IN Antwerp, and indeed throughout the Netherlands, the position of the Protestants at that particular time was anomalous. The horrible Edicts against them continued, formally, in full force; and the express commands of the sovereign himself had recently ratified them, and enjoined their rigorous execution. When this was made known, multitudes fled the country in terror, crowds were arrested, and the prisons were filled to overflowing. If funeral piles could no longer be lighted safely, on account of the popular there were dark tales whispered of secret and no less cruel executions within the sombre gray walls of the Steen; the ancient citadel of Antwerp.
Yet every day the repugnance of the citizens to these horrors was growing more intense. They were free citizens, who knew their own minds, and spoke them, and acted on them, with small regard for king or Kaiser, for bishop or inquisitor. Although the ranks of the Reformed had been decimated so often by exile and martyrdom, a hundred seemed to spring up in the place of every one thus removed. Their numbers were enormous, and were increasing daily. Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists had each their large, though secret congregations, of which every member was formally and legally doomed to death, yet felt himself in less and less actual peril every day. The great majority of the Catholics, whilst they hated heresy, hated still more the Placards and the Inquisition; and were more or less ready either to circumvent them secretly, or to oppose them openly.
Moreover, the Protestants, being the oppressed party, enjoyed for the time the doubtful advantage of the sympathy of all that class, always numerous in great cities, who think any change an improvement, and are not very scrupulous over the means of bringing it about.
Day by day, drop by drop, the cup of popular indignation was filling; and at any time a few drops more might make it overflow.
If we want a weather gauge, we do not take a stout cable, but a weak, slender cord, sensitive to every breath of the atmosphere, and tightening or slackening readily in response. Thus, even Adrian Perrenot knew that change was in the air, after a conversation which he had, one bright spring morning, with his landlord Peregrine Blois.
That individual—Peregrine was the sort of person one instinctively calls an individual—stopped him as he was going out to see his patients.
‘A word with ye; M. le Docteur,’ he said, mysteriously motioning him into a little private room on the ground floor.
Adrian went unwillingly, fearing his landlord’s suspicions might have been awakened in some way about the Marchemonts, and much distrusting his own skill in the parrying of awkward questions. ‘If it is of household matters, had you not better speak to my servant?’ he said.
‘My words are for your own ear, monsieur. The fact is, I am going to entrust you with a secret, and a dangerous one, but I know I can trust implicitly to your honor.’
‘Thanks for your good opinion,’ Adrian said drily.
‘It may be bad or good, monsieur, according as you take it. I have a shrewd suspicion that you, like some others I could name, are not over much of a “Paternoster Jack.” Whatever a man may be, he had best in these times keep it to himself,’ said Adrian.
‘What if a time is coming when every honest citizen may ask what he thinks, and think what he likes? shall wait for it,’ said Adrian, ‘and I should have thought that you, Master Peregrine Blois, would have been of the same mind.’
‘Oh, as for that, a man must risk something for his faith. Then you would not care, I suppose, this fine spring weather, to take a walk abroad in the fields—say on Thursday afternoon—down by the river, near Mynheer Schultz’s farm buildings?’
‘If I did, what should I see?’
‘You might see a great gathering, M. le Docteur.’
‘And what should I hear?’
‘What would you think of hearing a sermon from M. Franciscus Junius? You know him by name, I suppose?’
‘I should think he was a rash man to preach it, and I nearly as rash to listen to him.’
‘But if there be two or three thousand to share the risk, might not that divide it into portions small enough for your honorableness?’
‘Possibly, if small enough for you. But the risk to the preacher—how divide that?’
‘Easily. These three thousand will not be all unarmed. There will be gentlemen with swords and pistols, honest citizens with side knives and staves, and plenty of stout ‘prentice lads, who will have no lack of sticks and stones. And every man of them will think of the preacher’s safety before his own.’
‘Many will, no doubt. Well, perhaps I may take walk in that direction, just out of curiosity.’
‘And if you should wish, from the same motive, of course, to possess a hymn-book of Clement Marot’s or a tract of Luther’s or Calvin’s, there will be hawkers in the field well furnished with such wares.’
