The Laughing Cavalier Baroness Orczy (bill gates books recommendations txt) 📖

God, those devils have only an eye on your money, mynheer,” said the artist consolingly. “They will look on the jongejuffrouw as a valuable hostage and treat her with the utmost deference in the hopes of getting a heavy ransom from you.”

“May you be speaking truly,” sighed Cornelius with a disconsolate shake of the head, “but think what she must be suffering now, while she is uncertain of her own fate, poor child!”

“Alas!”

“This delay is killing me, Hals,” continued the old man, who in the midst of his more pompous friends seemed instinctively drawn to the simple nature of this humble painter of pictures. “The burgomaster means well but his methods are slow and ponderous. All my servants and dependents have joined the first expedition toward Groningen, but God knows how they will get on, now that Nicolaes no longer leads them. They have had no training in such matters, and will hardly know how to proceed.”

“You really want someone who is daring and capable, mynheer, someone who will be as wary as those vervloekte sea-wolves and beat them at their own game. ’Tis not so much the numbers that you want as the one brain to direct and to act.”

“True! true, my good Hals! But our best men are all at the war fighting for our religious and political liberties, while we⁠—the older citizens of our beloved country with our wives and our daughters⁠—are left a prey to the tyranny of malefactors and of pirates. The burgomaster hopes to raise an efficient corps of volunteers by tomorrow⁠ ⁠… but I doubt me if he will succeed⁠ ⁠… I have sent for help, I have spared no money to obtain assistance⁠ ⁠… but I am an old man myself, and my son alas! has been rendered helpless at the outset, through no fault of his own.⁠ ⁠…”

“But surely there are young men left in Haarlem whom wanton mischief such as this would cause to boil with indignation.”

“There are few young men left in Haarlem, my friend,” rejoined Beresteyn sadly, “the Stadtholder hath claimed the best of them. Those who are left behind are too much engrossed in their own affairs to care greatly about the grief of an old man, or a wrong done to an innocent girl.”

“I’ll not believe it,” said Hals hotly.

“Alas, ’tis only too true! Men nowadays⁠—those at any rate who are left in our cities⁠—no longer possess that spirit of chivalry or of adventure which caused our forebears to give their life’s blood for justice and for liberty.”

“You wrong them, mynheer,” protested the artist.

“I think not. Think on it, Hals. You know Haarlem well; you know most people who live in the city. Can you name me one man who would stand up before me today and say boldly: ‘Mynheer, you have lost your daughter: evildoers have taken her from her home. Here am I ready to do you service, and by God do I swear that I will bring your daughter back to you!’ So would our fathers have spoken, my good Hals, before commerce and prosperity had dulled the edge of reckless gallantry. By God! they were fine men in those days⁠—we are mere pompous, obese, self-satisfied shopkeepers now.”

There was a great deal of bitter truth in what Cornelius Beresteyn had said: Hals⁠—the artist⁠—who had listened to the complacent talk that had filled this room awhile ago⁠—who knew of the commercial transactions that nowadays went by the name of art-patronage⁠—he knew that the old man was not far wrong in his estimate of his fellow-countrymen in these recent prosperous times.

It was the impulsive, artistic nature in him which caused him to see what he merely imagined⁠—chivalry, romance, primeval notions of bravery and of honour.

He looked round the room⁠—now almost deserted⁠—somewhat at a loss for words that would soothe Beresteyn’s bitter spirit of resentment, and casually his glance fell on the broad figure of his friend Diogenes, who, leaning back in his chair, his plumed hat tilted rakishly across his brow, had listened to the conversation between the two men with an expression of infinite amusement literally dancing in his eyes. And it was that same artistic, impulsive nature which caused Frans Hals then to exclaim suddenly:

“Well, mynheer! since you call upon me and on my knowledge of this city, I can give you answer forthwith. Yes! I do know a man, now in Haarlem, who hath no thought of commerce or affairs, who possesses that spirit of chivalry which you say is dead among the men of Holland. He would stand up boldly before you, hat in hand and say to you: ‘Mynheer, I am ready to do you service, and by God do I swear that I will bring your daughter back to you, safe and in good health!’ I know such a man, mynheer!”

“Bah! you talk at random, my good Hals!” said Beresteyn with a shrug of the shoulders.

“May I not present him to you, mynheer?”

“Present him? Whom?⁠ ⁠… What nonsense is this?” asked the old man, more dazed and bewildered than before by the artist’s voluble talk. “Whom do you wish to present to me?”

“The man who I firmly believe would out of pure chivalry and the sheer love of adventure do more toward bringing the jongejuffrouw speedily back to you than all the burgomaster’s levies of guards and punitive expeditions.”

“You don’t mean that, Hals?⁠—’twere a cruel jest to raise without due cause the hopes of a grief-stricken old man.”

“ ’Tis no jest, mynheer!” said the artist, “there sits the man!”

And with a theatrical gesture⁠—for Mynheer Hals had drunk some very good wine after having worked at high pressure all day, and his excitement had gained the better of him⁠—he pointed to Diogenes, who had heard every word spoken by his friend, and at this dénouement burst into a long, delighted, ringing laugh.

“Ye gods!” he exclaimed, “your Olympian sense of humour is even greater than your might.”

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