RAOUL’S HOSTS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2481, 17 May 1909, Page 7

RAOUL’S HOSTS.

(By H.' C. Bailey.)

I pick this chapter out of two manuscripts. One lies at Dresden in the Baxon archives (and how it came there no one professes even to guess); the other is my old: ally, Raoul's “History of Myself. Ih iy agree altogether—an achievement most unusual in manuscripts. The manuscript at Dresden is a poem written with great vigor and humor in a patois of German and Dutch. Its author was that Caspar Wiederman whom you have met already. I regret that the manner's of a more prudish age restrain me from quoting all his verses. I should much hke to have known him.

Raoul bgins the story. It was the autumn of 1584, and William the Silent was dead, and the Prince of Parma was gathing his strength to besiege Antwerp, and Raoul was in a bad temper. I flunk that must be why he dared what he did, forth© ded was the most reckless of his life, save one; and in that there was a woman. Unfortunately this present little mattermakes nothing in the telling. It was a lonely raid, like most of his. He went down to Kalloo, where Parma had his magazines and a dockyard with great store of timber. There must have been half a hundred in Parma’s force who knew him; and if one of them saw him, burning was the kindliest death he could hope for. Nevertheless, the little man went. And one moonlight he threw a pannikin of burning charcoai into tho powder magazine. The powder went to the heavens in splendor, and tho flame of it caught tho dockyard timber. In three hours throe months’ work and the worth of fifty thousand florins were red ash. lint before that, someone —to the end Raoul never knew who it was—someone saw his face in the glajre, and gave the alarm, and tried' to seize him. Raoul broke away, and dodged about the huts to his horse. All the rest of the night he rode northward, away trom that yellow sky. Pursuit was left out of sight and hearing. Just before dawn he skirted round old Mouth-agon s camp at Zwol. Mcst impudently he stole a fresh horse from the Spanish lines and left his tired beast in its stead. Then the sun rose orange in a dull gray sky. All the morning he rode on, and as the morning waned the sun faded. Wet fog came rolling from the sea. About noontide he could see a bare hundred yards through the grayness. And now the story begins to be a story. A farmsteading loomed out of the fog, and Raoul, all weary, drew rein and rapped at the door with his dagger hilt. A square Dutchman came from the byre, a woman from the hen house. The man gaped at him, and the woman’s eyes grew round and big. Raoul was mud from feather to spur— gray Scheldt mud underneath half overlaid with red gravel of Zwol : drooping feather, mustachios and little beard were gemmed with the fog dew. "Good folk, may I buy a meal and lure a bed here?” he cried. "Surely, sir, surely,” said the woman readily enough. (Raoul here thinks fit to point out that, dirty or clean, his shape ever took a woman’s eye). "Who may you be?” the man growled. The man eyed him with distrust. "You are not Dutch.” "One who will pay,” said Raoul. "But my money is.” H "I do not care for your money. "Then you arc not Dutch either.” "And no one comes into my house unless I know who he is." “I suppose the devil makes the same rule in hell,” said Raoul, and swung stiffly to the ground. "Well, my friend, if 1 am not Dutch I am not anything else. 1 have no country and no name, and no victuals inside me. I want two pounds of meat and four hours of bed, and 1 pay two florins for all. . The Dutchman shook Ins square head. "I take no nameless man into my house. For what I know, you arc a Spaniard ” "Diantrc, for what you know, 1 am an archangel!" Raoul stamped his foot. "You may call me Raoul if you want a name. I serve tho Estates of Holland, and I come from troubling Parma’s rest. And now for Gods sake give me meat. "You serve the Estates? Why did you not say it at first? You arc welcome; ach! but you are very welcome indeed! Gome in!” ... . . Very welcome they made him. All ton! from the highway, he was brought to their speckless best room and put into the master’s chair. Off went the man to tend his horse, and the little buxom woman set all her farmhouse dainties before him and plied him till he could eat no more. ’1 hm she brought him to an upper room and a soft bed with sheets all fragrant oi thyme. He was asleep, he says, before lie lav down. . , , When he woke it was to hear the ckuter of steel, to see men standing over him. They laughed at him as he gaped and rubbed his heavy eyes Then he saw that they wore the yellow and red of Mondagon’s horse. “So, little devil, we have you in your earth,” says one genially in Spanish. Raoul had his wits about him again. "I do not understand, says he in Hutv.ll "What do you want with me?” "We only want you.” “I am a trader of Bergen op Zoom, and ” . , „ , , A vollev of oaths, and "You are a fori little liar.* We have been hunting you all day.” , . , Raoul shook his head. "You make a mistake, noble gentlemen. I am ’ He was jerked on to the floor. ‘Up with you! We know who you arc. You are that cursed Dutch spy. They told us so downstairs.” "Oh, they told you?” “Yes, curse them. When we had offered to burn her husband the woman told us. Madre Dios, and I think we will burn him yet. I would like to see hci face.” . "You are benevolent. Raoul sat down in Ins shirt on the bed. ‘And since you know who I am, most illustrious, who am 1?” "You are tho little rogue Parma sent us word to catch. That is enough for me. Back you come to Parma. Ylon can tell him who you are.” "Let me honor him by wearing my breeches,” said Raoul. "Well. You will never put them on again.” The Spaniard chuckled. Raoul began his toilet. His stockings came on slowly, and were artistically gartered. Slowly he buttoned his breeches. The fog was thick without, and he did not try to see out of the window; hut his head 1 was c6ckcd a littls on one side, and he strained his ears to listen. Horses were champing and shifting their feet. "Now, where arc my boots?” said Raoul, and moved about looking for them. Raoul snatched his sword from the bedside and hurled himself through the window. With a shiver of glass and a crash of timber he vanished into the fog. Some of them rushed at the window and struggled out, and began to elimb down; some stumbled headlong down the stairs. But all were too late. Raoul had fallen on hands and knees in the mire. He sprang up again and darted at their waiting horses. His rapier shot through a ' man's heart : he vaulted to a saddle, and shouted to the frightened beasts and beat them with his sword. In a moment they were all gone, flying wildly hither and thither through the fog. And Raoul was gone with them. . “I think I never did better in my hie, Raoul writes. He was fairly away from them, a good! horse between his thighs. They had their own horses to hunt before they could hunt him. At worst he had a quarter hour’s start, and to give him that was to lose him forever. But, he checked his pace. Ho was nol content yet. He had. also a liijtle affaii with his hosts—that dainty buxom little woman and her square suspicious spouse They had betrayed him of course. But i: you think that troubled him you do noi

