Weyman Stanley John
The Story of Francis Cludde

CHAPTER IX
PLAYING WITH FIRE

He was a young man, and a Dutchman, but not a Dutchman of the stout, burly type which I had most commonly seen in the country. He had, it is true, the usual fair hair and blue eyes, and he was rather short than tall; but his figure was thin and meager, and he had a pointed nose and chin, and a scanty fair beard. I took him to be nearsighted: at a second glance I saw that he was angry. He was talking fast to Dymphna-of course in Dutch-and my first impulse, in face of his excited gestures and queer appearance, was to laugh. But I had a notion what his relationship to the girl was, and I smothered this, and instead asked, as soon as I could get a word in, whether I should leave them.

"Oh, no!" Dymphna answered, blushing slightly, and turning to me with a troubled glance. I believe she had clean forgotten my presence. "This is Master Jan Van Tree, a good friend of ours. And this," she continued, still in Spanish, but speaking to him, "is Master Carey, one of my father's guests."

We bowed, he formally, for he had not recovered his temper, and I-I dare say I still had my Spanish ancestors in my head-with condescension. We disliked one another at sight, I think. I dubbed him a mean little fellow, a trader, a peddler; and, however he classed me, it was not favorably. So it was no particular desire to please him which led me to say with outward solicitude, "I fear you are annoyed at something, Master Van Tree?"

"I am!" he said bluntly, meeting me half-way.

"And am I to know the cause?" I asked, "or is it a secret?"

"It is no secret!" he retorted. "Mistress Lindstrom should have been more careful. She should not have exposed herself to the chance of being seen by those miserable foreigners."

"The foreigners-in the boat?" I said dryly.

"Yes, of course-in the boat," he answered. He was obliged to say that, but he glared at me across her as he spoke. We had turned and were walking back to the house, the poplars casting long shadows across our path.

"They were rude," I observed carelessly, my chin very high. "But there is no particular harm done that I can see, Master Van Tree."

"Perhaps not, as far as you can see," he retorted in great excitement. "But perhaps also you are not very far-sighted. You may not see it now, yet harm will follow."

"Possibly," I said, and I was going to follow up this seemingly candid admission by something very boorish, when Mistress Dymphna struck in nervously.

"My father is anxious," she explained, speaking to me, "that I should have as little to do with our Spanish governors as possible, Master Carey. It always vexes him to hear that I have fallen in their way, and that is why my friend feels annoyed. It was not, of course, your fault, since you did not know of this. It was I," she continued hurriedly, "who should not have ventured to the elm tree without seeing that the coast was clear."

I knew that she was timidly trying, her color coming and going, to catch my eye; to appease me as the greater stranger, and to keep the peace between her ill-matched companions, who, indeed, stalked along eying one another much as a wolf-hound and a badger-dog might regard each other across a choice bone. But the young Dutchman's sudden appearance had put me out. I was not in love with her, yet I liked to talk to her, and I grudged her to him, he seemed so mean a fellow. And so-churl that I was-in answer to her speech I let drop some sneer about the great fear of the Spaniards which seemed to prevail in these parts.

"You are not afraid of them, then?" Van Tree said, with a smile.

"No, I am not," I answered, my lip curling also.

"Ah!" with much meaning. "Perhaps you do not know them very well."

"Perhaps not," I replied. "Still, my grandmother was a Spaniard."

"So I should have thought," he retorted swiftly.

So swiftly that I felt the words as I should have felt a blow. "What do you mean?" I blurted out, halting before him, with my cheek crimson. In vain were all Dymphna's appealing glances, all her signs of distress. "I will have you explain, Master Van Tree, what you mean by that?" I repeated fiercely.

"I mean what I said," he answered, confronting me stubbornly, and shaking off Dymphna's hand. His blue eyes twinkled with rage, his thin beard bristled; he was the color of a turkey-cock's comb. At home we should have thought him a comical little figure; but he did not seem so absurd here. For one thing, he looked spiteful enough for anything; and for another, though I topped him by a head and shoulders, I could not flatter myself that he was afraid of me. On the contrary, I felt that in the presence of his mistress, small and short-sighted as he was, he would have faced a lion without winking.

His courage was not to be put to the proof. I was still glaring at him, seeking some retort which should provoke him beyond endurance, when a hand was laid on my shoulder, and I turned to find that Master Bertie and the Duchess had joined us.

