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striking for the occasional impediment in his speech, "And now Lord, what wait I for? They have all gone before me, the friends I knew and loved-and but so lately in this blood-stained city, the brother of my heart, the good and holy Fabricius. How long, O Lord, how long? Look upon me as I lie here a useless log-doing nought for Thee, and for Thy kingdom. I cannot work, and yet I am not resting. Take me to Thy rest, O Lord, at last at last." There was a pause, and then the voice went on-"But only, if it be Thy will, and when it is Thy will."

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Adrian's pen from the beginning had been held suspended. He waited in silence for the end, then he turned towards the bed, saying in the voice of one surprised, "To whom have you been speaking, M. de Marchemont?"

Marchemont opened his closed eyes, and looked at him confused and startled. "I thought I was alone," he said. "I was praying."

"Nay? I supposed you were speaking to some one whom you believed to be in the room with you.”

"Is not that prayer?" I never thought so. I knew men said prayers; often when they were religious, sometimes even when they were not. I am not religious, as you must have seen ere now. Men of my profession learn a few things, Monsieur, which go not well with priests and prayers. If I thrust my hand into the fire it will burn, if I misuse my body it will die, or be diseased, spite of all the paternosters in the world, and spite of all the candles I might offer to St. Christopher, or the spangled robes I might give to our Lady of Sorrows. Things go on according to their kind and their law; and I do not see the invisible hands you pious folk believe in thrust in at every turn to alter them."

"The law of things is the Law of the living God who made them," said Marchemont earnestly. "I do not, any more than you, believe in invisible hands thrust in to answer selfish or superstitious prayers, addressed as often to the creature as to the Creator. But I believe in one Hand, His who lives and loves, whose ear is open to my cry, and whose heart has compassion on this weakness and this anguish of mine."

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"And you think the Infinite and Eternal"Like as a father pitieth his children, even so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.'

Adrian was silent. At least he knew that this was no superstition born of ignorance, no weak shadowy belief that would snap beneath the strain of circumstances; but the strong faith of a singularly strong nature, able to withstand the most tremendous trials. After a thoughtful pause, he said, "I cannot see what you see, I cannot be even sure that I understand you. A man like you have I never met before. At Padua we had plenty of open scoffers, plenty of indifferent scholars like myself, who cared nothing about religion, and, as everywhere else, more than plenty of ignorant superstitious folk who believed any folly they were told. But amongst them all, no one with such faith as yours. Even its sustaining you in the face of death I can partly understand;

but I marvel far more at the calmness and patience it gives you during these long, silent, dreary days of inaction."

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"And I," said Marchemont with a shade of eagerness, was just regretting these words of mine which you overheard accidentally, lest they should make you think I was not patient."

"Then you are not too stoical to care what men think of you?"

"What one man thinks of me I have good right to care, when that man has saved my life at the hazard of his own, and is, even now, giving me a refuge. Monsieur, the words you overheard might make you think your generous sacrifices were made in vain."

"No, indeed, I knew you did not mean that. It was quite natural you should ask for death," said Adrian, in the true physician's voice, soothing, yet calm and reasonable.

"Even that prayer I take back," pursued Marchemont. "Let Him do with me as seemeth good in His sight; I see not how I can serve Him lying here; but that is His business, not mine."

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Still, I think you could not wish to return to your former life, with its continual hardships and its terrible dangers," said Adrian.

"Ah, Monsieur, you little know the joys that made those hardships and perils seem lighter than thistle-down!" said the sick man, with a kindling eye and a glow on his faded cheek. "True, indeed, is the Master's word, 'He that reapeth receiveth wages,' here and now, as well as gathering fruit unto life eternal. The rapid secret journeys, the daring enterprises, the snares evaded, the perils escaped, had their pleasures and their triumphs even for the flesh, and especially for the flesh of an eager, adventurous youth such as I was when I first went forth from Geneva, full of Master Calvin's teaching, and longing to win the whole world for Christ. It is true, I found presently that, in Dr. Melanchthon's phrase, the old serpent was too strong for young Gille de Marchemont;-still my ministry in France was not without seals, for which I thank God. Later, when I came to these countries to go up and down preaching the Word, in spite of the Placards and the Inquisition, I found the labourers few, but the harvest indeed abundant. And I found the truth of our Lord's words, when He promised fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, to those who give up all for Him. You can have no conception of the strength of the bond which unites us, the secret followers of a proscribed and persecuted faith. Ah, how joyous were our meetings, stolen though they were, and shadowed with the fear of discovery or betrayal-how sweet and holy our communing together-how lovingly we strengthened one another's hands in God-how heartily we rejoiced in the joy of each new convert brought into the fold!"

