Chapter XII: After the Defeat

In a little farm, abandoned by its owner, the Prince and his Staff found shelter.

There was nothing to be done until dawn at least--since Utrecht had closed her gates.

The bitterness of this disappointment was well-nigh unbearable; the long day’s struggle had had solely this end in view--to save Utrecht.

The men were worn out, hungry, wet, disheartened; only the firmest discipline prevented a mutiny or a panic.

Two of the baggage waggons had come up with them; in one there was nothing but Jerome Beverningh’s camp furniture. Anger and derision were roused, the Deputy had brought with him such things as velvet chairs and crystal candlesticks, the last broken in the rough transit.

The second waggon contained food; this was dealt out to the wounded. M. de Zuylestein’s men, who had spent the day outside the walls of Utrecht while their leader argued desperately with the magistrates, were fresher, and had ravaged some provisions from the neighbouring farms; but the bulk of the men had been without food twelve hours or more.

They attempted to set up such tents as they had with them, but a strong wind rising when the rain ceased hurled poles and canvas to the ground, and scattered the camp-fires in handfuls of sparks.

No news reached them of either de Louvignies or Count Hornes, but a messenger got through the enemy’s lines with a desperate appeal from Prince John Maurice at Muyden, where the starved troops were in a state of mutiny and threatening to desert to the French.

“--do not be surprised,” his letter to the Captain General concluded, “if your next news is that we have all been cut to pieces.”

And Muyden was the key to Amsterdam.

The Prince said nothing to this; he said nothing when he heard that traitors had possession of Utrecht, though he had fought desperately for a day to save the city.

His containment now was as marked as had been his fervour and ardour in the battle.

Count Königsmarck came to tell him that a young Frieslander of a republican family claimed the command of one of the surviving companies, and that it was against all precedent.

“I promised it,” said William.

The ensign got his troop, but he was no longer a republican.

For the night the officers were disposed in such shelter as they could find in the farms and sheds. The Prince, William Bentinck, M. de Zuylestein, M. Beverningh, and Matthew Bromley shared the kitchen of a humble dwelling; a pleasant place hung with the bright-coloured pictures, the patterned prints, the gay china no such Dutch home lacked.

In the chimney corner stood a spinning-wheel, and on a high-backed chair lay a child’s doll, for the family had fled with the swiftness of fear into the town. Two fat tallow candles burnt on the mantelpiece, and on the glazed white hearth a fire of sticks had been kindled, over which M. Bentinck was boiling some sour wine he had discovered, trying to render it more palatable by toasting slices of sour bread.

M. Beverningh and M. Zuylestein sat at the polished, round table, their wet cloaks over their chairs, between them a couple of pistols and another candle in a brass stick.

In the deep window-seat, half shaded by the curtain, sat the Prince, his face averted from the room.

An inner door was open on a small bedroom, ill-lit by a hanging lamp; on the black-and-white tiled floor stood a linen chest, flung open on fine tumbled sheets, and in the wall-place was a bed, the blue curtains drawn.

There lay Matthew Bromley, hidden in shadow save for his feet, over which the lamp-light fell making his silver buckles glimmer.

He was dying.

A heat that seemed to have substance, so oppressive it was, filled the two rooms. The window was wide open, but no relief came from the hot and heavy wind that blew in.

Suddenly the Prince rose and came to the table.

He wore no hat, and his long hair was tied back with a black ribbon taken from the ruffles in his sleeve.

His face was absolutely without colour, his lids drooping. He had been twenty-four hours in the saddle and without food; he held himself with an air of unutterable weariness.

His cuirass was stained with blood and rusted with the rain, his cravat undone, his scarf and sash shot and slashed to rags.

His right arm was cut, and he had rent away part of his full sleeve to tie it up with, the tattered laces and ribbons hung down over his hand; his boots and spurs were caked with mud; he held his heavy sword from the floor, and, as he reached the table, unstrapped it, and laid sword and baldric across a chair.

He looked at M. Beverningh, at his uncle Zuylestein. Neither said anything.

