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DR. ADRIAN.

A STORY OF OLD HOLLAND.

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BY D. ALCOCK, AUTHOR OF "THE SPANISH BROTHERS," CRUSHED, YET CONQUERING," ETC.

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CHAPTER XVIII. -THE ENGLISH GUEST.

IRK had contrived, on his way to the church, to lay hold of a sailor from the fleet, and to whisper an eager question.

The sailor answered aloud, "Almost well again, thank God! Coming here to-morrow."

"Thank God!" Dirk echoed with remarkable fervour.

"What did he say?" asked Tant' Marie. "That the Prince is coming-coming to-morrow," Dirk answered joyfully.

In the crowded church he saw some one whom he recognised, and who recognised him; and when the multitude dispersed the two managed to meet, and a hearty greeting passed between them.

Dirk noticed that Wallingford had received a wound since they parted. He had a long deep

cut above the left eyebrow. "Oh, it is nothing!" he laughed. "Only a Spanish compliment, received from one of those ceremonious dons when we requested them to quit the North Aa."

Then Dirk, with the freedom of a son, presented Mynheer Edward Wallingford to Doctor Adrian Pernet, who at once asked him to come home with him, for of course the men of Leyden gladly opened their houses to their deliverers.

The whole party, with the addition of Floriszoon, were soon enjoying a repast of bread and salt herrings, which, to all of them except Wallingford, seemed a royal banquet. Rose, who was trying, in spite of her weakness, to act the courteous hostess, apologised for all deficiencies in the serving of the meal, explaining that they had long ago dismissed their domestics, being unable to find food for them.

"That shall soon be remedied," said Adrian, looking with concern on her pale and wasted face. They had much to hear and to tell. Every one knew now that the noise they had heard during the night was caused by the sudden and unaccountable fall of a large part of the city wall, that between the Cowgate and the tower of Burgundy ; but Adrian and the rest had still to learn the particulars of Dirk's adventure.

All were eager to hear from Wallingford what had been doing outside, during their seclusion. He described, with much animation, the efforts of Admiral Boisot and his gallant little fleet to reach the city, with the various obstacles and hindrances they encountered. He told also of the unceasing care and watchfulness of him whose genius had originated and organised the whole splendid, desperate enterprise, and now they learned -all except Dirk for the first time-that his labours hard well nigh cost him his life.

"And you knew all along, that the Prince lay sick, almost unto death!" said Adrian, turning to Dirk. "How did you ever keep silence?"

"I was not going to cut your hands off," Dirk answered. "Though, when men asked why he was not with the fleet, it used to go hard with me -harder than passing through the Spanish lines, or going out to the Lammen Fort."

"He has scarce recovered yet, but he is coming here to morrow," Wallingford said.

On the morrow, accordingly, they went forth to see him, all except Rose, who said she was tired, and would rather rest. But no one must stay indoors for her, she meant to sleep the whole time. Roskě, as well as her mother, would have been better in bed; but she pleaded so earnestly to come with the others that her devoted servant Dirk, as usual, took her in his arms. They had not far to go: the Prince, accompanied by the Burgomaster, the Commandant, and other chief persons of the town, rode leisurely through all the principal streets, returning the greetings of the people, and stopping often to receive petitions, to condole with the suffering, or to commend those who had shown exceptional bravery.

The procession, for some reason, came to a halt at the corner of Bree Street, where our friends were standing. During the pause, the Burgomaster, espying Dirk amongst the crowd, beckoned him forward.

He had been holding Roskě as high as he could (she was a light weight now), that she might see the Prince. She had just exclaimed, in wonder at the sight of the face so worn with recent illness, "He looks as bad as any one else! Has he too had no bread to eat?" when Dirk saw the Burgomaster's summons, but did not think at first it could be for himself. Those around however did not leave him long in ignorance. They cried out to him, and pushed him zealously forward, barely allowing Adrian time to take Roskě. "It must be his ring he wants," thought Dirk. "I am glad I have it safe, and with me."

As soon as he came near enough, he said, bowing low, "Here is the ring, your worship-quite safe." What had been for so long a strange sound in Leyden, the sound of a laugh, was heard from

some of the suite, but the Burgomaster said kindly, "Keep the ring, my lad, in remembrance of thy gallant deed." Then, accosting the personage beside whom he rode with quite as much reverence as Dirk had shown to himself, he said, "Here, your Excellency, is the brave boy who went alone to the Fort of Lammen, and proved that it was deserted."

Did earth and heaven come together for Dirk Willemzoon that hour? Was he Dirk Willemzoon at all, or some one else quite new, strange and different? Was it a dream-a glorious dream and vision of the night-or was it an actual fact, vouched for afterwards by at least a score of credible witnesses-that the Prince spoke to him?

His words-high words of praise--came to him through a golden mist of joy and glory. It was a radiant, rapturous Dirk who a moment afterwards flung his cap-the holiday cap-high in air, with the shout "Vivat Oranje! Oranje Boven!"

The sombre, sad-hearted youth was a happy boy again, and yet never had he been so completely a

man.

Royalty has this gift from God-countervailing, by His great law of compensation, much sorrow and much care and peril-that a word, a smile, a look even, can uplift thus marvellously the heart of the receiver. The royalty of William of Orange was not inherited; it was that rarer and more precious kind which is won rightly, according to the great rule of the kingdom, "Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant."

In

Dirk disappeared again into the crowd. He lost sight of his friends, but all around him were friends now, eager to congratulate or to praise. At last he broke away from all, and dived into a solitary, almost deserted, street. It led him to the Tower of Hengist, lonely enough now. the teeth of the wind-for a strong easterly gale was blowing again that day-he mounted the rampart of the tower, no longer crowded with eager, wild-eyed watchers. Hope deferred had made the heart sick indeed, but now that the desire had come it was a tree of life!

