CHAPTER VIITHE ACTION ON THE GETA
The Duke of Alva marched back triumphantly from Groningen, celebrated the overthrow of Louis of Nassau with arrogant and hollow rejoicings in the overawed capital, tortured and beheaded several persons of distinction—including the brilliant and loyal Burgomaster of Antwerp, Anthony van Straaten—and offered up hundreds of lesser victims as thank-offerings on the altar of his success, and melted the famous Groningen cannon to cast a statue of himself.
Meanwhile William of Orange, by tireless exertions, indomitable patience, courage, and enthusiasm, and by superhuman straining of every nerve to raise the money, had assembled an army of thirty thousand men, and exercising his right as a sovereign Prince he declared war on the Duke of Alva, issued a proclamation of his motives to the Netherlands, and marched toward the frontier of Brabant, near Maestricht, where Alva was encamped.
He wished to hazard everything on one great battle where he might wipe out the disasters of Dalem, Artois, and Jemmingen, encourage his soldiers, and hearten the Netherlands.
But Alva would not give battle; his cold and cruel genius saw that his advantage lay in delay, that William had not the money to keep his army together long, and that the German mercenaries, unpaid and inactive, would soon mutiny and desert.
William saw this too, but it was impossible for him to entice the wily Spaniard into an engagement.
Meanwhile the main difficulty remained the money; every thaler the Nassau family could raise had gone on the three lost armies and on equipping the present one for the field. In his proclamation he had said with a touching courage and cheerfulness, "We have now an excellent army of cavalry, artillery, and infantry raised all at our own expense," but this 'excellent army' could not be kept together without pay or plunder, and the generous hand that had supplied them was now empty.
William appealed to the Netherlander whom he was coming to rescue, but the three previous defeats had disheartened utterly the miserable populace, and it was but a wretched sum that the Prince received; three hundred thousand crowns had been promised to his agent, Marcus Pery, and but ten thousand reached the camp. Applications to the gentlemen who had signed Brederode's famous Compromise brought no results; and wherever the Prince's army moved the people fell away from his line of march, not daring to lift a hand in his service.
Well might one of the devices which showed on his banners be that of a pelican in her piety feeding her young with her own blood, for it was from themselves alone the Nassau Princes received support.
When the Prince mustered his army in Trêves, he had with him the dauntless Louis, the young Henry, and Hoogstraaten, and he was soon joined by Lumey, Count de la Marck, at the head of a ferocious band of followers. This nobleman, reckless, rough, and daring was a blood kinsman of Lamoral Egmont, and had joined William out of motives of personal hate and revenge against Alva.
At St. Feit the Prince crossed the Rhine, then by a bold and brilliant movement his army swam the Meuse (to Alva's incredulous rage), and marched into Brabant with all the pomp of war.
Nearly thirty times he changed his camp on the plainsof Brabant, each time hoping to lure the Duke into an engagement; each time Alva, though for ever hanging on the skirts of the rebels, managed, with consummate skill, to refuse an action.
So passed the weary days of autumn; by the middle of October the Prince was at St. Trond, intending to effect a junction with a body of French Huguenots under De Genlis who were waiting at Waveren.
As always Alva was at the Prince's heels, skirmishing incessantly with the outposts, but always withdrawing his main army when William advanced for an engagement.
"This will end soon, one way or another," said the Prince. "Either we have a general action, or all is lost for this campaign."
He spoke in his tent at St. Trond to Louis and Hoogstraaten; outside were the camp noises and the slash of an autumn shower against the canvas.
Louis, almost ill with the irritation and fury of being constantly out-manœuvred, of seeing the army slip from them while Alva quietly waited, half-crazed with the thought of his own powerlessness to avert the miserable failure of the campaign, made no answer, and Hoogstraaten could only gnash his teeth.
But William remained patient; perhaps he had not expected any more glorious results from this desperate venture.
Quietly he stated the position.
"It is impossible to pay the men another penny, or even to feed them much longer. I heard to-day that Alva has dismantled all the mills in this district. There will, of course, be a mutiny—it is quite impossible to keep them together beyond November, which they take as the beginning of the winter."
"There must be an action!" cried Louis passionately. "There must be, if I ride into Alva's camp and challenge him to his face!"
And the Count shook with rage at the thought of thisarmy, got together with such infinite sacrifices, being miserably disbanded.
But his impatience did not help, William would have reminded him of the results of his fiery recklessness at Jemmingen.
"Alva will never be enticed into an action," said Hoogstraaten, "he is as cold as this!" and he struck the steel hilt of his sword. "He is not Aremberg to be fired by his officers into an imprudence; he is a great general, though a cruel animal. God curse him."
"I salute his generalship," said William, with a bitter smile. "I admit he has defeated my hopes. One victory—one doubtful victory—and every city in the Netherlands would have opened to me, all over the country the people would have risen, for he rules by terror only. Now no one dares move—all silent, trembling—and I helpless," he added, with sudden passion, "my God, helpless!"