Slowly he went over to M. Bentinck.

“How is Bromley?” he asked in a low voice.

“The same--it cannot last long.”

“Is there no surgeon to be found?”

M. Bentinck shrugged his shoulders.

“We had but two.”

“And they?”

“Dead or captured.”

“And the clergymen?”

“There are three going about among the wounded, but Matthew Bromley is not a Calvinist.”

“I had forgotten.”

M. Bentinck rose from his knees; his splendid dress was soiled and tarnished, his bright good looks marred by fatigue.

“I am thinking of Your Highness.”

“I am very well, but I am sorry for Matthew Bromley.”

“He is not the only one.”

“The cause was not his,” answered the Prince wearily. “And he is a man who loves his life.”

With that he took one of the candles and went softly into the inner room where his gentleman lay.

The bed was set in the wall, and could be concealed by drawing a sliding panel; it was fragrantly clean, but dark and close.

The Englishman’s head was propped up on two pillows, the upper part of him concealed in shadow.

His coat had been removed and his wound dressed by William Bentinck’s unskilled care; the blood had soaked through the linen swathings and stained the neat, flowered coverlet.

William approached, shading the candle with his hand.

“How does it go with you?” he asked.

Matthew Bromley moved his head restlessly.

“How hot it is!” he murmured; then, “I would they did not build their beds in their walls here----”

“We could do no better,” answered the Prince gently.

“Who is it?” came faintly.

“I, William of Nassau.”

Mr. Bromley made a little sound of pleasure.

“Ah, Your Highness----”

The Prince set the candle on the chair behind him.

“I am sorry to see you like this, Bromley,” he said.

The Englishman’s voice came faintly from the pillow--

“No matter for me--but it has been a disastrous day.”

The Prince held back the curtain.

“It was no quarrel of yours, my poor fellow,” he answered.

Matthew Bromley smiled; his careless face had changed into a look of bewildered grieving.

“You had better have gone home,” said William gently.

“It was against … the French.”

He closed his eyes and made an effort with his strength--

“I am sorry we were beaten.”

“That may be mended.”

“But nothing can mend me--ah!”

He spoke in an absent and regretful voice.

They could hear the warm wind without and the groanings of the wounded who lay in the outhouses.

“Tell me what I can do,” asked the Prince.

“Nothing.”

The blue eyes opened vacantly.

“Your family----?”

“Yes, ah, yes.”

“I will write to them----”

“In England … Kent.”

“Is there anything I should say?”

“I cannot understand.…”

William bent lower.

“Is there any message?”

The dying man answered in English--

“That balsam my mother sent.…”

“What is it you say?”

“She never told me--how to use it.”

He smiled aimlessly.

William was silent.

“How they fought----” There was only one tongue for him now.

William spoke in his careful English--

“I shall miss you, Bromley.”

“Ah, I understand you … now.”

The Prince smoothed his pillow.

“Don’t trouble--” The Englishman moved his head restlessly. “--It isn’t worth while----”

“I would give a deal to save you.”

“Why … how hot it is.…”

“Are you in pain?”

“I don’t know.”

“Shall I lift you up?”

“The address … M. Heenvliet knows----”

“Yes, yes----”

“Bromley Place … Kent.”

“I will write----”

“We have a fish-pond.… I liked it.”

He seemed to be wandering.

“In the summer time it was pleasant there.… Harry is at Oxford now.”

The Prince turned away and picked up the candle.

“William,” he called softly.

M. Bentinck came to the door.

“Have we nothing?” asked the Prince.

“M. Beverningh has discovered a bottle of beer in the cupboard and I am burning it.… M. de Zuylestein finds the wine drinkable, he says.”

“But for Bromley, I mean.”

M. Bentinck fetched a glass of the boiled wine and handed it to the Prince.

“We have nothing else.”

William made no reply.

“You had best take some, sir; and the bread, too, is not so unpalatable.”

The Prince gave the stuff a sick look.

“Get me some water,” he said, putting it down.

