CHAPTER XII
AUGUST 20, 1672
He was still dressing when Johanna de Zwyndrecht came to him.
“The gaoler’s maid from the Gevangenpoort, John——”
She could say no more.
“From Cornelius?”
He had just finished shaving, and stood with his collar untied and the strings in his hand.
“Yes.”
“Ah, he sends for me?”
“Yes.”
John de Witt stepped up to her and put his arm about her.
“Johanna—my dear—has he been sentenced?”
“To banishment—the councillors, the maid says, read him his sentence in the prison this morning.”
She dropped her head on his shoulder and a sob broke from her full heart.
“Oh, John!”
“My dear, my dear, he has his life and his liberty. I will go fetch him from the prison—at once.”
His sister shuddered.
“Yes, and yet——”
“What?”
“Ah, they have been rioting all night—I wish we were away from the Hague——”
“We shall be—to-day.”
He drew her gently downstairs.
There his daughter Anna waited in the dining-room.
It was not yet nine, and the early sun had not touched the cool chamber.
The gaoler’s maid had gone again, simply leaving this message, that M. de Witt was to be set at liberty, and had, on hearing this, at once requested that his brother might be sent for.
“I will go,” repeated John de Witt, “at once—and bring him away.”
His daughter, who held her hands clenched and pressed upon her heart, looked at him with a wild expression.
“Father—must you go? Cannot Uncle Cornelius be brought here? Must you go?”
“Anna!”
“Do you know what the streets are like?—the maid said every one was furious because my uncle was not condemned to death.”
She rose, and her pale eyes brimmed with tears.
“Do not go——”
“Cornelius sent for me.”
“He did not understand——”
“Dearest, the Hague is safe enough——”
“No, no!”
“There are the burgher companies——”
“They are Orangist.”
He was not to be persuaded.
“Cornelius sent for me.”
Johanna also was fearful.
“You will, at least, not go alone?” she said.
“I will take the clerk and Van den Wissel if it please you.”
“Yes—I will tell them.”
Anna was not to be comforted. What she had seen and heard these last weeks at the Hague had utterly unnerved her; she clung to her father convulsively, dumb with the swelling sobs.
Agneta sat in the wide window-seat, her head bowed on to her knees.
M. Van Ouvenaller, who had been abroad that morning, had repeated to her, in his agitation, some of the remarks he had heard in the streets.
“Michael Tichelaer,” he declared, “is running up and down telling every man he meets that M. Cornelius is as good as acquitted, and that he must by no means escape his punishment.”
The presage of unimaginable evil conveyed in this held Agneta speechless; her spirit was so chained with terror that she could not even join Anna in her vain entreaties.
John de Witt strove to quiet and console them all by speaking of homely things; he desired his sister to prepare a meal for Cornelius, who would have had but a prison breakfast, and to lay out some garments for him, for he intended to take his brother at once to his country-house, where Maria—his wife—and her children stayed.
Jacob de Witt, he knew, would wish to accompany him, but the old man was sitting happily in the garden with his little grandson John, who had rushed to tell him that Cornelius was safe, and he would not trouble him, so commanded them not to let him know of his departure.
Not waiting for the coach, he bid the man bring it round to the Gevangenpoort in half an hour’s time. The prison was but a few yards away. As he gave this order the women were silent, and averted their eyes from one another.
They knew it meant that Cornelius would not be able to walk, or perhaps even to stand.
The day before he had been tortured … by the rack, the pulley and the cord.
Johanna felt as if the screws were turned on her own heart as the hideous image of her brother in agony flashed before her; she turned aside with gulping tears.
At about half-past nine John de Witt gently left their sorrowful company and set out on foot for the Gevangenpoort.
He had with him the two clerks, M. Bacherus and M. Ouvenaller, and his faithful servant, Van den Wissel, who had nearly been slain in Van der Graef’s attack on his master.
It was a warm, lovely morning; little flakes of gold lay in the ripples of the Vyver, and there was a shimmering of light and shade in the chestnuts and elms.
John de Witt noticed nothing warranted to rouse the fears his sister and daughters entertained.
There were the women going to market, the farmers drawn by their dogs in their little painted carts, the usual passers-by; one saluted him, for the rest he was unnoticed.
He passed the spot where John Van Olden Barnenveldt had been executed, and thought of it, as he had continually done of late when he crossed the Plaats.
Many times had he looked at the old gate prison, now with a horrid interest and a painful shrinking.
The plain brick building, with its high, tiled roof pierced with two gabled windows built over the low, dark arch, above which the arms of Holland were set, had always been a place of awe to him, because it had witnessed the imprisonment and agonies of those early Reformers who had been martyred by the Inquisition, but now its association made him quiver to his heart.
Cornelius had been tortured here … yesterday.
De Witt went very pale as he traversed the passage of the arch.
At the door of the prison-house, on the right, a small, mean entrance, were two soldiers of the burgher guard.
They had been placed there ever since the attempt of the mob to carry forth Cornelius de Witt.
John de Witt set his lips.
The moment cost him something.
M. Van Ouvenaller rang the heavy iron bell.
The gaoler opened to them, and almost immediately.
“Which way?” asked M. de Witt.
The gaoler stared.
“Come,” said M. Van Ouvenaller, “you know M. John de Witt.”
The man pulled off his cap at that, and M. de Witt followed him across the narrow threshold and up a narrow stairway, worn, old and dark, that wound up to a long, dark corridor lit by small windows giving on the inner courtyard.
Opposite one of these windows the gaoler stopped, slipped back the bolts from a low, heavy wooden door, and stood aside for M. de Witt to enter.
