The Cornet of Horse: A Tale of Marlborough's Wars, G. A. Henty [best novel books to read txt] 📗

at the approach of this British soldier, whose eyes were eagerly fixed on her; but not till Hugh stepped in front of her and spoke did she remember him.

"Mistress Von Duyk," he said, "my master is here wounded; and as he has not a friend in the place, and I saw you, I made bold to speak to you."

"Oh! I am sorry," the girl said, holding out her hand to Hugh.

"Papa, this is one of the gentlemen who rescued me, as I told you, when Sir Richard Fulke tried to carry me off."

The gentleman, who had looked on in profound astonishment, seized Hugh's hand.

"I am indeed glad to have an opportunity of thanking you.

"Hasten home, Maria, and prepare a room. I will go and have this good friend brought to our house."

Chapter 11: A Death Trap.

Never did a patient receive more unremitting care than that which was lavished upon Rupert Holliday in the stately old house at Dort. The old housekeeper, in the stiffest of dresses and starched caps, and with the rosiest although most wrinkled of faces, waited upon him; while Maria von Duyk herself was in and out of his room, brought him flowers, read to him, and told him the news; and her father frequently came in to see that he lacked nothing. As for Hugh, he grumbled, and said that there was nothing for him to do for his master; but he nevertheless got through the days pleasantly enough, having struck up a flirtation with Maria's plump and pretty waiting maid, who essayed to improve his Dutch, of which he had by this time picked up a slight smattering. Then, too, he made himself useful, and became a great favourite in the servants' hall, went out marketing, told them stories of the war in broken Dutch, and made himself generally at home. Greatly astonished was he at the stories that he heard as to the land around him; how not infrequently great subsidences, extending over very many square miles, took place; and where towns and villages stood when the sun went down, there spread in the morning a sea very many fathoms deep. Hugh could hardly believe these tales, which he repeated to Rupert, who in turn questioned Maria von Duyk, who answered him that the stories were strictly true, and that many such great and sudden catastrophes had happened.

"I can't understand it," Rupert said. "Of course one could imagine a sea or river breaking through a dyke and covering low lands, but that the whole country should sink, and there be deep water over the spot, appears unaccountable."

"The learned believe," Maria said, "that deep down below the surface of the land lies a sort of soil like a quicksand, and that when the river deepens its bed so that its waters do enter this soil it melts away, leaving a great void, into which the land above does sink, and is altogether swallowed up."

"It is a marvellously uncomfortable feeling," Rupert said, "to think that one may any night be awoke with a sudden crash, only to be swallowed up."

"Such things do not happen often," Maria said; "and the districts that suffer are after all but small in comparison to Holland. So I read that in Italy the people do build their towns on the slopes of Vesuvius, although history says that now and again the mountain bubbles out in irruption, and the lava destroys many villages, and even towns. In other countries there are earthquakes, but the people forget all about them until the shock comes, and the houses begin to topple over their heads."

"You are right, no doubt," Rupert said. "But to a stranger the feeling, at first, of living over a great quicksand, is not altogether pleasant.

"Tomorrow the doctor says I may leave my room. My own idea is that I need never have been kept there at all."

"If there had been any great occasion for you to have moved about, no doubt you might have done so," Maria said; "but you might have thrown back your cure, and instead of your bones knitting well and soundly, as the leech says they are in a fair way to do, you might have made but a poor recovery. Dear me, what impatient creatures boys are!"

"No, indeed I am not impatient," Rupert said. "You have all made me so comfortable and happy, that I should indeed be ungrateful were I to be impatient. I only want to be about again that I may spare you some of the trouble which you bestow upon me."

"Yes, that is all very well and very pretty," Maria said, laughing; "but I know that you are at heart longing to be off to join your regiment, and take part in all their marching and fighting. Do you know, an officer who came here with you after that terrible fight near Antwerp, told me that you covered yourself with glory there?"

"I covered myself with mud," Rupert laughed. "Next day, when I had dried a little, I felt as if I had been dipped in dough and then baked. I am sure I looked like a pie in human shape when you first saw me, did I not?"

"It would have been difficult to tell the colour of your uniform, certainly," Maria smiled. "Fortunately, neither cloth nor tailors are scarce in our good town of Dort, and you will find a fresh suit in readiness for you to attire yourself in tomorrow."

"Oh, that is good of you," Rupert said, delighted; for he had been thinking ruefully of the spectacle he should present the next day.

As to Hugh, he had been fitted out in bourgeois clothes since he came, and had said no word as to uniform.

In another fortnight Rupert was thoroughly restored to health. His wound had healed, his bones had perfectly set, and he was as fit for work as ever. Even his host could not but allow that there was no cause for his further detention. During this time Rupert had talked much with the Burgomaster, who spoke French fluently, and had told him frequently and earnestly of the grievous harm that was done to the prospects of the war by the mischievous interference with the general's plans by the Dutch deputies, who, knowing nothing whatever of war, yet took upon themselves continually to thwart the plans of the greatest general of the age. Van Duyk listened with great attention, and promised that when he went shortly to Haarlem he would use all his influence to abbreviate the powers which the deputies so unwisely used.