“Well,” answered M. Bentinck, with a grim smile, “M. de Zuylestein and M. Beverningh are making a meal.”

The Prince returned to the bed, and in a while M. Bentinck brought the water in a dull green glass.

Matthew Bromley stared up at them.

“Am I dying?” he asked abruptly.

He took the water, drank with avidity, then murmured--

“I must write home.”

M. Bentinck left the room. The heat seemed to increase. Some one was reciting a psalm outside in a gabbling voice, another groaned bitterly.

The swinging lamp was going out with a harsh stench of oil.

The Prince crossed the room to quench it, as he moved Mr. Bromley called out rapidly--

“I was shot through the lungs in my first engagement; I died in a cottage outside Utrecht; I was shot through the lungs; I am writing to Harry.” He suddenly laughed. “I am glad I saw those French players before I left the Hague.… I shall never get another chance.”

William had turned out the lamp, they were left with only the light of the tallow candle on the mantelpiece.

The Prince came back to his gentleman, who lay in a half stupor, pulling at his coverlet with clumsy fingers.

“Bromley,” his young master bent over him, “you are dying.… I must tell you.… We have no clergyman, but you could pray----”

“No Calvinist,” muttered Mr. Bromley.

“God,” said the Prince vehemently, “knows no creed.”

Mr. Bromley gave a little sigh, as if his mind had suddenly cleared.

“Is not Your Highness in despair?” he asked weakly.

“Why?”

“Because the French beat us … and there seems no hope for you.”

“How can I despair?” answered the young General. “God has me by the hand.”

The dying man glanced at him sharply and curiously--

“Does Your Highness--believe--like that?”

William smiled.

“Could I live if I did not believe?”

Matthew Bromley’s blue eyes were still fixed on him intently.

“I never thought of it--much--but I detain Your Highness----”

“No, no, there is nothing I can do till the dawn.”

“In my coat----”

His voice failed.

“Yes?”

“There is a book--a Prayer-book.”

“I will get it.”

“If Your Highness could read it--in English.”

William pressed his hand.

The wind struggled in the great barns outside, and the coarse yellow flame shuddered in the hot air from the high window.

In the kitchen could be seen M. Zuylestein asleep on the settle and M. Beverningh at the table sipping his boiled wine.

“There are some papers too,” whispered Mr. Bromley. “Love-letters--and bills; burn them, they are so foolish.”

The Prince turned over the stained and bloody coat and found the Anglican Prayer-book.

“I wonder why I brought it,” said the Englishman vaguely.

William seated himself beside the bed and began turning over the unfamiliar leaves.

“The prayer for the departing,” murmured Matthew Bromley.

The Prince put his hand to his forehead; his head was so heavy that he could hardly hold it up, and the scanty light scarcely permitted him to read the foreign print.

Matthew Bromley closed his eyes.

William had never looked on death before to-day, but he did not fail to mark that it was very near.

“What shall I read?” he asked.

“For the … sick.”

Mr. Bromley moaned a little.

The Prince found the place, his tired but fervent voice came through the distraction of other sounds.

“‘Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of just men made perfect, after they are delivered from their earthly prisons; we humbly commend the soul of this Thy servant, our dear brother, into Thy hands----’”

“Into Thy hands,” whispered Mr. Bromley.

“‘--as into the hands of a faithful Creator, and most merciful Saviour; most humbly beseeching Thee, that it may be precious in Thy sight----’”

The wind and the restless complainings without were unceasing. Mr. Bromley clasped his hands on his breast; the Prince read on carefully--

“‘--and teach us who survive, in this and like daily spectacles of mortality, to see how frail and uncertain our own condition is; and so to number our days, that we may seriously apply our hearts to that holy and heavenly wisdom, whilst we live here.…’

“I read so ill, my poor English,” murmured the Prince.

“No--I understand.”

“‘--which may in the end bring us to life everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord----’”

“Amen.”

Matthew Bromley’s life was sinking fast; like a sea receding was the blue light in his eyes, each second farther away.

William went on his knees by the aperture of the bed.