He stepped into a fair-sized room with a rough-beamed ceiling, plaster walls, a low-arched, brick fireplace, and one window overlooking the Plaats and barred lengthwise and across with iron.
There were a few chairs, rush-bottomed, a handsome carved table, and opposite the fireplace, and sideways to the window, a simple wooden bed, on which lay Cornelius in his nightgown, a red coverlet over him; near him stood a second, smaller table, on which were a few books and a shining, brass candlestick.
Seeing the door open, Cornelius raised himself on his elbow expectantly.
John de Witt crossed the room, the clerks, servant, and the gaoler behind him.
When the brothers had parted, four months ago, one had been the governor of his country at home, the other the guardian of her honour at sea; they had been treated with deference, surrounded with respect; the greatest men in the land … four months ago.
They were both stately and of austere manners, both mindful that they were not alone.
“How are you, brother?” asked John, advancing to the bedside. “I have not seen you since your return from the Fleet.”
Cornelius was equally resolved not to show the feeling that was too deep indeed for expression.
“Nor I you since your wounds and illness,” he answered.
He fell back again on his hard pillow. John glanced at his bandaged hands, at his grey and drawn face, and the colour rushed into his own and ebbed again.
“I am come to take you away, Cornelius,” he said faintly.
The Ruard’s brown eyes flashed with their old fire.
“Not yet, I do not submit to my sentence.”
John seated himself on the rush-bottomed chair beside the bed.
“What was the crime your sentence accused you of?”
“None—that is my point; by a flagrant breach of the law the sentence made no accusation, but merely condemned me to banishment.”
“It was read to you here?”
“Yes—though I claimed it should be delivered at the bar of the court … it was for fear of the riots, they said.”
John looked at him in a troubled, earnest way.
“Forgive me,” said Cornelius, breathing heavily with pain. “I was under torture for two hours yesterday, and as my rheumatism made me sensitive … it has left me weak.… I cannot explain it all to you as I should wish.”
John wiped his brow, and then clenched his handkerchief in his hand.
“I must get you away; you are at least free, Cornelius.”
“No—I will appeal to the Grand Council against this unlawful sentence.”
“I dare not consent to any delay in your release.”
Cornelius answered proudly—
“Shall I leave this prison a condemned criminal when I am innocent?”
“Alas! I fear you will never obtain justice—only through my personal appeal to the Prince have the people been disappointed of your death.”
“The Prince!” repeated Cornelius fiercely. “I do not wish the pity of the Prince, but the justice of the States.”
“That is,” said John, “what you will never obtain in these wild and passionate times.”
“What we shall neither of us obtain under William of Orange,” replied Cornelius.
The gaoler had left them, yet even before the two clerks the remark was rash.
“The Stadtholder,” said John de Witt, “did what he could—he warned me to leave the Hague soon.”
But Cornelius was ever the more fiery and unyielding of the two; he had a warlike pride not easily subdued; with the same unshaken firmness with which he had endured the rack he protested that he would appeal to the Grand Council.
His brother represented that it would be in vain, as the decision of the court was held to be final.
“I wonder,” said Cornelius, “that you try to persuade me against my honour. Why should I submit to tyranny?”
He looked at his hands, through the linen bandages of which the blood was oozing.
“Have I not borne enough?” he demanded proudly.
John de Witt rose in agitation.
“I think of your safety … let us get out of the Hague——”
“Not banished, and dishonoured,” said Cornelius firmly; “and ruined too. They have taken all my offices and dignities from me, and ordered me to pay the costs of the trial. Shall I go to my children a useless, degraded man?”
“Ah, Cornelius, but you cherish a vain dream when you imagine that the Grand Council can or will do you justice. I wish to save your life—for that is all that we can save.”
“See my sentence,” answered Cornelius eagerly; “it is so full of flaws, of breaches of the law, that they would not dare to refuse my appeal.”
John saw his brother was resolved; that he must, at least, humour him.
“I will see the sentence,” he said. “Go to the Record Office and fetch me here a copy of my brother’s sentence.”
The clerk left the room.
John de Witt went back to the bedside.
“I am in anguish till I see you out of this,” he said.
“I will appeal.”
“Cornelius, the coach waits below—to take you home.”
“Home! Am I not a banished, outcast man?”
“There are Maria and your children.”
Cornelius was silent.
“You think I give cowardly counsels,” said his brother, “but I am but too well convinced that we need hope for nothing more in Holland.”
He turned away abruptly to hide his agitation, and crossed to the window.
Little groups of people were gathered on the Plaats, mostly looking towards the prison.
The Groote Kerk struck half-past ten.
John walked up and down the rough boards, looking on the ground.
Cornelius watched him with dark and resolute eyes.
Both were very pale.
“What of Maria?” asked Cornelius at length, very low.
“She has written to you?”
“Every day—but was always so eager to hearten me, poor soul, that I know not much of herself.”
“She is well; she hath kept up a wonderful courage.… She is coming to the Hague to be the first to greet you on your release.”
Again Cornelius was silent, then he said—
“She will hardly know me.”
John could not answer.
The Ruard spoke again—
“John, I am innocent of even the shadow of what is imputed to me.”
“This to me!” cried his brother reproachfully.
“A man might well get bemused with all their lies,” said Cornelius wearily.
Silence again. An unaccountable uneasiness possessed John de Witt; he longed to see his brother at his side in his coach, the open country before them, the Hague behind.
“Bacherus is very long.” He broke the pause at last.
The Record Office was only a few moments’ walk distant.
John looked from the window again.
The crowd had increased.
“Van Ouvenaller,” he said, “go and see what hath become of M. Bacherus.”
