Some blackguard or other, I think it was Sybrandt, said, "A lie is not like a blow with a curtal axe."True: for we can predict in some degree the consequences of a stroke with any material weapon.But a lie has no bounds at all.
The nature of the thing is to ramify beyond human calculation,Often in the everyday world a lie has cost a life, or laid waste two or three,And so, in this story, what tremendous consequences of that one heartless falsehood!
Yet the tellers reaped little from it.
The brothers, who invented it merely to have one claimant the less for their father's property, saw little Gerard take their brother's place in their mother's heart.Nay, more, one day Eli openly proclaimed that, Gerard being lost, and probably dead, he had provided by will for little Gerard, and also for Margaret, his poor son's widow.
At this the look that passed between the black sheep was a caution to traitors.Cornelis had it on his lips to say.Gerard was most likely alive, But he saw his mother looking at him, and checked himself in time,Ghysbrecht Van Swieten, the other partner in that lie, was now a failing man.He saw the period fast approaching when all his wealth would drop from his body, and his misdeeds cling to his soul.
Too intelligent to deceive himself entirely, he had never been free from gusts of remorse.In taking Gerard's letter to Margaret he had compounded."I cannot give up land and money," said his giant Avarice."I will cause her no unnecessary pain," said his dwarf Conscience.
So, after first tampering with the seal, and finding there was not a syllable about the deed, he took it to her with his own hand;and made a merit of it to himself: a set-off; and on a scale not uncommon where the self-accuser is the judge.
The birth of Margaret's child surprised and shocked him, and put his treacherous act in a new light.Should his letter take effect he should cause the dishonour of her who was the daughter of one friend, the granddaughter of another, and whose land he was keeping from her too.
These thoughts preying on him at that period of life when the strength of body decays, and the memory of old friends revives, filled him with gloomy horrors.Yet he was afraid to confess.For the cure was an honest man, and would have made him disgorge.And with him Avarice was an ingrained habit, Penitence only a sentiment.
Matters were thus when, one day, returning from the town hall to his own house, he found a woman waiting for him in the vestibule, with a child in her arms.She was veiled, and so, concluding she had something to be ashamed of, he addressed her magisterially, On this she let down her veil and looked him full in the face.
It was Margaret Brandt.
Her sudden appearance and manner startled him, and he could not conceal his confusion.
"Where is my Gerard?" cried she, her bosom heaving."Is he alive?""For aught I know," stammered Ghysbrecht."I hope so, for your sake.Prithee come into this room.The servants!""Not a step," said Margaret, and she took him by the shoulder, and held him with all the energy of an excited woman."You know the secret of that which is breaking my heart.Why does not my Gerard come, nor send a line this many months? Answer me, or all the town is like to hear me, let alone thy servants, My misery is too great to be sported with."In vain he persisted he knew nothing about Gerard.She told him those who had sent her to him told her another tale,"You do know why he neither comes nor sends," said she firmly,At this Ghysbrecht turned paler and paler; but he summoned all his dignity, and said, "Would you believe those two knaves against a man of worship?""What two knaves?" said she keenly,He stammered, "Said ye not -? There I am a poor old broken man, whose memory is shaken.And you come here, and confuse me so, Iknow not what I say."
"Ay, sir, your memory is shaken, or sure you would not be my enemy.My father saved you from the plague, when none other would come anigh you; and was ever your friend.My grandfather Floris helped you in your early poverty, and loved you, man and boy.
Three generations of us you have seen; and here is the fourth of us; this is your old friend Peter's grandchild, and your old friend Floris his great-grandchild.Look down on his innocent face, and think of theirs!""Woman, you torture me," sighed Ghysbrecht, and sank upon a bench.