‘Then, if I go, I had best take my purse. Any thieves likely to be in the crowd?’
‘Your honorableness knows very well that even the enemies of the Reformed bear witness to their honesty, quietness and good behavior.’
Adrian knew this was quite true; he had heard it often before, on better authority than that of Peregrine Blois. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I must go now. I will think of what you tell me.’
Later, he repeated it to Marchemont, with whom he was now on very confidential terms. ‘Our good landlord sets his sail to the favoring wind,’ said the preacher. ‘In your absence, one of my friends was here. He tells us wonderful story of what has been going on in Brussels. The nobles and gentlemen of the League (or, as they call it, the Compromise) have presented to the Regent Duchess a grand Petition, or Request, for the abolition of the Edicts and the Inquisition.’
‘Which she will doubtless treat as she has treated all the rest.’
‘Scarcely. Five hundred gentlemen—counts, barons and seigneurs of repute—cannot be silenced with a scoff, or crushed with a blow. Some scoffing indeed there was, on the part of our old enemy the Lord of Barlaymont, who called the petitioners “a lot of beggars,” but he is scarce like to have the best of it. Some of the nobles overheard the word, and answering a fool according to his folly, have agreed to call themselves “Beggars,” and to take the bowl and wallet for their symbol and device. This was done at a grand banquet given by the Baron van Brederode, whereat, grieve to say, there seems to have been much disorder and very deep drinking. I know Brederode of old, and cannot but regret that the defense of our cause should fall to such as he. It is true,’ he added, after a pause, ‘all are not like that—Count Louis of Nassau, for example; he may be, in God’s providence, our destined leader—only methinks we need a stronger man. Will you go to the preaching, M. Adrian?’
‘I should like to hear what your friends have to say—but, perhaps, Mademoiselle Rose may wish to go.’
‘Take her with you,’ said Marchemont promptly. Adrian’s heart gave a sudden leap. He felt that such an arrangement would be extremely agreeable. He pictured Rose, not flitting hastily in and out, answering him shyly in monosyllables and with downcast eyes, but at his side, in his charge, for a whole long afternoon. Before he spoke again he paused a moment, opened the little window, and felt that spring was abroad and a glow of life and promise in the air. But then reflection came. Would Rose like it? He more than suspected she would not. ‘Better,’ he said, ‘let Betteken go with mademoiselle. I will remain with you, and my books.’
Yet in the end Marchemont’s zeal for the conversion of Adrian carried the day. He went to the preaching, and so did Rose, under the care of Dame Catherine Blois, Peregrine’s far more sincere and earnest wife.
Adrian ever afterward retained a vivid remembrance or the striking scene, though a very faint idea of the preacher’s discourse. It turned entirely upon Justification by Faith, a subject of intense interest to that dense, closely-packed crowd, but to Adrian himself at that time wholly without meaning. He was far more interested in the whispers which passed from lip to lip—though not until the preacher had ended his three hours’ sermon—to the effect that Brederode was coming to Antwerp, to enroll the citizens in the League of the Beggars.
When the assembly broke up, Dame Catherine was obliged to lend her aid to a poor woman who had fainted in the crowd from fatigue and excitement, so the duty of escorting Rose devolved after all upon Adrian. Side by side, hand in hand—as the manner then was—they walked along in silence; for the sweet earnest face of Rose showed that she was rapt in high communings, which Adrian did not care to disturb. But when they reached their own door she drew a long breath of satisfaction, and murmured, ‘It has been glorious day!’ And Adrian felt himself quite able to reply, ‘I think it has.’
Brederode did not disappoint the expectations of the honest Antwerp citizens. He came on Good Friday, with a gay cavalcade of nobles and gentlemen, which. Rose beheld with girlish admiration from the front window, as they rode post on their way to the quarters prepared for them. Adrian refused to be disturbed from his studies, and shut his ears as far as he could to the noise and the shouting. He was endeavoring to trace the course of an artery.
