"May you be speaking truly," sighed Cornelius with a disconsolate shake of the head, "but think what she must be suffering now, while she is uncertain of her own fate, poor child!"
"Alas!"
"This delay is killing me, Hals," continued the old man, who in the midst of his more pompous friends seemed instinctively drawn to the simple nature of this humble painter of pictures. "The burgomaster means well but his methods are slow and ponderous. All my servants and dependents have joined the first expedition toward Groningen, but God knows how they will get on, now that Nicolaes no longer leads them. They have had no training in such matters, and will hardly know how to proceed."
"You really want some one who is daring and capable, mynheer, some one who will be as wary as those vervloekte sea-wolves and beat them at their own game. 'Tis not so much the numbers that you want as the one brain to direct and to act."
"True! true, my good Hals! But our best men are all at the war fighting for our religious and political liberties, while we — the older citizens of our beloved country with our wives and our daughters — are left a prey to the tyranny of malefactors and of pirates. The burgomaster hopes to raise an efficient corps of volunteers by to-morrow ... but I doubt me if he will succeed.... I have sent for help, I have spared no money to obtain assistance ... but I am an old man myself, and my son alas! has been rendered helpless at the outset, through no fault of his own...."
"But surely there are young men left in Haarlem whom wanton mischief such as this would cause to boil with indignation."
"There are few young men left in Haarlem, my friend," rejoined Beresteyn sadly, "the Stadtholder hath claimed the best of them. Those who are left behind are too much engrossed in their own affairs to care greatly about the grief of an old man, or a wrong done to an innocent girl."
"I'll not believe it," said Hals hotly.
"Alas, 'tis only too true! Men nowadays — those at any rate who are left in our cities — no longer possess that spirit of chivalry or of adventure which caused our forebears to give their life's blood for justice and for liberty."
"You wrong them, mynheer," protested the artist.
"I think not. Think on it, Hals. You know Haarlem well; you know most people who live in the city. Can you name me one man who would stand up before me to-day and say boldly: 'Mynheer, you have lost your daughter: evil-doers have taken her from her home. Here am I ready to do you service, and by God do I swear that I will bring your daughter back to you!' So would our fathers have spoken, my good Hals, before commerce and prosperity had dulled the edge of reckless gallantry. By God! they were fine men in those days — we are mere pompous, obese, self-satisfied shopkeepers now."
There was a great deal of bitter truth in what Cornelius Beresteyn had said: Hals — the artist — who had listened to the complacent talk that had filled this room awhile ago — who knew of the commercial transactions that nowadays went by the name of art-patronage — he knew that the old man was not far wrong in his estimate of his fellow-countrymen in these recent prosperous times.
It was the impulsive, artistic nature in him which caused him to see what he merely imagined — chivalry, romance, primeval notions of bravery and of honour.
He looked round the room — now almost deserted — somewhat at a loss for words that would soothe Beresteyn's bitter spirit of resentment, and casually his glance fell on the broad figure of his friend Diogenes, who, leaning back in his chair, his plumed hat tilted rakishly across his brow, had listened to the conversation between the two men with an expression of infinite amusement literally dancing in his eyes. And it was that same artistic, impulsive nature which caused Frans Hals then to exclaim suddenly:
"Well, mynheer! since you call upon me and on my knowledge of this city, I can give you answer forthwith. Yes! I do know a man, now in Haarlem, who hath no thought of commerce or affairs, who possesses that spirit of chivalry which you say is dead among the men of Holland. He would stand up boldly before you, hat in hand and say to you: 'Mynheer, I am ready to do you service, and by God do I swear that I will bring your daughter back to you, safe and in good health!' I know such a man, mynheer!"
"Bah! you talk at random, my good Hals!" said Beresteyn with a shrug of the shoulders.
"May I not present him to you, mynheer?"
"Present him? Whom?... What nonsense is this?" asked the old man, more dazed and bewildered than before by the artist's voluble talk. "Whom do you wish to present to me?"
"The man who I firmly believe would out of pure chivalry and the sheer love of adventure do more toward bringing the jongejuffrouw speedily back to you than all the burgomaster's levies of guards and punitive expeditions."
"You don't mean that, Hals? — 'twere a cruel jest to raise without due cause the hopes of a grief-stricken old man."
"'Tis no jest, mynheer!" said the artist, "there sits the man!"
And with a theatrical gesture — for Mynheer Hals had drunk some very good wine after having worked at high pressure all day, and his excitement had gained the better of him — he pointed to Diogenes, who had heard every word spoken by his friend, and at this dénouement burst into a long, delighted, ringing laugh.
"Ye gods!" he exclaimed, "your Olympian sense of humour is even greater than your might."
At an urgent appeal from Hals he rose and, hat in hand, did indeed approach Mynheer Beresteyn, looking every inch of him a perfect embodiment of that spirit of adventure which was threatening to be wafted away from these too prosperous shores. His tall figure looked of heroic proportions in this low room and by contrast with the small, somewhat obese burghers who still sat close to Cornelius, having listened in silence to the latter's colloquy with the artist. His bright eyes twinkled, his moustache bristled, his lips quivered with the enjoyment of the situation. The grace and elegance of his movements, born of conscious strength, added dignity to his whole personality.
"My friend hath name Diogenes," said Frans Hals, whose romantic disposition revelled in this presentation, "but there's little of the philosopher about him. He is a man of action, an invincible swordsman, a —— "
"Dondersteen, my good Hals!" ejaculated Diogenes gaily, "you'll shame me before these gentlemen."
"There's naught to be ashamed of, sir, in the eulogy of a friend," said Cornelius Beresteyn with quiet dignity, "and 'tis a pleasure to an old man like me to look on one so well favoured as yourself. Ah, sir! 'tis but sorrow that I shall know in future.... My daughter ... you have heard...?"
"I know the trouble that weighs on your soul, mynheer," replied Diogenes simply.
"You have heard then what your friend says of you?" continued the old man, whose tear-dimmed eyes gleamed with the new-born flicker of hope. "Our good Hals is enthusiastic, romantic ... mayhap he hath exaggerated ... hath in fact been mistaken...."
It was sadly pathetic to see the unfortunate father so obviously hovering 'twixt hope and fear, his hands trembled, there was an appeal in his broken voice, an appeal that he should not be deceived, that he should not be thrown back from the giddy heights of hope to the former deep abyss of despair.
"My daughter, sir ..." he murmured feebly, "she is all the world to me ... her mother died when she was a baby ... she is all the world to me ... they have taken her from me ... she is so young, sir ... so beautiful ... she is all the world to me ... I would give half my fortune to have her back safely in my arms...."
There was silence in the quaint old-world place after that — silence only broken by the suppressed sobs of the unfortunate man who had lost his only daughter. The others sat round the table, saying no word, for the pathos evoked by Beresteyn's grief was too great for words. Hals' eyes were fixed on his friend, and he tried in vain to read and understand the enigmatical smile which hovered in every line of that mobile face. The stillness only lasted a few seconds: the next moment Diogenes' ringing voice had once more set every lurking echo dancing from rafter to rafter.
"Mynheer!" he said loudly, "you have lost your daughter. Here am I to do you service, and by God I swear that