Chapter VIII: The 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, and broken 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, that at 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 quick mind, 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 kneeling and 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.