“In Thee, Lord, have I put my trust; let me never be put to confusion, but rid me and deliver me in Thy righteousness; incline Thine ear unto me and save me----”

Mr. Bromley stretched out his cold, pale hand.

“I thank Your Highness.”

“Do not think of me but of God.”

The two young men, both so white, so haggard, so dishevelled, that the one drawing his last breath was hardly to be told from him who comforted, clasped hands in the hot shadows of the peasant’s bed.

Mr. Bromley made a movement as if to draw the Prince towards him.

“I would I had lived to see Your Highness fortunate,” he breathed. Then, “God … God … He is very pitiful.…”

With that he sighed, three times--and died with the gentlest stilling of his breath.

The Prince drew back a little; then lifted Mr. Bromley’s hands and crossed them on his breast.

Death had come so softly the pillow and coverlet were not disturbed by unavailing struggles nor was Matthew Bromley. He looked at rest.

The Prince pulled the curtain, and went to the stained velvet coat hanging over the high-backed chair.

In the pockets were letters, charms, and a snuff-box full of gold pieces.

William burnt the papers without reading them, and left the money and the Prayer-book on the chair.

Then he re-entered the kitchen. M. Bentinck was smoking a short clay.

“Matthew Bromley is dead,” said the Prince.

“Poor soul!” answered William Bentinck. M. Beverningh was silent, and M. de Zuylestein asleep.

The Prince went to the window, coughing; M. Bentinck guiltily knocked out his pipe.

“What will you do to-morrow?” he asked.

“Get into Utrecht,” said the Captain General briefly.

M. Beverningh looked up.

“If they will not defend the place they shall at least provision us,” added the Prince.

Now Beverningh spoke.

“They will refuse us admission, Highness.”

“It is my will and purpose to enter Utrecht to-morrow,” answered William.

“Meanwhile----” M. Bentinck began, when the door was flung open and a young officer entered.

“Your Highness----”

He was agitated, breathing hard, and carried a pistol.

William came forward out of the shadows.

“What is it?”

“The Friesland regiments, Sir … they mutiny. I know not what to do.”

M. Bentinck rose and softly latched the swinging door.

“Why do they mutiny?” asked the Prince.

“Sir, they say they are starving, and that it is but waiting here to be cut to pieces, and that the country is lost, and that they will submit to the King of France and go back to their homes----”

“You speak as if not over confident yourself, Mynheer,” said William, holding up his head.

“Truly, Your Highness, affairs are desperate.”

“If we despair they are desperate indeed,” replied the Captain General sternly. “It is our duty, Mynheer, not to despair.”

“But these men?” asked M. Beverningh.

“I will go and speak to them,” said the Prince quietly.

“Your Highness has done enough,” protested William Bentinck.

“I do what it would seem there is no one else to do,” was the answer.

He picked up his cloak from the window-seat and flung it over his tattered uniform.

“Have you no lantern?” he asked the officer.

“Sir, the moon is up.”

M. Bentinck, with an impatient look at M. Zuylestein, who was still very contentedly asleep, made ready to accompany the Prince, and the three started out through the encampment.

The wind had dropped, sweeping away the clouds with it, and a full moon was high in the dark sky.

Tents had now been rigged up here and there; several men were moving about with lanterns, many sleeping on the ground; under a little grove of alders a row of horses were tied, beyond them could be distinguished the gaunt shapes of waggons and guns.

Unnoticed the three made their way to the other end of the meadows where the Frieslanders were encamped.

There were perhaps three hundred of them, and they sat about sullenly among their dead.

They had refused to see after their horses, to bury the corpses, even to tend the wounded; their one answer was to demand food of their officers, and to repeat they would not be cut to bits by the French.

The defection of Utrecht had set an ill example. If that great city was afraid of Louis what could others do but make their peace with him?…

An officer on horseback rode out when he saw the little company advancing.

“Here are the Prince and M. Bentinck,” said his messenger.

The other dismounted.