The exclamation was like a passionate prayer. William, young, ardent, full of courage and energy, felt that word "helpless" the most terrible of all.
But he instantly recovered himself with that mental strength that made all things possible to him.
"I must meet De Genlis, his reinforcements may be strong, he may have brought money," he said, then added with his unfailing thoughtful generosity, "Besides he has made his way through the Ardennes to meet me, and I cannot fail him."
"Alva might attack as we cross the Geta," said Louis hopefully.
"It is possible—it might be done," answered the Prince.
"He is too cautious," said Hoogstraaten; "nothing will tempt him."
William rose, went to the entrance of the tent, and lifted the flap that concealed the October night.
The rain was now over and the moon had risen large and yellow, showing the encampment and the motionless lines of the ruined windmill that crowned the high hillopposite. Behind this hill flowed the Geta on the opposite bank of which Count de Genlis waited for William.
Beyond, where the dark clouds lay heavy on the horizon, was Alva, like a crouching beast, following his prey cautiously and waiting for it to fall exhausted ere he sprang.
The Prince's face hardened as he gazed at the ominous darkness faintly sprinkled with the Spanish camp fires; he thought of Egmont and Hoorne, Brederode, and Berghen—of Adolphus, and his own stolen son, his own insulted name, his own confiscated property; and against Philip and Philip's red right hand—the hard old man crouching there with his talons deep in the flesh of the Netherlands—his whole soul went out in wrath and defiance and a hatred that was like a sensation of triumph and pleasure.
"Well, old man," he thought passionately, "I am loved here as you are hated—and some day that will tell."
He was joined by Hoogstraaten and Count Louis; all three were almost without hope; all were living, and had long been living, a life of hardship, privation, and peril; all of them faced a prospect of either violent death or utter beggary and exile, yet their mutual youth, courage, and energy communicated to each other, together with the sense of love and comradeship, made them almost joyful.
They began discussing plans for the crossing of the Geta to-morrow.
A force was to be stationed on the hill, which rose now blackly against the moonlit sky, to protect the crossing of the main body of the troops, while the rearguard under Hoogstraaten was to remain on the bank in a desperate attempt to lure Alva.
In case this was successful and the Spaniard advanced his main army, William and Louis were to recross the Geta and engage.
The plan was desperate, and William could hardly place much reliance on it, but Hoogstraaten was exultant at the chance of coming to grips with the enemy.
Louis felt some vexation that the command of the rearguard had not been given to him; the truth was William relied more on Hoogstraaten's coolness than Louis' audacity in this perilous and delicate position.
"You have Jemmingen against me!" said Louis, with a laugh, and he pulled at his orange sash with strong impatient fingers.
"Confess, Count," cried Hoogstraaten gaily, "that your retreat then was unnecessary and that Alva does not deserve to be so feared! Here we have been several days in the Netherlands and we have seen nothing of the Spaniards but their backs!"
"And when you see their faces," replied Louis, vexed, "I warrant you will remember it for the rest of your life."
Hoogstraaten caught his arm and begged his forgiveness for the rough jest.
"Ah, jest while you can," said Louis, instantly smiling again.
"A light heart never hurt any cause," said William.
He dropped the tent flap and called his page; bidding the boy give him his sword, his mantle, and his hat, and to have his horse brought, he prepared to make a tour of his forces and see all was in readiness for the morrow.
The Count Louis and Hoogstraaten departed on the same business to their several commands; first all three embraced warmly, and, in case they should not meet again before the bustle and confusion of the morning, William gave Hoogstraaten some parting words of encouragement.
Despite their terrible anxieties and the agonizing difficulties of their position, the three commanders were now cheerful, almost gay.
The night was beautiful, warm, lit by the mellow light of the harvest moon and fragrant with the smell of the earth recently moistened by the rain.
The Prince's men, as if encouraged by the decisiveaction promised for the morrow, were also quiet and seemed cheerful; a few days before there had been a fierce mutiny, when the Prince's sword had been shot from his side, but now all was tranquil, and William was loyally received as he went on his rounds.
Some of the refugee Netherlander were gathered together in an open space between the tents listening to the words of a Calvinist minister; little groups of others, scattered here and there, sang psalms softly to themselves.
The German mercenaries were engaged in mending their clothes, in cooking their supper, or in playing dice.
The keen smell of coarse hot soup, the strong scent of the picketed horses mingled on the fresh air; the light of the lanterns at the tent entrances and the small fires feebly rising after the shower shone on pots and pans, pieces of polished or rusty armour, bundles of kindling sticks covered with autumn leaves, and baskets of apples and pears, golden-red.
Here and there the windows of the little farmhouses and cottages where the officers were quartered glowed with a bright light.
William, riding with his little band of officers from one battalion to another, dreamt of a victory, of turning back Alva's troops, of breaking his prestige, of a whole country throwing off with groans of relief the loathed Spanish chains and welcoming her deliverers.
