It was Sunday, the 8th of July. Something of Sabbath peace and quiet brooded over the quaint, cleanly, prosperous town of Delft. The bells were ringing for morning service, and worshippers were beginning to throng into the churches. One of the most remarkable of these, the Oude Kerk, or Old Church, stood in the main street, the Oude Gracht, through the whole length of which there ran a canal, bordered with lime trees, shedding on its waters their fragrant blossoms. Facing the Oude Kerk, on the other side of the street, was the unpretending structure where the Estates of Holland used to meet, with the still more modest Prinsen-hof beside it. There a Jeep gateway led into a court, the buildings at the farther side of which formed the dwelling of William the Silent.
That Sunday morning, in the July sunshine, one of the sergeants of his guard observed a quiet-looking young man loitering aimlessly about the gate. He spoke to him, and asked him what he wanted there. The youth, who was slight and low of stature, raised a plain, dull-complexioned face and answered meekly ‘I would fain attend divine service in yonder church; but you see, friend, I am not fit.’ Then pointing to his worn and dusty lower garments, ‘Without at least new hosen and good shoes, which I have no means of buying, it would not be decent or reverent to join the congregation.’
The sergeant gave the poor fellow a kind word, and turned away, but he did not forget his necessities.
Bent, it would seem, upon spending a profitable Sunday, the stranger turned presently into the porter’s lodge, and asked leave to read in a large Bible which was kept there. He seemed to find the sacred volume abundantly interesting, for he read long, and apparently with absorbed attention. Some one, who had the curiosity to look over his shoulder, remembered afar wards that he was occupied with the story of Judith and Holofernes.
One or two others, who happened to notice him, recognized in him a grave, devout, blameless young man who had been in Delft some months previously. He called himself Francois Guion, the son of a martyr; and, as might have been expected from such a parentage, was of serious, even sad deportment, zealous for the Faith, constant at prayers and preachings, fond of borrowing good books, and seldom seen without a psalter or a hymn-book under his arm. He had gone away in the suite of a French gentleman, named Carron; but had now returned again, bringing tidings of the death of the Duke of Anjou.
The friendly sergeant remembered him to good purpose. He told his story to one of the Prince’s household, who told his lord. Presently, the heart of the ‘poor but pious’ stranger was gladdened by the gift of a dozen crowns in gold.
François Guion—or Balthazar Gerard, to give him his true name—had urgent need of money. The first use he made of it, on Monday morning, was to supply himself with a pair of pistols. It was easier and cheaper to get them second hand; and he was fortunate enough to find an old soldier of the Prince, named René, willing to part with his, as his fighting clays were over now. After long bargaining, Gerard bought the pistols from him. Then he waited.
He had waited already—for seven long years and more.
Day and night, all that time, one thought, one purpose had possessed his soul. He was the David, called of God to avenge his King, his Church, his Faith, and to rid the world of the Goliath of heresy and treason. He was not indifferent to the temporal recompense promised by Philip in the Ban; but, in addition, many voices had contributed to the strengthening of his purpose. The one which most concerns us was that of the Regent of the Jesuit College at Tréves, ‘a red-haired man,’ who encouraged him in his pious undertaking, and gave him his blessing, promising him that, if he lost his life, his name should be enrolled amongst the martyrs. A shining prize indeed, well worth the waiting for!
And now the time had come to win the heavenly, or the earthly recompense, or both.
The next day, Tuesday, July 10, William the Silent dined as usual with the ladies of his family, and others, in the large hall on the ground floor of the Prinsen-hof. During dinner he conversed cheerfully; whatever cares might burden his mind, he held it a point of duty to encourage the hearts of others by the calm tranquility of his own. Rising at length, he crossed the narrow passage, and led the way to his private apartments upstairs.
As his foot touched the second step, a man sprang out from the shelter of a dark archway, and fired. Three bullets pierced him, one passing quite through, and lodging in the wall beyond. His equerry caught him in his arms as he fell. One moment of consciousness remaining, he cried aloud: ‘My God, have mercy on my soul!’ Then, more faintly, ‘My God, have mercy on this poor people!’ —the last two words being half inaudible.
His much-loved sister, the Countess of Schwartzenburgh, bent over him and asked, ‘Do you commend your soul to the Lord Jesus Christ?’
And his last remaining strength was breathed out in the answering, ‘Yes.’
He was unconscious now. They bore him back to the dining-hall, and laid him there on a couch. But he was beyond the ministrations of love, even as he was safe for over from the shafts of hate. In a few moments more William of Orange ‘slept in God.’
Then arose a great cry—a cry of agony ‘that shivered to the tingling stars’: ‘The Prince is dead—the Prince!’ The house, the court, the city knew—and it was as if an earthquake had yawned in its midst.
The quiet, sunny streets were filled with a wailing, sobbing crowd, above the tempest of whose sorrow there surged, ever and anon, that one voice of lamentation, ‘Father William is no more!’ ‘The children wept in the streets,’ said an eyewitness; and the bearded men they clung to sobbed as unrestrainedly as they.