Two or three days before the date fixed for Rupert's departure, he was walking in the town with Mynheer Von Duyk and his daughter, when he observed a person gazing intently at him from the entrance to a small bylane. He started, and exclaimed:

"There is that rascal, Sir Richard Fulke!"

"Where?" exclaimed both his companions.

"He has gone now," Rupert said. "But he stood there in shadow, at the entrance to that lane."

So saying, he hurried forward, but no sign of his enemy was visible.

"Are you sure it was he?" Mynheer Von Duyk asked. "What can he be doing in Holland?"

Rupert then in a few words recounted their meeting in Liege, the subsequent attempt to murder him at the mill, and the disappearance of Sir Richard Fulke, and his exchange into some other regiment.

Von Duyk was much disturbed.

"This touches me nearly," he said. "It is from your interference on behalf of my daughter that you have incurred this fellow's enmity, and it is clear that he will shrink at nothing to gratify it. Moreover, I cannot consider my daughter to be in safety, as long as so reckless a man as this is in the town. I will go at once to the magistrates, and urge that my daughter goes in danger of him, and so obtain an order to search for and arrest him. In a few hours we will have him by the heels, and then, after a while in prison, we will send him packing across the frontier, with a warning that if he comes back he will not escape so lightly."

The search, however, was not successful; and Mynheer Von Duyk was beginning to think that Rupert must have been mistaken, when the officer of the magistracy discovered that a man answering to the description given had been staying for three days at a small tavern by the water, but that he had hastily taken a boat and sailed, within a half hour of being seen by Rupert.

"It is a low resort where he was staying," Von Duyk said, "A tavern to which all the bad characters of the town--for even Dort has some bad characters--do resort. If he came here to do you harm, or with any fresh design upon my daughter, he would find instruments there. I had intended to have left Maria behind, when I travelled to the Hague next week; but I will now take her with me, with two or three stout fellows as an escort.

"As for you, friend Rupert, you have but two more evenings here in Dort, but I pray you move not out after dusk, for these long wars have made many men homeless and desperate, and it is not good for one who has an enemy to trust himself abroad at night, alone."

The next morning Hugh went down to the quay with one of the clerks of Von Duyk, and struck a bargain with some boatmen to carry Rupert and himself to Bergen op Zoom. It was a craft of some four or five tons burden, with a good sized cabin.

The next day Hugh went down early to the boat with the bans containing Rupert's luggage and his own, and a servant of Von Duyk accompanied him, bearing some provisions and a few choice bottles of wine for their use on the way.

"Do you know, Master Rupert," he said on his return, "I don't much like the look of that boatman chap. When we got down to the quay this morning, he was talking with two men whose faces I did not see, for they walked suddenly and hastily away, but who seemed to me to flavour much of the two men we disturbed that evening when they were carrying off Miss Von Duyk. I could not swear to them, for I did not get a fair sight of them before, but they were about the same size and height, and it was clear that they did not wish to be recognized."

Rupert made no reply for a while, but thought the matter over.

"Well, Hugh, I wish it had not been so, for I hate quarrels and brawls, but I do not think that we need be uneasy, especially now that we are warned. The boat carries but three men, and as we shall have our pistols and swords, I imagine that we are a match for these Dutch boatmen. See that the pistols are loaded, and say naught to our kind friends here as to your suspicions. I would not make them uncomfortable."

Before taking leave of their friends, Rupert was drawn aside by Mynheer Von Duyk, who begged to know if he had any necessity for money, and assured him that then or at any other time he should be glad to honour any drafts that Rupert might draw upon him.

"I am not a man of many words," he said, "but in saving my daughter from that ruffian you have laid me under an obligation which I should be glad to discharge with half my fortune. I am, as you know, a rich man--I may say a very rich man. Had you been a few years older, I would gladly have given my daughter to you did your inclination and hers jump that way. As it is, I can only regard you as a younger brother of hers, and view you as a sort of son by adoption. Young men in cavalry regiments require horses and have many expenses, and you will really pain me much if you refuse to allow me to act as your banker. I have, believing that you would not take it wrongly, paid in to your account with the paymaster of your regiment the sum of two hundred pounds, and have told him that the same sum would be paid to your account annually so long as the regiment might be in Flanders, and that he may further cash any order drawn by you upon my house.

"There now, my daughter is waiting, and the hour for sailing is at hand. Do not let us say any more about it."

So saying he hurried Rupert out into the hall where Maria Von Duyk was waiting, before he could have raised any objection, had he wished to do so. But in truth Rupert felt that he could not refuse the kind offer without giving pain, and he knew moreover that this allowance, which