understand' Kabul. He was altogether a man. He expected no one to be a martyr for his sake. It was they, not he, who seemed to him injured. He had brought the Spaniards down upon them, and left them to bear a Spanish revenge—death and torture and 'worse. He liked ms doings to end in neat success, this to ugly, unseemly. It did not accord with his honor to leave it so. “My vanity,” he writes, ‘my vanity, so please you, turned my horse.” Over the turf warily he came back to the house. From all sides sound came to him out of the fog. The horse hunt, he guessed, was not going well. But he could see little. Something dark in the grayness close ahead was doubtless the steading. A horse canie up to him and whinnied. He snatched its bridle and rode on. A shriek came from the house, and another. Ho heard the thud of feet, the crash of fagots against the ground, the creak of a rope on timber. But he dared not gallop. He saw orchard fence only just in time to lift his horses for the jump. Then, stooping low for fear of low boughs, he broke through the trees. Tawny flame leaped up through the fog about the walking body of a man who was hung by his feet from a tree. Around the tire a little knot of Spaniards were •laughing and shouting. Baoul came. Two Spaniards were ridden down and his horses plunged upon them. Two more were caught on his sword! as a cook spits pieces of meat. Baoul sprung down. His sword was fixed to the hilt in their gasping bodies. He plucked it out, and plunged it into the tire, kicking the burning faggots this way and that, and slashed at the ropes from which the Dutchman hung. In a moment he had the man out of the smoke and flame, singed and gasping, but safe. Baoul tore a sword from one dying Spaniard and thrust it into the Dutchman's hand.

