THE travelers drove slowly onwards in the fading light and the deepening twilight—deepening faster than its wont, for heavy masses of cloud moved above them, to their eyes slowly and majestically, though in fact they were rushing together with the speed of a mighty storm.
The neglected road was full of ruts, over which the spring less cart jolted heavily. Roskĕ clung to her mother; though, being a brave child, she did not cry, but occupied herself in soothing the terrors of ‘Kaatje,’ and informing her they would soon be ‘somewhere’ and have supper.
‘We are all right,’ said Rose, after a worse shock than usual, in answer to Adrian’s inquiry. ‘But can you not drive a little faster? I fear a storm is coming on. All day have felt thunder in the sir.’
Drive faster! Adrian could scarcely see a yard before him in the gathering darkness, and he knew that on each side of the road, which was quite unprotected, there were deep sluyts full of water. A false step might mean death.
‘I dare not,’ he answered. ‘But I think the house they told us of must be near. We ought soon to see the light: that will guide us. There was a turn, they said. We must watch.’
A flash of lightning, gone almost ere they saw it, gleamed serosa the sky. Then came a blinding torrent of rain full in their faces. Then a roll of thunder, at which the horse started, and swerved aside.
‘I must get down and lead him,’ Adrian shouted through the noise. ‘Hold on firmly, both of you!’
Flash after flash of lightning, roll after roll of thunder followed in quick succession; each more dazzling, louder, and with briefer intervals between. At last the thunder came crashing down over their very heads, before the blinding glare had left their eyes.
Up to this Adrian had kept the horse in motion. But that instant’s glare revealed the wheel on the very edge of the sluyt. He tugged with all his might at the head of the horse, who, already maddened by the lightning, broke from him with a plunge. There was a splash and a frightened cry, drowned, ere it ended, in another deafening thunder-peal.
The first thing Adrian saw in the darkness was the outline of the horse’s head. He sprang forward and seized the rein, shouting with all his might, ‘Rose—Roskĕ—where are, you?’
Presently a frightened little voice replied:
‘Here, father!’
‘Where?’
‘In the cart. Down in the water, holding on to the front. You told us to hold on.’
Adrian’s heart stood still with a horrible fear.
‘Where is mother?’ he cried.
‘I don’t know,’ wailed the little voice. ‘I can’t feel her. Take me off!—oh, take me off! The cart is going away.’
True enough. The horse was plunging and kicking wildly. He would surely turn the cart over in his struggles.
‘Hold on! Hold on for your life!’ cried Adrian. Thinking first of the nearest thing, he drew out his side-knife, groped in the dark for the harness, and contrived to cut the animal loose.
Where was Rose? he was asking himself wildly. In the ditch? Drowned? No, no! Surely that horror was impossible. Oh, for one moment of light! Another flash, even though it should blind him the instant after!
He felt about the cart, found the child, now sobbing with terror, and took her in his arms.
‘Did you hear any sound?’ he asked her, as much frightened himself as the little trembling creature he was clasping to his heart.
‘Mother cried out,’ she sobbed, ‘but it rained so I could hear no more.’
Then, as if in answer to his prayer, came another flash, not quite so blinding, yet bright enough to illumine the scene for an instant. The cart was in the sluyt, and he saw on the far side of it a prostrate figure. In the relief that was almost anguish he knew first what his terror had been. Thank God, she was not drowned! But was she dead, killed by the fall?
How could he possibly reach her? There had not been room for the cart to fall wholly into the sluyt; it lay across it, front upwards, sloping backwards. Could he climb over it, and get at her thus? A perilous task in the thick darkness—but what was peril to him then?
He set Roskĕ down on her feet in the rain and the darkness.
‘Will my little maid be very brave, and stay here quietly while I go to mother?’ he asked.
‘I’ll try,’ sobbed the child; but the next moment she cried aloud with a sudden change of voice, ‘Father, father! There’s some one singing!’
Could it be Rose’s voice the child, had heard?
With renewed hope he called ‘Rose, Rose!—My wife, my beloved—for God’s sake answer me!’
Then at last the long monotonous swish and moan of the falling torrent was broken by a blessed sound, ‘Adrian! Husband!’
