"Father, I fear you are tired."
"Indeed, my son, I am," replied the old man, "and faint for lack of food."Gerard's address did not appear so agreeable to the girl as to the old man.She seemed ashamed, and with much reserve in her manner, said, that it was her fault - she had underrated the distance, and imprudently allowed her father to start too late in the day.
"No, no "said the old man; "it is not the distance, it is the want of nourishment."The girl put her arms round his neck with tender concern, but took that opportunity of whispering, "Father, a stranger- a young man!
But it was too late.Gerard, with simplicity, and quite as a matter of course, fell to gathering sticks with great expedition.
This done, he took down his wallet, out with the manchet of bread and the iron flask his careful mother had put up, and his everlasting tinder-box; lighted a match, then a candle-end, then the sticks; and put his iron flask on it.Then down he went on his stomach, and took a good blow: then looking up, he saw the girl's face had thawed, and she was looking down at him and his energy with a demure smile.He laughed back to her."Mind the pot," said he, "and don't let it spill, for Heaven's sake: there's a cleft stick to hold it safe with;" and with this he set off running towards a corn-field at some distance.
Whilst he was gone, there came by, on a mule with rich purple housings, an old man redolent of wealth.The purse at his girdle was plethoric, the fur on his tippet was ermine, broad and new.
It was Ghysbrecht Van Swieten, the burgomaster of Tergou.
He was old, and his face furrowed.He was a notorious miser, and looked one generally.But the idea of supping with the Duke raised him just now into manifest complacency.Yet at the sight of the faded old man and his bright daughter sitting by a fire of sticks, the smile died out of his face, and he wore a strange look of pain and uneasiness.He reined in his mule.
"Why, Peter,- Margaret," said he, almost fiercely, "what mummery is this?" Peter was going to answer, but Margaret interposed hastily, and said: "My father was exhausted, so I am warming something to give him strength before we go on.""What! reduced to feed by the roadside like the Bohemians," said Ghysbrecht, and his hand went into his purse; but it did not seem at home there; it fumbled uncertainly, afraid too large a coin might stick to a finger and come out.
At this moment who should come bounding up but Gerard.He had two straws in his hand, and he threw himself down by the fire and relieved Margaret of the cooking part: then suddenly recognizing the burgomaster, he coloured all over.Ghysbrecht Van Swieten started and glared at him, and took his hand out of his purse.
"Oh!" said he bitterly, "I am not wanted," and went slowly on, casting a long look of suspicion on Margaret, and hostility on Gerard, that was not very intelligible.However, there was something about it that Margaret could read enough to blush at, and almost toss her head.Gerard only stared with surprise."By St.Bavon, I think the old miser grudges us three our quart of soup," said he.When the young man put that interpretation on Ghysbrecht's strange and meaning look, Margaret was greatly relieved, and smiled gaily on the speaker.
Meanwhile Ghysbrecht plodded on, more wretched in his wealth than these in their poverty.And the curious thing is, that the mule, the purple housings, and one-half the coin in that plethoric purse, belonged not to Ghysbrecht Van Swieten, but to that faded old man and that comely girl, who sat by a roadside fire to he fed by a stranger.They did not know this; but Ghysbrecht knew it, and carried in his heart a scorpion of his own begetting; that scorpion is remorse - the remorse that, not being penitence, is incurable, and ready for fresh misdeeds upon a fresh temptation.
Twenty years ago, when Ghysbrecht Van Swieten was a hard and honest man, the touchstone opportunity came to him, and he did an act of heartless roguery.It seemed a safe one.It had hitherto proved a safe one, though he had never felt safe.To-day he had seen youth, enterprise, and, above all, knowledge, seated by fair Margaret and her father on terms that look familiar and loving.
And the fiends are at big ear again.