-Guard the horses!” he muttered. “My wife!’’ the man gasped, coughing; my wife!” “One at a time,” Raoul said, and pattered off. No one, it seemed, but the dead had seen or heard him. No one was there to see or

hear. The clean, neat rooms were a filthy wreck now, but he found no one in them. Then he heard quick footsteps above, and darted up the stairs. In her own bedroom the woman was struggling with the Spanish captain. Her brown hair hung in wild disorder about a white, distorted face, her dress was rent, she writhed in the brave man s arms. Raoul snraug across the room, seeking his chance for a thrust that would not kill her. The Spaniard eaw him and howled an oath, then hurled the woman full upon him. Raoul staggered back, and the Spaniard sprang upon him like a dog. They all crashed clown together, and the Spaniard's dagger was driven deep into Raoul between shoulder point and neck. The Spaniard was quickly cn his feet again, but the woman was stunned and Raoul lay in his blood. A moment the Spaniard looked at the two and laughed, then ho kicked Raoul out of the room and watched him fall a huddled and lifeless mass on tho threshold. Then he turned back to the woman.

Thus far Raoul. The muse of Gaspar Wicdermau, camp marshal, now becomes our guide. I shall have to expurgate his speech. Gaspar Wiedcrman begins something like this:

“We were toasting our pork and our toes at the tiro, When we heard someone spitting a curse at the mire. Blaspheming—

more than that I need not _ translate. In fact, Caspar Wicderman, with his Roan troop (you will find them in the histories), wan halted a quarter of a mile away, a little off the Bergen road. They could not see to do anything else, so they were eating. In the middle of their meal Spanish oaths came to them out of the fog, and some one blundered into the horse lines, and tripping over a heel rope fell upon Zouch the quartermaster, who jerked him into the fire. ‘“Curse my sentries'!” growled Caspar. “Bull him off, you. He is putting the fire out.” The gentleman was hauled out by the legs, swearing voluminously. "Who are you? The fiend go with you! Who are you?” he cried in Spanish, dabbing at the sparks that clung about him. “Ask the fiend, Don Leanshanks,” said Zouch. “The gentleman was asking you, quartermaster,” said Caspar; and then, most politely, “W T o are Richcbourg’s Walloons, from Kaloo.” -What? What?” The Spaniard looked about him. There were, two score or more efficient ruffians lolling about him in their cloaks. Ihe firelight flickered through the fog on scarred, weatherbeaten, bearded faces. "Rlchebourg s Walloons!” Then you are after him, too?’’ There was for a moment a most solemn silence. “Of course we arc after him,” Caspar agreed. "Have you caught him .' The Spaniard began to swear again. dVo had him, curse him! wo had him. But ho jumped out of the window. Somebody laughed ; and somebody else kicked him; and there was silence again. “Then the little devil drove off all our horses. So we are all on foot hunting them. That is how 1 fell into your camp. 1 suppose you have not caught any of our horses ?.” “Xo, my dear, we have not caught your horses,” said Caspar. “You have lost them and you have lost him. So. You are having successes to-day. Is that all ? The Spaniard swore a little more. Hum ho laughed. “There is the woman, at least.” Caspar sat up. “Ach, there is the woman, is there?” he growled. “Yes. We took him in a farm, and iStrada is burning the farmer, and she is the farmer’s wife. Mad re Dios! but she is pretty and plump—as yet !” he laughed. Caspar also laughed. As no one else did, ho kicked Zouch. Zouch laughed with enthusiasm. In the midst of it Caspar whistled four notes. Ihe lolling troop started up in an instant. The lire was being stamped out, the horses untethered, before Zouch had finished laughing, Caspar heaved himself up, a mass of men. “Where aro you going?” the Spaniard cried. “I have to talk with Captain Strada.” The Spaniard nodded. “Why, by the saints! but you are a godsend to ns. You are mounted. You can help us home.” “Aye,” growled-Caspar. “We will help you home, my dear.” By that they were all mounted. A horse was found for the Spaniard—the Roan Troop, known to history as the finest thieves in the Provinces, had always spare horses—and off they went through the fog. The Spaniard rode with Caspar and showed the way. The troop was in column with four abreast, but each man rode so far from his neighbor that they covered a great space. More than one of the scat- ' tered horses blundered in upon them, were caught neatly, swiftly,. and led on. More than one scared voice cried out of the unseen : “Who is it What are you?” 1 And the Roan Troop answered in Spanish, ! “Friend ! friend !” and swept on, shrouded , in the darkening fog. The farmsteading loomed a vague shape 1 before them, and they checked, and by ■ twos crowded together came through the ! gate. Caspar held up his hand, a word 1 went down the column; they halted. L There was a noise in the orchard, shifting feet and the scrape of steel, then a. Dutch t cry: “Devil! devils!” r Caspar turned in his saddle, signed to a 3 sergeant, and nodded to the sound. Then . he swept out his arm in a wide gesture, f and whistled five notes. The Roan Troop t was blotted out in the fog. '