More than his desire had come to Dirk, even an honour and glory of which he never dreamed. Oh, if he could but tell his father that the Prince had spoken to him, had praised him! Do we ever miss our dead so much as when a great joy comes to us, and we cannot share it with them? It is not so hard to bear sorrow alone; we can even say amidst our tears

"Well done of God, to halve the lot

And give (them) all the sweetness!"

But when the finger of joy touches us, then we long-oh, how passionately!--to share the thrill with those to whom it would be all, or more than all, it is to us.

"But," said Dirk to himself at last, "he may know it, he and my mother too-how can I tell? Yet this I can tell, he has had long ago a betterWell done!' than the Prince's-' Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!" And then the thought

came to him, "Perhaps all this time he has been longing to tell me about that! And perhaps

who knows?-this joy of mine may have been God's way of letting him tell me just a little bit of what his joy is like, that I may feel it in my heart, and be glad for him!"

With the glow of these thoughts in his heart and on his face, Dirk returned home, to be brought back to common life by finding Roskě in the crisis of a desperate, uncontrollable fit of naughtiness. But then she had been, through the past weeks, so pathetically good and patient, that it was rather a relief to see a small foot stamped angrily, and hear passionate sobs and cries, instead of watching silent tears steal slowly down a pale, woe-begone little face. Dirk, sure that day of victory" all along the line," and doubly sure of it with his own little lady, advanced confidentlyrather too confidently-to the rescue.

He could

soothe her of course-only let him try. But he was repulsed-repulsed decisively, ignominiously. No, she did not want him. He did not care for her any more. He left her to go to the Prince. She wanted to see the Prince too, to thank him for sending them bread, to have him speak to her and touch her. And she would, some day, in spite of them all. They should see, and so should Dirk.

We are told there is no such thing in Nature as unrelieved shadow; and certainly in the moral world there is no such thing as unshadowed light. The one little shade upon Dirk's day of triumph was the humiliating fact that Roskě proved more amenable to the English stranger than to him. For Wallingford, in the midst of the tempest (or perhaps rather when it had nearly spent itself), succeeded in making a diversion. He began an alarming description, in very bad Dutch, of what English children would say when they heard that the children of Leyden, instead of thanking God for giving them bread again, were crying loud enough to be heard in the street, all about nothing. Roskě, in answer, said some very contemptuous things about English children--but she listened, and came down gradually into quiet weeping. So, at last, a subdued and penitent little girl was carried off to bed, this time by Wallingford. Dirk was left alone, to reflect upon the chequered events of the day. He had been praised by the Prince of Orange, but he had been repulsed by Roskě Pernet, aged seven years.

In the morning, as her father had predicted, a sick child had to be watched and tended. He had rebuked her mother's distress over her "sin." "It is no more the babe's sin than if she fainted," said he. "It is the natural result of what she has gone through, and perhaps the beginning of a fever."

So it proved, but the fever never ran high, and good food and careful tendance soon restored the child. Dirk had abundant opportunities of proving his devotion; and never again, after that one occasion, did Roskě give her young knight any serious cause for jealousy, although Wallingford was soon upon intimate terms with her, as with all. He won golden opinions from every one.

Adrian, from the first, thought he saw some

thing familiar in his face, and was haunted by the idea that he had known him before, though when or where he could not imagine;-but he found his society very pleasant. Wallingford did not speak much of himself; he had been educated at Oxford, he said, and he mentioned casually one day that he had paid a visit to the Continent a few years before, so Adrian supposed they must somehow have crossed one another's paths.

The physician was too busy to dwell much upon the subject. The Duke of Wellington's saying that, except a great defeat, there is nothing sadder than a great victory, was illustrated in Leyden after the siege. Beside the blanks, never to be filled on earth, left by famine in almost every home, the plague was still lingering in her midst, and the air was heavy with infection. Those who escaped were so reduced by hunger as to want care themselves, rather than to be fit to take care of their stricken relatives.

The services of Adrian and his professional brethren were sorely needed; and we gather that they were zealously and efficiently rendered, from the honour put upon their craft in the extraordinary pageant by which, a few months later, the citizens celebrated their victory. There ap

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peared in the procession the Goddess of Medicine, on horseback, holding in one hand a treatise on the healing art, and in the other a garland of drugs." Adrian fully deserved to have this singular garland bestowed on him as a crown. Now that there was food and medicine for the sick, the stimulus of hope restored his energics, and he was busy amongst them day and night. Dirk and Wallingford gave all the time they could spare from more active labours, such as repairing the city wall, to helping him in his ministrations: his wife and sister helped also to the outside of their ability. Rose often lamented that she could do so little, so very little.

One day Koos Jäsewyk visited the town, and relieved Dirk's apprehensions by telling him that the wood in which his grandfather's dwelling was, happening to be just outside the "polder" where the waters came, their little clearing had escaped devastation. They had heard how Dirk had distinguished himself, and proved a credit to the family, or rather-what was much more in the eyes of these simple people-how he had done good service to "the Cause." Koos brought him his grandfather's blessing; and, for his friends and himself, a welcome present of "the fruits of the land," fragrant apples, delicious pears, and excellent fresh vegetables. Dirk, in return, sent his grandfather the Burgomaster's ring for a

token.

Koos said, "He shall keep it for thee, nephew, till thy wedding-day."

Whereupon, Wallingford, who had just come into the room, remarked jestingly, "He will need to keep it as long as Jacob waited for Rachel; till thy little Roskě grows up for thee, Dirk."

Dirk's confusion was overwhelming. If Mynheer Wallingford had named him with the Burgomaster's daughter, it would not have been more of an impertinence, almost a profanity. Happily none of the Pernets had heard the

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