SCHEVENINGEN
The Prince drew rein at the Palace steps.
“Bromley,” he said.
The Englishman came down to his master’s stirrup.
“Is M. Fagel here?”
“Yes, Highness; he is waiting for you.”
“Ah!” William patted his horse’s neck.
“Hath he come from the Assembly?”
“Yes, Highness--Their Noble Mightinesses sat all night.”
“I trust that they have come to a wise decision,” remarked the Prince.
“And, Bromley, have you discovered the whereabouts of M. Triglandt?”
“Highness, I wrote to Utrecht----”
“I wrote there,” interrupted William impatiently, “and my letter was
returned, as M. Triglandt had left his lodgings.”
“Highness, I have discovered that he fell ill----”
“Ill!” exclaimed the Prince.
“--and was conveyed by relatives to Arnheim----”
“Well, you will write there and give him my commands to return to the
Hague.”
William flung the reins to his groom and dismounted.
“You may add,” he continued, “that I take the first occasion to ask his
return, and that any friend of mine is honoured in the Hague now.”
He smiled with his eyes and touched Mr. Bromley on the arm with his
whip.
“Tell them to keep the horse, as afterwards I am promised at the ‘Huis
ten bosch.’”
Then he turned slowly into the house.
M. Gaspard Fagel, a man of talents but a servile spirit, the rival of
M. de Witt, and already almost completely under the influence of the
Prince, waited in the library, or the chamber that served for such;
the room where Van Mander had first seen the Prince, and where William
always received such as waited on him.
The Prince entered, booted, spurred, carrying his riding-whip and
wearing his hat.
“Ah, M. Fagel.”
He held out his bare right hand, and the Secretary of the Republic
kissed it humbly.
William did not uncover, but his manner was gracious. He knew Gaspard
Fagel for what he was--able, industrious, cunning, a man who would be a
tool.
It was men just such as he that William needed. There were many of
them among the servants of the Republic, and very few had resisted the
advances of the heir of Nassau.
“I must congratulate you personally on your appointment, M. Fagel,”
said the Prince, seating himself in front of the desk, between the
windows.
“Your Highness is very good,” and M. Fagel bowed. He was a well-looking
man, richly dressed in green and gold, of a far more pompous appearance
than William, who wore a plain brown roquelaure and beaver.
“You come from the Assembly, Mynheer?”
“Yes, Highness--to report to you privately the resolution that will be
made public to-day.”
“Will you not be seated, Mynheer?”
M. Fagel obeyed, and fixed his small, intelligent eyes keenly and half
anxiously on the Prince.
The early morning sunshine was pale and misty in the chamber. William
sat with his back to the light, his hat and heavy feather shading his
face, so that the astute Secretary could very ill see his countenance.
“There has been a most fierce fight in the Assembly, Highness--M. de
Witt exerted every nerve, and the whole power of the Government was
brought to bear on the situation.”
“But I believe my friends were in the majority, Mynheer,” answered
William.
“It was an almost equal struggle, Highness. M. de Witt spoke for
two hours against your appointment; M. Jacob de Witt vehemently
seconded him, M. Vivien supported them, and they found allies in the
representatives of Amsterdam.”
William bent his whip across his knee; the powerful city had always
been the enemy of his House.
M. Fagel wiped his brow and his lips; he had been up all night, and
looked excited and fatigued.
“What was the result of this debate?” asked the Prince quietly.
The Secretary crushed his handkerchief up in his nervous right hand.
“It has been decided to offer Your Highness the Captain Generalship----”
“Without restrictions, Mynheer?”
“That was impossible--we had to come to a compromise with M. de Witt.”
The Prince’s grasp tightened on his whip.
“What compromise, Mynheer?”
M. Fagel, whose one object was to obtain the favour of the head of the
Orange party, winced at the tone of this question.
“Your Highness must consider----” he began.
William cut him short.
“Tell me straightly, M. Fagel.”
The Secretary bit his lip uneasily.
“We have obtained for Your Highness, on condition that you take the
oaths never to attempt the Stadtholdership----”
“M. Van Odyk told me of that precaution of M. de Witt--I have no
objection, Mynheer. He who binds can loose.”