The second clerk left.
The window commanded a view of the Plaats, the Vyver, and the Kneuterdyk Avenue, with John de Witt’s house at the corner, and the window in the narrow corridor looked on to the court enclosed by the prison building, but they were without any means of discovering what was happening in the Buitenhof opposite the prison door.
In a few moments M. Ouvenaller returned, pallid and trembling.
“Ah, Mynheer,” he exclaimed, “there is an angry crowd gathered—they have sent away your carriage, and I fear that M. Bacherus will not be able to return.”
“What is this?” cried Cornelius, starting up. “John, you must go at once—I should never have sent for you!”
“What do they say?” asked the younger de Witt.
“They say that they will not have Mynheer Cornelius leave in triumph, but that he must go on foot.”
“Is Tichelaer there?”
“Yes, among the ringleaders—calling horrid names on you both, Mynheeren!”
“John,” said Cornelius firmly, “you must leave me while you—can.”
“Yes,” answered his brother, catching up his mantle, “I will leave you, because I will go to the States and complain of these disturbances; but I shall return very shortly to liberate you.”
“I trust to your advice,” answered Cornelius. “I will go with you on your return, if you think it fit. Good-bye—brother.”
“Good-bye, for a little while.”
Putting on his hat, and accompanied by Van Ouvenaller and his servant, John de Witt descended to the mean passage from which the insignificant door gave straight on to the street.
The gaoler, Van Bossi, opened it for his exit, but as de Witt made to step out of the prison the two burghers on guard crossed their muskets before him.
“No one can leave,” one of them said, and roughly motioned him back.
John de Witt surveyed him sternly.
“Why not?” he demanded. “You know very well who I am.”
Others of the burgher company came running up to where M. de Witt stood in the narrow doorway behind the crossed muskets.
“You cannot leave without an order!” a soldier shouted.
“Whose order do you require?” asked John de Witt.
“That of our officer.”
The crowd began hurrying up from all quarters; seeing who stood in the doorway, they raised a shout of—
“Fire! Fire!”
A musket was discharged.
John de Witt coloured with anger, and was in the act of forcing his way out, regardless of the threatening yells, when the gaoler thrust him violently back and quickly closed the door.
John de Witt had been handled with such force that he stumbled and fell at the foot of the stairs.
As he rose again he lifted the long, disordered hair from his face, on which was an expression of horror, as if he had seen an image of hideous death.
“I wish I were out of this,” he muttered. “How can I get out of this?”
The gaoler stood dumb and terrified.
Quickly John de Witt composed himself.
“Take me back to my brother,” he said.
He had not ascended half the stairs before the bell of the prison rang.
Two burgher captains stood without: Van Os, a postman, and Van Asselyn, a bookseller.
John de Witt was called down to speak to them; they were moved by his composed, serene demeanour, and promised to persuade the captain of the guard to let him pass.
He waited for their return, but in vain; the other burghers prevented it.
“I wish I were out of this,” repeated M. de Witt. “How shall I get out? Is there no other way but this?”
“No, Mynheer.”
“No other exit at all?”
“None whatever, Mynheer,” admitted the frightened gaoler.
John de Witt bit his lower lip.
“Very well, I am going back to my brother,” he said
He had already been in the prison nearly two hours.
As he mounted the stairs he could hear, clearly enough, the shouts and cries of the mob.
Johanna’s fears and the tears of Anna—the placard of last night—were all very clear in his mind. He shuddered despite himself. There was an atmosphere about the dull, confined spaces of the prison sufficient in itself to depress the heart and check the delusions of hope.
The gaoler, alarmed by the turn things were taking, confided to M. de Witt that Michael Tichelaer, before his release that morning (he had been in prison during the trial of Cornelius) had uttered the most horrid threats against the brothers, so that he, Van Bossi, had sent to ask the judges to keep him in the prison until the Ruard was in safety.
But the judges had ordered Tichelaer to be released, declaring that they would see that order was preserved. But all the morning Tichelaer had been going up and down the Hague, inflaming the people by saying they were like to lose their victim through the foolish clemency of His Highness.
Van Bossi added that he would send his servant to the States, who were now sitting, asking them to dispatch a force to hold the people in check.
“Is the Stadtholder still at the Hague?” asked M. de Witt.
“Mynheer, he left for Woerden at half-past eight this morning.”
John de Witt entered in silence his brother’s room, leaving his clerk and servant below. He found Cornelius reading a little Elzevir Horace, which he held awkwardly in his bandaged hands.
“Cornelius.”
“John—returned!”
They were alone now, unwatched; their one care to conceal their uneasiness from each other.
“I cannot leave the prison,” said John, seating himself beside the bed, “the streets are too disordered——”
“Trapped!” muttered Cornelius, “trapped!—that rogue Tichelaer means my death.”
“The gaoler has sent his servant to the States,” answered his brother quickly, “to demand protection for the prison.”
“Ah!—it is as serious as that?”
Cornelius laid down the Horace.
“I wish I could stand,” he said through his teeth.
John turned his eyes away.
“I should never have sent for you,” continued his brother, reproaching himself.
“I am safe enough—the Prince left Count Tilly behind——”
A sudden roar from the Plaats broke off his speech.
“Tilly’s dragoons!” cried Cornelius, who heard horsemen.
John was at the window.
“No—the burgher companies.”
Not the forces of the States, but the soldiers of the people were arriving at the Plaats; perhaps fifteen hundred of them already surrounding the prison.
The company of the blue stationed itself by the Vyver; four other companies marched out of sight; while the division of the white, orange, and blue took up their position in front of the Gevangenpoort.
