University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
THE FAIR BORROWER.

At the name uttered by Steiney, the
maiden started with looks of deep surprise
and alarm. The color fled from
her cheeks and her lips parted with a
tremulous effort to speak. Steiny, albeit,
not skilled in the emotions of the female
heart, was not so inexperienced as not to
discover that Robert Logan was far from
being an indifferent person to her.

`Do you mean to say,' she said in a
low impressive, earnest tone, as if she
trusted she should not find her fears confirmed
by his answer, `do you mean to
say that this person is the Secretary of
the late Governor; or it is only some individual
bearing the same name?'

`It is Logan the Secretary, ma'm,'
answered Steiney, firmly.

`Do you charge him with stealing your
boat?' she asked, pale and anxious; for
she had not yet heard the rumor that Logan
had been seen rowing away in a
fisher's skiff, her belief having been that
he had got away in the ship.

`Yah. I'll tell you how it was. He
was driven hard, you sees, and findin'
feyther's scow on the shore he jumps in
it and pulls out o' the way while every
body was busy on the other side o' the
fort!'

`But that was not stealing! He fled
to save his life!' she said with an imploring
air, looking in the youth's face.

`I don't know what you call it. I
found him down by the island with the
boat. So when he told us who he was—'

`Then he told you his name?'

`Yah; and when we know'd it was the
papist we resolved to hang him.'

`Then you would have hanged him for
being a Roman, not for stealing?'

`We would ha' hanged him for both!'

`How dreadful! Where is he? Did
he send you to me?'

`Well, he's safe. He han't hung yet.
He said if I would come and tell you
about him he'd give me fifty dollars, and
he believed you could interfere to save
him. It would be a pity to hang him,
for he seems a proper nice chappy!'

`How dreadful! What fearful times
are these when men and boys even think
so lightly of hanging a fellow-being,'
cried Bertha, clasping her hands in anguish.
`What said he?'

`He wanted me to tell you that he had
fallen into the hands of some fishermen.

who have resolved to hang him to-morrow
morning by nine o'clock, unless you
send to them one thousand dollars!'

`Money?' she cried with looks of delight.
`Oh, tell me will money buy his
life?'

`One thousand dollars will, ma'm!'

`You shall have it.'

`When?'

`Within an hour. I will get it and
save him. I am rejoiced. What a load
is lifted from my heart! for I knew not,'
she said to herself, `how I should plead
to my father for the life of a man for
whom he himself has offered a reward!'

`Yes,' said Steiny who heard her last
words; `I hear the Governor has offered
a pretty sum for him! But if you'll give
the thousand you shall have him! If you
dont, he swings!'

`You shall certainly have it,' she answered,
`Money for life, oh yes!' But
hardly had she spoken these words when
her countenance fell. `How shall I get
this large sum? My father is rich, but
what can I say to him if I ask him for it.
No, he must not know the use I have for
it. I can make him no answer! Alas! I
am in as great a strait as before! Ah, I
see. I have the way to obtain it,' she
said with joyful animation. `Lad, you
shall have the money. But what surety
have I that his life shall be spared?'

`I want first to see the cash; but afore
I takes the money out o' the house I'll
bring him into it where you can see him.
I'll leave him with you and then lug off
the silver!'

`Bring him here?' she cried with a
start and blush of surprise.

`Yah. He wouldn't be safe no where
else in the town. Besides, I know he'd
like to see you and thank you. He speaks
of you so handsome!'

`Did he?'

`If ever a gentleman loved a lady that
ere man love you, ma'm!'

`I have scarcely seen him.'

`But he has seen you. He told me
all about it, when I said I didn't believe
he'd ever spoke to you and he was sendin'
me to you on a flim-flam cruise!'

`What did he say that I loved him?'
she asked, blushing.

`He said he was afraid you didn't;
but that didn't make any difference, he
should love you till he died. And now
I remember he said he shouldn't so much
mind being hanged, only he didn't like to
leave you. He said if you was dead he'd
be obliged to us to hang him, as where
you was was his world! That's the way
he talked, ma'm, when we was about to
string him up!'

`Thank Heaven that he thought of me
at that moment if it has saved him from
such a dreadful death!'

`Yes, you saved his life, no doubt,
ma'm; and I guess he'll love you a hundred
times more for it, for if it had'nt
been that he loved you and spoke about
you, he'd 'a been in kingdom-come before
now!'

`Poor young gentleman! And did he
say he loved me?' she asked, not disguising
her feelings from the boy as if he had
been older, in which case she would have
been more reserved. But the boy, unknown
to her, had the keen observing
eye and acute perception of a man. `Did
he speak thus kindly of me?'

`Yah, more than I can say, for I can't
put it into the fine language he spoke, coz
I'm no scholard. But he'd go his death
for you, ma'm, and no mistake!'