“And I will talk with your captain, a little/’ said Caspar. The Spaniard and he dismounted, a trooper took their horses, and they went in. There at the stair foot lay Baoul, bleeding and lifeless. The Spaniard gasped. “Sain* logo! Why, they caught the little devil, after all!” he cried. Caspar took him by the arm. “Aye, yon have caught your little devil,” he growled. “Come up.” For a man’s laugh came from above.

Gaspar opened the door and stalked in. The woman was in Strada’s arms and moaning. Gaspar tapped him on the shoulder. Strada turned (“the face of him,” says Caspar's ballad, “was the face of a ferret”). “Curse you! who are you?” “I am a man,” growled Gaspar. “What are you?” “What?” Strada’s eyes reddened. He let the woman go, and she fell on her larees by her heel. “What?” “That,” said Gaspar, and knocked him down. The other Spaniard, his cheated guide, sprang upon Gaspar with oath and dagger. Gaspar hurled him crashing through the window. Strada started up and felt for bis dagger. But his dagger was in Raoul s shoulder. Ho darted across the room to his sword, hut before he came there he was in Caspar’s arms. Caspar waddled out of the room with him, and he writhed and hit “like tiro ferret God meant him for.” Gaspar had him safely pinioned. Tire long legs struck madly at the *yr, his back was across Caspar’s knee, Gaspar dropped his weight down.

“I caught the ferret or he was ’ware, And I broke his back at the turn of the stair,

For he was

what it would give you no pleasure to read. So (daspar writes. Strada dropped, a limp distorted form on the stairs, tlaspar had helped him

home. Uaspar came back to tiic woman, ilo laid 1m great hand gently on her quivering shoulder. “You arc safe now, lass, lie said again. “Safe?” She muttered the word, and gave a long sobbing cry and fell forward on the bed weeping at last, But it was only a moment before she started up and faced him. “You did not save him she cried. ‘Ah! bring me to him; let me see him . . . O Karl I Karl ! . . and I am alive!’’ She turned from tuispar’s eyes, trembling and moaning, and fell to staring distractedly through the shattered window.

“God help you !” Gaspar muttered and went out. lie kicked Strada out of his way and went downstairs. As lie came to the bottom lie heard Raoul groan. “hJod in heaven! Our little man is alive yet,” he muttered, and bent over him and moved him very gently. I hen “Morgan!’ he roared—“ Morgan !” and a shout answered from the fog. lie strode out into the doorway, and there were a couple of his troopers with a man on foot between them. “Humph! what have you caught, Heavier?”

“A gentleman that did not wish to bo burned, sir. Also wo have killed live gentlemen that wished to burn him." “Wheat? what?” Gaspar roared. “Is your name Karl?” "I am Karl Vloten, and ” “So! So! God is in heaven!” cried Gaspar, and caught his hand and wrung it. Which must certainly have been very painful for Karl Vloten, At that moment Morgan galloped up. a little grizzled Welshman. “Aeh, Morgan! Our little man is there wounded. Caro for him as if he were all your daughters. or I will make your face look backward,” cried Gaspar. “And you,” he dragged Karl Vloten in, “come back to vour own.”

They ran up the stairs together, and (iaspar flung wide the door. 1 hen lie eame across tho room at a boimd, for the woman had Htrada’s sword in her hands and was trying to put the point of it in her breast. (laspar snatched the blade in bis bare hands. Her husband came, crying “Lisbeth! Lisbctb !" and Hung ids arms about her. “Karl! . . . my Karl! ]I cr voice was a low sob.

my Karl !