Towards evening, two strangers on horseback made their way slowly through the throng in the Oude Gracht. Dirk’s face was white and set, and the look in Adrian’s was like that with which he took his dead child in his arms in Utrecht. As they passed, a woman rushed out of one of the houses with a bitter, piercing cry, that had the thrill of a new anguish in it. ‘He is dead! He has killed himself!’ A crowd gathered round her, and stopped the progress of the riders. Some one cried out to them: ‘It is René, who sold the pistol to the murderer. He could not live, after that.’
‘He did well to die,’ said an old man, down whose furrowed cheeks the tears were stealing, as he laid his hand unconsciously on Adrian’s bridle. ‘He did well! Would I were with him this day!’
‘Ay,’ cried another man, young, strong, and vigorous. ‘What use are our lives to us, when he is gone, who was the life of all? In his death we all die.’
‘A true word!’ the bystanders chimed in. ‘No hope for us now! In ten years—in five—in three—we may look to have King Philip, and the Edicts, and the Inquisition back again!’
Then Dirk’s young voice arose, ringing through the crowd like a trumpet-blast. ‘My brothers, you say true. He was the defense of all, and with him are gone help, hope, and strength, and almost life itself. Yet not in three years, nor in five, nor in ten, nor in a thousand, shall we have Philip and the Edicts, and the Inquisition back again! Never, never, never—by the God he has gone to now!’ And Dirk raised his right hand upwards in solemn appeal to heaven. ‘Let the worst come; we will open all the sluices, pierce all the dykes, and give back the land of our birth to the waves our fathers won it from! Did not he say, “Better a drowned land than a lost land!”’
His words were scarcely heard for the shout that greeted them. Their brave despair suited well the mood of the hour.
‘Better a drowned land than a lost land!’ rang back from the crowd, and passed on from lip to lip, dearer to every lip that spoke, and every ear that heard, for his sake who said them first.
But there was one who said them not. Adrian kept silence. Out of the despair around him there had sprung up something in his heart which was not despair. He remembered his own agony, he thought upon the wormwood and the gall, therefore he had hope. A man who has been through the furnace heated seven times, and has seen One like unto the Son of Man walking with him there, knows ever after the meaning of the words: ‘When thou passest through the fire thou shalt not be burned.’ His heart yearned over the weeping crowd, that he might say to them also, in this dark hour, ‘There is lifting up.’
With these thoughts rising in his heart, he made his way half unconsciously, out of the Oude Gracht, up a narrow street into the great square, filled with people who, like all the rest, were weeping and wailing and making sore lamentation.
But presently, above the weeping crowd, arose the sound of little children’s voices, trying to sing the Wilhelmuslied. The little ones had been taught to sing at funerals, and in other times of sorrow, so they thought they ought to do it now. Yet, ere their elders could silence them, their own voices died in sobs. Sorrow made it as impossible to sing here, as joy had done in Leyden.
But Adrian had heard Roskĕ’s voice in theirs, singing the words she loved. With a rush of strength and hope, he felt that Roskĕ laid her hand in his, and bade him speak.
As God had brought one soul out of the depths, so could He bring a nation.
He raised his voice, and a hush fell upon the crowd, as he said what the children had been singing:—
‘Ye, my poor flock forsaken,
In peril dire and deep,
Despiséd, worn, and wasted,
Your Shepherd does not sleep;
His word, unfailing ever,
Be still your staff and guide;
The day of toil is waning,
Rest comes at eventide.’
‘Yes, he is at rest now—sore he needed, and well he earned it! But we mourn for ourselves, because our strength and stay has gone from us, our protector and deliverer is dead.—Friends, Is Christ dead?’
His voice thrilled through the great assembly, and sank into silence. A deeper silence followed it.
Then, with a glory on his upturned face, he went on: ‘No, He is not dead. “Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over him!” My friends, He is living, He is true. I have felt Him in the darkness; I have found Him in the depths—when all else sank away, He was there. Ay, there are some of you here who know, as I do. You have been through the great waterfloods, and they have not prevailed, for He was with you, He held you by the hand. Remember it now. Remember Alkmaar, remember Leyden, and the victories of the sea, and the years of the Right Hand of the Most High. He did not help as then, to forsake us at the last. No; the Lord liveth. He is our Rock, our Fortress, and our Deliverer. He will never forsake us—never!’
His voice sank lower, and quivered with a tenderer note, as he added: ‘Even on this day of sorrow, I bid you give thanks to Him. Hath He not heard our prayer for our lord, whom we love? We asked life for him, and He hath given him length of days, even forever and ever. We laid a crown at his feet, entreating him, at last, to take what our hearts had given him long ago. And now God hath crowned him for us, even with glory and honor. For him, let us be comforted; for ourselves, let us hope in God, who is our refuge and our strength. And, therefore, we will not fear, though the earth be removed, and the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.—Lift up your hearts!’
The voice of Dirk led the answer, but it rose in a mighty volume of sound from the heart of the listening crowd— ‘We lift them up unto the Lord!’
THE END