Part 8

But it flashed upon me in a moment that the Prince had shown wisdom and discretion in seeking an Englishman for this part. I had learnt already that there was great jealousy between the several cities; each was in a manner a little republic; and the burghers of one city would be apt to look with ill-favour upon any man from another who should offer to teach them their duty. The like resentment would not be stirred up by an Englishman, more especially if he were commended to them as one expert in war and cunning in counsel. In this I thought Prince Maurice had done wisely, and so I told Sir Francis. He looked at me very sharply, fingering his beard, and then smote upon the table and cried with a great laugh:

"By the Lord Harry, thou art the man!"

I stared at him, at the first not understanding his intent. He laughed again, and said:

"Who so fit for this business as Master Christopher Rudd, expert in war, as witness his exploits with Henry of Navarre; cunning in counsel, as witness his lecture and admonition at this very table! You shall go into Bargen; you shall take in hand the instruction of the burghers; you shall strengthen the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees; a Daniel come to judgment!"

I did not relish his mockery, nor in any wise covet the office he would thrust upon me. But his laughter stung me to a great heat (though I showed it not), and, not counting the cost as an older man had done, I determined in my mind that I would do this thing, come of it what might. Whereupon, feigning to take him in merry mood, I smote upon the table likewise, declared 'twas a right royal jest, and vowed that on the morrow I would make my way privily through the enemy's lines into Bargen, and instal myself tutor among the mynheers. Sir Francis applauded me, still in sport, not supposing that I had spoken soberly and in earnest.

When I came to reflect upon it in my own chamber I questioned whether I were not clean witless, for the task I had taken upon myself was fitter for a man well acquainted with these burghers than for a man raw and untried. Nevertheless, having put the halter about my own neck, I could blame none but myself if I was hanged withal, and from sheer pride of soul I was steadfast to my purpose.

Accordingly, the next day, without any more speech of Sir Francis, I went about quietly to get myself a trusty Dutchman who should guide me into Bargen. By good fortune I lighted upon a man that not only knew English, but had himself gone in and out of the city by a secret way, in despite of the Spaniards. In the dusk we set forth from the camp, with my servant, and rode to a lonely mill some few miles from Bargen, half ruined and burnt in a foray the year before. There we left our horses, which the Dutchman engaged to lead back to the camp, and went down to the river hard by, where, in a clump of rushes, we found his raft cunningly concealed.

It being now dark, we got upon the raft, and oared ourselves warily and in silence down the stream, until we came to a spit or nose of land that was at this season partly submerged and in winter-time wholly. Here we stepped ashore, being within a short bowshot of the Spaniards' trenches. At this hour of the night none but the sentinels were stirring, and, as my guide well knew, the guard hereabout was negligent and unwary.

We crept softly as foxes toward the wall, and as we crawled up the glacis a voice challenged us, and I heard the click of a firelock. My guide made answer in a whisper, and immediately after two rope ladders were let down from the wall, upon which we nimbly mounted to the parapet. There we were confronted by a posse of the burgher guard, armed at all points, and my Dutchman presented me to their captain, saying, according to my instruction, that I was come on business of great moment from Prince Maurice.

The Captain would have led me instantly to the presence of the Burgomaster, but on my assuring him that my errand was not so urgent as that I should disturb that worthy gentleman's rest so unseasonably, he offered to find me a comfortable lodging for the night. We went together, my servant following, through the dark and silent streets, the Captain telling me that I should lodge in the house of the widow of the late Burgomaster, who had been slain in a skirmish the year before. When I said that I was loth to intrude upon the lady at so late an hour, the Captain declared that Meffrouw Verhoeff would deem it in no wise an intrusion; indeed, he said that I should find a table ready laid, my hostess having a son among the guard for whom she watched on all those nights when he was abroad.

Within a little I found myself at the entrance of a house wherein a lamp shone. At the Captain's knock the door was opened, and a voice asked, "Is it you, Jan?" the speaker not perceiving at the first who we were. The Captain presenting me as an envoy from Prince Maurice, and an Englishman, a soft hand caught mine, and drew me into the house, and I made my salutation to a little old lady, very comely and personable, with a widow's cap and snow-white ruff, who greeted me in English and bade me very heartily welcome. She would hear no excuses upon the lateness of the hour; but led me into her parlour, then left me while she bestowed my servant, and returning, entreated me to do honour to the viands with which her table was sparely spread.

Mistress Verhoeff entertained me as I ate with many particulars of the siege. I was not long of discovering that her small body was the seat of a very fiery and unquenchable spirit; and in truth, while she spoke of the brave deeds done in defence of the city, her cheeks glowed and her eyes sparkled so that she seemed young again. There had been much suffering, she told me; but her folk had learnt to suffer, and of a surety could endure even more grievous afflictions than had yet befallen them.