He had no grounds for such dreams but the sense of life and strength in his own body, in the fine horse beneath him, in the exaltation he received in gazing at the noble cloudy spaces of the sky, and the great moon that had shone on so many battles, and in the dark outlines of the hills and horizons of the hidden country.
Nor was he disheartened by the sight of the surgeon with his mule and cases going from tent to tent, nor by that of a cartful of dead men whose limbs fell limp as rags and whose bodies were defaced with gunshot; near these victims of a little skirmish was a tent of men, ill of amalarious fever, the sharp delirious voices of some came out on to the night.
The Prince continued on horseback till the dawn, when he returned to his tent to arm, and the army moved into battle array.
The sun rose strong and clear though with the mellow radiance of the Low Countries and the autumn; all that had been obscured by the dead light of the moon was now distinct: the scars and rags of the soldiers, the brilliant scarves of the officers, the disorder and dirt of the camp, the broken sails of the tall thatched windmill, the dried autumn grass on the little hill, the low waters of the Geta sparkling a sluggish gold.
Still all seemed hopeful, cheerful, full of presages of good fortune.
Birds were singing in the trees growing in the farm gardens, a few poppies and daisies blew on the hillsides, the sun was warm as summer but the air fresh with the coolness of the turn of the year.
William rode with his troops to the banks of the Geta, and sent them across in good order and safety, battalion after battalion.
The Spanish, whose outposts were near enough to observe these movements, made no sign of action.
Meanwhile, Hoogstraaten remained behind on the bank with three thousand men, while the Seigneur de Louverwal and a detachment of cavalry occupied the hill.
Steadily and successfully the Prince's army forded the river, regiment after regiment passing undisturbed, the infantry on the cruppers of the horsemen or wading at their stirrups. Again and again William glanced at the little hill where the patriotic banners of Hoogstraaten waved.
About noon the Spanish attacked.
Don Frederic, the Prior of St. John, brought up seven thousand troops and threw himself against the Netherlanders.
All was obscured in the lilac-coloured smoke of cannon and musket shot with flames; William could no longer see his banners nor the gallant lines of Hoogstraaten's men.
The Spanish did not cross the river, as the three leaders had so desperately hoped, nor could William return, as the further bank was now lined by Alva's cannon.
No news came from the fierce conflict surging to and fro by the waters of the Geta, but towards evening the foul smoke cleared, and the Spanish flag was visible floating from the shot-riddled windmill.
A little later a few soldiers escaped across the river, bringing to the Prince news that the entire rearguard had been cut to pieces, that Louverwal was a prisoner, and that the survivors of the awful day were now being massacred by Don Frederic's men.
Another miserable handful brought with them Hoogstraaten, unconscious, fastened to his horse by the reins, and with a shattered foot.
AU that night the moonlight was dimmed by the fires that burnt along the Geta.
These flames came from the farmhouses where Hoogstraaten's men had taken a despairing refuge. Don Frederic had at once ordered these buildings to be set alight, and those maddened wretches who hurled themselves from the flames found themselves impaled on the spears of the Spanish waiting without.
The nobler spirits put an end to their own lives to escape the taunts of their enemies; all alike disappeared in the same funeral pyres, the high-mounting flames of which illuminated the fierce faces of the victorious army and the stately figure of the militant priest who commanded them, and cast a red glow of blood and fire on those two triumphant symbols—the arms of the King of Spain, the cross of the Romish Church.
CHAPTER VIIITHE ANABAPTIST PREACHER
A few days after this fourth disaster the Prince joined the Huguenots at Waveren.
These allies, late as they were, might have proved of some material assistance, for they consisted of three thousand foot and three hundred horse—all eager Protestants, not hired mercenaries, but as soon as he rode into the French camp the Prince saw that he was face to face with another disappointment.
The little force of Count de Genlis was so hampered with women and children, aged folk and infirm, that it was likely to prove rather a burden than a relief to the over-taxed resources of the Prince.
The Huguenots indeed rather seemed a band of refugees escaping from destruction themselves than an army marching to the rescue of persecuted brethren.
Even De Genlis, the high-spirited and gallant French commander, could not advise William to try another engagement in the Netherlands, though they were within a few leagues of Brussels and of Louraine.
And William was as helpless as if his hands and feet were tied. He could neither pay his men, nor feed them; every day some deserted. Alva's masterly tactics had succeeded; the Prince's army was dispersing without having accomplished anything but the ruin of their commander, for William was personally pledged for the payment of the troops, and he had neither property nor credit with which to redeem his word.
He had staked heavily and lost heavily, and now stood stripped and beggared before the world.
In his camp at Waveren he faced his position which he saw clearly for all his cheerfulness; he admitted that Alva had out-generaled him, but not in that was his bitterest disappointment, but in the silence of the Netherlands.
