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CHAPTER XII. "VIVAT ORANJE!"

[EXT morning found Adrian stiff and weary,

NEX

but otherwise none the worse; Rose however was quite worn out and unable to rise. Little Roskě had been restless and feverish; but, on waking in the morning from an unquiet sleep, she saw beside her something which did her more good than any medicine. With a cry of rapture she folded " Kätje" in her arms, none the less dear because the painted face was a blur, and the tiny garments spoiled with rain. She was lavishing caresses on her recovered treasure, and murmuring terms of endearment, when Joanna Jäsewyk came in.

"Poor child!" she said, "she is as foolish upon that poppet as some people are over their idols of wood and stone."

storm, when he saw before him Dirk's strong, square, honest face, with its crown of dark hair.

"Does this belong to you, Mynheer?" he asked, holding out a book, leather bound and silver clasped.

Adrian almost sprang from his seat. It was his private note-book, containing the priceless records of the observations aud experiments he had been making since he left Antwerp, those made previously having been deposited for safety in the hands of Plantin. He always carried it about his person, so when he missed it the night before from its own especial pocket in his coat, he gave it up for lost.

"My good boy, I am infinitely obliged to you; you know not what a service you have rendered me," he said, as he took the precious volume lovingly in his hand, and opened it to ascertain whether the rain had penetrated the stout, thick cover. Fortunately, the contents were but little injured. "Where did you find it?" he asked eagerly.

"Beside the ditch, near the place you crossed at. It was almost in the water-would have been washed in no doubt if left much longer. Happily, just then the rain ceased, and the moon shone out, so the light fell on the clasp, and I saw and picked it up. Moreover, I heard a splashing in the field hard by, and when I looked, there was your horse, so I caught him and rode home. My uncle is going to fetch your cart by-and-by."

"But you must have been out all night," said Adrian, rather surprised at these energetic proceedings.

"I had business of my own," returned the boy, and went off quietly to his daily work.

Presently old Jäsewyk came out, sat down in the sunshine beside Adrian, and enlightened him about many things. He had known the Gospel, he said, for more than thirty years; being one of the converts of De Backer, the proto-martyr of Holland, who suffered at the Hague, as Mynheer might have heard. That was a long time ago. He was quite young when he came here to live, with his wife and little children, hoping to escape persecution in this lonely spot.

"Those recommended to us by our secret friends elsewhere (as you were, Mynheer) come often to be concealed, or to be helped forward on their way. Formerly, it was for the first; since the standard of freedom has been raised again, it is mostly for the second. 'Tis the best way we can help the cause, since none of us can fight, as fain we would, under the Orange flag. I am too old, as you see. Koos must needs stay here to keep things together; his brothers, Jan and Piet, are in England, exiled for the faith-prosperous men, following the cloth trade. My wife is long dead; my two daughters also have gone before me-one a little maid, like your Juffrouw, the other but just now, Dirk's mother. Besides my son Koos and his wife-the best of children to me--we have here two servants. One of them, Gretchen, is the widow of a martyr-and yonder goes the other."

Adrian looked, and saw a very lame old man limping painfully towards the cabbage bed, knife in hand. Years ago, at Bergen-op-Zoom, poor

Hans was taken up for a Calvinist," Jäsewyk explained. "Because he was a true man, and would not betray his fellows, he was so tortured that he has been lame ever since, as you see. They kept him till he could walk to the stake; but, in the end, being slackly guarded, and the jailor a secret friend, he contrived instead to walk out of prison. He was sent here for safety by our friends; and as he was unable to work, I kept him for a servant."

"It is not the world's way to keep a servant because he is unable to work," said Adrian smiling.

"It will be time enough for us to learn the world's ways when the world ceases to hate us. And then, perhaps, the Lord may have something to say," Jäsewyk returned.

"Dirk's mother was your daughter, I suppose?"

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'Yes, Mynheer. She married a carpenter from Asperen, against my will, though it grieves me to say it, now both of them are dead. For Dirk Willemzoon, though a good living, upright man, and very kind-hearted, was still in the bonds of Papistry. Glad was I when the news of his conversion came to us; but, unhappily, the preacher who brought him out of Babylon had received the pernicious doctrine of the Anabaptists, and taught it to Dirk, who could not be expected to discern between things that differ. Therefore, while I trust he is with God, yet can we not number him amongst the blessed company of our martyrs, although he endured a prolonged and terrible conflict with marvellous patience. My Anna died soon after; as young Dirk tells us, she never raised her head again."

"It was then, I suppose, that Dirk came to you?”