He was not to escape so easily. During the days that followed he could not go out of doors without perceiving that the town was in a continual uproar. Not only did he dislike the noise and tumult, but he was seriously annoyed by the cries of ‘There goes the Cardinal’s cousin!’ which pursued instigated no doubt by the disappointed mendicants, for Betteken had saved his purse at the cost of his popularity. But he was not the man to shrink from positive duty, so he went as usual to visit his patients.
One day he had to pass the hotel in the Grande Place where Brederode lodged. A motley crowd of gentlemen, artisans, apprentices, and others, were assembled before the door. Yet it was, for the times, a singularly sad-colored, grey-looking crowd. The gentlemen, who largely predominated, had doffed their usual brilliant array in favor of cloaks of gray frieze, and plain, broad-leaved felt hats, with no ornament save a medal, mostly of lead or copper; while each of them wore, suspended by a cord round his neck, wallet and a wooden bowl. It might have been hard to tell these Beggars in masquerade from the real ones, but for the absence of rags, and the fact that most of them were on horseback. They were waiting for their leader and chief, in order to escort him on his way, for he was leaving the town that day. Meanwhile they beguiled the time by singing, shouting, and quaffing in their wooden bowls the wine that busy serving-men, clad also in the gray livery of the Beggars, brought out to them in great pitchers from the hotel.
Adrian, going on his way unthinking, was caught unawares in the crowd, and tried in vain to get out of it again. His path was obstructed, at first accidentally, afterward, as he thought, on purpose. He was rudely jostled and pushed about, the mendicants, real or pretended, showing little respect for his doctor’s robe. One knocked out of his hand his cherished gold-headed staff, the insignia of his office; another thrust into it instead the Beggars’ wallet.
‘Come, doctor, you must join us,’ cried a third, more good-humored than his fellows. ‘Let’s hear the sound of your voice. Try how loud you can shout “Long live the Beggars. Down with the Inquisition.”’
‘Take your hands off, then,’ said Adrian, for some one had seized him by the arm. ‘Down with the Inquisition, with all my heart! Now let me go. You see I am a physician, and I am hastening to a patient at the point of death.’
‘Then he shall die without thy aid, Master Doctor, and the better for him, perhaps. Come, say the whole of it—Long live the Beggars! Vivent les Gueux!’
‘Stand back, you fools! What are you about?’ cried a young and a handsome ‘Beggar’ on horseback, who looked more used to velvet and gold brocade than to the rough gray frieze he wore. ‘Stand back, and let us swear in the doctor regularly and in due form. Who knows but he may have the glory of being first physician in ordinary to the noble Order of the Beggars?’
‘He is physician in ordinary to the Venetians, who are all Popish varlets,’ cried a voice in the crowd.
Some one else struck the speaker promptly on the head with his wallet. ‘Popish varlets, indeed! Take that for thy insolence, prating heretic; know we can be good Catholics, and good Beggars too.’
‘Shut your foolish mouths, both of you,’ cried the horseman. ‘No wrangling here about religion. Bring us rather a jug of wine and a morsel of salt, that we do all things fit and orderly, as becomes the office and the worthiness of this new brother: Willing hands fetched the vine (it was not far off), and the salt was found also. Then the horseman filled to the brim the wooden bowl that hung round his own neck, dropped a little salt into it, and handed it to Adrian. ‘Cry “Vivent le Roi et les Gueux!” and drain that bowl to the health of both,’ he commanded.
‘Vivent le Roi et les Gueux!’ Adrian repeated obediently, raising the bowl to his lips. But, temperate by nature and by habit, he felt as if he had been ordered to drink up the Scheldt, and, in spite of his best efforts, left the bowl half full. It did not matter; the bystanders were all too busy repeating his cry, which, taken up by every voice, filled the whole square with a deafening clamor. Only the zealous Calvinist who had talked about Popish varlets saw his difficulty, kindly relieved him of the bowl, and emptied it at once in orthodox Beggar fashion. A broad-leaved felt hat was then thrust upon his head in place of the doctor’s cap. A wallet and bowl were slung round his neck, and the horseman ordered him to repeat after him the two lines of doggerel that served the Beggars for an oath of initiation—
By the salt, by the bread, by the bowl, by the rack,
The Beggars, whoever may rage, turn not back.