He had believed that the people would rise to welcome him; he had hoped that some cities would open their gates to him, he had been confident that the nobles and merchants would assist him with money.
He had not sufficiently reckoned on the strength of terror which Alva had inspired, nor on the awful condition of the unfortunate Netherlanders.
He who had always been used to princely dealings, to use generosity and lavishness to all, was now bitterly humiliated and galled by his inability to redeem his solemn promise; and that to him was the bitterest part of his universal failure. Alva's triumph, the disappointment of his friends, his own lost prestige, and disgrace, his own personal beggary—these things did not move him as did the thought of the weary mutinous soldiers whom he could not pay, nor, as far as he could see, would be ever able to pay.
Winter was approaching, the land was as barren, the weather as chill, as the prospects of William of Orange.
As he sat in his tent this late October evening he felt the cold wind creep under the canvas and penetrate his mantle so that he shivered. His camp furniture was in some disorder, and half the large tent was curtained off by a handsome purple hanging.
Behind this lay Count Hoogstraaten. William had ordered him to be removed into his own tent, because neither he nor any man would long have the company of Hoogstraaten now.
The surgeon came from this inner apartment and said the Count slept.
William's eyes looked a question.
"When he wakes?" said the surgeon. "I fear, Your Highness, that when he wakes it will be but a waking to death."
He bowed and took his leave; he had many cases in the camp.
The Prince turned his gaze towards the purple curtains and leant back heavily in his chair. It seemed as if all his friends, all who loved him, trusted him, served him, were to be taken from him, involved in the common misfortune he had brought on them.
It seemed ironical, a needless cruelty, that the brave, generous, and gay Hoogstraaten should die.
His wound had been caused by the chance discharge of his own pistol, and at first had not seemed dangerous, but he had sunk into weakness and fever, a sickness perhaps as much of a despairing mind as of a wounded body, and now he lay slipping into death.
It had been an added torture to William to listen to the sick man's delirium—all on the theme of the dissolving army, the fruitless campaign, the liabilities of the commanders, the useless slaughter on the Geta, for which the poor Count held himself responsible.
"Supplies, supplies, if we could but get supplies, if we could but keep the men together!" had been the burden of the dying soldier's delirium, and William passionately wished that some good news might come if only to allow Hoogstraaten to die in peace.
But no good news did come; rather was misfortune heaped on misfortune.
The Prince held now in his hand letters from Dillenburg received a few days ago; Count John wrote with the gallant Nassau cheerfulness, but could not disguise that he sent evil tidings.
Anne of Saxony had seized the moment of her husband's ruin to forsake him; despite the letters of the Prince, the expostulations of her German kinsfolk and the Nassau women, Anne had flung herself free of all loyalty, andbroken the bonds which had so long been hateful. She had written to Alva, throwing herself on his mercy and declaring she was a widow in the eyes of the law, as her husband was a prescribed exile with no civil rights, and entreating the Duke to return her her dowry out of William's confiscated property.
Then, abandoning her daughter and her baby son, she had fled from Dillenburg to Cologne and there set up a household of her own, surrounded by the exiles and refugees that crowded the city.
The news had not much power to hurt William's heart, his wife had been so long, even from the first, indifferent to him, and he could despise her disloyalty; but it was another blow to his pride, his dignity, the completion of his ruin, another cause for his enemies to laugh at him. "Madame your wife," had always been one of the objects of Granvelle's keen sneers, and the Cardinal, watching events from Rome, would sneer indeed now, as he would sneer at the army so painfully collected, so miserably dispersed, at the Prince who had defied the King of Spain and been beaten from his country's frontiers, a beggared exile.
It was not in William's nature to feel wrathful towards the woman who had so struck him, his sentiment now was a vast indifference, as if she had never existed, or only existed as some shadow from whom he was at last for ever free.
As he sat there in a loneliness only peopled by bitter and sad reflections and the spectres of ruin, failure, and despair, two of the officers attached to his person entered the tent.
The Prince looked up sharply, as if bracing himself to hear further disaster.
But the officers came with news of trifling importance: A fellow, evidently a Netherlander, had made his way into the camp last night and had entreated most earnestly for an audience of the Prince, and had gone from one officer to another with such importunate eagerness, thatat length they had been moved to prefer his request to the General himself.
William had always been easy of access in the days of his prosperity, and it was not in him to surround himself with state in this time of his misfortune and overthrow.
He smiled faintly, drawing his brows together as he did when perplexed or amused.
"Let him come here," he said.
One of the officers suggested that perhaps the fellow was one of Alva's spies or assassins.
"Oh, that!" exclaimed William wearily.
Death was the least of the terrors with which he had to contend; he knew that probably Alva schemed to murder him, and it left him as indifferent as did the thought of Anne's treachery.
As soon as the officers left him he retired so completely into his own thoughts again that he forgot the incident, and it was with a slight start that he looked up to see a stranger, escorted by two soldiers, standing before the tent entrance.
