The Greatest Novels of Charles Reade. Charles Reade Reade

voice, “Beware! At Antwerp one did but throw a handful of dust at her, and the Duke made dust of him.”

      “Gramercy!”

      “I speak sooth. The good Duke shut him up in prison, in a cell under ground, and the rats cleaned the flesh off his bones in a night. Served him right for molesting the poor thing.”

      There was a murmur of fear, and the Tergovians shrank from tickling the leopard of their sovereign.

      But an incident followed that raised their spirits again. The Duke's giant, a Hungarian seven feet four inches high, brought up the rear. This enormous creature had, like some other giants, a treble, fluty voice of little power. He was a vain fellow, and not conscious of this nor any defect. Now it happened he caught sight of Giles sitting on the top of the balcony; so he stopped and began to make fun of him.

      “Hallo! brother!” squeaked he, “I had nearly passed without seeing thee.”

      “You are plain enough to see,” bellowed Giles in his bass tones.

      “Come on my shoulder, brother,” squeaked Titan, and held out a shoulder of mutton fist to help him down.

      “If I do I'll cuff your ears,” roared the dwarf.

      The giant saw the homuncule was irascible, and played upon him, being encouraged thereto by the shouts of laughter. For he did not see that the people were laughing not at his wit, but at the ridiculous incongruity of the two voices—the gigantic feeble fife, and the petty deep, loud drum, the mountain delivered of a squeak, and the mole-hill belching thunder.

      The singular duet came to as singular an end. Giles lost all patience and self-command, and being a creature devoid of fear, and in a rage to boot, he actually dropped upon the giant's neck, seized his hair with one hand, and punched his head with the other. The giant's first impulse was to laugh, but the weight and rapidity of the blows soon corrected that inclination.

      “He! he! Ah! ha! hallo! oh! oh! Holy saints! here! help! or I must throttle the imp. I can't! I'll split your skull against the—” and he made a wild run backwards at the balcony. Giles saw his danger, seized the balcony in time with both hands, and whipped over it just as the giant's head came against it with a stunning crack. The people roared with laughter and exultation at the address of their little champion. The indignant giant seized two of the laughers, knocked them together like dumb-bells, shook them and strewed them flat—Catherine shrieked and threw her apron over Giles—then strode wrathfully away after the party. This incident had consequences no one then present foresaw. Its immediate results were agreeable. The Tergovians turned proud of Giles, and listened with more affability to his prayers for parchment. For he drove a regular trade with his brother Gerard in this article. Went about and begged it gratis, and Gerard gave him coppers for it.

      On the afternoon of the same day, Catherine and her daughter were chatting together about their favourite theme, Gerard, his goodness, his benefice, and the brightened prospects of the whole family.

      Their good luck had come to them in the very shape they would have chosen; besides the advantages of a benefice such as the Countess Charolois would not disdain to give, there was the feminine delight at having a priest, a holy man, in their own family. “He will marry Cornelis and Sybrandt: for they can wed (good housewives), now, if they will. Gerard will take care of you and Giles, when we are gone.”

      “Yes, mother, and we can confess to him instead of to a stranger,” said Kate.

      “Ay, girl! and he can give the sacred oil to your father and me, and close our eyes when our time comes.”

      “Oh, mother! not for many, many years, I do pray Heaven. Pray speak not of that, it always makes me sad. I hope to go before you, mother dear. No; let us be gay to-day. I am out of pain, mother, quite out of all pain; it does seem so strange; and I feel so bright and happy, that—mother, Can you keep a secret?”

      “Nobody better, child. Why, you know I can.”

      “Then I will show you something so beautiful. You never saw the like, I trow. Only Gerard must never know; for sure he means to surprise us with it; he covers it up so, and sometimes he carries it away altogether.”

      Kate took her crutches, and moved slowly away, leaving her mother in an exalted state of curiosity. She soon returned with something in a cloth, uncovered it, and there was a lovely picture of the Virgin, with all her insignia, and wearing her tiara over a wealth of beautiful hair, which flowed loose over her shoulders. Catherine, at first, was struck with awe.

      “It is herself,” she cried; “it is the Queen of Heaven. I never saw one like her to my mind before.”

      “And her eyes, mother: lifted to the sky, as if they belonged there, and not to a mortal creature. And her beautiful hair of burning gold.”

      “And to think I have a son that can make the saints live again upon a piece of wood!”

      “The reason is, he is a young saint himself, mother. He is too good for this world; he is here to portray the blessed, and then to go away and be with them for ever.”

      Ere they had half done admiring it, a strange voice was heard at the door. By one of the furtive instincts of their sex they hastily hid the picture in the cloth, though there was no need, And the next moment in came, casting his eyes furtively around, a man that had not entered the house this ten years Ghysbrecht Van Swieten.

      The two women were so taken by surprise, that they merely stared at him and at one another, and said, “The burgomaster!” in a tone so expressive, that Ghysbrecht felt compelled to answer it.

      “Yes! I own the last time I came here was not on a friendly errand. Men love their own interest—Eli's and mine were contrary. Well, let this visit atone the last. To-day I come on your business and none of mine.” Catherine and her daughter exchanged a swift glance of contemptuous incredulity. They knew the man better than he thought.

      “It is about your son Gerard.”

      “Ay! ay! you want him to work for the town all for nothing. He told us.”

      “I come on no such errand. It is to let you know he has fallen into bad hands.”

      “Now Heaven and the saints forbid! Man, torture not a mother! Speak out, and quickly: speak ere you have time to coin falsehood: we know thee.”

      Ghysbrecht turned pale at this affront, and spite mingled with the other motives that brought him here. “Thus it is, then,” said he, grinding his teeth and speaking very fast. “Your son Gerard is more like to be father of a family than a priest: he is for ever with Margaret, Peter Brandt's red-haired girl, and loves her like a cow her calf.”

      Mother and daughter both burst out laughing. Ghysbrecht stared at them.

      “What! you knew it?”

      “Carry this tale to those who know not my son, Gerard. Women are nought to him.”

      “Other women, mayhap. But this one is the apple of his eye to him, or will be, if you part them not, and soon. Come, dame, make me not waste time and friendly counsel: my servant has seen them together a score times, handed, and reading babies in one another's eyes like—you know, dame—you have been young, too.”

      “Girl, I am ill at ease. Yea, I have been young, and know how blind and foolish the young are. My heart! he has turned me sick in a moment. Kate, if it should be true?”

      “Nay, nay!” cried Kate eagerly. “Gerard might love a young woman: all young men do: I can't find what they see in them to love so; but if he did, he would let us know; he would not deceive us. You wicked man! No, dear mother, look not so! Gerard is too good to love a creature of earth. His love is for our Lady and the saints. Ah! I will show you the picture there: if his heart was earthly, could he paint the Queen of Heaven like that—look! look!” and she held the picture out triumphantly, and, more radiant and beautiful in this moment of enthusiasm than ever dead picture was or will be, over-powered the burgomaster with her eloquence and her feminine proof of Gerard's purity. His eyes and mouth opened, and remained open: in