He did so, adding an entreaty that now at last they would let him go to his patient.
‘We’ve not done yet!’ cried his tormentors. ‘A razor! a razor! Let’s shave his beard off!’
But Adrian felt that he must draw the line there.
‘Leave my face as God has made it, and as beseems my honorable calling,’ he said, with sudden spirit. ‘What have men’s beards to do with the Inquisition?’
‘Not much, indeed, unless the Inquisition burns them off,’ cried someone in the crowd, perhaps a real beggar. ‘But the kinsman of the old Cardinal has got a good deal to do with it.’
‘The Cardinal’s kinsman! How say you?’ came at once from several voices.
‘Ask himself. M. le Docteur, be good enough to tell us your name in full.’
‘Ay, the name! Tell us the name!’ shouted the crowd.
Adrian set his face firmly, and his ancestor’s look came back into it as he said in a loud, clear voice, ‘My name is Adrian Perrenot.’
A yell of execration answered him.
‘I told you so, friends and brothers; here is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,’ were the first words distinctly heard.
‘Nay, a fox in sheep’s clothing,’ someone cried, catching at the fur of the doctor’s cloak, which tore off in his hand.
Even then Adrian had time to be sorry, for it was tore again where Rosa had mended it.
‘Perhaps the old fox left him behind to take some of us off with his poisons,’ another suggested.
‘He’s not to be trusted,’ they all agreed. ‘He will never be a true Beggar. Turn him out! turn him out!’
‘Too late for that!’ objected others. ‘We have sworn him in. He must stay with us now.’
‘Give him a basin of water over his head—as they did to the Archbishop of Cambray—to wash out the sine of his kinsman,’ cried a voice in the crowd. The rest took up the cry. ‘Water, water,’ passed from lip to lip.
‘But here is no water, save wine,’ a few were heard to murmur.
Then a prevailing voice arose above the rest. ‘If we bring not the water to him, we can bring him to the water. To the Meir! To the Meir!’ It swayed the crowd with a common impulse. A dozen rough hands were laid at once upon Adrian—but the horseman who had administered the oath to him interposed. ‘Hands off,’ said he. ‘A man does not choose his own name or his own kinsfolk. This man may be good and true, though his name is Perrenot. Give him a chance. Let him cry, “Down with the Cardinal!”’
‘The Cardinal is down,’ Adrian said. ‘Brave men do not fight the fallen.’
‘Not fallen so low that he may not rise again. Say the words, Master Doctor, or it will be worse for you,’ his friend advised. ‘Or stay—curse him—that will do as well.’
‘Curse him!—Curse him!’ the bystanders shouted.
‘No,’ said Adrian Perrenot. He did not raise his voice above its usual pitch, yet it reached every ear in the excited throng. ‘No. I hate the Placards, I detest the Inquisition. I desire freedom for all, and harm for none. But I have eaten the Cardinal’s bread and salt; therefore not for any man will I curse his name.’
The words were greeted with a deafening roar.
‘To the Meir! To the Meir! Duck him! Drown him!’ Adrian was seized again by a hundred furious hands. The horseman could not—or did not—protect him. In spite of his desperate resistance he was dragged along quickly—swept off his feet. Was his last hour come?
Loud and high over the crowd rang a voice of authority. ‘What are you doing with the man? Bring him hither to me.’
There was a pause of irresolution, a confused murmur, and some of those who were holding Adrian dropped their hands. For one wild moment he dreamed of escaping, and made a dash forward for his freedom. But he was seized and dragged back again, into the very heart of the crowd. At last, after much pushing and shoving, struggling and elbowing, he got room to breathe, and found himself standing just under the steps of the hotel. There was a pause and a silence. The crowd fell back a little, leaving a space around him.