This man stood very humbly bowing, as if too overcome by some emotion to speak, and William, interested in him, bade him enter, and dismissed the soldiers.
The stranger was of middle life with the appearance of humble birth and poor means; his clothes, though exquisitely neat, were shabby and thin; his features were pinched with cold, and maybe privation.
He stood crushing his hat to his breast and gazing at the Prince with an expression of utter confusion and awe.
William addressed him in Flemish, kindly asking him his errand.
The other continued to gaze at him with that look of wonder and reverence that was embarrassed but not at all stupid, rather a kind of amaze, as if he could not credit that this slim young man, with the pale dark face, wrapped in the plain blue mantle could be the great Prince of Orange.
"It is His Highness?" he asked timidly.
"I am William of Orange," answered the Prince, and as he spoke he felt that it was the name of the most unfortunate of men.
As the man seemed to need further encouragement, William added, "It was he you wished to see?"
"I have come all the way from Holland to see Your Highness," was the simple reply.
"From Holland? Alone?"
"Yes, Your Highness. It is a long way, and the Duke of Alva's army was often in my way—otherwise I would have been with Your Highness sooner," he added, in a tone of deprecating apology.
The Prince looked keenly at the quiet-looking individual who had undertaken with such simplicity a journey which meant risking his life a thousand times.
"Who are you, my friend?" he asked gently.
The man raised his eyes which under this gaze he had kept abased, and William was instantly conscious of a resolute and fearless spirit looking out of the plain insignificant face.
"I am an Anabaptist preacher, Your Highness; I have a little congregation of poor outcasts in Holland—we mostly live in hiding, and meet secretly to worship. There are not so many of us as there were, for the persecutions have been very fierce and we are quite defenceless.
"A little while ago a gentleman of Haarlem smuggled into the town a copy of Your Highness's most noble proclamation, and it came into my hands.
"That day I knelt to bless God for having raised up such a Prince, and when my poor people met together again I read them the joyful news, and told them that Your Highness appealed for money to support your army, whereat we, with a good heart, put together what we could, and as I was the only one who had no one dependent on me and knew the country well, I was elected to carry this small offering to Your Highness."
The Prince was too overwhelmed to speak; his quickmind, his warm heart, pictured the whole incident: The hunted outcast Protestants reading his paper, their eager gratitude and hopes, the secret putting together of what they could pinch from their poverty, the setting forth of the pastor, the perils and anxieties of his journey with his precious burden, his self-denial and hardship rather than touch his treasure, the modest unconsciousness with which he made his little speech—all this William saw vividly.
"Your Highness in your paper speaks of repayment," continued the Anabaptist, "but we require no payment, only kindness when Your Highness shall be triumphant."
Cautiously he took from the wallet at his side a small canvas bag, and, gazing at it with a look of relief and a touch of pride, laid it on the little table beside the Prince.
With a movement almost mechanical William untied the strings and looked at the contents.
There were about a hundred crowns in gold and some silver—this last what the pastor had saved on his journey by sleeping in ditches and almost starving.
"It is very little," said the Anabaptist nervously, oppressed by the silence of the Prince; "the will is better than the gift."
William remained motionless, staring at the pitiful little bag of money which represented such a spirit of sacrifice, such an enthusiasm still existent in the country he had deemed supine and crushed.
"I thank you," he faltered, "indeed—I—thank you——" A hundred crowns! and one month's wage of his army was some hundreds of thousands of crowns. A hundred crowns! A few years ago he had flung away as much on a pair of gauntlets—a dog—a toy; the smallness of the gift moved the Prince almost beyond bearing. He held out his hand towards the Anabaptist, and he, who had endured the loss of his brother, his friends, his wife, his army, his fortune, with fortitude, now broke down before this humble sympathy.
Putting his other hand before his eyes, he wept.
"Your Highness will receive more," stammered the pastor. "There are other Protestant congregations who are collecting for you—even if the big towns do not open, you have entered the hearts of the Netherlanders."
The Prince's shoulders heaved; he raised his face, flushed and quivering with tears.
"I thank you," he repeated, in a firm voice. "I thank you from my heart—you see me weak, but you must not notice it—I have not slept well of late. I will give you my receipt for this money and you must thank your people for me, and tell them I will repay them as soon as I can repay any of my debts—and for yourself take this, in remembrance of me," he drew from his finger a little yellow intaglio seal ring—one of the few personal jewels left him—and put it on the thin finger of the Anabaptist who bent before him in speechless gratitude and pleasure.
Promising to see him again before his departure, the Prince was sending away the preacher in the custody of his page, that the poor traveller might enjoy the best hospitality the camp could afford, when the Anabaptist turned and asked with a timid earnestness, "Are the faith of Your Highness and that faith you come to protect, the same?"
"My faith?" repeated William.
"Forgive me, but it is not commonly known if you follow the true religion."