“On this condition, and provided war is declared, Their Noble
Mightinesses will offer you the Captain Generalship for one campaign,
with option to continue the appointment or no at their discretion.”
“For one campaign----” repeated William.
“It was all, Highness, that our utmost endeavours could obtain.” M.
Fagel spoke with humility.
William rose abruptly.
“Their Noble Mightinesses may spare themselves this offer, Mynheer,” he
said hotly, “for I shall refuse the post.”
“Your Highness!”
The Prince turned on him, the whip clenched in his right hand.
“Unless the appointment is made for life I shall refuse it; and
I marvel, Mynheer, that you should come to me with so paltry a
compromise.”
“Your Highness will not be wise to reject it--your firmness will only
further anger M. de Witt, who was with difficulty brought to this
concession.”
“If you permit the Assembly to make this offer it will be declined,”
returned William haughtily. “You may tell my friends so--I will not be
put on trial nor be satisfied with such a poor honour.”
M. Fagel saw in this a proud indiscretion of youth. The dignity that
the Prince despised had been wrung from John de Witt with much labour;
to refuse it, M. Fagel, a man of cautious policy, thought unwise and
dangerous.
“Your Highness will think of this----”
William interrupted--
“My decision is made, M. Fagel. I shall not depart from it.”
The Secretary ventured to protest--
“The advice of your friends----”
“No one’s advice, Mynheer, would alter my resolution.”
M. Fagel was twice the Prince’s age, and an experienced statesman;
but he was dominated by William utterly. John de Witt and some few
others were alone in coming in contact with the Prince and escaping
his powerful, masterful influence. M. Fagel, a man in every way his
inferior, he almost openly despised.
“There is not a man in the United Provinces does not desire my
election,” he said. “The people are with me--Their High Mightinesses
had better beware. Tell the Assembly no compromise will be
accepted--none.”
He was breathing fast and with difficulty; it was obvious that he was
unusually angry and unusually near to losing his self-control. He
coughed, and took a quick turn about the room holding his hand to his
side.
“I am sorry that we have disappointed Your Highness,” said M. Fagel,
already stung into regretting that he and his party had been induced
into giving way to the opposition of M. de Witt.
“Go back and do better,” answered William, with a flashing glance. “Are
you afraid of M. the Grand Pensionary and his supporters? I have the
people--you, and John de Witt, had best remember it----”
“I did what I could to serve Your Highness.”
“What you could?--when you bring this to me!”
M. Fagel strove to justify himself. The Prince silenced him haughtily.
“Is this a moment to show timidity--when M. de Witt carries it with a
firm front? If you had not given way he had been forced to--I have both
General Wurtz and Prince Charles, Prince John Maurice and de Ruyter on
my side.”
M. Fagel could not forget that John de Witt was still the head of the
Government.
“A compromise----” he began.
His smooth voice and the word he used stung the Prince into a rare
exhibition of temper. He turned violently, with dark, fierce eyes and
the whip bent double in his hand.
“Be damned to your compromise!” he cried. “John de Witt and the
chaffering tradesmen who support him will have the French across the
Rhine before the army is under canvas. I’ll have none of your cursed
‘ifs’ or ‘buts’--’tis all--or they save themselves.”
He snatched up his glove from where he had flung it on his entry.
“That is my answer, M. Fagel,” he said passionately, “and any
remonstrance on the matter I shall consider an insult.”
The Secretary bowed.
He knew what de Pomponne had discovered, that the Prince was “tolerably
firm and tolerably positive, and once he hath taken his resolution to
argue with him is waste breath.”
He was aware, also, that what William wished he began to obtain, and
that the expression “the country is with me” was no figment of speech.
The United Provinces were behind William of Orange, and to the rising
power the prudent statesman made his court.
He already had learnt something of the character of the Prince he
intended to serve, already guessed at something of the imperious
passion behind the contained exterior.