"So here are the truants," the former said pleasantly, speaking in English, and showing no consciousness whatever of the crisis in the middle of which he had come up, though he must have discerned in our defiant attitudes, and in Dymphna's troubled face, that something was wrong. "You know who this is, Master Francis," he continued heartily. "Or have you not been introduced to Master Van Tree, the betrothed of our host's daughter?"

"Mistress Dymphna has done me that honor," I said stiffly, recovering myself in appearance, while at heart sore and angry with everybody. "But I fear the Dutch gentleman has not thanked her for the introduction, since he learned that my grandmother was Spanish."

"Your grandmother, do you mean?" cried the Duchess, much astonished.

"Yes, madam."

"Well, to be sure!" she exclaimed, lifting up her hands and appealing whimsically to the others. "This boy is full of starts and surprises. You never know what he will produce next. The other day it was a warrant! To-day it is a grandmother, and a temper!"

I could not be angry with her; and perhaps I was not sorry now that my quarrel with the young Dutchman had stopped where it had. I affected, as well as I could, to join in the laugh at my expense, and took advantage of the arrival of our host-who at this moment came up the slope from the landing-place, his hands outstretched and a smile of greeting on his kindly face-to slip away unnoticed, and make amends to my humor by switching off the heads of the withes by the river.

But naturally the scene left a degree of ill-feeling behind it; and for the first time, during the two months we had spent under Master Lindstrom's roof, the party who sat down to supper were under some constraint. I felt that the young Dutchman had had the best of the bout in the garden; and I talked loudly and foolishly in the boyish attempt to assert myself, and to set myself right at least in my own estimation. Master Van Tree meanwhile sat silent, eying me from time to time in no friendly fashion. Dymphna seemed nervous and frightened, and the Duchess and her husband exchanged troubled glances. Only our host and Mistress Anne, who was in particularly good spirits, were unaffected by the prevailing chill.

Mistress Anne, indeed, in her ignorance, made matters worse. She had begun to pick up some Dutch, and was fond of airing her knowledge and practicing fresh sentences at meal-times. By some ill-luck she contrived this evening-particularly after, finding no one to contradict me, I had fallen into comparative silence-to frame her sentences so as to cause as much embarrassment as possible to all of us. "Where did you walk with Dymphna this morning?" was the question put to me. "You are fond of the water; Englishmen are fond of the water," she said to Dymphna. "Dymphna is tall; Master Francis is tall. I sit by you to-night; the Dutch lady sat by you last night," and soon, and so on, with prattle which seemed to amuse our host exceedingly-he was never tired of correcting her mistakes-but which put the rest of us out of countenance, bringing the tears to poor Dymphna's eyes-she did not know where to look-and making her lover glower at me as though he would eat me.

It was in vain that the Duchess made spasmodic rushes into conversation, and in the intervals nodded and frowned at the delinquent. Mistress Anne in her innocence saw nothing. She went on until Van Tree could stand it no longer, and with a half-smothered threat, which was perfectly intelligible to me, rose roughly from the table, and went to the door as if to look out at the night.

"What is the matter?" Mistress Anne said, wonderingly, in English. Her eyes seemed at length to be opened to the fact that something was amiss with us.

Before I could answer, the Duchess, who had risen, came behind her. "You little fool!" she whispered fiercely, "if fool you are. You deserve to be whipped!"

"Why, what have I done?" murmured the girl, really frightened now, and appealing to me.

"Done!" whispered the Duchess; and I think she pinched her, for my neighbor winced. "More harm than you guess, you minx! And for you, Master Francis, a word with you. Come with me to my room, please."

I went with her, half-minded to be angry, and half-inclined to feel ashamed of myself. She did not give me time, however, to consider which attitude I should take up, for the moment the door of her room was closed behind us, she turned upon me, the color high in her cheeks. "Now, young man," she said in a tone of ringing contempt, "do you really think that that girl is in love with you?"

"What girl?" I asked sheepishly. The unexpected question and her tone put me out of countenance.

"What girl? What girl?" she replied impatiently. "Don't play with me, boy! You know whom I mean. Dymphna Lindstrom!"

"Oh, I thought you meant Mistress Anne," I said, somewhat impertinently.

Her face fell in an extraordinary fashion, as if the suggestion were not pleasant to her. But she answered on the instant: "Well! The vanity of the lad! Do you think all the girls are in love with you? Because you have been sitting with a pretty face on each side of you, do you think you have only to throw the handkerchief, this way or that? If you do, open your eyes, and you will find it is not so. My kinswoman can take care of herself, so we will leave her out of the discussion, please. And for this pink and white Dutch girl," my lady continued viciously, "let me tell you that she thinks more of Van Tree's little finger than of your whole body."