"I follow what I believe to be true," said the Prince. "Otherwise I could not go on. For the rest, I am no Romanist." He paused a moment, then added with a little smile, "If any of your people ask after me, tell them that I too am an outcast and an exile—that I, too, am a heretic. Say, too, that I am not discouraged, that if I fail now I shall endeavour to try again. Ask them to be courageous and to give me their prayers."
When he was alone again he lifted the curtains and went to Count Hoogstraaten's bedside.
The gallant little soldier lay propped on pillows and covered with rugs; the dim light of a shaded lamp fell on the bold young face which, in the last few days, had changed so terribly, and over which the shadow of death now rested.
He was tossing in a restless sleep; William went on his knees beside him and put his cool hand on the hot forehead dewed with beads of pain and exhaustion.
The Count lay quiet awhile, then opened his eyes; he recognized the Prince immediately, and at once his dry lips began to murmur the words that were the expression of the mental agony that was killing him—
"Any news? Any supplies? Any money raised? Any means of keeping the men together?"
William firmly clasped the feverish hand that lay outside the coverlet.
"Help has come," he answered; "but now I have left a man who brought me supplies from Holland—and there are other promises of assistance."
A light came into the dying man's eyes. His tense body relaxed with a shiver of relief.
"Then—then you will be able to carry on the campaign?" he said faintly.
"With God's help I shall go on," answered the Prince gravely.
"Supplies, you say—from Holland?" murmured Hoogstraaten.
"Just brought into the camp—in gold," said William, "and, as I said, there are other promises; many, many are willing to help us—the country begins to move in our favour."
The Count closed his eyes and was silent, but his face relaxed into a look of content, and William blessed the hundred crowns of the Anabaptist that had served to soothe the bitterness of failure and death for his friend.
For a while they remained thus, the Prince kneelingand holding the tired right hand that had been unfailing in his service, the Count with his face pressed to the pillow and his eyes closed.
William thought of the tumultuous days in Antwerp when Hoogstraaten, and he only, had stood faithfully and bravely by his side—thought of all the long, loyal, sincere friendship that went back to the old gay times of feast and joust, hawking and hunting—the times when neither Anthony de Lalaing nor he had ever dreamt of such an hour as this. He thought, too, of the Countess at Dillenburg—waiting—already in mourning for one brother dead, and one doomed to die—waiting for the news—the news which would be that of a third bereavement; he thought of Anne at Cologne, cringing before Alva, and wondered if she would not be glad if her husband, that great heretic and rebel, was dead too.
Towards midnight the sick man spoke again, recommending his poor wife—he said twice, with a great sigh, "My poor wife!"—to the Prince, and begging him help, should occasion offer, his child, for the Count was beggared in the cause for which he died, and the Montmorencys, his wife's people, were more than beggared.
"Not to be a burden to you," he insisted in his weak, hoarse voice, "but—what you can—if Hoorne had been here——"
William promised, and the Count carried the Prince's hand to his heart and held it there.
He was now so clearly failing that Louis and other officers came to say farewell; he was still a Romanist, but there was no priest in the camp. A Lutheran minister brought him what comfort he could.
"It is no matter," said Hoogstraaten, who was now past formulas. "God must judge of me—into Thy hands—into Thy hands——"
Before the dawn he died, and the party he had espoused was the poorer for his loss, and the Prince a lonelier man.
"I am glad you have the supplies," were his last words, spoken so low that none but William, who held his head on his breast, could hear. "I am glad that gold came from Holland."
William, too, was glad for many reasons.
CHAPTER IXWINTER TIME
The castle of Dillenburg was now a house of mourning, the Countess of Hoogstraaten now wore black also; all the women went softly, talking in whispers, and shuddering when a messenger rode into the courtyard.
Count John was desperately employed in raising money for the Prince; a further mortgage was put on such lands as they still could control, further portions of the Prince's possessions—those few he had retained for himself were sold; his chapel furniture was melted to obtain the gold and silver it contained, he had himself sold by auction all his camp equipment—even his horses, his weapons, his armour—leaving himself with one mount, one sword, one suit of mail like any poor trooper.
He had sent orders that his remaining household should be dismissed. Some had gone with Anne to Cologne; others, scenting ruin, had already dispersed; the remainder left, now returning to their homes or seeking other employment. The Prince, who had been the most richly attended of any man in the Netherlands, had now not one servant; and he, the splendour of whose garments had been one of the glories of the capital, now wrote to his brother to send him "Two more pair of hose—the mended silk ones in my cabinet and those under repair at the tailor"; he who had always been regally magnificent in his gifts, now besought John to "find a good grey horse, which might be paid for by one of the silver ornaments stillremaining in my cabinet, or a piece of the chapel service," with which to reward one of his faithful agents.
He had tried to persuade his troops to take service with the French Huguenots, but they had refused, and demanded to be led back to Germany; he was accordingly at Strasburg, where he disbanded this army on which so many gallant hopes had been set, and which had ruined him so utterly.