“Ah, Your Highness--I was loath to send to you--but the men are beyond all management, and I fear if the disaffection spreads to the others----”

“You did very well, Mynheer----”

The Prince coughed, and resumed, “I will speak to them.”

“Will Your Highness take my horse?”

William mounted and rode in amongst the men, M. Bentinck and the two officers at his stirrup.

Not knowing him they let him pass without a salute; they believed that it was one of their own captains.

William suddenly halted and bent from the saddle towards a little group who stood whispering together.

“Do you not know me?” he asked.

They fell apart and looked up.

His face was quite clear in the moonlight; for he wore no hat, and his hair was tied back in his neck.

“I think that you know me,” he said. “Go fetch the others, for I would speak to you.”

They moved back, half reluctantly.

“All these men have arms, Highness,” warned the officer.

“They will not turn them on me,” answered the Prince.

But M. Bentinck felt uneasy; for William had drawn rein on a slope of the ground, he was an unprotected object for any carbine that might be levelled out of the shadows of the camp.

The news seemed to spread with silent swiftness.

The men gathered in groups of fours and fives, forming up without noise until there was a thick semicircle of them round the Prince.

It seemed they would listen to what he had to say, at least.

William looked keenly over his mute, half-seen audience, and began to speak in his low, deliberate voice--

“I hear that you have fallen into mutinies and disobedience, which is an ill thing for soldiers, and that you do complain of hardships, thereby giving yourselves an evil distinction, for you are the only companies of mine who have so complained.

“I do entreat you remember yourselves, for as surely as those that stand by me will come to ultimate glory, so surely will I have the lives of those who rebel.”

He paused a moment, and there was the slightest movement among the soldiers.

“You bore yourselves very well to-day against great odds, and for the discomforts you endure I am sorry, but I do tell you this, you shall have food soon, for if the city of Utrecht is false we will get provisions from Amsterdam, for I have sent there to raise money on my private credit, and as long as I have a guilder you shall not starve. Now for another matter. I hear some of you talk of deserting to King Louis; now any man who does that is a coward and a traitor and a fool, for the French are unjust and cruel masters, and would make slaves of you--a thing which is hateful to you.

“For love of liberty is a strong thing in this country, and ye were born free.…

“My great-grandfather made this State, rescuing it from the most bloody tyranny of Rome, and the Princes of his race have always followed his example, to the great good of this people, and while I lead you, I tell you, you shall never be slaves nor subjected to France.

“And I pray you to be of good hope and of a cheerful spirit, for certainly I will deliver you from foreign dominion.

“Alva, Don Juan, Farnese failed, and shall Turenne and Condé succeed?… Philip was a great king, but we bitterly repulsed him, with God’s grace and some valour.

“Think of these things, for they will hearten you and make you see how impossible it is that you should forsake your liberty and your religion, which are such holy things that to die for them would be a noble death, and no one but a very paltry man fears to die well.…

“Now, I ask you to ponder what I have said, and obey your officers and do your duty; and such of you as do not I will certainly hang, for he who is not repentant now is no better than a traitor.

“And as for what I have said about the provisions, you have my word on it, and therefore may rest tranquil, for I am Nassau.”

As he finished there was a murmur and a sound of many men drawing their breath.

“Ye who are obedient, lay down your arms,” said the Prince.

Instantly carbines, bayonets, and pistols clattered on the ground.

“Take them up and hold them ready to use again as you used them to-day,” flashed William. “For God and the United Provinces!”

A long, sobbing shout rose from the Frieslanders:--

“God, the United Provinces, and William of Nassau!”

The Prince waved his hand to them and rode away as three hundred voices broke into St. Aldegonde’s hymn of liberty, “William of Nassau.”

At the edge of the encampment the Prince dismounted; after his long speech he was very silent.

“Your Highness has utterly quelled all discontent,” murmured the officer. “God keep Your Highness--they were greatly moved----”

“Good-night,” said William; “they will obey now, Mynheer.”

He took M. Bentinck’s arm and turned across the camp.

Neither spoke a word until they reached the cottage, then William uttered some incoherent sentence as M. Bentinck unlatched the door.