Now he had proof of it, and it spurred and stimulated him. He bore not
the least ill-will to William for his anger. It seemed that the Prince
was one of those who are served and beloved without effort on their
part. M. Fagel was more eager than ever to please him; in common with
many others, the chance of William’s taciturn thanks was more to him
than the certainty of M. de Witt’s courteous graciousness.
“We will do our best, Highness,” he said, rising from his chair.
William gave him a not wholly pleasant glance.
“Reflect on what I have said, M. Fagel,” he answered haughtily.
With that he flung open the door and was gone.
Mr. Bromley, waiting in the doorway in case his attendance was
required, fell back at once before the sight of his master’s face as
the Prince swept out into the sunlight.
The groom brought up the grey horse.
“Shall I accompany Your Highness?” ventured Mr. Bromley.
“No--I am not going to the ‘Huis ten bosch.’”
The Prince sprang into the saddle and caught up the reins.
Matthew Bromley, who knew him as well as any man was permitted to, saw
that he was in a passionate ill-humour.
“See M. Fagel out of the house--and get out of the way, Bromley.”
The horse, mettlesome and fierce, like all the Prince’s animals, had
grown restive with waiting, and tossed his head impatiently. But
William held him in with an ease that betrayed a good deal of strength
behind his delicate appearance.
“Stand out of the way,” he repeated, addressing Mr. Bromley and the
groom.
“Is Your Highness going alone?”
The Prince thrust his whip under his arm and scowled at the speaker in
a fashion that warned Mr. Bromley to be silent.
But the Englishman, disturbed at this rare passion on his master’s
part, persisted--
“Where are you going, Sir; is there no message?”
William turned in the saddle to look at him.
“I have allowed you too much license,” he said violently, “but, by God!
I am master among my own servants.”
Matthew Bromley stepped back and the Prince let the horse go; it sprang
forward, and William disappeared through the Palace gates.
Without troubling where he went he turned towards the outskirts of the
town, with the one idea of avoiding the people. He was fast becoming a
popular hero, but he never loved the crowd save in the abstract. All
public display of affection was distasteful to him; and to-day he was
too roused and angry to risk the chance of meeting either M. de Witt or
any member of the Assembly.
He had been defeated, bitterly disappointed. He was well used to taking
both defeat and disappointment, but this time his passion had slipped
his control. His bitter indignation against M. de Witt must find some
vent … if it were only a fierce gallop out of the Hague.
He found himself on the klinker paved road, edged with a double row
of straight trees. It led to Scheveningen, and with a quick memory of
the sea he turned towards the coast. The hour was still early, and a
frail sunshine quivered in the foliage and over the meadow-land that
stretched either side the road.
Through the blue haze of the damp morning rose the tall, dark forms of
windmills, with still sails poised against the delicate sky and the
clean brickwork of farms, green shuttered and ornamented with lines of
white; the black and white cattle, carefully covered with brown coats,
were grazing in the long, rich, fresh grass; here and there a villa
stood back among the trees with painted shutters open on treasures from
the East--a glowing carpet, a Chinese bowl, or a gaudy Macaw chattering
in an ebony ring.
The Prince slackened his pace.
Everything about him showed wealth, peace, and complete prosperity …
the great dangers looming on land and sea cast no shadow here.…
Here was a country to be given to the conqueror; here was a rich and
fertile kingdom for the insolent French to batten on.…
William gazed round with absorbed and resolute eyes as his horse’s
hoofs rang out on the klinkers in slackened beat.
There were few people abroad, and the Prince, being unattended and
attired like an ordinary gentleman, escaped notice; this fact, and the
novel sense of absolute freedom, served to dispel his ill-humour.
He had been solitary of soul all his life, and so used to loneliness
that he did not give it a name. But he had always been surrounded by
enemies, watched, spied upon, and forced to weigh every word and every
look; this sheer liberty of solitude was pleasant as it was new.
He cleared the houses and the trees and came out on to the dunes, low
sand hillocks grown with scant poplar shrubs.
Avoiding the village of Scheveningen, the Prince took the winding road
that led direct to the sea.
After a while the shrubs ceased and there was no growing thing--only
the low, rolling billows of dry white sand pierced with withered and
broken reeds. William rode slowly along the diminishing road, and
cresting a sandy ridge came in sight of the immense stretch of quiet
grey sea breaking in a curling line of foam on the desolate shore.
