The First of the English: A NovelGunter, Archibald Clavering
History
The First of the English: A Novel
Gunter, Archibald Clavering
Historical fiction; Netherlands -- History -- Eighty Years' War, 1568-1648 -- Fiction
As he eats and drinks Guy looks lazily up and down the street; crowds
of people are passing along the Shoemarket. This throng is made
picturesque by a smattering of the costumes of most of the nations of
the earth; for at this time Antwerp is the mart of Northern Europe, and
the greatest commercial emporium of the age.
Ships are taking cargo at its river front for the Indies, East and
West, for even the distant coasts of Peru and the Cape of Good Hope,
and others are unloading from the Baltic and the Mediterranean:
consequently seamen and visitors from all known portions of the globe
increase the vivacity of the scene.
Curiously enough, there are no English walking the streets of Antwerp
to-day, for since Elizabeth stole Alva’s eight hundred thousand crowns,
the Duke has forbidden any commerce with Great Britain, and has
sequestered all English property and driven out all English merchants
living or doing business in Antwerp, of which before this there have
been a great number, the English wool trade being one of the great
sources of revenue of the city. Just now Antwerp is at its very zenith,
from which it is about to go down under the exactions, taxes and
tyranny of the Spaniard into a fourth-rate commercial town.
But the burghers, though gloomy and oppressed, do not anticipate, and
the merchants still laugh lightly upon the street, thinking themselves
princes upon the throne of a commerce that can never be destroyed.
This absence of English blood and English feature would make Guy
conspicuous, were not several Danish officers of De Billy striding
about the street, and some of these have fair hair, blue eyes and Saxon
blondness.
“Now I must carry Alva’s orders to the provost marshal. Fortunately his
office is not far from here. Wait for me, I will return in quarter of
an hour. You need not look so impatiently at the clock,” remarks
Oliver.
But Guy is not looking at the clock. His eyes are fixed upon a man in
the costume of a South Zeeland trader who is carefully wiping a pair of
tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles and inspecting the placard offering
reward for the head of the “First of the English.” As the Zeelander
turns the Englishman knows that he has seen him before.
A moment after Chester thinks this man recognizes him, for, though he
turns away his head, he keeps one eye upon this gentleman, and notes
this gentleman has one eye on him.
“Take me to the provost marshal’s with you,” he whispers to Oliver.
“You—want to go there?” gasps Antony, opening his eyes very wide.
“Yes,” returns Guy. “There’s a gentleman here who recognizes me, and
has also made himself acquainted with the value of my head. If he
follows me I’ll astonish him.”
As the two rise, Oliver’s face very serious at this, they are joined by
little De Busaco, who comes striding up to them to be rather effusively
welcomed by Chester, who thinks that apparent intimacy with Spanish
officers may remove the suspicions of the man who is watching him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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