“Your Highness is ill!”

The Prince took a step forward and fell into his friend’s arms, completely unconscious.

“My God!” whispered Bentinck.

He pushed open the door and called M. Beverningh, who came showing a frightened face.

M. Bentinck lifted the Prince easily enough and carried him into the kitchen.

M. de Zuylestein was awake now and poring over a map on the polished table.

He got to his feet with a little exclamation under his breath.

As they had no manner of bed or couch they laid the Prince on some cloaks along the floor.

In a bewildered way they looked at each other.

“You should never have let him go,” said M. Beverningh. “A strong man could not have stood what he has put upon himself----”

“You made no protest,” retorted William Bentinck.

“What influence have I?”

“No--nor any man.” M. Bentinck frowned. “Well, if he falls sick there is an end to all of it--for he alone holds us together.”

Catching up the candle he flickered it across the Prince’s unconscious face.

M. de Zuylestein was unbuckling his nephew’s rusty armour.

“He is not wounded,” he said; “ye should never have let him go out again----”

“If ye had been awake, Mynheer, maybe ye could have stopped him,” replied M. Bentinck angrily.

Much of their reserve and fortitude was suddenly shaken by this collapse. The despair his personal influence had kept at bay began to seize hold of them; of the three the lawyer was the calmest.

He put his hand to the Prince’s forehead and untied his cravat.

“It is what the foreigners call the Dutch fever,” he said.

This sickness, deadly and common, was well known to all of them; it was in symptom like a tertian ague, caused, strangers declared, by the mists rising in summer from the low, damp lands--alternate burning and shivering, with high fever and fierce pains.

“What can we do?” asked M. de Zuylestein helplessly.

“With nothing we can do nothing,” replied William Bentinck.

It was surprising to reflect that a fortnight could reduce them from the luxury and ease of the Hague to this kitchen, with the Prince lying unconscious at their feet and not so much as a cordial to revive him.

“Where is Matthew Bromley----?” began M. Bentinck, then checked himself, remembering that the Englishman lay dead in the adjoining chamber.

M. de Zuylestein cursed the baggage waggons for having lost their way, and was moving to summon outside assistance. M. Bentinck checked him.

“No one can do any more; if you let the news abroad there will be a panic----”

“And what of the mutiny? Had he checked it?” asked M. Beverningh, who was on his knees beside the Prince.

“Yes--he can do anything with the men.”

“What did he say?”

“Not much--he spoke stiffly I thought, and proudly.”

“Sincerity needs no arts,” murmured Beverningh.

They had water, but M. Beverningh was against William Bentinck’s suggestion of bathing the Prince’s forehead; it increased the fever he said.

M. de Zuylestein was for bleeding him, but since they had no lancet that also was abandoned.

One of the candles burnt down, and they could find no other, so had to manage by the dismal light of one.

“If he takes the fever,” said M. Beverningh, “we are truly undone.”

M. Bentinck had found a withered brown shell of a rose inside William’s waistcoat.

“He has his sentiments,” he remarked, “although he guards them fiercely--he picked this from the tree his mother, the Princess Royal, planted, the last time he was at the ‘Huis ten bosch.’”

“I think he is this country’s sole hope,” said M. de Zuylestein. “There is no one to take his place.”

The hot night was wearing away; the first pallid glow of dawn stole through the window and fell on the calm, unconscious face of the young Captain General.

Once or twice he moved heavily as if he were asleep. M. Bentinck knelt beside him on the glazed tiles; felt his wrist helplessly, and pushed back the tangled, damp auburn locks from his brow.

Their last candle burnt to the daylight, then spluttered out in the brass stick.

William suddenly opened his eyes and half sat up.

He was shivering, and the hand M. Bentinck held was fever hot.

“Bentinck,” he said, “we must get into Utrecht to-day.…”

And on these words he fainted again.

M. Beverningh looked at M. de Zuylestein.

“Pray God King Louis’ terms will be reasonable,” he said grimly; “for whatever they are we must accept them.”