unbuckled, my hat tilted at an angle which pleases me best. Above all, O worthy rat of the gutter, I need not stoop for four and twenty hours one inch lower than I choose, or render aught to Caesar for Caesar will have rendered naught to me. On this the first day of the New Year there is no man or woman living who can dictate to me what I shall do, and tonight in the lodgings for which I have paid, when I am asleep I can dream that I am climbing up the heights toward a mountain top which mayhap doth not quite stretch as far as the clouds, but which I can reach alone. Today and tonight I am a man and not a bit of ribbon that flutters at the breath of man or woman who has paid for the fluttering with patronage.”

Gradually as he spoke and his fresh young voice, sonorous with enthusiasm rang clearly from end to end of the raftered room, conversation, laughter, bibulous songs were stilled and everyone turned to look at the speaker, wondering who he could be. The good burghers of Haarlem had no liking for the foreign mercenaries for whom they professed vast contempt because of their calling, and because of the excesses which they committed at the storming of these very walls, which event was within the memory of most. Therefore, though they were attracted by the speaker, they were disgusted to find that he belonged to that rabble; but the women thought that he was goodly to look upon, with those merry, twinkling eyes of his, and that atmosphere of lightheartedness and a gaiety which he diffused around him. Some of the men who were there and who professed knowledge in such matters, declared that this man’s speech betrayed him for an Englishman.

“I like not the race,” said a pompous man who sat with wife and kindred round a table loaded with good things. “I remember the English Leicester and his crowd, men of loose morals and doubtful piety; braggarts and roisterers we all thought them. This man is very like some of them in appearance.”

“Thou speakest truly, O wise citizen of this worthy republic,” said Diogenes, boldly answering the man’s low-spoken words, “my father was one of the roisterers who came in English Leicester’s train. An Englishman he, of loose morals and doubtful piety no doubt, but your sound Dutch example and my mother’s Dutch blood⁠—Heaven rest her soul⁠—have both sobered me since then.”

He looked round at the crowd of faces, all of which were now turned toward him, kindly faces and angry ones, contemptuous eyes and good-natured ones, and some that expressed both compassion and reproof.

“By the Lord,” he said, and as he spoke he threw back his head and burst into a loud and prolonged fit of laughter, “but I have never in my life seen so many ugly faces before.”

There was a murmur and many angry words among the assembly. One or two of the men half rose from their seats, scowling viciously and clenching their fists. Master Beek perspiring with anxiety saw these signs of a possible fray. The thought drove him well-nigh frantic. An affray in his establishment on New Year’s morning! it was unthinkable! He rushed round to his customers with a veritable dictionary of soothing words upon his tongue.

“Gentlemen! gentlemen,” he entreated, “I beg of you to calm yourselves.⁠ ⁠… I humbly beseech you to pay no heed to these men.⁠ ⁠…”

“Plepshurk! Insolent rabble!” quoth a corpulent gentleman who was crimson with wrath.

“Yes, mynheer, yes, yes,” stammered Beek meekly, “but they are foreigners⁠ ⁠… they⁠ ⁠… they do not understand our Dutch ways⁠ ⁠… but they mean no harm⁠ ⁠… they.⁠ ⁠…”

Some of the younger men were not easily pacified.

“Throw them out, Beek,” said one of them curtly.

“They make the place insufferable with their bragging and their insolence,” muttered another.

Diogenes and his friends could not help but see these signs of latent storm, and Mynheer Beek’s feeble efforts at pacifying his wrathful guests. Diogenes had laughed long and loudly, now he had to stop in order to wipe his eyes which were streaming; then quite casually he drew Bucephalus from its scabbard and thoughtfully examined its blade.

Almost simultaneously the fraternity of merrymakers at his table also showed a sudden desire to examine the blade of their swords and immediately half a dozen glints of steel caught the reflection of tallow candles.

I would not assert that order was restored because of these unconscious gestures on the part of the insolent rabble aforesaid, but certain it is that within the next few seconds decorum once more prevailed as if magic had called it forth.

Mynheer Beek heaved a sigh of relief.

“All that you said just now was well spoken, sir,” broke in a firm voice which proceeded from a group of gentlemen who sat at a table next to the one occupied by the philosophers and their friends, “but ’twere interesting to hear what you propose doing on the second day of this New Year.”

Diogenes was in no hurry to reply. The man who had just spoken sat directly behind him, and Bucephalus⁠—so it seemed⁠—still required his close attention. When he had once more replaced his faithful friend into its delicately wrought scabbard he turned leisurely round and from the elevated position which he still occupied on the corner of the table he faced his interlocutor.

“What I propose doing?” he quoth politely.

“Why yes. You said just now that for four and twenty hours you were free to dream and to act as you will, but how will it be tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow, sir,” rejoined Diogenes lightly, “I shall be as poor in pocket as the burghers of Haarlem are in wits, and then.⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes? and then?”

