The First Sir Percy Baroness Orczy (fb2 epub reader .TXT) 📖

Another second and he was outside the door, at the top of the steps which led down to the quay. For an instant he stood there, his keen eyes sweeping over the picture before him. Like a young lion that hath been caged and now scents liberty once more, he inhaled the biting air; a superb figure, with head tossed back, eyes and lips laughing with the joy of deliverance, the inert figure of the girl lying in his arms.

He felt her clinging more closely to him, and revelled in that intoxicating sense of power when the one woman yields who holds a world of happiness in her tiny hand. He felt the tightening of her hold, watched the look of contentment stealing over her face, saw her eyes close, her lips smile, and knew that they were ready for a kiss.

Then he caught sight of his horse, and of the man in the leather jerkin. He signalled to him to bring the horses near. The crowd understood his meaning and set up a ringing cheer. Many things had been seen in Dutch cities before, but never so romantic an abduction as this. The bridegroom carrying off his bride in the face of scandalized and protesting wedding guests! The Stadtholder even was seen to laugh. He could be seen in the background, reassuring the horrified guests, and trying by kind words and pressure of hand to appease Mynheer Beresteyn’s agonized surprise.

“I knew of his mad project, and I must say I approved,” the prince whispered to the agitated father. “He is taking her to Rotterdam tonight. Let the child be, Mynheer; she is safe enough in his arms.”

Beresteyn was one of those men who throughout his life had always known how to accept the inevitable. Perhaps in his heart he knew that the Stadtholder was right.

“Give them your blessing, Mynheer,” Maurice of Nassau urged. “English gentleman or soldier of fortune, the man is a man and deserves it. Your daughter loves him. Let them be.”

Diogenes had encountered Beresteyn’s reproachful glance. He did not move from where he stood, only his arms closed tighter still around Gilda’s motionless form. It was an instinctive challenge to the father⁠—almost a defiance. What he had he would hold, in spite of all.

Beresteyn hesitated for the mere fraction of a second longer; then he, too, stepped out through the door and approached the man and his burden. He said nothing, but, in the face of the crowd, he stooped and pressed his lips against his daughter’s forehead. Then Mynheer Beresteyn murmured something which sounded like a blessing, and added solemnly:

“May God’s wrath descend upon you, my lord, if you ever cause her unhappiness.”

“Amen to that!” responded Diogenes lightly. “She and I, Mynheer, will dream together for awhile in England, but I’ll bring her back to you when our orchards are gay with apple-blossom and there is a taste of summer in the air.”

He bowed his head to receive the father’s blessing. The crowd cheered again; sackbuts and viols set up a lively tune. At every window of the house, along the quay eager faces were peering out, gazing on the moving spectacle. In the doorway of Mynheer Beresteyn’s house the Stadtholder remained to watch. For the moment he seemed better and brighter, more like his former self. The rest of the bridal party was still in the hall, but the wedding guests had gone back into the banqueting-room, whence they could see through the open windows what was going on.

Then it was that suddenly a curious spectacle presented itself to view. It was, in truth, so curious an one that those of the crowd who were in the rear withdrew their consideration from the romantic scene before them in order to concentrate it on those two strange-looking cavaliers who had just emerged from under the Koppel-port, and were slowly forging their way through the throng.

It was the ringing shout, reiterated twice in succession by one of these cavaliers, that had at first arrested the attention of the crowd, and had even caused Diogenes to pause in the very act of starting for his sentimental adventure. To him the voice that uttered such peremptory clamour was familiar enough, but what in St. Bavon’s name did it all mean?

“Hola! you verdommte plepshurk!” came for the third time from the strange cavalier. “Make way there! We are for the house of Mynheer Beresteyn, where we are bidden as his guests.”

A loud burst of hilarity greeted this announcement, and a mocking voice retorted lustily:

“Hey! Make way there for the honoured guests of Mynheer Beresteyn!”

In truth, it was small wonder that the aspect of these two cavaliers caused such wild jollity amongst the people, who at this precise moment were overready for laughter. One of them, as lean as a gatepost, sat high on his horse with long shanks covered in high leathern boots. A tall sugar-loaf hat sat precariously upon his head, and his hatchet face, with the hooked, prominent nose and sharp, unshaved chin, looked blue with the cold.

Behind him on a pillion rode⁠—or rather clung⁠—his companion, a short man as rotund as the other was lean, with round face which no doubt had once been of a healthy ruddy tint, but was now streaked and blotched with pallor. He, too, wore a sugar-loaf hat, but it had slid down to the back of his head, and was held in place by a piece of black tape, which he had in his mouth like a horse has its bit. He was holding on very tightly with his short, fat arms to his companion’s body, and his feet were tied together with thick cord beneath the horse’s belly. His doublet and hose were smeared with mud and stained with blood, and altogether he presented a pitiable spectacle, more especially when he rolled his small, beady eyes and looked with a scared expression on the hilarious apprentices who were dancing and