"Yes. He worships with us, of course, though he always says that he follows his father's faith. Poor child! he does not even know what it is; for all his longing is to go to the war, and fight the Spaniards, whereas people of that sect think it unlawful to bear arms at all. A strange lad Dirk is, strong of his hands, but still of his tongue. He works like a man, and can be trusted as much as any, but-save that one time when he spoke to me of the war-he tells no one what he thinks. I would I saw in him more certain indications of true piety. But he shows little interest in anything, except the war and Prince of Orange.

"As for getting to Leyden, Mynheer, of which you spoke last night, you must wait until some more certain tidings reach us. The last thing we heard was a rumour that Leyden was strictly besieged by the Spaniards. In any case, a large part of their army, under their General Valdez, must be between us and it."

Adrian looked dismayed. "What shall we do?" he asked.

"What else but stay where you are?" "And burden you with the support of three useless people?"

"I trust God has not so left me to myself that I should call anything done for Him a burden," Isaid the old Calvinist. "But, beside all that, Mynheer, I owe you a good eight months' food and shelter."

"My friend, you mistake, you can owe me

nothing. I never heard of you, till Kreutzon told me."

"Mynheer, I have but one father in Christ, the martyred De Backer; yet have I had many instructors, and none more dear to me than M. Gille de Marchemont. The time I went south I stayed a year in Tournay, and I used to hear him there, though he preached in French, his native tongue, which is not mine. Kreutzon tells me in his letter what you did for him. Eight months he lay helpless in your house, and you tended him as a son tends a father. Think he is now returning your hospitality; ouly, I fear, in less comfortable fashion."

"Did Kreutzon tell you also that Rose, my wife, is the daughter of Marchemont?" No," said Jäsewyk, with a start,

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and a look of surprised delight.

This intelligence gave the whole. family great pleasure; their guests henceforth were more than welcome. It was besides a real enjoyment to the thoughtful old man to have Adrian to talk to; for his son and his son's wife, though good and devout, were not his equals in intelligence. Rose, as soon as she recovered, cheerfully aided the women in their household tasks, and especially in their needlework; and little Roskě was one of God's lilies, who "toil not, neither do they spin,' yet make the earth a happier place for their presence. Hitherto, Dirk had been the only representative of young life in the forest house; and that only in name, for young life was dead in him-he was a man before his time. Now the light laughter of a child. rippled through the house, little restless feet pattered to and fro, and a little voice was heard-perhaps sometimes too often.

Sometimes she would order him to sing; for she had a soul for music, and Dirk a sweet voice. Hymns he would not sing; but he had one song of which she never tired, the noble "Willemslied." This she made him sing over and over again, until, with a child's quick memory, she had learned it all by heart.

Thus, not impatiently, but in a kind of restful pause, they awaited tidings from the outer world. These were unusually slow in coming. "Never," said Jäsewyk, "even in the worst days, have we been so long without a visitor. It must be because the country all around us is the seat of war." Tidings came at last. It was Christmas, and the snow was on the ground. Roskě had

It may have been as well, for the peace of their elders, that Roskě found from the first a willing slave in Dirk. Although, as his grandfather said, he did the work of a man, he was never too busy or too tired to gratify her every whim; to make, with the skill of a carpenter's pupil, little playthings for her; or to carry her in his arms when it pleased her to ride in state. In return, she assisted him in his labours by pulling up half-adozen seedlings when he weeded the garden, or going with him to the wood to gather sticks, and coming home radiant, with a tiny faggot and a torn petticoat. Dirk soon knew the small experiences of her short life; and she was too young to notice that he gave her in return none of his own, except, very seldom, a passing glimpse of a happy home far away in Asperen, of a dear mother and a loving father, who taught him day by day as he stood by his bench, while he was working at his trade. He told her however that, as soon as he was tall and strong enough, he meant to go and fight the Spaniards," and kill them," he would sometimes add, with a look in his face Roskě did not like to see. It frightened her.

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quarrel with Dirk. She had asked him to take her to slide upon the ice-covered pond at the end of the garden, and he had refused. Refused a command of hers! "I hate the ice," he had said to her, though rather to himself. "It betrayed my father to his death. I'll have nothing to do with it," and he went sadly, and as she thought angrily, away to his work.

Roskě stood at the door disconsolate. She had a little stick in her hand, with which she broke the fragments of ice that filled the crevices of the path, thinking angrily the while of Dirk and his transgressions. But by-and-by there came tender relentings of heart; and she was looking anxiously for the return of her playfellow, when she saw a strange man approaching with a burden on his back.

"God save thee, little maid," said he as he came