The gloom deepened over Dillenburg, even John, usually so resolute and cheerful, appeared sombre; he too was almost ruined; his fortune and his children's heritage had largely vanished in this fruitless and fatal campaign; he saw himself burdened with debts and liabilities which it was scarcely possible he could ever repay.
The women cried in secret, but were outwardly serene, and Juliana of Stolberg wrote encouraging letters to the Prince and to Louis, and her dreads and terrors only showed for an instant in the words with which she besought them to have a care of Henry and not needlessly risk his young life.
In this household Rénèe le Meung still lingered, supported by the kindness of the Countess of Nassau and her daughters in what was the blackest period of her sad life.
In the flight of Anne she saw her own failure, the collapse of her own long years of patient labour—all had been useless. Anne had fulfilled her destiny, and the waiting-woman was left without occupation and without any object in life—behind her the wasted barren years, before her a hopeless future.
She was as bankrupt as the Prince and as lonely.
It was clear she could not remain at Dillenburg; she was but a burden and an encumbrance in a household beginning to be run with the strictest economy. Anne had fiercely refused to take her to Cologne, nor did Rénèe wish to go, for her influence over the Princess had ceased and Anne was openly defying her husband and her kinsfolk.She was living at Cologne surrounded by any rabble she could find to sympathize with her, and she had put her legal affairs—her frantic attempts to recover her property, and her wild expedients to raise money—into the hands of Jan Rubens, the Brussels' lawyer.
Rénèe sickened to think of this; her whole spirit was crushed by the misfortunes which had overwhelmed not only her country and her faith but all she cared for, and the little world in which she had moved and served.
There was no further occupation for her at Dillenburg; William's children were in charge of his mother and sisters and of the Landgravine Elisabeth, Count John's wife.
The Court of the Elector Palatine—that refuge of all persecuted Protestants—occurred to Rénèe; some German ladies she had known at Dresden were prepared to welcome her there.
She suggested this plan to the Countess of Nassau one heavy November day when they walked in the castle gardens to catch the faint chill glimpse of the winter sun.
"You, too, are eager to leave us!" exclaimed the Countess, who could not forget Anne's fierce denunciations of the dulness of the life at Dillenburg.
"No, Madame, no," said Rénèe eagerly; "but I must work—in some way I must justify my life—or die."
Juliana pressed her hand kindly.
"I know, my child, I know. There is indeed nothing but idleness for you here where we women are too many already."
"It is terrible to be a woman!" cried Rénèe. "Too many, ah yes, too many!"
"But we are not useless," said the Countess gently.
The waiting-woman answered with passionate conviction—
"Not such women as you with five sons!—but women such as I! I am like a dead leaf before the breeze; if I am cast away and lost, no one will be the poorer. If I had been a man, however mean and humble, I could havefollowed—followed," she avoided the Prince's name, "the Protestant flag—I could have at least died. It is not even permitted to women to die nobly."
The Countess looked at her curiously and was silent. To Juliana also the enclosed life of a woman seemed at times terrible; there was something awful in this post in the background, always to be patient, always serving, always waiting—worst of all, the waiting.
At that moment the fate of the women seemed worse than that of the men; their piteous figures stood out mournfully against the red background of the persecutions and the war: Sabina of Egmont left starving with her children at the mercy of the man who had slain her husband; the Dowager Countess of Hoorne, having lost one son on the scaffold, moving heaven and earth to save the other from a similar fate; Hélène, Montigny's wife, widowed after a four month's marriage, and weeping a husband enclosed in the hopeless depths of a Spanish prison; the Countess of Hoogstraaten, ruined, thrice bereaved; the Countess of Aremberg suddenly widowed; and all those more obscure women who were orphaned, bereft of husband and child, spurned from their dismantled homes to beg or starve.
Perhaps it was better to be a man and face a swift death in the open field.
"But we have no choice," said the Countess, with a little smile that creased her fresh wrinkled face; "we must do what falls to our lot and not think of the difficulties."
"What falls to me?" asked Rénèe; "no one wants me, nor ever has since my mother died. The Princess always hated me. I made no friends; my home, my family, was swept away in a ruin that has pursued everything I have loved or cared for ever since—my country, my faith, my——"
She checked herself suddenly and went pale.
"... Your love?" finished the Countess softly. "Surely you have loved some one?"
Rénèe hesitated a moment then answered in a low voice—
"Yes, I loved. Some one who is not of my station and who hardly knows my name nor my face. He—he went to the war, and he, like all, is quite ruined now and quite desolate. Probably I shall never see him again."
She stopped suddenly and faced the Countess, her warm rich beauty glowing in the grey air against the grey background of garden wall and castle.
"That is my story and my life," she said. "What would you do with such a life, Madame?"
Truly the Countess did not know; her own years had been so full that she could not picture an empty existence.
"You cannot understand," added Rénèe, "what it is to mourn the loss of what you never had."