‘Here, beloved!’ Adrian began with a glad cry, but it died into a hoarse murmur; now the great dread was over, his strength was failing. For a moment he stood as one stupefied. ‘Father,’ spoke the child again, ‘I hear some one singing.’ Adrian listened, and heard it too. Joyful token of hope and help, and human companionship nearer and clearer every moment a fresh young voice—a boy’s voice—was flung out into the darkness and the rain. A lower and more distant roll of thunder drowned it for an instant, then it came again. Adrian could even distinguish the words:
‘The sword is drawn now, God’s wakened vengeance lowers;
The sword is drawn now, the Apocalypse unrolled;
The sword is drawn now, God’s sword and wrath are ours;
The sword is drawn, which Apostle John foretold.’
‘Help! help! for God’s sake!’ shouted Adrian, breaking in upon these prognostications of vengeance. But the singer continued unhearing:
‘The innocent blood which you have caused to flow like water,
The innocent blood which your wicked hands hath stained,
The innocent blood cries out for blood and slaughter,
The innocent blood which, like dragons fell, ye drained.’
Here a pause in the song gave Adrian’s voice a chance. He succeeded this time, for the singer had come near. ‘Who goes there?’ he asked.
‘Travelers caught in the storm,’ replied Adrian; ‘our cart is overturned in the water, and my wife is thrown out. For God’s sake help me to find her!’
‘How is one to find anything in this darkness? But I will do what I can—where are you?’
‘Here—here!’ Guided by the sound, the stranger approached. At the same moment the voice of Rose reached them again. ‘Are you hurt, Adrian? Is Roskĕ hurt?’
Adrian reassured her, and asked if she was hurt herself. ‘I think I was stunned at first,’ she cried, ‘and a little bruised, perhaps. Nothing to speak of. But the water is between us. What shall I do?’
Just then Adrian felt his shoulder touched by a staff or pole. He looked round, and was able to discern at the other end of the pole the figure of a boy. ‘Ah, there I have you,’ said the new-comer cheerily. ‘Now, what shall I do?’
‘My wife is at the other side of the sluyt. Can we get her over?’
‘Whither are you going?’
‘To the dwelling of one Jäsewyk. I have a letter for him, from Master Kruytsoon of Rotterdam.’
‘Good. I suspect you carry a bowl and a wallet, Mynheer,’ (meaning that he was a ‘beggar’ politically; not at all in the ordinary sense of the word). ‘But the way to Jäsewyk lies on the other side. So you had better cross over to the lady, not the lady to you.’ Instinctively he said ‘the lady,’ something in Adrian’s voice and language having made him feel they were no peasants.
‘I have a child with me,’ said Adrian, once more lifting to his arms poor little Roskĕ, who had been clinging to his cloak, and crying quietly.
‘I can put him across easily. If only we had a little light! Here, by good luck, is my leaping pole. Can you use it, Mynheer?’
Adrian had often seen the long poles, shod with iron, which the peasants used in leaping the ditches that divided their fields. But he had never learned to use them, and he said so.
‘Then this is what we will do. I will go over to the lady and bring her to the next crossing, and do you and the child walk straight on and meet us. See, the storm is clearing off.’
Adrian looked up. The clouds were racing apart, and a long rift between them showed the moon.
Never was light more welcome. Thank God sighed Adrian. He could see Rose now, on the other side of the water, standing with outstretched arms. He saw his new friend also, a slender lad, whose black, tight-fitting garments, long ago drenched through and through, clung to him like a glove.
‘Now, Mynheer,’ said the boy, ‘you have only to walk straight on, to where you see that paling. The lady and I will meet you.’ He struck his pole into the ditch and sprang lightly over; and presently two figures were seen moving in the direction he had pointed out. Adrian, with Roskĕ in his arms, moved on also. There was light enough now to see the way.
When Rose and Adrian met on the little causeway, there was one precious moment of joy and thankfulness, snatched out of the jaws of peril. But now the drenched, shaken, bewildered wayfarers had to face the question, ‘What is to be done next?’
Adrian turned helplessly to his new friend.
‘Can we do anything with the horas and cart?’ he asked.
The boy shook his head.
‘Leave them till the morning. They will be safe enough. What there is left of them, that is to say. Happily for you, Mynheer, Jäsewyk’s house is not a league away, if we cross the fields to it.’
‘You know it, then?’
‘I live there. Old Jäsewyk is my grandfather. Mynheer, you can support the lady, if I carry the child.’
‘I can walk easily, with your arm,’ Rose said to her husband.
‘Now take the pole, Mynheer, it will help you along, and give the little one to me.’
Roskĕ, worn out with fatigue and terror, had fallen asleep the warm shelter of her father’s arms. Waking up, she began to cry, and to struggle against the transfer to those of a stranger—a very cold and wet stranger moreover.
