A Good Fight.
BY CHARLES READE.
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Ghysbrecht van Swieten could not sleep all night for anxiety. He was afraid of thunder and lightning, or he would have made one of the party that searched Peter’s house. As soon as the storm ceased altogether, he crept down stairs, saddled his mule, and rode to the Three Kings at Sevenbergen. There he found his men sleeping, some on the chairs, some on the tables, some on the floor. He roused them furiously, and heard the story of their unsuccessful search, interlarded with praises of their zeal.
“Fool! to let you go without me,” cried the Burgomaster.
“My life on’t he was there all the time. Looked ye under the girl’s bed?”
“No: there was no room for a man there.” “How know ye that, if ye looked not?” snarled Ghysbrecht. “Ye should have looked under her bed, and in it, too; and sounded all the panels with your knives. Come, now, get up, and I shall show ye how to search.”
Dierich Brower got up, and shook himself:
“If you find him, call me a horse and no man.”
In a few minutes Peter’s house was again surrounded.
The fiery old man left his mule in the hands of Jorian Ketel, and, with Dierich Brower and the others, entered the house.
The house was empty!
Not a creature to be seen, not even Peter. They went up-stairs, and then suddenly one of the men gave a shout, and pointed through Peter’s window, which was open. The others looked, and there, at some little distance, walking quietly across the fields with Margaret and Martin, was the man they sought.
Ghysbrecht, with an exulting yell, descended the stairs, and flung himself on his mule; and he and his men set off in hot pursuit.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Gerard, warned by recent peril, rose before day-break, and waked Martin. The old soldier was astonished. He thought Gerard had escaped by the window last night. Being consulted as to the best way for him to leave the country and elude pursuit, he said there was but one road safe. “I must guide you through the great forest to a bridle road I know of. This will take you speedily to a hostelry, where they will lend you a swift horse: and then an hour’s gallop will take you out of Holland. But let us start ere the folk here quit their beds.”
Peter’s house was but a furlong and a half from the forest. They started, Martin with his bow and three arrows, for it was Thursday: Gerard with nothing but a stout oak staff Peter gave him for the journey.
Margaret pinned up her kirtle and farthingale, for the road was wet. Peter went as far as his garden hedge with them, and then, with more emotion than he often bestowed on passing events, gave the young man his blessing.
The sun was peeping above the horizon as they crossed the stony field and made for the wood. They had crossed about half, when Margaret, who kept nervously looking back every now and then, uttered a cry, and, following her instinct, began to run towards the wood, screaming with terror all the way.
Ghysbrecht and his men were in hot pursuit.
Resistance would have been madness. Martin and Gerard followed Margaret’s example. The pursuers gained slightly on them; but Martin