I shrugged my shoulders, but still I was mortified. A young man may not be in love with a girl, yet it displeases him to hear that she is indifferent to him.

The Duchess noticed the movement. "Don't do that," she cried in impatient scorn. "You do not see much in Master Van Tree, perhaps? I thought not. Therefore you think a girl must be of the same mind as yourself. Well," with a fierce little nod, "you will learn some day that it is not so, that women are not quite what men think them; and particularly, Master Francis, that six feet of manhood, and a pretty face on top of it, do not always have their way. But there, I did not bring you here to tell you that. I want to know whether you are aware what you are doing?"

I muttered something to the effect that I did not know I was doing any harm.

"You do not call it harm, then," the Duchess retorted with energy, "to endanger the safety of every one of us? Cannot you see that if you insult and offend this young man-which you are doing out of pure wanton mischief, for you are not in love with the girl-he may ruin us?"

"Ruin us?" I repeated incredulously.

"Yes, ruin us!" she cried. "Here we are, living more or less in hiding through the kindness of Master Lindstrom-living in peace and quietness. But do you suppose that inquiries are not being made for us? Why, I would bet a dozen gold angels that Master Clarence is in the Netherlands, at this moment, tracking us."

I was startled by this idea, and she saw I was. "We can trust Master Lindstrom, were it only for his own sake," she continued more quietly, satisfied perhaps with the effect she had produced. "And this young man, who is the son of one of the principal men of Arnheim, is also disposed to look kindly on us, as I fancy it is his nature to look. But if you make mischief between Dymphna and him-"

"I have not," I said.

"Then do not," she replied sharply. "Look to it for the future. And more, do not let him fancy it possible. Jealousy is as easily awakened as it is hardly put to sleep. A word from this young man to the Spanish authorities, and we should be hauled back to England in a trice, if worse did not befall us here. Now, you will be careful?"

"I will," I said, conscience-stricken and a little cowed.

"That is better," she replied smiling. "I think you will. Now go."

I went down again with some food for thought-with some good intentions, too. But I was to find-the discovery is made by many-that good resolutions commonly come too late. When I went downstairs I found my host and Master Bertie alone in the parlor. The girls had disappeared, so had Van Tree, and I saw at once that something had happened. Master Bertie was standing gazing at the stove very thoughtfully, and the Dutchman was walking up and down the room with an almost comical expression of annoyance and trouble on his pleasant face.

"Where are the young ladies?" I asked.

"Upstairs," said Master Bertie, not looking at me.

"And-and Van Tree?" I asked mechanically. Somehow I anticipated the answer.

"Gone!" said the Englishman curtly.

"Ay, gone, the foolish lad!" the Dutchman struck in, tugging at his beard. "What has come to him? He is not wont to show temper. I have never known him and Dymphna have a cross word before. What has come to the lad, I say, to go off in a passion at this time of night? And no one knows whither he has gone, or when he will come back again!"

He seemed as he spoke hardly conscious of my presence; but Master Bertie turned and looked at me, and I hung my head, and very shortly afterward, I slunk out. The thought of what I might have brought upon us all by my petulance and vanity made me feel sick. I crept up to bed nervous and fearful of the morrow, listening to every noise without, and praying inwardly that my alarm might not be justified.

When the morrow came I went downstairs as anxious to see Van Tree in the flesh as I had been yesterday disappointed by his appearance. But no Van Tree was there to be seen. Nothing had been heard of him. Dymphna moved restlessly about, her cheeks pale, her eyes downcast, and if I had ever flattered myself that I was anything to the girl, I was undeceived now. The Duchess shot angry glances at me from time to time. Master Bertie kept looking anxiously at the door. Every one seemed to fear and to expect something. But none of them feared and expected it as I did.

"He must have gone home; he must have gone to Arnheim," said our host, trying to hide his vexation. "He will be back in a day or two. Young men will be young men."

But I found that the Duchess did not share the belief that Van Tree had gone home; for in the course of the morning she took occasion, when we were alone, to charge me to be careful not to come into collision with him.

"How can I, now he has gone?" I said meekly, feeling I was in disgrace.