Rude as this expression was, Bertha's
ear caught only the spirit of it, and her
heart thrilled at the sweet thought that
she was loved, and loved by one whose
image had many and many a night mingled
in her dreams. She never dreamt
about the burgomaster.

`Oh joy, joy!' said she in the depth of
her heart; `he loves me whom I love!'

`Well, ma'm, you say you'll give the
thousand?' interrupted Steiny, bluntly.
`If you can't get it he swings you know.'

She started. She seemed all at once
to be recalled to the realities and difficulties
involving her. `The money; without
it he dies!' were echoed from the
depths of her being. She stood irresolute
and thoughtful. She seemed to be revolving
some painful subject in her mind.
Something that called the quick color of
conscious wrong-doing to her cheek;
something from which her frank and generous
nature seemed to shrink.

`Without the money he dies!' seemed
to swell into a voice of thunder in her
heart.

`It must be done!' she cried quickly
and earnestly; `the circumstances will
excuse it. There is no alternative—no
escape!'

`No, ma'm there is no escape,' answered
Steiny, catching at the word.

`Young man,' she cried firmly, `you
shall have the money; wait here!'

`I wonder now,' said he, in a tone of
affected indifference, `if for any other
chappy as was to be hung we people down
on the island could get a thousand dollars
to save him.'

`Any other!' she repeated; `I cannot
speak of any other. I should not be called
upon, I hope, to judge in any other
case. In this one I am ready to act and
do all I can.'

`So I see. I was only thinkin if any
poor devil who was to be hanged could
be bought off the gallows by callin on
you, I'd let em offer to let em hang me
and then pocket the thousand. But I
rayther think I'd suffer some afore you'd
give a hundred for me.'

Bertha smiled, but with a look of anxiety,
for her thoughts were busy.

`If I give this money to you for Robert
Logan's life, will the world know
it?' she said, laying her hand upon his
shoulder and looking closely into his
eyes.

`No ma'm; it'll be kept secret; for it
would come as hard on us when a new
Governor comes, if we let it out, as on
you for buying a papist!'

`A papist!' she repeated within herself,
as if the words struck her ear with
a new and strange meaning. `True he
is a papist. I have never thought of that.
But he must be saved, though he be no
more to me nor I to him than we are
now. There is more need that he be
saved and not die in his errors. Poor
noble young gentleman. Oh, that I
knew how to act! That I could confide
in my father! But I can make nothing
known to him. What do I contemplate
doing! I, his own daughter, am seeking
to save a papist—a man whom he seeks
to destroy! If I am detected I am a
traitress! Nay I am even now a traitress
to him and to the new king. Yet
this young man must not die! Oh, no!
I will save him! How little did I know
my own heart till his danger comes and
presses upon it. And he loves me too!
How my heart fills with joy as a fountain
overrunning!'

`I'm waitin for you to get the money,'
said Steiny, who, the false, lying rogue,
had by this time got sufficient proof of
the love of the new Governor's daughter
for the young secretary, but who wished
at the same time shrewdly and cunningly
to carry out a private matter for his
own especial and individual interest.

`You shall have it,' she replied with
decision. `Will you await me here?'

`How long?'

`Some ten, twenty minutes—I cannot
say how long. There is a book to amuse
you while I am absent from the room.'

As she spoke she took down from a
shelf a large thick folio and laid it before
him on the table, opening it at the same
time to show him that it contained plates.

It was a volume of the Book of Martyrs,
and the picture to which she opened
being a graphic representation of certain
grim inquisitors boiling a victim in a
cauldron of oil, drew Steiny's attention
at once, and he manifested his astonishment
by a low prolonged whistle at a
spectacle that quite surpassed any thing
in his juvenile experience. Steiny could
not read, but pictures are their own interpreters,
as the young gentleman's exclamation
sufficiently attested:

`Injuns makin a chowder out o' a
white man, if they ant I'm a whale!'

He was soon so deeply interested in
the mysteries of a book that will perpetuate
to all time the deepest crimes that
have ever disgraced humanity, that he
quite forgot where he was, and gave vent
in an original and indistinct phraseology
to his emotions as scene after scene rose
to his view, in a way that would have called
both frowns and smiles on the face of
Father Stephen had he been an unseen
looker on.

As soon as Bertha had placed the book
before him she left the room, and taking
a candle from the table in the hall she
opened a door on the opposite side which
took her into a large and handsome parlor,
furnished in the old Dutch style,—
The history of the life of Christ was pictured
in blue on square tiles, set in around
the fire-place; a cuckoo clock stood
above the mantel that, just as she entered
struck nine, when out flew a cuckoo,
who flapped his wings and sung his song;
but which, ere well finished, was interupted
by a trooper who, mounted on horseback,
charged the bird sword in hand,
and drove it at a little door, which obligingly
flew open to shelter it, whereupon
the trooper, after brandishing his sword,
fiercely wheeled his charger, retreated,
and disappeared as he came, by an opposite
door, that opened to receive and shut
him in.

