ADRIAN had duly received, from the mother of the beguines, the bequest of Dame Ellinor Wallingford. The little packet which was delivered into his hand contained a brief but kind letter; a book, The Imitation of Christ, by the Dutch monk Thomas á Kempis; and a valuable chaplet of pearls, which she had brought with her from England, and which, considering it in some sense a heirloom, she thought should go back to the family.
Dirk took these to Marie in Antwerp, while Adrian stayed behind in Leyden. The time had come now when he could see his old friends there without pain, and visit the grave of his early faded Rose with a sweet and chastened sorrow that had no bitterness in it.
He was indeed well content to linger in the northern city. Peace, order, and good government reigned there; and the new University supplied the atmosphere of keen intellectual life which perhaps had been lacking before. He found the professors congenial friends and companions, and the two who represented the science of medicine appeared to him to love research for its own sake.
Dirk came back from Antwerp in due time, with two important pieces of intelligence. Edward Wallingford’s father was dead; and as he now inherited the estate, it would be necessary for him to go and reside in England with his bride. Moreover, the Prince, for various reasons, was contemplating the removal of his family from Antwerp to some town in the northern provinces, where he might make his home. Thus Adrian’s double tie to Antwerp—and it had been a very strong one—seemed about to be severed. His treatise on the Hand, the Eye and the Ear, had now gone through the Press; and he needed quiet to prepare another—suggested perhaps by his attendance at the Prinsen-hof—on the Tongue, the Palate, and the Throat. But in Antwerp might no man think of quiet. A residence in Leyden would be far more favorable to his pursuits.
In Leyden, therefore, after some hesitation, he fixed his dwelling. He said within himself, ‘I have played out my part now in the world men have marred. I think I may go back unblamed to the world God has made.’
It was a better world to him than even in the days of his early scientific enthusiasm. For he brought Christ with him into it. For him now all things were Christ’s, he himself with his every faculty, gift and power, ‘the spirits and souls of the righteous’ whom he loved, the wondrous canopy of sun and stars, the nerves and fibers of the human frame. Christ was for him the First and the Last of all being, the Beginning and the Ending of all action, the Alpha and the Omega of all thought.
Dirk went once again to Antwerp to fetch Adrian’s books and papers, and other properties. On his return, Adrian said to him, ‘I mean to make a learned physician of thee, Dirk. Thou shalt help me with my patients’ (for he took just sufficient practice to supply his own modest wants and Dirk’s, and to show mercy to the poor). ‘But as thou and I must do things in order, I shall enter thy name on the books of the University, and thou shalt attend thy lectures there.’
Dirk acquiesced very gratefully, yet not without a keen though silent struggle. Two strong passions fought together in that strong heart of his—love for the father of Roskĕ, and love for faith and country, gathered up and personified in love for the Prince. But he reflected that he was all Dr. Adrian had, while his country had many sons at least as brave and faithful as himself. Moreover, the intense yearning after knowledge, which grew by what it fed upon, drew him unawares. Still, he did not fail to stipulate, that if any special call to active service should arise, he would be free to obey it.
It was about this time that he revisited the forest home of his grandfather, who, wonderful to tell, was still alive, in a serene and peaceful old age. His uncle, Koos Jäsewyk, was a prosperous man; and happy children were growing up in the quaint, secluded homestead.
Adrian and Dirk found it possible to lead a quiet and peaceable life in Leyden, even while wars and rumors of wars, and troubles of many kinds, were harassing the land. The northern provinces, of which Holland was the chief, resembled a little island risen above the storm-tossed waves, and already gathering the seeds of flower, and fruit, and grass, which should one day make it rejoice and blossom as the rose.
The south was still wrapped in gloom. Anjou had proved emphatically a broken reed, and of that worst kind which pierces the hand of him that Jeans on it. It was one of the Prince’s hardest tasks to neutralize the effects of his treachery, and to induce the righteously exasperated Netherlanders to give him yet another trial.
One thing, from the beginning, the Prince had failed to do. Faithful Holland and Zealand would have no man to rule over them except Father William himself. The southern provinces had offered him their sovereignty; but he had refused it, and prevailed upon them to accept his refusal.
But the Northerners knew what they wanted, and held fest to their purpose. When at last he agreed to accept a sort of dictatorship, as long as the war should continue, the honest Hollanders, secretly and without his knowledge, struck out the limitation from the Deed. Finally, their faith and love prevailed. They had permission to invest him with the coronet of Count and Sovereign Lord of Holland, Zealand, and their dependencies.
When Adrian heard that, he turned to Dirk with a satisfied smile. ‘Now at least we shall have a sight worth seeing,’ he said. ‘For that I would journey, not merely to Antwerp or Brussels, but if need be, to the world’s end.’
It was not likely he would have to go so far even as Antwerp or Brussels, for the Prince had now fixed his residence at Delft.
So time glided peacefully on. It was two years since the marriage of Edward and Marie; and tidings had come from England of the birth of a little girl, called Rose, and later, of a boy, who bore his father’s name. Marie always wrote happily of her new life, and of her English home.
Adrian’s pleasure in the news of his nephew’s birth was somewhat shadowed by the death of his intimate friend, the elder of the two Professors of Medicine in the University; even although the good man was full of years and honors, a shock of corn gathered in its season. His only near relative was a young grand-daughter, who had ministered tenderly to his declining years, and about whose future Adrian gave himself much concern.
Her father had been killed in the disastrous battle of Mook, fighting bravely under Count Louis of Nassau; and Adrian joined the Professors in warmly recommending her case to the notice of the Prince; who, it was hoped, might bestow upon her a suitable marriage portion.
When, therefore, after a few days, a letter arrived from Delft by special messenger, bearing upon its numerous seals the well-known griffins, with the legend Je maintiendrai, Adrian assumed that it bore reference to Juffrouw Cornelia’s possible dowry.
But Dirk, who stood beside him as he real, saw his face change rapidly from interest to surprise, from surprise to pleasure, not untouched by emotion.
‘Read that,’ Adrian said at last, placing the letter in his hand.
The Prince, after a grateful reference to Dr. Adrian Pernet’s services in Antwerp, when he lay ill of his grievous wound, offered in the kindest terms to recommend him to the Estates of Holland for the Professorship just left vacant, to which certain new advantages were to be added. This recommendation, no doubt, would secure his immediate appointment.
‘I said “No” ten years ago,’ Adrian admitted, ‘for then I hated the place. I love it now.’
‘And now,’ said Dirk, ‘the honor is much greater, for the University, of which the seed was but sown then, has grown now into a great tree. You will accept it, dear master?’
‘Yes, Dirk—I will accept it, in God’s name.’
There was a pause, then Dirk said, ‘Let us go to Delft, and return thanks to the Prince, as in duty bound.’
It was always so with them now. ‘Let us go here and there, let us do this and that.’
To Delft accordingly they went. They set out very early in the fair dawn of a summer morning, the morning of the 10th of July.