John de Witt could see them exchange pleasantries with the crowd, while many among them echoed the popular cry—
“Up with Orange, down with de Witt!”
“Heaven guard us,” he muttered, “if we must trust to these!”
Van Bossi returned.
The message had, he said, been taken to the States, who had ordered out the cavalry, and dispatched a messenger to the Prince of Orange, as he was the only man, they declared, who could restore order in the Hague.
“Have the magistrates no power?” asked Cornelius scornfully.
Very little, it seemed—since the arming of the burgher companies they trembled for their own lives.
“How far is the Prince’s camp?” asked John de Witt.
“Eight leagues, they say.”
The gaoler added that the Hague was in a hideous state of ferment and passion, and that the States feared a general riot, in which every one of republican sympathies would be massacred.
John de Witt rose with an uncontrollable sound of anguish, for he thought of his family separated from him by only a few yards, yet at the mercy of the mob.
“O God, my God,” he cried, “spare me that at least!”
Cornelius struggled into a sitting position.
“Van Bossi,” he said firmly, “desire some of these burghers to come and speak with us.”
John turned eagerly.
“Yes, bring these men before us—let them state their grievances to our faces.”
“Mynheeren, I dare not bring any of them into the prison.”
“We are not afraid,” said Cornelius calmly.
Van Bossi looked from one to the other.
“I wish you both out of this, Mynheeren,” he declared.
“Has any one been to the States?” cried John de Witt, walking up and down. “If they would let me out that I might speak to the States myself.”
He could not believe that the Assembly he had swayed for twenty years would be deaf to him.
“Have a little patience, Mynheer,” answered Van Bossi, “and I will speak to Van Ruysch, the colonel of the burghers, who is outside the door.”
“We thank you,” said Cornelius. “And, my friend, since my brother is like to be detained here will you send us some food?”
The man stared at him, confounded at his calm.
“It is past midday,” said John. “Bring us what you have.”
The gaoler left in silence.
Cornelius took up a book with an air of unconcern; it was a volume of French plays, but he did not look at the pages; his eyes could not leave his brother, who was standing by the barred window gazing out on to the Plaats.
“What are they doing?” asked Cornelius after a while.
“Gathering in great numbers—armed, all armed,” answered John. “There comes Tilly and his men.”
He could not repress a little sigh of relief as the guards, three hundred strong, swept through the crowd and took up their position before the prison.
A cry of “Long live His Highness!” broke from the people, and “Down with the de Witts!”
“We are of the same opinion!” some of the soldiery shouted back.
“They too are disaffected,” muttered John.
“But Count Tilly is a brave and loyal officer,” said Cornelius.
Each was very careful not to show the slightest sign of inward uneasiness; they did not dare speak on intimate subjects for fear they should betray themselves.
John left the window and came back to the bedside.
The sun was blazing full across the bars and throwing their likeness on the rough floor. The maid who had brought the message to John de Witt’s house entered with a homely meal of bread, cheese, and dried fish.
“Why are you crying, my child?” asked John gently.
She pressed her apron to her eyes.
“Oh, Mynheer,” she said in terrified sobbing, “the people! … outside … they grow every moment more excited.…”
“What do they want?” asked Cornelius calmly.
“To kill you!” she answered in a burst of terror. “Oh, Mynheer!”
The Ruard’s dark eyes flashed.
“Very well,” he said, “I am here—let them come—but they have no excuse to detain my brother.”
“They will not let Mynheer John escape,” the girl sobbed, shivering. “Some of them are searching the houses next door to see if there should be any secret passage, and there has one climbed on to the roof with a gun—if you try to escape.”
“We have no thought of it,” said Cornelius proudly.
The maid gave him a wild look and hurried out of the room.
The brothers avoided each other’s glance. John surveyed the window, stoutly barred, the iron-clamped door giving on to the narrow corridor … certainly they were in a trap.…
He set the meal himself on the smooth polished table, and his thoughts were in his home on the Kneuterdyk. He pictured Johanna’s piteous preparations for their return; her anxious arrangement for dinner—which was standing now untouched in the dining-room—her setting out of travelling garments for Cornelius; their old father, happy again at the thought of his son’s release; the doves in the trees and the girls in their pale dresses.…
What bitterness were they enduring as the time went on and the threatening crowd spread between them and the prison?
These little trifling recollections were the keenest stabs in the wounded heart of John de Witt.… Not the thought of his useless life-work, not the vision of approaching death were as potent to lacerate his soul as the thought of those waiting in vain … in vain.
Cornelius spoke—
“How is our father of late?”
John did not look at him as he answered—
“Well—but failing. He is engaged on a book of meditations, he writes them down in the evenings.…”
“I should have liked,” said Cornelius, “to see him again.”
He was under no delusions as to his own fate, his one hope was to save his brother.
“You shall see him,” answered John firmly, though his heart swelled with choking anguish. “We shall get out of this. Why, these people are our countrymen—they are not murderers.”
“John, I was doomed since that day in Dordt,” returned Cornelius. “How they howl! I wonder why they hate us so?”
His eyes narrowed as he listened to the noise rising from the Plaats.
Neither spoke until they had finished their meal, each eating to maintain this show of calm before the other.
At the end, John rose and went again to the window.
He could not forbear a start.
In the centre of the Plaats a section of the burgher company of the red was putting up the scaffold, always erected on this spot for an execution.
Cornelius could not but perceive his agitation.
“What are they doing now?”
“Nothing—only it is such a vast crowd.”
He was absolutely composed again, though he could not doubt for whom the scaffold was intended.
He was saved from further question by the entry of Van Bossi.