On the highest step stood a man whom Adrian had seen once before in Brussels. Then his dress was of tawny velvet, and crimson satin broidered with gold—now he wore the universal livery of coarse, gray frieze. But plumed velvet bonnet or broad felt hat shaded the same handsome, sensual, truculent face—a face that evidently had seen better days ‘ere coarse excesses, continually repeated, had obliterated its finer lines, and graven other and baser records there.
‘Good friends and beggars all,’ said Henry van Brederode, ‘what is the matter? What has yonder honest man been about, to anger you so much?’ name is Perrenot. ‘He is a kinsman of Cardinal Granvelle,’ shouted a dozen voices at once.
‘A kinsman of the old fox? Well, for my part, and I am sure all honest citizens here agree with me, I wish the whole race and lineage was extinct—like the race of green dogs. What would you do with the man?’
‘Duck him in the Meir. Try if he is a sorcerer, and can’t drown.’
Brederode shrugged his very broad shoulders.
‘Throw him into cold water!’ he exclaimed, with horror real or affected. ‘That is really too bad—even for a kinsman of the Cardinal. If it were into wine, now—Besides, he may be a true man after all. Belike he may hate the old fox as heartily as some of my precious kinsmen hate me. Try him!’
A chorus of voices protested that he had been tried, and had refused even to say so much as, ‘Down with the Cardinal.’
‘Is that so, Master Doctor?’ inquired the great Beggar, with a sort of mock judicial air.
‘My lord,’ said Adrian firmly, ‘I hate the Cardinal’s counsels and his doings—especially the Inquisition and the new bishops—as much as any man can do. And,’ he added, with a thought of Marchemont, ‘perhaps I did not wait to prove it until all men were shouting against them in the streets. But I have eaten the. Cardinal’s bread. I owe to his bounty this honorable robe I wear as Doctor of the University of Padua, where he maintained me. Therefore it would be for me the act of a base-born churl to revile his name at the bidding of any man.’
‘By my faith, Master Doctor, thou art a bold varlet,’ cried Brederode with a hearty laugh. ‘More fit for the sword and hauberk than for the pestle and mortar. However, since boldness, by all accounts, is the Beggar’s most indispensable quality, far from misusing thee, we welcome thee for a brother. Friends, instead of that detestable thing, cold water, on the outside of him, let us give him a deep draft of the best Rhenish within. He is a physician, and knows what is good for all men, especially for himself.’
Adrian tried to excuse himself. ‘I have already drunk the health of the Beggars, since it pleases honorable gentlemen to be called by that name,’ he said. ‘I entreat of you, my lord, request these honest citizens to let me pass. I am going to visit sick man in extremis.’
‘Go then, with a benison; the rather as we are in haste, and should have been on our road by this time— only it is hard to leave good wine—Stay though, come hither to me.’
Adrian obeyed; though not without some trepidation, for never could any man guess what Henry van Brederode might be doing next.
All he did was to take off his own broad-leaved felt hat, detach the silver modal that adorned it, and throw it with its cord round the neck of Adrian. It bore on one side two hands clasped over a wallet, with the motto, ‘Fidéle all roi jusqu’a la besace,’ and on the other the head of Philip II.; since then, and for a long time afterward, the friends of liberty opposed the king’s Edicts in the king’s name. ‘The man who has been faithful to a bad kinsman is all the surer to be faithful to a good cause,’ said the great Beggar, with one of his flashes of sense and insight. ‘And now, friends and burghers, stand aside and let the doctor go his way.’
Room was quickly made for him. The mob took its tone from its leader and just then its idol. One man brought Adrian his doctor’s cap; another, much to his satisfaction, his valuable gold-headed cane. His purse had not been meddled with, the Beggars (when their ranks were not recruited by the rightful owners of the name) being, with all their faults, ‘indifferent honest.’
It was Adrian’s nature to be calm in actual danger, but to feel all its terrors in the reaction sure to follow. He went to see his patient with a dazed, bewildered brain. He had intended to try the effect upon him of a rare and newly discovered drug; but he forgot all about it, and recommended instead no medicine at all, the simplest diet, and cold-water bandages.
The patient recovered, and much more quickly than Adrian expected. In fact, he got over his malady long before his physician got over the effects of that day’s adventure.