"He has not gone far," replied the Duchess meaningly. "Depend upon it, he will not go far out of sight unless there is more harm done than I think, or he is very different from English lovers. But if you come across him, I pray you to keep clear of him, Master Francis."

I nodded assent.

But of what weight are resolutions, with fate in the other scale! It was some hours after this, toward two o'clock indeed, when Mistress Anne came to me, looking flurried and vexed. "Have you seen Dymphna?" she asked abruptly.

"No," I answered. "Why?"

"Because she is not in the house," the girl answered, speaking quickly, "nor in the garden; and the last time I saw her she was crossing the island toward the footbridge. I think she has gone that way to be on the lookout-you can guess for whom [with a smile]. But I am fearful lest she shall meet some one else, Master Francis; she is wearing her gold chain, and one of the maids says that she saw two of the Spanish garrison on the road near the end of the footbridge this morning. That is the way by land to Arnheim, you know."

"That is bad," I said. "What is to be done?"

"You must go and look for her," Anne suggested. "She should not be alone."

"Let her father go, or Master Bertie," I answered.

"Her father has gone down the river-to Arnheim, I expect; and Master Bertie is fishing in a boat somewhere. It will take time to find him. Why cannot you go? If she has crossed the footbridge she will not be far away."

She seemed so anxious as she spoke for the Dutch girl's safety, that she infected me with her fears, and I let myself be persuaded. After all there might be danger, and I did not see what else was to be done. Indeed, Mistress Anne did not leave me until she had seen me clear of the orchard and half across the meadows toward the footbridge. "Mind you bring her back," she cried after me. "Do not let her come alone!" And those were her last words.

After we had separated I did think for a moment that it was a pity I had not asked her to come with me. But the thought occurred too late, and I strode on toward the head of the bridge, resolving that, as soon as I had sighted Dymphna, I would keep away from her and content myself with watching over her from a distance. As I passed by the little cluster of cottages on the landward side of the island, I glanced sharply about me, for I thought it not unlikely that Master Van Tree might be lurking in the neighborhood. But I saw nothing either of her or him. All was quiet, the air full of spring sunshine and warmth and hope and the blossoms of fruit trees; and with an indefinable pleasure, a feeling of escape from control and restraint, I crossed the long footbridge, and set foot, almost for the first time since our arrival-for at Master Lindstrom's desire we had kept very close-on the river bank.

To the right a fair road or causeway along the waterside led to Arnheim. At the point where I stood, this road on its way from the city took a turn at right angles, running straight away from the river to avoid a wide track of swamp and mere which lay on my left-a quaking marsh many miles round, overgrown with tall rushes and sedges, which formed the head of the bay in which our island lay. I looked up the long, straight road to Arnheim, and saw only a group of travelers moving slowly along it, their backs toward me. The road before me was bare of passengers. Where, then, was Dymphna, if she had crossed the bridge? In the last resort I scanned the green expanse of rushes and willows, which stretched, with intervals of open water, as far as the eye could reach on my left. It was all rustling and shimmering in the light breeze, but my eye picked out one or two raised dykes which penetrated it here and there, and served at once as pathways to islets in the mere and as breastworks against further encroachments of the river. Presently, on one of these, of which the course was fairly defined by a line of willows, I made out the flutter of a woman's hood. And I remembered that the day before I had heard Dymphna express a wish to go to the marsh for some herb which grew there.

"Right!" I said, seating myself with much satisfaction on the last post of the bridge. "She is safe enough there! And I will go no nearer. It is only on the road she is likely to be in danger from our Spanish gallants!"

My eyes, released from duty, wandered idly over the landscape for a while, but presently returned to the dyke across the mere. I could not now see Dymphna. The willows hid her, and I waited for her to reappear. She did not, but some one else did; for by and by, on the same path and crossing an interval between the willows, there came into sight a man's form.

"Ho! ho!" I said, following it with my eyes. "So I may go home! Master Van Tree is on the track. And now I hope they will make it up!" I added pettishly.

Another second and I started up with a low cry. The sunlight had caught a part of the man's dress, a shining something which flashed back a point of intense light. The something I guessed at once was a corselet, and it needed scarce another thought to apprise me that Dymphna's follower was not Van Tree at all, but a Spanish soldier!