To his right, only a few yards above high-tide mark, stood a small
church with a blue-and-red tiled roof.
The steps were half buried in sand, and up to the very door the gaily
painted fishing-boats were drawn.
Behind and beyond were the dunes, broken only by the few houses of
Scheveningen to the left.
The Prince drew a deep breath of pleasure at the pure salt air, at
the quiet dunes and the misty sea, whose waves broke regularly with a
strong, falling sound.
He guided his horse over the shifting sand towards the church, and as
he neared it his keen glance perceived an old man seated on the edge of
one of the boats mending tawny nets.
A great flight of sea-birds, graceful, chattering, a strong, flashing
white in the pale sunshine, rose up as the horseman disturbed their
solitude, and flew out across the waveless sea.
The fisher was roused too by the unusual sound of jingling harness.
He looked up, and seeing a gentleman riding slowly across the sand, the
while he gazed thoughtfully out to sea, he dropped his net and stared.
He was used to gentlefolk from the Hague--but not so early in the year
as this.
The horse William rode was magnificent, of a Flemish breed, a stone
grey and shining like polished granite; he wore the least possible
harness, and his full, intelligent eyes were uncovered; he arched his
neck and trod daintily into the sand that shifted under his hoofs.
The fisherman stared stolidly at the horse, then lifted his eyes to the
rider.
He beheld a slight young man in a brown greatcoat and a rough beaver
with a black feather, black velvet breeches and waistcoat, top-boots,
and a plain cravat of Frisian needlework.
His face was turned towards the sea, and only his heavy auburn hair was
visible under his broad-leaved hat.
The fisherman turned his attention again to the horse, as the more
interesting of the two.
Then suddenly the Prince turned and looked at him.
The fisherman doffed his cap.
“Good morning, Mynheer.”
“Good morning,” answered the Prince, and swerved the horse towards the
fishing-boats and the church.
“We have no wind to-day,” said the fisherman, picking up his net.
“No.” William was observing him.
He was a stout, red-faced man, clad in huge dark blue breeches, a
striped turquoise coloured shirt, woollen hose, heavy wooden sabots,
and a round red cap.
His throat was covered by an emerald green scarf; he held a thick pipe
between his lips, and on a finger of his left hand shone a large gold
ring.
He surveyed the Prince with a calm curiosity.
“We do not see many strangers at Scheveningen,” he remarked, “as early
as this.”
“No,” the Prince assented. “Yet it is very pleasant here.”
“Have you come from the town, Mynheer?” He indicated the Hague by a
jerk of his thumb over his shoulder.
“Even so.”
“I was up there--last Sunday.”
William said nothing, but he did not look forbidding.
“There was a riot,” continued the fisherman, with a kind of reserved
interest.
“There often is.”
“It was outside the Stadhuis.”
“I heard of it.”
“The people were shouting against M. de Witt.”
“It is not uncommon.”
The fisherman looked up from his net.
“Are you a soldier, Mynheer?”
“At present I am merely a private citizen; but I think I shall some day
be a soldier.”
The man shifted his pipe between his teeth.
“If there is war, Mynheer?”
“Yes, if there is war.”
The fisherman nodded approvingly.
“We shall all need to be soldiers if we want to keep the French out,
Mynheer.”
William delicately guided his horse a little nearer.
“I should like to go into the church.”
“Well, it is open, Mynheer.”
At this the Prince dismounted.
“Where can I secure my horse?” he asked.
“There is a house behind the church----”
“Deserted, it seems.”
“_He_ was killed under de Ruyter, and his wife died last year”--the
fisherman gave slow information. “A youngster from the Hague has it
now, but you can fasten up your horse to the door-post.”
William gave grave thanks, and led the horse across the sloping sand
hillocks and secured him carefully to one of the stakes comprising the
broken fencing that surrounded the closed house.
When he returned the fisherman had bent over his work as if he had
forgotten him.
But the Prince did not enter the church; he came and stood with one
hand resting on the long fishing-boat, his eyes fixed on the sea.
