The Greatest Novels of Charles Reade. Charles Reade Reade

was cut short by a horrible unearthly noise, like a sepulchre ventriloquizing:

      “PARCHMENT!—PARCHMENT!—PARCHMENT!”

      At each repetition, it rose in intensity. They looked up, and there was the dwarf, with his hands full of parchments, and his face lighted with fiendish joy and lurid with diabolical fire. The light being at his neck, a more infernal “transparency” never startled mortal eye. With the word, the awful imp hurled parchment at the astonished heads below. Down came records, like wounded wild-ducks; some collapsed, others fluttering, and others spread out and wheeling slowly down in airy circles. They had hardly settled, when again the sepulchral roar was heard—“Parchment—parchment!” and down pattered and sailed another flock of documents: another followed: they whitened the grass. Finally, the fire-headed imp, with his light body and horny hands, slid down the rope like a falling star, and (business before sentiment) proposed to his rescued brother an immediate settlement for the merchandise he had just delivered.

      “Hush!” said Gerard; “you speak too loud. Gather them up, and follow us to a safer place than this.”

      “Will you come home with me, Gerard?” said little Kate.

      “I have no home.”

      “You shall not say so. Who is more welcome than you will be, after this cruel wrong, to your father's house?

      “Father! I have no father,” said Gerard sternly. “He that was my father is turned my gaoler. I have escaped from his hands; I will never come within their reach again.”

      “An enemy did this, and not our father.”

      And she told him what she had overheard Cornelis and Sybrandt say. But the injury was too recent to be soothed. Gerard showed a bitterness of indignation he had hitherto seemed incapable of.

      “Cornelis and Sybrandt are two ill curs that have shown me their teeth and their heart a long while; but they could do no more. My father it is that gave the burgomaster authority, or he durst not have laid a finger on me, that am a free burgher of this town. So be it, then. I was his son. I am his prisoner. He has played his part. I shall play mine. Farewell the burgh where I was born, and lived honestly and was put in prison. While there is another town left in creation, I'll never trouble you again, Tergou.”

      “Oh! Gerard! Gerard!”

      Margaret whispered her: “Do not gainsay him now. Give his choler time to cool!”

      Kate turned quickly towards her. “Let me look at your face?” The inspection was favourable, it seemed, for she whispered: “It is a comely face, and no mischief-maker's.”

      “Fear me not,” said Margaret, in the same tone. “I could not be happy without your love, as well as Gerard's.”

      “These are comfortable words,” sobbed Kate. Then, looking up, she said, “I little thought to like you so well. My heart is willing, but my infirmity will not let me embrace you.”

      At this hint, Margaret wound gently round Gerard's sister, and kissed her lovingly.

      “Often he has spoken of you to me, Kate; and often I longed for this.”

      “You, too, Gerard,” said Kate; “kiss me ere you go; for my heart lies heavy at parting with you this night.”

      Gerard kissed her, and she went on her crutches home. The last thing they heard of her was a little patient sigh. Then the tears came and stood thick in Margaret's eyes. But Gerard was a man, and noticed not his sister's sigh.

      As they turned to go to Sevenbergen, the dwarf nudged Gerard with his bundle of parchments and held out a concave claw.

      Margaret dissuaded Gerard. “Why take what is not ours?”

      “Oh, spoil an enemy how you can.”

      “But may they not make this a handle for fresh violence?”

      “How can they? Think you I shall stay in Tergou after this? The burgomaster robbed me of my liberty; I doubt I should take his life for it, if I could.”

      “Oh, fie! Gerard.”

      “What! Is life worth more than liberty? Well, I can't take his life, so I take the first thing that comes to hand.”

      He gave Giles a few small coins, with which the urchin was gladdened, and shuffled after his sister. Margaret and Gerard were speedily joined by Martin, and away to Sevenbergen.

      CHAPTER XII

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      Ghysbrecht Van Swieten kept the key of Gerard's prison in his pouch. He waited till ten of the clock ere he visited for he said to himself, “A little hunger sometimes does well it breaks 'em.” At ten he crept up the stairs with a loaf and pitcher, followed by his trusty servant well armed. Ghysbrecht listened at the door. There was no sound inside. A grim smile stole over his features. “By this time he will be as down-hearted as Albert Koestein was,” thought he. He opened the door.

      No Gerard.

      Ghysbrecht stood stupefied.

      Although his face was not visible, his body seemed to lose all motion in so peculiar a way, and then after a little he fell trembling so, that the servant behind him saw there was something amiss, and crept close to him and peeped over his shoulder. At sight of the empty cell, and the rope, and iron bar, he uttered a loud exclamation of wonder; but his surprise doubled when his master, disregarding all else, suddenly flung himself on his knees before the empty chest, and felt wildly all over it with quivering hands, as if unwilling to trust his eyes in a matter so important.

      The servant gazed at him in utter bewilderment.

      “Why, master, what is the matter?”

      Ghysbrecht's pale lips worked as if he was going to answer; but they uttered no sound: his hands fell by his side, and he stared into the chest.

      “Why, master, what avails glaring into that empty box? The lad is not there. See here! note the cunning of the young rogue; he hath taken out the bar, and—”

      “GONE! GONE! GONE!”

      “Gone! What is gone, Holy saints! he is planet-struck!”

      “STOP THIEF!” shrieked Ghysbrecht, and suddenly turned, on his servant and collared him, and shook him with rage. “D'ye stand there, knave, and see your master robbed? Run! fly! A hundred crowns to him that finds it me again. No, no! 'tis in vain. Oh, fool! fool! to leave that in the same room with him. But none ever found the secret spring before. None ever would but he. It was to be. It is to be. Lost! lost!” and his years and infirmity now gained the better of his short-lived frenzy, and he sank on the chest muttering “Lost! lost!”

      “What is lost, master?” asked the servant kindly.

      “House and lands and good name,” groaned Ghysbrecht, and wrung his hands feebly.

      “WHAT?” cried the servant.

      This emphatic word, and the tone of eager curiosity, struck on Ghysbrecht's ear and revived his natural cunning.

      “I have lost the town records,” stammered he, and he looked askant at the man like a fox caught near a hen-roost.

      “Oh, is that all?”

      “Is't not enough? What will the burghers say to me? What will the burghs do?” Then he suddenly burst out again, “A hundred crowns to him who shall recover them; all, mind, all that were in this box. If one be missing, I give nothing.”

      “'Tis a bargain, master: the hundred crowns are in my pouch. See you not that where Gerard Eliassoen is, there are the pieces of sheepskin you rate so high?”

      “That is true; that is true, good Dierich: good faithful Dierich. All, mind, all that were in the chest.”

      “Master,