About the room hung portraits of the
three preceding generations of the Leislers,
one of them, who was painted in armor,
showed by the bars of his visor that
he was a baron. In truth, the lineage of
the fair Bertha was a noble one.

Having entered the room, she closed
the door, placed the candle upon a dark-colored,
polished stand, supported by
three lion's feet, and then gave herself
up to several minutes' deep reflection—

At length she spoke out with emphasis
in the following manner:—

`It must be done. I will listen no
longer to any whispers of conscience.—
A life depends on it—a life worth a
thousand lives like his. It is right to deceive
him—it is right to use him. Has
he not annoyed me long, and I have had
patience with? I will test his love now;
but it shall only be a loan: he shall be
repaid. Robert Logan is rich and will
repay it, though now he cannot, it would
seem, command the sum. What confidence
he has shown in me by sending to
me. Alas! that he should be a Papist!
This saddens my thoughts; yet, though
I may never see him, save when he shall
come hither, he shall be saved! Oh,
how shall I rejoice to know, to feel that
he owes his life to me! Am I to see him?
Ought I to see him? How else shall I
know this lad has given the money over
to the fishermen who hold him in custody,
thirsting for his blood.'

Poor Bertha! she was deceived in
all this we know. Her fears were
groundless; yet her love was not the less
sincere for being awakened and called
forth by forged evils to him she loved.

`I will see him here, if I obtain the
money, before I give it up, that I may
know he is safe. I would shrink from
seeing him; but I wish to speak with him
and urge him to give up his erroneous
faith, considering how near he has been
to death. From me, to whom he will

owe his safety, he may take a few words
kindly. Perhaps they may do him good
and save his soul (Oh, that he was not a
Papist!) I will then advise him to leave
the province till the danger is past. Each
moment that he lingers here I shall tremble
for him.'

Perhaps Bertha, if she had very closely
questioned herself, could not have
given a satisfactory reason why it was at
all necessary that she should see the
young secretary. But in her heart there
was an earnest, an ardent desire to see
and speak with him after he should escape,
if only one word. But it is not
delicate to analyze too closely a young
maiden's heart.

A second time she said emphatically,
as if she had come to a decision which
could not be moved,

`It shall be done; there is no alternalive.
The burgomaster's vanity shall
administer to my present need. If it be
wrong to deceive him, it is a greater
wrong that Robert Logan should die by
the hands of these fierce men who have
him in their power.'

Thus speaking, she softly raised the
window next to the stoope, and noiselessly
pushed open the shutters. She
carefully glanced out into tue moon-lit
street. There stood in the middle of it
the burgomaster's guards, each man with
a pipe in his mouth, silently smoking and
in line. She opened the shutter still
farther, so she could command a view of
the stoope.

There, upon one of its benches, she
discovered the portly figure of Mynheer
Van Vow, her warlike lover. He was
reclining with one arm hanging over the
balustrade, his head resting against the
door-post, his eyes closed, and his pipe
out. He was plainly fast asleep, good,
easy man, thus to take so gently love's
reverses. By him stood his great sword,
resting against his breast, where it rose
and fell with every pulsation of his deep
and sonorous breathing.

`There sleeps he, that lump of vanity
and good-natured simplicity,' said she.
`I am sorry I have to deceive thee, worthy
bbrgomaster; for, though I love thee
not, I am not thy enemy. But it is to
save a life, and by and by thou shalt have
thy gold again. But he loves his money.
He may become alarmed at my demand.
Courage! I will rouse him up!'

Thereupon she whispered softly; but
his ears did not hear the voice which
would have started Logan from the profoundest
repose.

`Mynheer Van Vow,' she repeated in
a little under tone.

The burgomaster replied by a sonorous
snore. The maiden laughed, and
took from the inside of the room Jacob
Leisler's Sunday walking-stick, and with
it she punched her lover thrice, each
time harder than the preceding. Suddenly
he started up, as if conscious of
being disturbed. His huge sword fell to
the floor of the stoope with an enormous
clanging sound, while his pipe dropping
to the ground, was smashed into pieces.
The noise made by the falling weapon
and by the pipe, with the sensation of
certain punches in the ribs, combined
with a warlike dream of towns taken and
sacked, through which the brain of the
burgomaster was battling, made him believe
that he was in the midst of a real
battle.'

`Ho! to arms! Death, murders and
fires! Help! Deal blows, and don't be
afraid of the papists. Down with the pope
and protect Bertha.'