The gaoler was almost inarticulate with fear and dismay.
They gathered from his broken speech that two of the burgher captains had scaled the walls of the prison-yard and, in company with Ruysch, who had been admitted, demanded to see the brothers.
Before he had finished speaking, noisy voices were heard in the corridor, and the three men pushed rudely into the chamber.
They were armed with swords and muskets, and wore flaunting orange favours.
The gaoler stepped aside, and the intruders found themselves face to face with John de Witt, who had turned full towards them.
Seeing a tall gentleman of a princely carriage, erect and stately as any soldier, with a pale but perfectly composed countenance of a handsome nobility, looking at them with the eyes that had faced Europe, their mere violence was abashed.
“What is your authority?” asked John de Witt.
“I come from the States,” said Ruysch sullenly. “To see you do not escape before we hear what His Noble and Mighty Highness proposes to do with you.”
“Did the States send you on that errand?” demanded Cornelius.
“Would you rather be left to the citizens of the Hague?” said one of the other men, avoiding his eye.
“If you have been sent to protect us from the violence of the mob, I thank you,” said John. “But we are neither answerable to the States nor to His Highness, but are free men.”
“We do not deny it,” replied Ruysch, who wished to keep on the side of the law.
“Very well.” John took up his hat. “I will go to the States, while you guard my brother, and procure an order for his release.”
His calm air of authority overawed them, but they stepped before the door.
“By what right do you detain me?” he demanded.
Ruysch, who had no pretext, could only say, “Wait a little longer, sir, the people are too excited.”
John de Witt looked at him a moment in silence, then he said—
“Will you let my clerk and servant depart?”
They could not in decency refuse.
Ruysch gave ungracious acquiescence.
“Will you send one of your men with them to see them through the crowd?”
M. Ruysch hesitated, then saw a chance of ridding himself of an onerous duty.
“I will go myself,” he said.
John de Witt perceived his motive, but did not quarrel with it, since it equally well served his turn.
There were pen and ink on the table; tearing the fly-leaf from the French volume he wrote on it an urgent message to Van Ouvenaller, entreating him to conduct his children into a place of safety. He handed it to M. Ruysch.
“Give this to my clerk who is below,” he said; and with an earnest look of nobility that brought the blood to Ruysch’s cheek, he added simply, “I know very well what is ahead of me, and I ask you, as you fear God, to see my children safe.”
“I will do it,” answered Ruysch awkwardly.
He left, meanly glad to escape the task of protecting the brothers.
“I wish,” he said as he stepped from the prison, “that I had never seen the MM. de Witt.”
John now turned to the two burgher officers; with a disarming courtesy he bid them sit at the table, and Cornelius offered them wine.
“You are brave men and honourable citizens, my brother is innocent—you will defend him, you will assure the people he is innocent.”
The statesman who had guided his country through the storms of European politics for twenty years found no trouble in influencing a couple of ignorant burghers whom he employed all his arts to gain.
They protested their goodwill and went out to keep guard in the corridor.
John de Witt’s hope now rested in Count Tilly, who with the utmost firmness was sweeping the crowd back across the Plaats.
A goldsmith named Verhoef, in company with Michael Tichelaer, had taken the head of one of the burgher companies, and was practically master of the moment.
John de Witt could hear him threateningly order Tilly to retire; he saw Tilly ride out from his troops to answer them.
His words came with a faint clearness to the prison window.
“Burghers of the Hague, do you wish to fill your streets with blood? If you do, possibly you may be the first to suffer for it.”
Wild shouts answered him—
“Withdraw your troops!”
“No. I obey my orders.”
“Tilly stands firm,” said John to Cornelius.
Verhoef, mounted on a white horse, rode up to the cavalry of the States, an Orange flag in his hand.
“Very well,” he shouted fiercely, “if it is orders you want we will get them for you!”
And he and his troop galloped off in the direction of the Stadhuis.
John drew back from the window.
“They have gone to procure an order for Tilly’s withdrawal,” he said in a low voice.
The eyes of the brothers met across the prison space.
“The magistrates will never give that order.”
John put his hand to his breast.
“Oh, pray God they do nothing base, for they were great—my Republic.”
Quickly he composed himself again.
“We will not believe it, Cornelius.”
“No man could be so weak or so wicked,” said his brother, “as to deliver us to certain death.”
“No,” said John. “No——”
But he added almost instantly.
“I would the Prince was at the Hague, Cornelius.”
“The Prince!” answered his brother, “he is too good a politician.… He was very careful not to be at the Hague to-day.”
“Ah, no, Cornelius.…”
The Ruard smiled in an angry kind of scorn.
“They have sent for him—well—he will not come.”
“I believe he will—let him only get the message in time——”
“Ah—‘let him’—that is his skill, to cloak himself with ‘ifs’ and ‘lets’.…”
“You never liked him,” said John de Witt, “but I cannot believe him vile.”
Cornelius dragged himself painfully into a sitting posture.
“Hark to that!”
He listened to the manifold and surging noises of the crowd without, held only at bay by Tilly’s dragoons.
“Some devil’s arts have struck this fury out of them.”
“It is Michael Tichelaer,” answered John, staring from the window.
“Michael Tichelaer! a boor!—who is behind Michael Tichelaer?”
John was silent.
“I will answer you—William of Nassau—I think his agents are there now below urging the people on.”
“Cornelius—I do not credit it—ah! do not let us fill our thoughts with such images.”
He moved away from the window, his hand to his brow.
“Not now,” he added—“not now.”
Cornelius looked at him with a fierce tenderness. He had never from the first alarm thought to save himself, but he had not anticipated the horror of involving his brother in his fate.
