Wouverman peered round the bark cautiously: there was the arrow's point still aimed at him. He saw it shine. He dared not move from his shelter.
When he had been at peep-ho some minutes, his companions came up in great force.
Then, with a scornful laugh, Martin vanished, and presently was heard to ride off on the mule.
All the men ran up together. The high ground commanded a view of a narrow but almost interminable glade.
They saw Gerard and Margaret running along at a prodigious distance; they looked like gnats; and Martin galloping after them ventre a terre.
The hunters were outwitted as well as outrun. A few words will explain Martin's conduct. We arrive at causes by noting coincidences; yet, now and then, coincidences are deceitful. As we have all seen a hare tumble over a briar just as the gun went off, and so raise expectations, then dash them to earth by scudding away untouched, so the burgomaster's mule put her foot in a rabbit-hole at or about the time the crossbow bolt whizzed innocuous over her head: she fell and threw both her riders. Gerard caught Margaret, but was carried down by her weight and impetus; and, behold, the soil was strewed with dramatis personae.
The docile mule was up again directly, and stood trembling. Martin was next, and looking round saw there was but one in pursuit; on this he made the young lovers fly on foot, while he checked the enemy as I have recorded.
He now galloped after his companions, and when after a long race he caught them, he instantly put Gerard and Margaret on the mule, and ran by their side till his breath failed, then took his turn to ride, and so in rotation. Thus the runner was always fresh, and long ere they relaxed their speed all sound and trace of them was hopelessly lost to Dierich and his men. These latter went crestfallen back to look after their chief and their winged bloodhound.
CHAPTER XXIII
Life and liberty, while safe, are little thought of: for why? they are matters of course. Endangered, they are rated at their real value. In this, too, they are like sunshine, whose beauty men notice not at noon when it is greatest, but towards evening, when it lies in flakes of topaz under shady elms. Yet it is feebler then; but gloom lies beside it, and contrast reveals its fire. Thus Gerard and Margaret, though they started at every leaf that rustled louder than its fellows, glowed all over with joy and thankfulness as they glided among the friendly trees in safety and deep tranquil silence, baying dogs and brutal voices yet ringing in their mind's ears.
But presently Gerard found stains of blood on Margaret's ankles.
“Martin! Martin! help! they have wounded her: the crossbow!”
“No, no!” said Margaret, smiling to reassure him; “I am not wounded, nor hurt at all.”
“But what is it, then, in Heaven's name?” cried Gerard, in great agitation.
“Scold me not, then!” and Margaret blushed.
“Did I ever scold you?”
“No, dear Gerard. Well, then, Martin said it was blood those cruel dogs followed; so I thought if I could but have a little blood on my shoon, the dogs would follow me instead, and let my Gerard wend free. So I scratched my arm with Martin's knife—forgive me! Whose else could I take? Yours, Gerard? Ah, no. You forgive me?” said she beseechingly, and lovingly and fawningly, all in one.
“Let me see this scratch first,” said Gerard, choking with emotion. “There, I thought so. A scratch? I call it a cut—a deep, terrible, cruel cut.”
Gerard shuddered at sight of it.
“She might have done it with her bodkin,” said the soldier. “Milksop! that sickens at sight of a scratch and a little blood.”
“No, no. I could look on a sea of blood, but not on hers. Oh, Margaret! how could you be so cruel?”
Margaret smiled with love ineffable. “Foolish Gerard,” murmured she, “to make so much of nothing.” And she flung the guilty arm round his neck. “As if I would not give all the blood in my heart for you, let alone a few drops from my arm.” And with this, under the sense of his recent danger, she wept on his neck for pity and love; and he wept with her.
“And I must part from her,” he sobbed; “we two that love so dear—one must be in Holland, one in Italy. Ah me! ah me! ah me!”
At this Margaret wept afresh, but patiently and silently. Instinct is never off its guard, and with her unselfishness was an instinct. To utter her present thoughts would be to add to Gerard's misery at parting, so she wept in silence.
Suddenly they emerged upon a beaten path, and Martin stopped.
“This is the bridle-road I spoke of,” said he hanging his head; “and there away lies the hostelry.”
Margaret and Gerard cast a scared look at one another.
“Come a step with me, Martin,” whispered Gerard. When he had drawn him aside, he said to him in a broken voice, “Good Martin, watch over her for me! She is my wife; yet I leave her. See Martin! here is gold—it was for my journey; it is no use my asking her to take it—she would not; but you will for her, will you not? Oh, Heaven! and is this all I can do for her? Money? But poverty is a curse. You will not let her want for anything, dear Martin? The burgomaster's silver is enough for me.”
“Thou art a good lad, Gerard. Neither want nor harm shall come to her. I care more for her little finger than for all the world; and were she nought to me, even for thy sake would I be a father to her. Go with a stout heart, and God be with thee going and coming.” And the rough soldier wrung Gerard's hand, and turned his head away, with unwonted feeling.
After a moment's silence he was for going back to Margaret, but Gerard stopped him. “No, good Martin; prithee, stay here behind this thicket, and turn your head away from us, while I-oh, Martin! Martin!”
By this means Gerard escaped a witness of his anguish at leaving her he loved, and Martin escaped a piteous sight. He did not see the poor young things kneel and renew before Heaven those holy vows cruel men had interrupted. He did not see them cling together like one, and then try to part, and fail, and return to one another, and cling again, like drowning, despairing creatures. But he heard Gerard sob, and sob, and Margaret moan.
At last there was a hoarse cry, and feet pattered on the hard road.
He started up, and there was Gerard running wildly, with both hands clasped above his head, in prayer, and Margaret tottering back towards him with palms extended piteously, as if for help, and ashy cheek and eyes fixed on vacancy.
He caught her in his arms, and spoke words of comfort to her; but her mind could not take them in; only at the sound of his voice she moaned and held him tight, and trembled violently.
He got her on the mule, and put his arm around her, and so, supporting her frame, which, from being strong like a boy, had now turned all relaxed and powerless, he took her slowly and sadly home.
She did not shed one tear, nor speak one word.
At the edge of the wood he took her off the mule, and bade her go across to her father's house. She did as she was bid.
Martin to Rotterdam. Sevenbergen was too hot for him.
Gerard, severed from her he loved, went like one in a dream. He hired a horse and a guide at the little hostelry, and rode swiftly towards the German frontier. But all was mechanical; his senses felt blunted; trees and houses and men moved by him like objects seen through a veil. His companions spoke to him twice, but he did not answer. Only once he cried out savagely, “Shall we never be out of this hateful country?”
After many hours' riding they came to the brow of a steep