At these words methought there was trouble in her voice, and I wondered whether she was aware of the rumours whereof Prince Maurice had made mention in his letter to Sir Francis Vere.

She spoke of her dead husband, and of her living son, who was this night on guard at the wall.

"Had his father but lived," she said, "my boy had beyond question held great place, in the field or the council chamber; but now, alack! he trails a pike among the common men."

While we were yet conversing, there was a step without, and a young man entered to us. He stood amazed to behold a stranger with his mother, but upon her making me known to him, he gave me a courteous salutation and sat himself at the board. Now I never lose the remembrance of a face once seen, and at the first glance I could have avouched that this young man was the same that did me service two days before. Yet the form of his countenance was something changed, and his apparel was wholly bettered, and when he made not the least sign that he knew me, I was tempted to doubt my memory had for once cozened me. We spoke of indifferent matters, and then, with the intent to put him to the test, I said bluntly--

"Sir, have you knowledge or acquaintance of one Mynheer Van der Kloof?"

"I know no man living of that name," he answered me.

"I crave your pardon, sir," said I, "but truly I would fain meet that same mynheer again, that I might renew my thanks for a timely service he rendered me."

"What was that, sir?" the lady asked; and her son seemed to wait upon my words with mere curiosity.

I related my adventure of two days before, and my hostess averred that Mynheer Van der Kloof was no man of Bargen, seeing that neither was there any family of that name in the city, nor could any force of burghers have been without the walls, the place having been straitly invested for two months past. This in my secret thought I took leave to doubt, but I could not in courtesy urge my opinion, and we left speaking of the matter. Shortly thereafter the lady herself conducted me to my chamber, where I was soon comfortably established between the sheets, as white and fragrant as ever I slept in.

*III*

On the morrow, very early, I was waited upon by a sergeant come express to conduct me to the Burgomaster, whom the Captain of the Guard had informed of my arrival. I must acknowledge that in the cold and sober light of morning I felt myself to be in something of a pickle. I had announced myself as an emissary from Prince Maurice, but I had no letter of commendation in his hand, nor, in truth, had I so much as set eyes on him. Furthermore, I was a stranger to all in the city, and being little more than a boy,--my years were twenty-two, though, like Portia in Will Shakespeare's play, I was elder than my looks--being little more than a boy, I say, I doubted of the reception I should meet with among the grave and solemn burghers of the city council. I could but trust to a bold front and mother wit to carry me through my enterprise, and I took some comfort from the reflection that Hollanders were said to be somewhat dull and heavy. Accordingly, having trimmed myself with exceeding care, and donned the fresh and sumptuous apparel, meet for an ambassador, which my servant had brought, I set forth with assured mien and measured gait, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left upon the gaping onlookers that had gathered in the streets.

Being ushered with much solemnity by the sergeant into the council-chamber, I found myself in presence of a round dozen burghers clad in brave attire, and seated at their table in order of precedency, as I judged. I cast a swift look round as I gave them salutation, at the first taking particular note of none but the Burgomaster at the head of the table, whose aspect tickled me with secret merriment. He was a round pursy little man, clean shaven, with double chins resting on his chain of office, and moist and vagrant eyes that did not meet my gaze steadily. I judged him to be pompous and self-conceited, withal of little stability of mind, and, as we say in our homely way, fussy. With hem and haw he addressed me in French, his voice being thick, and speaking as there were a pebble in his mouth.

"Sir, you come from the illustrious Prince Maurice of Nassau?" he said.

For answer I bowed.

"You bring a letter under his hand and seal?" he proceeded.

I hold that to speak truth is ever the best course; wherefore, attuning my voice to a confident serenity, I replied--

"Sir, I bear no letter, but I will in a few words explain to the worshipful council my presence in your city. His illustrious Highness, tendering your welfare, and moved by your stout and manful resistance to the Spaniard, hath writ to my General, Sir Francis Vere, requiring him to send to you one of his captains, both as a witness of his Highness' satisfaction, and with the intent to lend you aid and support. The choice fell upon me, Christopher Rudd, unworthy though I be, by reason of some slight knowledge in warfare gained in the service of His Majesty of France. Such small skill as I am master of, therefore, is yours to dispose of, albeit the measures you have taken up to this present are so aptly conceived and so doughtily executed that I deem my part to be that of admirer rather than counsellor."

This pretty speech appeared to give the burghers some satisfaction, but I perceived that the Burgomaster's right-hand neighbour, a lank beetle-browed fellow of swarthy hue and Castilian cast of feature, shot me a keen and questioning glance out of his narrow eyes. "This fellow is worth the watching," I thought; but I let not my eyes dwell upon him beyond the moment.