I lost no time; yet it took me a minute-a minute of trembling haste and anxiety-to discover the path from the causeway on to the dyke. When once I had stumbled on to the latter I found I had lost sight of both figures; but I ran along at the top of my speed, calculating that the two, who could not be far apart, the man being the nearer to me, were about a quarter of a mile or rather more from the road. I had gone one-half of this distance perhaps when a shrill scream in front caused me to redouble my efforts. I expected to find the ruffian in the act of robbing the girl, and clutched my cudgel-for, alas! I had left my sword at home-more tightly in my grasp, so that it was an immense relief to me when, on turning an angle in the dyke, I saw her running toward me. Her face, still white with fear, however, and her hair streaming loosely behind her, told how narrow had been her escape-if escape it could be called. For about ten feet behind her, the hood he had plucked off still in his grasp, came Master Spaniard, hot-foot and panting, but gaining on her now with every stride.

He was a tall fellow, gayly dressed, swarthy, mustachioed, and fierce-eyed. His corselet and sword-belt shone and jingled as he ran and swore; but he had dropped his feathered bonnet in the slight struggle which had evidently taken place when she got by him; and it lay a black spot in the middle of the grassy avenue behind him. The sun-it was about three hours after noon-was at my back, and shining directly into his eyes, and I marked this as I raised my cudgel and jumped aside to let the girl pass; for she in her blind fear would have run against me.

It was almost the same with him. He did not see me until I was within a few paces of him, and even then I think he noticed my presence merely as that of an unwelcome spectator. He fancied I should step aside; and he cursed me, calling me a Dutch dog for getting in his way.

The next moment-he had not drawn his sword nor made any attempt to draw it-we came together violently, and I had my hand on his throat. We swayed as we whirled round one another in the first shock of the collision. A cry of astonishment escaped him-astonishment at my hardihood. He tried, his eyes glaring into mine, and his hot breath on my cheek, to get at his dagger. But it was too late. I brought down my staff, with all the strength of an arm nerved at the moment by rage and despair, upon his bare head.

He went down like a stone, and the blood bubbled from his lips. I stood over him watching him. He stretched himself out and turned with a convulsive movement on his face. His hands clawed the grass. His leg moved once, twice, a third time faintly. Then he lay still.

There was a lark singing just over my head, and its clear notes seemed, during the long, long minute while I stood bending over him in an awful fascination, to be the only sounds in nature. I looked so long at him in that dreadful stillness and absorption, I dared not at last look up lest I should see I knew not what. Yet when a touch fell on my arm I did not start.

"You have killed him!" the girl whispered, shuddering.

"Yes, I have killed him," I answered mechanically.

I could not take my eyes off him. It was not as if I had done this thing after a long conflict, or in a mêlée with others fighting round me, or on the battle-field. I should have felt no horror then such as I felt now, standing over him in the sunshine with the lark's song in my ears. It had happened so quickly, and the waste about us was so still; and I had never killed a man before, nor seen a man die.

"Oh, come away!" Dymphna wailed suddenly. "Come away!"

I turned then, and the sight of the girl's wan face and strained eyes recalled me in some degree to myself. I saw she was ill; and hastily I gave her my arm, and partly carried, partly supported, her back to the road. The way seemed long and I looked behind me often. But we reached the causeway at last, and there in the open I felt some relief. Yet even then, stopping to cast a backward glance at the marsh, I shuddered anew, espying a bright white spark gleaming amid the green of the rushes. It was the dead man's corselet. But if it had been his eye I could scarcely have shrunk from it in greater dread.

It will be imagined that we were not long in crossing the island. Naturally I was full of what had happened, and never gave a thought to Van Tree's jealousy, or the incidents of his short visit. I had indeed forgotten his existence until we reached the porch. There entering rapidly, with Dymphna clinging to my arm, I was so oblivious of other matters that when the young Dutchman rose suddenly from the seat on one side of the door, and at the same moment the Duchess rose from the bench on the other, I did not understand in the first instant of surprise what was the matter, though I let Dymphna's hand fall from my arm. The dark scowling face of the one, however, and the anger and chagrin written on the features of the other, as they both glared at us, brought all back to me in a flash. But it was too late. Before I could utter a word the girl's lover pushed by me with a fierce gesture and fiercer cry, and disappeared round a corner of the house.

"Was ever such folly!" cried the Duchess, stamping her foot, and standing before us, her face crimson. "Or such fools! You idiot! You-"

"Hush, madam," I said sternly-had I really grown older in doing the deed? "something has happened."

And Dymphna, with a low cry of "The Spaniard! The Spaniard!" tottered up to her and fainted in her arms.