Caspar shut the door softly. With Strada’s sword under his arm he looked down at the dead Strada. ".Sometimes \ believe very much in Mod, my friend,’ said he. lie flung the body out in the farmyard, and snapped the sword and dropped the fragments upon the breast. That evening the lloan troop were busy. They had drawn a cordon about \1 1 £• farm, and as Stradas men came straggling'hack by twos and threes, mounted or on foot, the men of the lloan Troop drew aside into the fog and let them in. But they were not let out again. While the fog' blackened in the twilight there was hunting inside the cordon, and the end of the hunt was death.

But there could he no safe tarrying there. Before dawn Raoul was sent off in a horse litter, and Karl and Lisheth too. and the Roan Troop fell back on their undo body, Colonel New,stead s company at I/oevotden. They enjoyed that march much. For old Mondragon had sent two more squadrons from Zwol to look for Strada, and they came in touch with tho rearguard of the Doan Troop. The Roan Troop lured them delicately oig til! they were live miles off Loevorden. Then Newstead swept down upon them and hurled them into the sea. Altogether it was a neat little foray, and well deserved a ballad. Thus Caspar Wiederinan. Raoul, naturally, is shorter: “But Cod would not suffer 1110 to die. Caspar Wiederinan, tho famous camp marshal of Colonel Xewstcad, had been by him dispatched to watch for me. The' Herr Caspar most cunningly found me in time. I salute him. \\ ith skill of the best lie dealt with the Spaniards. But I knew little of that till 1 woke in a bed at Loevorden. 1 was but a wreck of the trim soldier who had done the ’ deed at Kalloo. 1 was —■ But we must abridge Raoul. He was, in fact, in bed, and rather weak, and Xewstcad and Caspar were standing beside him. He told how ho Intel fired the magazines at Kalloo, and given Farina three months’ work to do again, and ended breathless. “So Antwerp can save (itself,” said Xew-

stead. “If Antwerp has sense,” grunted Caspar. Raoul turned to him. ‘‘The woman and lie—at the farm—did you save them?” Caspar nodded. “She—she was——” "I came in time,” said Caspar ghively. “They are safe here in Loevorden.” Raoul drew a long breath and' raised himself on his arm. “Colonel Xewstcad —■ 1 claim the bounty of the Estates of Holland—for the farmer and his wife, I was upon the service of the Estates. 1 was fleeing for my life. They offered mo refuge. Tho Spaniards came. It was death and torture not to give me up. They chose that—death, a Spanish death—rather than betray me. It was the noblest deed— I have ever known.”

Gaspar and News toad looked at each other. “Ach, my friend, but they have, told ns all,” said Gaspar. “I tell you on my oath ” “It is not worth while,” said Newstead, smiling. “They have said that they brought the Spaniards to your bedroom. Cordieu, I do not blame them—but they did it, Raoul.” Raoul lay on his pillow, breathing heavily. “Did they tell you —did they tell you I—oamo back-—into the Spaniards’ hands —to try to save them ” “They told us,” said Ncwstead. “And do you think if—if they had given mo up, I—should have risked myself for them ?" Newstcad smiled. “I think you would,” said he. “And I wonder if I should?” grunted Gaspar. Raoul lay still, tired out and

angry. They left him soon, and as they were going, “Take heart, little man,” said Caspar/chuckling. “We can lie, too.” So some days after, Caspar stalked into the room again. Raoul was sitting in a chair by the fire. ‘‘Well, little man, you are a .good liar, and I am a good liar, and, by the King of Cologne, I think Newstoad is the host of the three. t So the Estates have granted your farmer and his .wife lands in the salt meadows of Alkmaar. And the goodfolks are voted the thanks of Holland for their fidelity to the cause.” ‘He chuckled, ‘Their peculiar fidelity!” Raoul’s sunken eyes flamed. “Would you have been more faithful?” he cried. “Devil a bit!” said Caspar. "Well, they are clean little people. Here,” he turned to the door and shouted : “Come in with you !” Lisbeth and Karl came in—the man to blush and look sheepish, the woman to fall on her knees and kiss Raoul’s hand. Raoul tried to raise her. Caspar did it for him. Then Raoul must needs reel to his feet and bow (in his bedgown) before her. “That was most poetic,” says Caspar, regarding the bedgown. So Raoul closed the account with his hosts