After some further debate I was made partaker in their deliberations. From one and another I gathered information about the course of the siege and the measures of defence they had concerted, and I was not long of discovering, by hint and suggestion, the rift that Prince Maurice had suspected. The most part of the council were true men, bold and stout of heart; but there were two or three that let fall doubts and wagged their heads, with sighs and doleful looks. And I began to perceive a certain method in this despondency, more especially on the part of the lank man aforesaid, for which reason I found myself intently observing all that he spake. He was most bitter and vehement in denouncing the Spaniards, and prated very big about withstanding them to the last breath; yet these heroical counsels of his were ever accompanied with a croak and quaver, as that famine was a fouler enemy than the sword, and that all those that escaped from the one or the other would surely be hanged by the Spaniards. By this means, I perceived, he at once cunningly magnified his own steadfastness and resolution, and instilled dire apprehension and dismal foreboding into the minds of his weaker brethren.

While I thus noted the strange policy of this man, I took a certain amusement from the mien and conduct of the worthy Burgomaster. Now he was at the top of resolution, now in the depth of black despair; now breathing out fire and fury, now lamenting the scant provision of victuals and munitions, and questioning whether any man's life was worth a doit. The change from one mood to the other was so sudden, as the deliberations of the council swayed this way and that under the dexterous handling of the lank man, that I set the Burgomaster down as a weakling, a reed shaken in the wind, and made some question in my mind whether the destinies of the town were safe under his governance.

Upon the breaking up of the council, I was conducted by the Burgomaster and the Captain of the Guard around the defences of the city, being accompanied also by the lean and black-browed councillor of whom I have spoken. When I had taken note of all, it was dinner time, and the Burgomaster bid me make that meal with him in his own house. This I was very willing to do, since I found the little man a continual entertainment. The lank fellow and the Captain of the Guard were my table-mates, and we fared as handsomely as you could expect in a beleaguered city. In truth, it was not a sumptuous repast; but the meagreness of the fare was in some sort countervailed by the bewitching presence of the Burgomaster's daughter. Remember, I was but young; a bright eye and a rosy cheek, when matched with a gracious mien and a sweet and tuneable voice, cast a spell upon me; and the fair beauty of Mistress Jacqueline had made amends for meaner fare, even for dry bread and indifferent water.

I perceived that the Burgomaster's lanky friend bent an amorous eye upon the damsel, spoke her fair and softly, and sought every way to render himself pleasing in her sight; and that the Burgomaster watched this underplay with great contentment. But I perceived also--and I own it gave me a joy quite beyond reason--that Mistress Jacqueline received these attentions with a serene indifference, which I told myself would have been a positive coldness and scorn but for dread of her father's displeasure.

We walked away together, the Captain of the Guard and I, and as we went I informed myself discreetly on sundry matters whereon I had some curiosity. The lean lank rascal--so I called him already--was named Mynheer Cosmo Volmar, a Spaniard on his mother's side, president of the gild of locksmiths in the city, and keeper of the stores. He was known to be paying his court to Mistress Jacqueline, and had her father's good will. The lady had, however, been betrothed aforetime to Jan Verhoeff, son of the late Burgomaster and of the widow lady, my hostess, and the match had been broken off by her father when it was discovered, on the death of Mynheer Verhoeff, that he had left but a paltry heritage. Of all the burgher families in Bargen, the Verhoeffs had suffered the most grievous loss during the war; yet the exceeding smallness of the late Burgomaster's estate was a cause of wonderment in the city. The young lovers bore their parting very hardly; and though Mynheer Volmar's suit was approved and furthered by her father Mynheer Warmond, the present Burgomaster, Mistress Jacqueline had as yet looked upon it but frostily.

These particulars were pleasing to me, for I saw that I had come into a coil wherein affairs of state and domestic matters were close interwoven. I was never so well pleased as when I had a tangle to unravel; and the enterprise I had taken upon myself in merry sport bade fair to give me unlooked-for entertainment.

*IV*

On the afternoon of that day, the Spaniards made a very hot assault at a breach in the wall hard by the north gate of the city. From the commencement of the siege this had been the chief mark of their ordnance, the which had cast upon it as many as a thousand shot a day. But the burghers had diligently repaired by night the mischief wrought in daytime, so that the damage was but small; and the assaults which the besiegers had already made upon the breach had been repelled with no great difficulty.