The early sunlight had already faded.
A pale mist blew off the water and hurried across the land; the great
expanse was bounded by the curtain of vapour and the little village
blotted out of sight.
Shore and ocean were grey together, divided only by the white, breaking
line of the surf murmuring on the beach.
Vague and endless the sand dunes stretched against the sky pierced with
the straight clusters of reeds, dry and gaunt.
The large, white sea-birds flew out of the curling fog and settled
along the wet line of shining sand the retreating foam left bare.
The fisherman turned a heavy gaze on the motionless figure of the
stranger.
“You are new to the Hague?”
“No, I have lived there all my life.”
“What brings you to Scheveningen, Mynheer?”
The man spoke sullenly, almost as if he resented the intrusion.
William turned.
“I wished to see--that.”
He pointed to the quiet ocean.
The Netherlander nodded; it was a feeling he could understand.
“Also,” added William, “I was in an ill-humour and came here to be rid
of it.”
“It is quiet enough.”
“Yes.”
They were both so used to the mist that they scarcely noticed it.
“Will the boats go abroad to-day?” asked the Prince.
“There is no wind.”
The net gathered in a great heap at the fisherman’s feet as his long
needle flew over the meshes; he moved, and the dried seaweed crackled
under his sabots.
“I saw de Ruyter’s fleet go past--when I was on my herring boat--two
days ago … great ships … I thought the lanterns on the masts were
stars.”
“They are under weigh to meet the India fleet,” answered the Prince.
“Ay, they say the English are waiting to drop on us--because of the
herring fisheries too. Do you believe that, Mynheer?”
William seated himself on the end of the boat.
“I do,” he answered briefly.
An intent look came into the old man’s face that was cut and seamed
like a walnut-shell and the colour of bronze above his vivid scarf.
“You think there will be war?”
“I do,” said William again.
“With France?”
“And England.”
The fisherman’s eyes, that were still a bright blue, narrowed to slits
of light.
“De Ruyter beat the English once--I remember it--when they brought home
the _Royal Charles_.”
“That is what they would make us pay for now.”
“M. de Witt is for peace.”
William bent his whip across his knee.
“Nevertheless I think it will be war … the French are on the frontier.”
“Curse M. de Witt!”
The Prince looked at the man sharply.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because he would sell us all to the French.”
William smiled scornfully.
“I thought it was the Prince of Orange of whom they said that----”
“The Prince!--it is the Prince of Orange who will save us.”
William slightly flushed.
“You think so?” he asked softly.
“Ay, I know it, Mynheer.”
The answer was given with simple, unconscious confidence, and the
Prince’s colour deepened.
“I am not the only one who thinks so either,” continued the fisherman,
taking out his pipe; “it is the thought of all the Netherlands.”
“Yet you know nothing of William of Orange.”
“He has had no chance … M. de Witt’s prisoner … but now M. de Witt will
go.”
William looked at the ever changing, never ending line of surf. He
was now pale, even to the lips, and was so long silent that it seemed
suspicious to the other.
“Perhaps you are one of the Grand Pensionary’s men,” he suggested, with
an accent of dislike.
“I am no friend to John de Witt.”
The fisherman chuckled, relieved.
“I think he has not many friends left now.”
“The Assembly support him,” answered William slowly.
“And the people support the Prince … let him ask for anything we will
give it him.”
William turned his brilliant eyes on the speaker.
“Why are you so devoted to His Highness?” he asked.
The fisherman reflected; he seemed puzzled.
“I know not--he is William of Orange,” he answered at last.
“You would trust him with the Captain Generalship----?”
“With everything--by God, I would! we are tired of M. de Witt.”
The Prince coughed and made no answer.
Knocking the ashes out of his pipe, the fisherman spoke again--
“He has kept the Prince out of his inheritance for twenty years.”
“’Tis so,” said William quietly.
“Well, now he is going to pay for it.”
“You think so?”
“Wait and see, Mynheer.”
William smiled.
“I have been waiting to see--for a long while.”
“Then you are for the Prince too;” the fisherman expressed a stolid
satisfaction.