“I was mad to send for you,” he said bitterly.
John de Witt did not speak.
He sat droopingly in one of the rush-bottomed chairs, his black velvet mantle hanging from his shoulders, his long hair and the silk ties of his cravat falling over his breast; the clear-cut, fine lines of his face were set off by the heavy lace round his throat; his thick brows were slightly contracted; the firm, full lips set resolutely under the slight moustache.
He gazed absently at the rough prison floor and mean walls to which his destiny had narrowed: endeavour, achievement, dignities, honour, labour, the council, the Cabinet, high hopes, noble toil, all come to this paltry square of boards and plaster where he sat forsaken.
His life-work had been over before he entered the humble door, but he had cherished modest desires: some little leisure to teach his son and love his daughters, some peaceful time in which to draw nearer the God he had always served … in the heart his countrymen had broken.
He thought of all the things he had wished to do and had left undone—of his home and the farewells that morning that were never to be spoken again.
His heart seemed to contract, then swell, stifling him.
He turned in his chair with a quick movement of agony and saw his brother’s dark, resolute eyes gazing at him.
“Cornelius!”
“I curse myself that I brought you here,” said the Ruard.
“Even if I had foreseen this I would have come,” answered John. “We are at least together,” he smiled. “Since we have shared everything for so long it is good that we share this now.”
He went swiftly to the door and opened it on the two burgher officers without.
“Mynheeren,” he said courteously, “how go events without?”
The men were both troubled and frightened; one had been down to speak to Tichelaer, who had just returned from a parley with the magistrates, who were utterly in the power of the mob.
Tichelaer and Verhoef had both been deaf to the pleadings of the councillors, and had declared their intention of dragging the brothers from the prison and hanging them on the gibbet, refusing even to wait until the Prince reached the Hague.
“His Mighty Noble Highness is too tender-hearted,” Tichelaer had declared; “the work must be done in his absence.”
Under the excuse that a body of rebellious peasants were marching on the Hague, the burgher companies had ordered Tilly to withdraw and defend the entry to the town. But on his firm refusal to obey any but his masters, the States, Tichelaer, seeing all attempts to gain the prison useless while he kept guard, had gone before the magistrates a second time to extort the written command for his withdrawal.
“But, Mynheer,” said the burgher officer, “they will not give it.”
John de Witt gave him a sweet look never to be forgotten.
“You are a good fellow,” he said, “and have done your best for us … it must be as God sees fit.”
He turned into the room again.
Cornelius was reading in the little Horace, on the fly-leaf of which he had that morning written his name and the date in commemoration of his sentence.
He was about to speak, but such a furious shouting rose from the Plaats that he was silent.
John went to the window.
He saw Tichelaer, the foam whitening his horse, ride up to Tilly, a paper in his hand.
“He has the order!” exclaimed John de Witt; and even as he spoke the command was given, the dragoons wheeled round and galloped away across the Plaats, the triumphant crowd making way for them … howling, yelling.
“Have they gone?” asked Cornelius grimly.
John’s beautiful hand clutched the cold bars.
“Oh, this is a bitter way to die!” he murmured.
He turned his head that he might not see the struggling press below; the ferocious, distorted faces of men and women hastening on with shining arms and glittering knives burning in the sunshine.
“Why were not the bullets merciful at Southwold bay?” exclaimed Cornelius. “I would rather have death any way but this—the life beaten out of me by those curs!”
He made a passionate gesture with his bandaged hand towards the window.
“I would not have believed they would have done it … no … have given that order … not that.…” said John faintly.
He stood with his hand on his breast, his eyes wide.
The refined and beautiful body shrank from the thought of torture and humiliation as the noble soul blenched from degradation and shame.
He was afraid of the manner of his death; drew back from it with loathing as he would from a sight of horror.
A volley of musketry sounded, and violent blows; the crowd were attacking the prison door.
John put his hand over his eyes; an awful, sick giddiness overcame him.
Cornelius struggled to his feet and caught his blue mantle round him.
“Is there no way out?” muttered John. He moved desperately from one side of the prison to the other, and beat his hand against the cruel iron bars—trapped—forsaken.
With a hideous, harsh crash of iron on iron the door below gave way; yells and the crash of weapons came up the narrow stairway, and one of the burgher officers rushed in, crying—
“They are in! They are forcing Van Bossi to give them the keys.”
“There is no need,” said Cornelius calmly, “the door is open.”
He sat on the edge of his bed, wrapped in his blue mantle, a close cap on his head, from under which his brown curls escaped on to his shoulders; his colourless face, marred with suffering, was composed and resolute.
“I will make them listen to reason!” answered the soldier, and went out into the corridor.
“This is the end,” said Cornelius.
John smiled in sudden exaltation.
He took up his brother’s Bible and seated himself in the rush-bottomed chair beside the bed, the pages fluttered a moment under his white fingers, then he began to read—
“‘Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect—yet not the wisdom of this world nor of the princes of this world, that come to naught——’”
Cornelius bowed his head.
“‘But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory—which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory——’”
Outside their sole defenders were endeavouring to restrain the onslaught of Tichelaer; the corridor was choked with swords and muskets.
John de Witt continued, in an uplifted voice—
“‘But as it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.’”
The Groote Kerk struck four.
With angry curses at the delay, Tichelaer and his men broke across the threshold.
John de Witt laid down the Bible, put on his hat and turned to face the door.
“What do you want?” he asked, and gazed at them with narrowed eyes.
They had all been drinking heavily; they were all roused to the height and very extreme of brutish passions, but they fell back smitten where they stood, their violence turned upon themselves at the sight of John de Witt.