“Why then, sir, I shall once more become an integral portion of that rabble to which you and your friends think no doubt that I rightly belong. I shall not have one silver coin in my wallet and in order to obtain a handful I shall be ready to sell my soul to the devil, my skin to the Stadtholder.⁠ ⁠…”

“And your honour, sir?” queried the other with a sneer, “to whom will you sell that precious guerdon tomorrow?”

“To you, sir,” retorted Diogenes promptly, “an you are short of the commodity.”

An angry word rose to the other man’s lips, but his eyes encountered those of his antagonist and something in the latter’s look, something in the mocking eyes, the merry face, seemed to disarm him and to quench his wrath. He even laughed good-humouredly and said:

“Well spoken, sir. You had me fairly there with the point of your tongue. No doubt you are equally skilful with the point of your rapier.⁠ ⁠…”

“It shall be at your service after tomorrow, sir,” rejoined Diogenes lightly.

“You live by the profession of arms, sir? No offence, ’tis a noble calling, though none too lucrative I understand.”

“My wits supply, sir, what my sword cannot always command.”

“You are ambitious?”

“I told my friends just now wherein lay my ambition.”

“Money⁠—an independent competence⁠ ⁠… so I understand. But surely at your age, and⁠—if you will pardon mine outspokenness⁠—with your looks, sir, women or mayhap one woman must play some part in your dreams of the future.”

“Women, sir,” retorted Diogenes dryly, “should never play a leading role in the comedy of a philosopher’s life. As a means to an end⁠—perhaps⁠ ⁠… the final dénouement.⁠ ⁠…”

“Always that one aim I see⁠—a desire for complete independence which the possession of wealth alone can give.”

“Always,” replied the other curtly.

“And beyond that desire, what is your chief ambition, sir?”

“To be left alone when I have no mind to talk,” said Diogenes with a smile which was so pleasant, so merry, so full of self-deprecating irony that it tempered the incivility of his reply.

Again the other bit his lip, checking an angry word; for some unexplained reason he appeared determined not to quarrel with this insolent young knave. The others stared at their friend in utter astonishment.

“What fly hath bitten Beresteyn’s ear?” whispered one of them under his breath. “I have never known him so civil to a stranger or so unwilling to take offence.”

Certainly the other man’s good humour did not seem to have abated one jot; after an imperceptible moment’s pause, he rejoined with perfect suavity:

“You do not belie your name, sir, I heard your friends calling you Diogenes, and I feel proud that you should look on me as Alexander and call on me to stand out of your sunshine.”

“I crave your pardon, sir,” said Diogenes somewhat more seriously, “my incivility is unwarrantable in the face of your courtesy. No doubt it had its origin in the fact that like my namesake I happened to want nothing at the moment. Tomorrow, sir, an you are minded to pay for my services, to ask for my sword, my soul or my wits, and in exchange will offer me the chance of winning a fortune or of marrying a wife who is both rich and comely, why sir, I shall be your man, and will e’en endeavour to satisfy you with the politeness of my speech and the promptness and efficiency of my deeds. Tomorrow, sir, you and the devil will have an equal chance of purchasing my soul for a few thousand guilders, my wits for a paltry hundred, my skin for a good supper and a downy bed⁠—tomorrow the desire will seize me once again to possess wealth at any cost, and my friends here will have no cause to complain of my playing a part which becomes a penniless wastrel like myself so ill⁠—the part of a gentleman. Until then, sir, I bid you good night. The hour is late and Mynheer Beek is desirous of closing this abode of pleasure. As for me, my lodgings being paid for I do not care to leave them unoccupied.”

Whereupon he rose and to Mynheer Beek⁠—who came to him with that same ubiquitous smile which did duty for all the customers of the Lame Cow⁠—he threw the three silver guilders which the latter demanded in payment for the wine and ale supplied to the honourable gentleman: then as he met the mocking glance of his former interlocutor he said with a recrudescence of gaiety:

“I still have my lodgings, gentle sir, and need not sell my soul or my skin until after I have felt a gnawing desire for breakfast.”

With a graceful flourish of his plumed hat he bowed to the assembled company and walked out of the taproom of the Lame Cow with swagger that would have befitted the audience chamber of a king.

In his wake followed the band of his boon companions, they too strode out of the place with much jingle of steel and loud clatter of heavy boots and accoutrements. They laughed and talked loudly as they left and gesticulated with an air of independence which once more drew upon them the wrathful looks and contemptuous shrugs of the sober townsfolk.

Diogenes alone as he finally turned once again in the doorway encountered many a timid glance levelled at him that were soft and kindly. These glances came from the women, from the young and from the old, for women are strange creatures of whims and of fancies, and there was something in the swaggering insolence of that young malapert that made them think of breezy days upon the seashore, of the song of the soaring lark, of hyacinths in bloom and the young larches on the edge of the wood.

And I imagine that their sluggish Dutch blood yielded to these influences and was greatly stirred by memories of youth.