‘Don’t be afraid, little master. Put your arm round my neck, and you shall ride like a king,’ said the boy.
‘I am not little master, I am Roskĕ, and I don’t want to ride like a king. Let me go to father,’ wailed the frightened child, still struggling with him.
‘Little lady, I dare not let you go. Your father has to help your mother; and this long grass is all steeped in rain, you could not walk. Won’t you trust me, little Lady Roskĕ?’
‘Who are you?’
‘Dirk Willemszoon, to serve you.’
‘Yes—I think I will stay with you, Dircque Guillaumesen,’ the little lady decided, after a few moments’ consideration, laying her head on the shoulder of her new friend. Roskĕ spoke French and Dutch or Flemish indifferently, as children do who have heard two tongues from their cradle; but she sometimes mixed them a little, or gave a French turn to Dutch word or name.
They walked on through the long soaking grass, Dirk with Roskĕ in his arms leading the way, Adrian and Rose following.
Rose, bruised and shaken, leant heavily on her husband’s arm, and only a brave heart and strong will kept her from falling outright, or imploring him to let her lie down and die.
Few words passed between them. Once Rose stumbled over some inequality in the ground, and Adrian’s strong arm held her up. ‘Art thou hurt, m’amie?’ he whispered.
‘No, beloved. But there is no path here.’
‘None that I can see. Only I see my guide,’ he added, glancing at the small black figure a few paces ahead of them.
‘No path that we can see. Only we see our Guide,’ Rose murmured. ‘Adrian, that helps me on.’
Meanwhile, the young guide’s task was not too easy. The child of six was a heavy weight for the boy of fourteen to carry, though he scarcely thought of that. He was too thankful that she was content to lie still and quiet in his arms, her head pillowed on his shoulder. He only hoped the moon would continue to shine when they entered the wood. The driving clouds threatened every moment to obscure it, and he feared the return of the rain. But he was bound to bring his helpless charge to Jäsewyk (so the dwelling was called, from its owner), and he would. Half unconsciously, as he strode on, he resumed his weird and awful song
‘Your fleshly arm is withering and shrinking,
Your fleshly arm which ye trusted, fierce and bold.’
Here he paused. ‘Go on, Dirk Guillaumesen,’ said his little charge imperatively—he had thought she was asleep. He went on—and a fierce exultation breathed in his tones: —
Your fleshly arm and the house it built are sinking,
Your fleshly arm is powerless and cold.
‘I like hymns, but I don’t like that hymn, Dirk Guillaumesen. Sing a good hymn for me.’
‘Little lady, that is no hymn. I cannot sing hymns,’ said the boy, with a ring in his voice of more than boyhood’s sorrow.
‘Oh! But I thought you were a good boy, Dirk Guillaumesen.’
‘I am not, little lady. I used to think I was until—but I will try to be good to you. Stay, I know one song that you will like to hear.’ To a spirit-stirring air, which none of the rest had ever heard before, though they were destined to hear it many times again, he sent out upon the rising wind the brave words of the ‘Wilhelmuslied.’
‘I, William, Nassau’s chieftain,
A scion of Almaine,
Faithful through death and danger
Unto this land remain.
A Prince of Orange dauntless,
In high emprize and bold
Unto Hispania’s chieftain
My plighted faith I hold.
To live God-fearing ever
Has been my constant aim,
Although it did me sever
From country, kindred, fame.
But still I trust God’s Spirit
Will guide me on my way,
That in His chosen hour
I may resume my sway.
And ye, my tried and proven,
Whose spirit is sincere,
Lift up your heart, take courage,
For God Himself is near.’
‘Mynheer,’ he said, breaking off suddenly and turning round, ‘we are coming to the wood, Jäsewyk is in the midst of it. The path is narrow and dark with trees. But be not afraid. I know it well. Though it is hard to find. My grandfather has been a Calvinist of long time now, with good need to keep hidden.’
In that ‘Hollow Land,’ where there were no ‘secret places of the hills and mountain heights untrod,’ to shelter the oppressed, they had often to thank God instead for the thick trees of their ancient forests.
‘Jäsewyk brought you up, I suppose, in his own Faith.’ said Adrian.
‘My father brought me up in his.’
‘Surely you are no Catholic?’
None could see in the darkness the look that swept over the boy’s young face. ‘When I am old enough,’ he said through his set teeth, ‘I will join the Zealanders, who bear the legend on their cape, “Rather Turk than Papist.”’