Like a creature of another world, trapped and helpless, yet abashing its hunters, who feared to be laid low by some disguised and hidden god, he stood looking at them, composed, unarmed.
“What do you want?” he repeated.
Tichelaer lurched forward; but made no attempt to touch him.
“We want this villain,” he said, and turned to Cornelius.
More men were forcing into the room, fiercely accusing of bribery the two who strove to prevent them.
Encouraged by sheer numbers, Tichelaer strode to the bed.
“Come, get up,” he said roughly to the Ruard. “Pray to God and prepare yourself, for you must die.”
“What harm have I done you?” asked Cornelius calmly.
Verhoef the goldsmith answered—
“You have attempted the life of his very Noble Mightiness the Prince, and you are an ugly traitor—make haste and get up.”
John stepped towards him.
“You,” he said to Tichelaer, “know my brother is innocent.”
Under the terrible fire of his eyes the false accuser shrank back. Another ruffian, a miller, aimed the butt end of his musket at the head of Cornelius.
John, catching the fellow’s arm, turned it aside, it hit and shattered the bed-post; on this a notary named Van Saenen struck the back of his head with a pike.
De Witt turned and looked at him proudly and calmly.
Again they hesitated; not one of them offered to seize him.
He removed his hat, pulled out his handkerchief and bound it round his head, for the blood was dripping down his curls.
“Is it your intention to kill me also?” he asked.
A murmur came from those at the back.
“Yes, traitor, thief, and rascal, you shall have the same fate as your cursed brother!”
“Dress yourself!” shouted Verhoef, and flung the Ruard’s clothes on the bed.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked them. “Where do you want me to go?”
He was as calm and resigned as he had been before the torture. He tried to draw on his violet stocking over his maimed foot, but was so threatened with a dagger at his throat that he had to stumble to the floor undressed as he was.
“What do you want with me?” he repeated haughtily.
“You will soon find out!” they shouted back; and Tichelaer turned on John, who was advancing towards his brother.
“Do you wish my life?” asked de Witt. “Very well, then take it.”
But Verhoef caught Tichelaer back.
“These traitors must die on the gibbet!” he cried. “Spare them till then.”
Again the hideousness of his death presented itself overwhelmingly to de Witt; he drew back against the plaster walls, sick at heart.
“Are you all less than men?” he demanded. “Give me a sword——”
He made a futile effort to snatch one from the crowd ringing him round.
“Traitor!” shouted Tichelaer.
“Do you dare use that word to me?” answered John de Witt. “Had all done their duty as I did not a town had been lost——Give me a sword,” he added. “Some weapon——”
Tichelaer gathered courage to strike him with the end of his musket.
“God has overtaken you!” he yelled.
John de Witt held up his mantle to protect himself.
“You dare to take the name of God?” he answered. “You have long since denied Him by your villanies.”
As he spoke he saw Cornelius raise clasped hands to heaven as he was thrust violently on to his knees.
“Let me get to my brother!—I could yet make this little room glorious——”
“Do not finish them here!” cried Verhoef. “Take the ruffians to the gibbet!”
They worked themselves up again into the fury the actual presence of the de Witts had cowed. Tichelaer and his followers, among them a lusty butcher armed with an axe, pushed between the brothers, separating them by the width of the room.
Some one struck John de Witt on the face, cursing him.
The insult brought the blood to his cheek.
“Fellow, I will not take that!” he said, and cast the man down.
It was the signal; here was the incentive. A dozen clutching hands laid hold on John de Witt’s mantle.
“Ah, do you lay hands on me!” he cried, and lifted high his mantle to screen his face.
Verhoef gave him a push that made him stagger and fall.
“Behold the downfall of the Perpetual Edict!” shrieked Tichelaer.
John de Witt got to his feet again; there was a look of startled horror on his face. The handkerchief was shaken from his head and the blood ran down his collar.
They were quick to see his anguish, and laughed, seizing him by the arms and dragging him towards the door.
But quickly composure came again; he spoke with a coolness that confounded them.
“I have never betrayed you—I swear to God I have always done my duty——”
Tichelaer threatened him with his sword, but did not dare touch him because of the great brilliance of his eyes.
“Let me get to my brother——”
“Why do not you strike?” shouted Verhoef.
“Our friends below must have a hand in this—they are getting impatient,” the others shouted back; and John de Witt, at the point of a dozen swords, was forced down the close stairs.
Having lost everything else, he was still resolute to save his honour.
“I die by calumny—I am not what you think——” came his clear cry.
They pushed him forward. He drew back as he reached the first landing, for he could see the armed and hideous crowd below filling the open door of the prison, waiting for him; he could see the upturned faces.
He set his lips, and his nostrils distended, as he heard the shrieks of furious triumph which rose as they saw him—at last.
“Make haste!” they cried to Tichelaer. “Make haste!”
Verhoef dragged him forward; at that moment Cornelius, bruised and maimed, scarcely able to stand, was struck with a plank and flung down the first flight of stairs.
John turned and held out his arms across the swords and muskets.
For a second their hands were just able to touch; they looked into each other’s eyes, and even smiled, as they were torn asunder and delivered to the greedy, waiting crowd.…
“Farewell, Cornelius!”
“Brother—farewell!”
CHAPTER XIII
WILLIAM OF ORANGE
A coach was drawn by a pair of fresh brown horses, at a gallop through the quiet village of Ryswyck, an hour short of the Hague.
The sun was near its setting, and the peasants leaving their work turned to mark with surprise the haste of the coach as it swung on its leathers along the smooth white road.