The sound of his voice, his words, and
his confusion, startled his soldiers. They
rushed forward, with their match-locks
presented; when, seeing no one but the
burgomaster, who was brandishing his
sword terribly, the corporal, a man of

sense and nerve, saw into the matter at
once,

`Mynheer, you have been dreaming.
There is no battle.'

`Ant they?' answered Van Vow, dropping
the point of his sword. `I thought
I vas taking von towns at least.'

`It was a dream, burgomaster, for a
minute ago you was asleep: then I saw
you up, dealing blows about, and shouting.'

`Bless my souls and podies, so it vas a
dreams. But vas'nt I prave in te dreams
though? Did'nt I show valors and fightins.'

`You did bravely,' answered the corporal.

`It vas goot for te enemies it vas a
dreams,' said the burgomaster, with a vain
air.

Bertha had instantly closed the shutter,
and no one discovered the cause of
the burgomaster's alarm. It was now
very natural that she should go to the
door to learn the cause, for she wished
to get speech of him. So she opened it
a little, and said,

`Mynheer Van Vow, what has happened?'

`Happened, lights o' my eyes! dont
venture out till all is safes.'

`What is the danger?'

`Dangers! Battles and vars! Vel it is
you had such brave soldiers and varriors
as Slems Van Vow, to keep garts here.
Why the papists have been here, ten
thousand ov em if dere vas no mans ov
em, and dey would haf carried you off,
pody and soul. But I defended you wit
my lifes, and dere is not one on em to pe
seen, showin his face on te face ov te
earth.'

`I am greatly indebted to you,' answered
Bertha.

`It was only a dream, Miss Bertha,'
cried the corporal; `so dont have fears of
any thing.'

`Out ov te vay,' cried the burgomaster
angrily; `he vas asleep, and knows notting,
dear eyes.'

`Well, I am thankful for my escape.
Come in Slems, that I may thank you in
better words than standing here.'

`You goes apout your pizzinesses, corporals
Veckings,' said Slems; `see tat
you keeps better vatch. Come in, fair
dat ish to pe.'

With this gallant speech, the burgomaster
entered the house. Bertha closed
the door, and led him into the parlor.—
She was afraid that the boy, Steiney,
would have been alarmed by the uproar,
and she should have met him in the hall;
but he was too deeply interested in the
study of the history of Moses tiled on the
fire-jam, to heed any noise; for, having
got through with the Martyrs, he gave
the same undivided attention to the latter,
which he had bestowed upon the former;
pictures, being a treat of rare occurrence
to the young fisher's boy.

Bertha having got Slems into the parlor,
and shut the door, taken his hat, and
laid it aside, and treated him with such
smiling hospitality that, taking it altogether,
in her full belief in his having
risked his life, fighting for her, against
an attack of the papists, as he had told
her, he half repented himself, of his fibbing;
for Slems had a conscience. But
she gave him no time to act from its dictates,
and dishonor himself, by confessing
the truth.

`My dear good Slems,' said Bertha,
seating herself by his side, and looking
up into his face in the most bewitching
way.

`What, sweet Bertha,' answered the
burgomaster, feeling his brain swim and
reel under her bright glances, as if champaigne
were in it. `Bless me, what a
happy thing it is, to thinks you and I are
to pe married, hey?' and the barbarian

tapped her under the pretty chin, with
two of his fat fingers.

`This, doubtless, you often think upon,'
she said, in the most delicious tones
in the world; and she smiled with the
most bewildering witchery. Slems would
not have been mortal to have withstood
her.

`I never smoke mine bipe, but I sees
you dancing in te blue wreathes, Bertha,
love o' my heart, dears,' he said, with
emotion.

`How happy I ought to be! Do you
know, dear Slems, that I think you a
very brave man.'

`Does you, indeed. A brave mans.—
That is what makes me knows you loves
me, Berthas. But no! I'll pe honest.—
I'm a cow—'

`Don't say one syllable more,' she exclaimed,
pressing her pretty hand over
his mouth. `How many days is it, before
we are to be married?'

`Thirteen, the day after to-morrows.'

`Why don't you say fifteen from to-day?'

`Coz I wishes, pretty Berthas, to make
it short as possible.'

`Well, I believe you love me, Slems,
but I want proof of it.'

`Take mine lifes. Here is mine big
swort.'

`No: I will take what I know you value
as much.'

`Vat it ish?'

`Money!'

`Moneies?'

`Yes. I need a thousand silver dollars,
for some purpose, no matter what;
if it is only to test your love for me.—
Now, Slems Van Vow,' she added, assuming
a gay air, while her heart throbbed
heavily, `if you truly love me, you
will not refuse to let me have this little
sum;' she said, fixing her eyes earnestly
upon his face, as if she would read in its
fleshy rotundity, his very soul.