"You will love again," said the Countess, whose outlook was eminently practical and sane, "or at least you will take a husband, and then your life will be full."
"Some women love once only, alas for them!" answered Rénèe, "perhaps it is a foolishness, but one cannot change one's heart."
Then she shrank into herself and was once more enfolded in reserve deeper than before, as if afraid of having said too much.
The sun had disappeared now, to be seen no more that day, and dark clouds full of rain or perhaps snow closed over the sky. The two women returned to the castle, which was cheerful with the light of great wood fires and pleasant with the sound of children playing.
By the hooded chimney-piece of the dining-room, where the meal was being already prepared, sat Vanderlinden, the Elector Augustus' alchemist. He had been sent by his master, who still placed implicit faith in his charts and tables, to persuade Count John that further exertions on the behalf of the Netherlands were useless, and that the stars plainly indicated that the Prince should return to Germany and not risk his fortunes further.
It was strange to Rénèe to see the old man and recallhow she had last seen him at the brilliant Leipsic wedding, and to think of all that had gone between, and how that famous marriage had ended, and yet how, in a circle, things had come round, and how Augustus was still consulting the stars and casting horoscopes and charts, and the alchemist still searching for the Philosopher's Stone and only a little greyer and more bent than before.
His talk was still of his experiments; outside events had touched him very little, and he took but a slight interest in the tasks of fortune-telling the Elector, his patron, set him. His eyes were still fixed on the Great Discovery, themagnum opus—eternal gold, eternal youth, eternal health—and in the pursuit of this object, for which he had lost both gold, youth, and health, he was as eager and as sanguine as he had ever been.
He remembered Rénèe, and asked if she still had the charm he had given her; she showed it to him instantly, her only ornament, hidden in the folds of her cambric vest.
She asked the old man if he had heard of Duprès, and he told her calmly, without surprise, that the skryer, after escaping from the bloody rout of Jemmingen, had returned to him at Dresden and begged to be taken into his old master's service.
"They always return at length these restless rascals," added Vanderlinden. "And I have taken him back, for he is clever, and when the mood is on him can raise the spirits in the crystal."
So Duprès' tale had ended in a circle too, and he was back again at his old employment under his old master; somehow Rénèe was glad that he was not in Cologne.
The Countess of Nassau joined the two as they stood and talked by the fire.
"Well, Magister," she said, "do you still hope to find the Philosopher's Stone?"
"I do not despair at all, Your Excellency," he answered quietly.
"But if there is no such stone?" asked the Countess.
He smiled as one who cannot restrain his amusement at the foolishness of the ignorant.
"It has been discovered, Madame, many times," he answered gently.
"And always lost again?"
"And always lost."
"That is strange, Magister, that more care was not taken to preserve such a secret."
"Ah, Madame, it is too great a thing to be lightly imparted from one man to another; it can only be attained after much labour, much suffering, prayer, and humiliation."
"It would change the world," said Rénèe, and she thought of the Prince and how gold was all the difference between success and failure. William had failed through lack of it; for that reason Alva might fail too.
"It would be a terrible power," added the Countess thoughtfully. "Perhaps it is as well that it is not often discovered."
The old man stroked his beard and looked into the fire silently; he seemed so humble, so serene, so insignificant, that Rénèe wondered why he was so eager for gold and power. Then she thought that perhaps he cared for neither, and that he had pitted himself against this secret as William had pitted himself against Philip, and that in both it was not the thought of the reward that urged them on to undertake tasks seemingly impossible, but the glory of the struggle, the mighty pleasure of overcoming, the ultimate hope of attainment.
"And my sons?" asked Juliana of Stolberg; "what disastrous prophecies have you made against the House of Nassau?"
Vanderlinden came from his dreams with a sigh.
"They might all be safe if they would be warned," he said. "Your Excellency heard that an astrologer warned Count Hoorne not to go to Brussels? And yet he went and died."
"A brave man cannot take these warnings," said the Countess stoutly. "It is not for Princes and leaders to count the cost of the steps they make, nor to think of their own lives."
"Then my charts and tables are useless," replied the alchemist.
"They please the Elector," said Juliana.
The alchemist was silent; he knew himself that his prophecies did little more than amuse his master.
"You shall speak to Count John, as the Elector bade you," resumed the Countess, "but you will not suppose that any one can turn back the Count nor his brothers from what they have set their hands to."
She spoke with pride and courage, but sorrowfully, as one who sees clearly and unfalteringly ahead and sees nothing but grief and trouble.
With an unconscious gesture of patience she folded her hands together and looked at the window against which big drops of rain were beginning to splash.
Her thoughts had returned to her three defeated sons at Strasburg, as the alchemist's thoughts had returned to the Elixir of life and wealth. Rénèe, standing between them, felt forgotten by both; she, too, was thinking of Strasburg and of the man there disbanding his troops in humiliation and failure.