Nevertheless, on this day the attack was exceeding fierce. The Spaniards swarmed into the breach, and endeavoured mightily at push of pike to bear down our defences. Our burghers met them with heroical courage, and quit themselves well in the close fighting upon the wall. I was not sorry that the assault had been delivered so soon after my entrance into the city, for I had thereby occasion to win the good favour of the burghers by lending them aid, thereby getting me a shrewd knock or two. There was no question of generalship or high strategy; it was sheer journeyman fighting. In this I observed that the Captain of the Guard played a right valiant part, and I saw with a good deal of satisfaction that young Jan Verhoeff pressed ever into the thickest of the fray, and plied his pike with commendable spirit. The tide of battle carried me more than once to his side, and I marked his face alit with the joy of the true warrior. We beat back the invaders, though not without losing many of our ripest pikemen and calivermen, a heavy toll upon our success.

It had not escaped my observation that the city fathers were scarce so forward at this critical moment as loyalty and good example required. I saw neither the Burgomaster nor Mynheer Volmar, but I learnt that certain of the council had posted themselves very valiantly at such parts of the defences as were not at that time threatened. As I returned with Jan Verhoeff to his mother's house I overheard two burghers speaking together of this witness to their rulers' valiancy, and Jan shot a look at me that seemed to question whether I nourished doubts of the worthy fathers. I said nothing on that head, but spoke of the tough work we had been through, the which I hoped would discourage the enemy from attempting another assault for some time. I said too that since he must be very weary, he would be loth to serve among the night watch, whereupon he told me that he was free for that night, his turn of duty coming upon every second day.

I mention this because, in the middle of the night, as I lay cogitating a scheme I purposed to put next day before the Captain of the Guard, I heard the young man, whose room was beside mine, descend the stairs and go forth of the house. This circumstance caused me to wonder somewhat what his errand might be, for after the fatigue of the day it must be a thing of moment that could draw him from his bed. But being deeply concerned with matters of my own, I gave over thinking of him, and only remembered his going forth when I saw him pale and hard of eye at our breakfast in the morning. The good lady his mother asked if he had not slept well. "Passably," he answered, and said no more, whereby I knew that, whatsoever his errand had been, it was to be kept secret from his mother.

I lost no time in seeking out the Captain of the Guard, to acquaint him with the fruit of my cogitations in the night. He had already confessed to me that he had but small training in the arts of war; wherefore, being already assured of his fidelity and of his doughtiness in fight, I had no squeamishness in offering him my counsel, which a more tried warrior might have taken amiss.

I first pointed out to him certain weak places in the defences of the city; to wit, the neighbourhood of a mill, where the city wall had not been strengthened because of some fancied assurance that the mill race was protection enough; and also the rampart by the church, where a thick clump of trees without the wall offered good cover to the enemy resolutely assaulting. The Captain was very quick to see these deficiencies when I had mentioned them, and perfectly ready to make them good.

From this I proceeded to a further matter.

"Sir," I said to him, "your men did right nobly yesterday; yet methinks we should not be content merely with having beat back the Spaniards. To endue them with a true respect for us, and our men with a true respect for themselves, it needs to repay them in their own coin: I mean, to sally out and fall upon them unawares, at some convenient spot of their camp."

He turned upon me a troubled countenance, and said--

"Sir, I doubt not of the soundness of your reasoning, nor of the good that would spring from a successful sally; but I question if we should prosper. My men are stout of heart, and behind their walls fight with sturdy resolution; but they are not bred to war, being in the main simple burghers that have taken up arms by mere necessity: and beyond the walls I fear lest their skill should not match with their courage."

Whereupon I set myself with patience to overcome his diffidence, confirming my arguments with instances from the wars of King Henry of Navarre. Having brought him to my mind, we repaired together to the council chamber, where the council met every morning, and I laid my scheme before the assembled fathers, employing a rhetorical manner of exposition for which I was beholden to my study of Cicero his orations. The little Burgomaster took fire from my rhetoric, and, to my secret amusement, began to deliver himself of sundry fine sentiments in tune. He swore that, were he captain, he would do this and that, force a footing here and seize a place of vantage there, and smite those Amalekites (so he termed the Spaniards), even as Joshua, the son of Nun.

This was my opportunity. While his face was still red with warlike ardour, and the fumes of his valiance filled the air, I addressed him in words wherein I sought to infuse deference mingled with admiration.

"Worshipful sir," said I, "happy is the city whose head is of so valorous and undauntable a spirit. With joy I hail you as leader of our foray, whom to follow will make me proud, as I doubt not it will make also the Captain of the Guard and every man of this devoted garrison."

At this the Burgomaster bridled and looked round upon the councillors with an assured and dauntless mien. The eyes of the Captain of the Guard twinkled, but for me alone; and on the dark countenance of Mynheer Volmar I observed a sneer.