It had just reached the little church with the lead cupola when a horseman spurred up from the opposite direction.
“Halt!” he cried.
He spoke with such an air of authority that the coachman drew rein, swerved his vehicle, and stopped.
“Do you ride to the Hague?” asked the horseman, panting.
“Ay, to the Hague;” the man stared at his questioner.
“Then turn back! turn back! … the Hague is no place for honest men … turn back!”
His voice and face were wild, his appearance dishevelled.
“The MM. de Witt have been murdered!” he said hoarsely, “two hours ago—my God! my God! They were to hang them on the gibbet—they dragged them out of the prison for that end—but they had not got them through the gate before they tore them to bits.… There was nought left to tell John from Cornelius save the difference in their height.…”
“Oh, my lady!” cried the coachman, and sat stunned.
The villagers had gathered round and were listening in a bewildered terror. The horseman dismounted, so possessed by what he had seen that he must babble of it.
“I say they cut their hearts out.… They are hanging head downwards on the gibbet—all red … the MM. de Witt!… See, I bought this … for two sous.… They cut off his fingers for he used them to sign the Perpetual Edict.”
He unfolded his cloak from something he carried against his breast and held it out.
“Oh, my lady!” moaned the coachman and let the reins fall.
The coach door was opened, a lady in a garnet-coloured mantle stepped out and came towards the increasing and horrified group.
“What have you got there?” she asked in a strange voice. “Show it to me.”
The horseman turned to her frantically.
“I saw it done—while he lived, too—look!”
He held out a beautiful human hand, torn and bloody, half enwrapped in a length of fine lace.
The lady drew closer.
“I know that hand very well,” she said. “Yesterday it was on the body of my husband.”
A shriek ran round the group. The wretched stranger, finding himself face to face with the wife of Cornelius, fell on his knees in the road and could not speak.
Maria de Witt was quite collected. In that instant when she heard, through the coach window, that she was too late—when she heard what had happened at the Hague—heart and brain had broken.
“I have been very patient,” she said, “for it was God’s will—but I must hasten now, for I wish to accompany him into exile.—I heard at Dordt this morning, Mynheer, that he was exiled.”
She turned towards the coach.
“Why do you not drive on?” she asked, and fell against the dusty wheel.
There was no one with her save the two men-servants; they dismounted and led her to the roadside, themselves incapable with grief.
“Where is his hand?” she asked. “My lord gave me his hand——”
She turned sweet, expressionless eyes on the horseman, who laid the bloodstained relic reverently in her lap; she sat on a heap of stones beneath a tall poplar tree.
“She must not go to the Hague!” he cried. “Find her shelter here.”
“Mynheer John’s children?” gasped the coachman.
“His clerk took them to safety. It is like a fair at the Hague—the magistrates all dumb with dread … and on the Plaats——Oh! I am sick with what I saw.”
It had grown dusk; the villagers crept softly round the figure of Maria de Witt as she sat meekly clasping the hand to her breast.
“He is hurt, hurt!” she said in accents of agony,—“the rack, the pulley and the boot, but I have balsam in the carriage—Ladies, there will be an engagement at sea to-day, and my husband will save us all.”
They appealed to the pastor to take her in; but he was too cowardly to give her shelter, so they led her, unresisting, to the humble inn.
One servant stayed with her, the other embarked for Rotterdam to bring to her her sister-in-law, Maria Hoeuft.
She would not leave the parlour which she had first entered, nor take food, nor leave the fair right hand that she carried against her breast as tenderly as if it were her child.
The village surgeon would not visit her; the peasants stood aloof, fearful of befriending one so unfortunate.
For awhile they thought that she did not know the extent of her misery, but presently she called for a quill and ink-horn, and took from her pocket Cornelius’ little brass-bound diary.
Over a clean page she had written the date, meaning to add beneath it her husband’s release. Very clearly and steadily she made now this entry, it ended the record of the Ruard’s domestic life, kept very carefully by him until his imprisonment—
“This day, August, my beloved husband was horribly murdered at the Hague by the burgher faction, with our brother, John de Witt.
“He was in his fiftieth year, having been forty-nine years old on June 19, 1672. He had been taken on the last day of July to the Court of Justice, and from thence, on August 6, to prison, there to be cruelly tortured on the sole accusation of an infamous person, Michael Tichelaer, barber of Piershill.
“May God preserve all men from such misfortunes as those by which the twentieth of this month has been so sorrowfully signalised.”
When she had finished she looked up with a wild air.
“Is it right?” she asked, “is it right?—we must submit to God!—all my happiness!”
Then she rose.
“Cornelius—you must snuff the candles——”
She sank on to the chair, smiling and unconscious.
They lifted her on to the settle and put out the light.
There was much to do in the little inn, and she was the widow of Cornelius de Witt, so they left her alone.…
When she recovered she sat up in the dark, then rose to her feet unsteadily.
Enough torchlight glimmered through the window for her to see the door; she pulled it open and stood listening.
In the opposite room, across the narrow corridor, men were talking together; their door stood ajar, and a thick bar of yellow fell across the darkness.
“If he had had the first message it had been prevented, Bentinck.”
“I never saw him so moved as when he heard the news.”
“This delay frets him—he cursed the groom for that loose shoe——”
“Yet now it is too late.”
The speakers swung out into the corridor; soldiers both, richly dressed.
They took no notice of Maria, and her useless brain attached no meaning to their presence or their words.
They strode out into the courtyard. The whole inn was full of noise and confusion, sudden lights and runnings to and fro.
Maria stood forgotten, not heeding or caring anything. Then she heard some one say, suddenly—
“The Prince is impatient to be gone——”
The Prince!