“I am for my country,” replied William evasively, “and that is a bigger
question.… It is not the Grand Pensionary or the Prince … but our
freedom or our downfall.”
“William of Orange will save us,” repeated the fisherman.
William smiled, half bitterly.
“I wonder.”
The other was roused to argument.
“That has been said to me before--it was by Heinrich Potts--‘Your
Prince has never heard a shot nor been under canvas,’ he said--‘and he
has no strength to live through one campaign.’”
He paused.
William looked down at him as he methodically refilled his pipe.
“Well?--the first is true--the second well may prove so.”
“I answered nothing to that--but he added--‘Your Prince is in league
with his uncle--why not?--and the King of France. If we give him the
power, he’ll sell us all to them.’”
“I have heard that before,” said William slowly, looking out to sea.
“Well, Mynheer, I never believed it--but Potts said, ‘Why not?’ … and I
emptied his tankard in his face.… He said M. de Witt was a good man.”
“I think he is,” commented William dryly.
“But you are for the Prince?” urged the fisherman. “He will save us
from M. de Witt and from the French,” he added.
There was a pause, then the old Netherlander began anew--
“They say the Prince of Tarentum pays court to him, and wants him to
marry his daughter. Do you think that is true?”
“M. de Tarentum flies too high; I do not think the Prince will marry a
subject.”
“I am glad of it.”
He looked up shrewdly into the young man’s face.
“You are from the Hague, you will know something of affairs----”
He paused.
“Do you know anything of the Prince?” he asked at length.
William turned his head away. “A little.”
The fisherman spread his huge brown hands on his knees.
“What do you think he will do, Mynheer?--in the matter of the war?”
“You believe in him, you say?”
“Ay, I do … to hell with M. de Witt!”
“Then, believing in him, ye know well what he will do.”
“Defy the French?”
William kept his gaze upon the sea.
“That would be madness, they say.”
“Defy them--that is what the Prince will do, I swear to ye, Mynheer!”
With that he tilted his head a little and watched the long wreaths of
blue smoke disappear into the misty air.
William was silent, slightly frowning; his expression was thoughtful,
as if he considered weighty matters.
The mist seemed to gather and deepen; it broke against the old church
and hurried away across the sand dunes, blotting them out.
A little sound like a satisfied sigh, repeated once or twice, came
from somewhere near the Prince. He looked round, and saw in the bottom
of the boat against which he leaned a large and gaily dressed child,
sitting up and rubbing its eyes.
Conscious in a moment of the gaze turned on it, with surprising
rapidity it scrambled out of the boat and shook out voluminous skirts.
It wore a tight bodice worked with yellow and red roses, striped
sleeves of blue and white, and enormous skirts of a bright green colour
that stuck out as if the little person had been thrust through a half
apple.
A close lace cap was drawn over its head, and from under it hung long,
pale yellow curls, framing a smooth, expressionless face of rosy brown
with large china-blue eyes.
The fisherman gave it a stolid nod.
William turned on it the remote but curious gaze of youth surveying
infancy.
“Is it a boy?” he asked.
“My grandson, Mynheer.”
The fisherman pointed out in the back of the baby’s cap the coloured
button that showed its sex.
“He has been asleep in the boat … he sleeps all day.”
The baby collapsed rather than sat down on the wreaths of dry seaweed
and stared stolidly at the Prince.
A couple of screaming sea-birds started up from the mist-drenched land
and flew out across the grey depths of shrouded sea.
“The wind is getting up,” remarked the fisherman. “The boats will be
able to put out to-night.”
William took no notice, he seemed absorbed in his own thoughts.
“Tell me what you think the Prince will do,” urged the fisherman, who
was beginning to feel some awe of the stranger. “What kind of a man is
he?” he added, jerking the nets across his knee.
The baby staggered to its feet, shaking a coral and silver ornament
depending from its waist; it fell at once on its face, with an
unchanged expression rose again and clutched at the Prince’s hand to
steady itself.
“He wants to get into the boat again,” said William respectfully.
The baby blinked up at him and kept a tight grasp on his glove.