A hard time followed; fainting with weariness, stumbling over fallen branches, sinking knee-deep into soaking brushwood, smitten in the face by dripping boughs, the tired travelers plodded on. Rose set her faltering stops to the song she had just heard—
‘Lift up your hearts, take courage,
For God Himself is near,’
and it gave her strength enough not to swoon, which would have been almost fatal then. Happily, their guide did not miss the way. The few straggling moonbeams that pierced the half leafless oak branches proved enough for his keen young eyes. At last he exclaimed, ‘I see light. We are just at the clearing now.’
Adrian, pressing forward, saw it too—the welcome light, kindled by human hands. Some one was watching for them; or rather for Dirk, a child of the house.
‘We shall be there in five minutes,’ said Dirk cheerfully. ‘You shall have food and fire, and good beds to rest in.’
‘Thank God!’ said Rose and Adrian. But Roskĕ, who had been dozing, awoke with a piteous cry. Dirk tried in vain to soothe her. ‘Give her to me,’ said Adrian, while Rose laid her hand on her with a tender caress, ‘What ails my darling? Mother is here.’
But Roskĕ turned petulantly from her father, and even her mother’s touch brought no comfort. ‘Kaatje,’ she wailed, ‘Käatje! I have been so evil, so wicked—forgot her all this time. Oh, my poor Käatje!’
‘Who is Käatje?’ Dirk queried, ‘your nurse?’
‘How foolish you are! Käatje is—my Käatje, of course’ —and she sobbed aloud.
‘‘Tis only her poppet,’ said Adrian, half laughing, in spite of their misfortunes. ‘Never mind, my boy, press on. Be comforted, Roskĕ, I will buy thee another.’
‘‘Twill not be Kaatje,’ sobbed Roskĕ, disconsolate. Other troubles had passed over her head, too high for her to understand; or had been borne and forgotten, like terror, cold, hunger, rain, and tempest. But now, at last, into her small soul the iron had entered. She had lost her doll.
Dirk bent down, put his lips to her ear, and whispered a few words. A brief colloquy followed, which had a marvelous effect. Sobs and tears ceased as if by magic, and, had there been light to see it, the smile that stole over the pretty childish face would have amply recompensed him.
They had now emerged from the shadow of the trees, and were crossing a piece pf cultivated ground. A substantial house, two storeyed and fairly large, rose before them. From one of its windows shone the light which had been their guiding star.
The occupants were on the watch, and at the first sound of approaching footsteps the door was opened.
‘Uncle,’ said Dirk, to a man who appeared in the doorway, ‘this gentleman has a letter for my grandfather. Doubtless it is he whom we were bidden to expect.’
Adrian came forward, supporting the tottering footsteps of Rose. ‘I am Doctor Adrian Pernet,’ he said. ‘Mynheer Kruytsoon of Rotterdam, from whom I bear a letter, assured me Mynheer Jäsewyk would give us welcome and shelter, for the sake of this.’ He touched the medal of the Gueux, which hung by a cord round his neck.
A venerable white-haired man advanced to the door. ‘I give you welcome,’ he said, ‘not for the sake of these new and changing tokens and passwords, but in the Name of the Lord, whose goings forth are of old, and who changes not. Come in.’
Adrian, Rose, and Roskĕ, were soon rejoicing in the warmth of a great log fire, built upon the ample hearth. The first thing proposed, and the most necessary, was a change of raiment. Adrian was speedily transformed into an awkward-looking Dutch peasant in holiday clothes: a tight-fitting black jacket, and loose baggy trousers, drawn in at the ankles. But Rose was so faint and weary that the kindhearted housewife (old Jäsewyk’s daughter-in-law) simply laid her in her own bed, with Roskĕ beside her, promising to bring them the food they so much needed.
Going down to get it, she came into the living-room, where a comfortable supper was spread, in time to hear Adrian ask— ‘But where is our brave young guide?’
‘Dirk is a strange lad,’ said the younger Jäsewyk. ‘As if he had not had enough of it, he ran out again— and such a night as it is too.’
‘You cannot mean that the poor boy went off without his supper!’ the woman exclaimed.
‘He caught up a piece of bread and cheese as he went. And the rain has begun again too, promising a downpour! Dirk is like nobody else. Sometimes I think his father’s death has turned his head.’
‘What happened to his father?’ asked Adrian.
‘He was burned alive—and under circumstances more sad than most—at Asperen, last May.’
‘A martyr,’ said Adrian, with a tone of reverence.
‘No, unhappily; an Anabaptist. But sit down to table, I pray of you, Mynheer Pernet. You must be well-nigh starved. And here comes my father to bless the board.’