The Prince deferred to the grandfather as to what line of action was to
be taken with this novelty.
“Shall I put him into the boat again?” he asked.
“Nay, Mynheer, let him be--he sleeps too much, that is why he is so
fat.”
“I like him,” said William gravely. “I have never seen a child so close
before.”
The fisherman was not enthusiastic; he returned to his point.
“What can you tell me of the Prince, Mynheer?”
William gave him an intent look.
“What can _I_ tell you of the Prince of Orange?”
His gaze fastened itself once more on the line of surf, ever falling,
ever renewed; his manner dropped into an absorption.
“He had an unhappy childhood,” he said--“I think so.… He was a prisoner
… and he had high desires … also he was weakly, ill-health made his
days a burden to him … he knew always that he could not live at the
utmost to more than middle life.… Well, his life had been maimed for
him before he was born … and with the loneliness and the humiliation,
and the long hours of pain, he was sometimes near despair … but God
supported him … I believed, always----… What was I saying?… He believed
in predestination … so I think; … that God had set him apart, made him
so different from other men, because He had an especial mission for him
… the protection of the Church of the Reformed Religion … he believed
in that always … and he hated the French and the Romish Faith … and he
loved his country.”
The speaker’s voice fell very low.
“I can say this for him … that while he draws his breath--such as
these,” he looked down at the little child, “shall not inherit slavery
… the Netherlands shall own no second Alva.…”
The fisherman sat silent.
“That is all I know of the Prince of Orange,” added William. “As yet he
hath had no chance … no chance to prove himself.”
“Ye know him very well,” said the old man after a weighty pause. “And I
am sure that he is even as you say. A second Alva! King Louis would be
a second Philip--but we have still a William of Orange.”
The baby had dropped to the sand again, and the Prince rose, turned,
and without further word entered the humble church.
For a moment he stood at the door, looking at the whitewashed
interior, the stiff wooden pews, the tablets to the memory of sailors,
and the little brass models of ships that hung from the rafters;
thank-offerings from those who had escaped dire perils at sea.
In his ears was the perpetual roar of the waves, and in his nostrils
the salt breeze of the ocean.
After a while he returned to the boats and walked up and down
thoughtfully.
“The youngsters will be coming to the farm,” remarked the fisherman.
“They have a printing press there.”
“Ah, who are they?” asked the Prince sharply.
“Young men from the Hague--Orangists--they print pamphlets against M.
de Witt--I know it--they composed that last, _Advice to every Faithful
Hollander_--they talk big too--Jounker Van der Graef is one--and his
father a magistrate!”
The child was crawling round the edge of the boat; it lifted a grave
face to the Prince, who stooped and picked it up.
Twenty-five years or so afterwards, when a great king who had broken
the power of France, freed England, and formed one of the hugest
coalitions the world has known, famous as a statesman, glorious as a
soldier, died in a palace very far from Scheveningen--his life-work
done, a young fisherman amid the grief of Holland recalled with awe
that William of Orange had once held him in his arms.…
William placed him gently in the boat, then turned rather sharply.
“What is that?” he asked.
Through the rise and fall of the surf might be distinctly heard the
sound of approaching people, talking, and even laughing, as if they had
lost their way in the mist.
“The Jounker Van der Graef and his companions,” said the fisherman.
“They are coming here?”
“As I said, Mynheer.”
The Prince hastened to loosen his horse and to remount, but as he leapt
to the saddle several figures emerged out of the fog.
William turned the grey horse away from Scheveningen towards the
undulating, obscure lines of the sand dunes.
But they had seen him.
“A stranger!” cried the foremost.
The Prince gave a glance at him over his shoulder.
“Ah!” Jacob Van der Graef caught his breath and fell back a pace.
The Prince put spurs to his horse and galloped away along the dunes; in
a moment he was a mere shadowy shape against the sea fog.
Jacob Van der Graef ran down the beach to where the old fisherman sat.
“The Prince of Orange!” he cried excitedly. “What was he doing here?…”
William, riding through the grey loneliness, was thinking of these
hot-head conspirators.
“They are fools,” he said. “But there are times when fools may be
useful.”