"The joy?" Adrian repeated, wondering, for all this was to him like the language of a new world. "What joy can you speak of? You and your converts lose all-wealth, honour, comfort safety, often life itself, and I never heard that you got instead even the value of a brass denier.”

"I will tell you the joy I speak of, Monsieur Adrian," said the old man, with a ring in his voice and a light in his eye which Adrian had never seen before; "The knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, 'Whom not having seen we love, and in Whom, though now we see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.'"

Adrian had the look in his eyes of one who is trying to see through a glass, but can discern nothing; and gradually there came into them, also, the look of one who very much wishes he could see. At last he said:

"I do not understand you; I feel as if you were speaking Hebrew to me."

"There is only one Master who can teach you that tongue, Monsieur."

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My friend, you are an enthusiast, but a noble one. I admire your enthusiasm, though I cannot understand; and as to sharing it!

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"That you may share it one day is my prayer day and night, as I lie here. It is all I can do for you, who have done so much for me."

"I thank you for your prayer, though I cannot wish it answered," said Adrian with a curious smile. "Like the renowned scholar Erasmus, whose name you no doubt venerate, I feel I have no vocation for martyrdom."

"Do not fear, Monsieur, God never asks any man to give up aught for Him until He has first given him something far better, which makes him fain to do it. Besides, if I read aright the signs of the times, a day is coming, and that soon, when the execution of the Placards will no more be possible here. You know how the indignant people had almost rescued my dear friend Fabricius from the very stake. I hoped indeed, that night, when but for you I would have been taken, that I might perhaps be the last victim. You will tell me that the king, in his Spanish bigotry, is inexorable, and that the Regent Duchess dare not disobey him. True, but the people have their rights, and believe me, they have the power to enforce them, if they only knew it. It is to the people of these countries, under God, that I look for deliverance for His persecuted Church. But it is His way to work slowly. The end is not yet."

Adrian made no answer, for he knew not the signs of the times, nor understood either his own age or any other. Presently, he went out to visit a patient.

But he felt that some kind of barrier between him and Marchemont had been removed, and he even began to entertain towards him something approaching to friendship. It seemed as if his difficulties were about, in a manner, to clear away. He was wrong-his difficulties were only beginning. For he was a man, and he was young.

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one (the Cardinal's gift) was disfigured by a conspicuous rent in the hanging sleeve, besides several minor dilapidations. Rose, needle in hand, stood beside Betgen, somewhat timidly proffering her services to repair it.

"You will do it better than I, with your young eyes and skilful fingers," the old woman acquiesced. "Albeit my father was a tailor, and a good one; and long ere I had your years, I used to sew for him."

Rose sat down, and bent over the work with all diligence. Her sense of awe in touching the robe of Monsieur Adrian blended with a thrill of joy at being allowed to do anything—even such a little thing for the great, wise, learned doctor, so brave and so generous, who had risked his own life to save her father's, and was now SO kindly sheltering them both. She could appreciate, certainly better than Betgen, perhaps better even than her father, the daily sacrifice of personal ease and comfort it cost him. He rarely spoke to her, or she to him (perhaps he had reasons for his reticence she could not guess), but if he only said "Good morning" or "Good-night" in passing, her heart would throb with shy pleasure, though she could only make him the barest and briefest answer. Her veneration for him was like his own for science, purely impersonal. It never occurred to her that he could think more of her feelings, if he happened to know them, than of the like on the part of Betgen. Betgen, however, had not the like feeling at all; as she showed plainly by the words she addressed to Rose while they sat together sewing.

"The good Book says, Juffrouw, that 'it is more blessed to give than to receive,' wherefore it cannot but be irksome to us, and especially to thy father though he lives too much in heaven to say so-to receive all we do from this Doctor Adrian, and to give him nothing again save little services such as these."

"But may we not like him to have the greater blessing?" Rose asked gently.

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Rose's cheek flushed. said quickly.

"He is a good man," she

"I fear he is one of Noah's carpenters," Betgen answered. "They helped to build the ark; but they never got into it themselves, as your father said in one of his sermons."

"Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these,'" Rose whispered.

"Well, child; he is not beyond the reach of prayer. Thy father prays much for him; and even I-in my poor foolish words, which the good Lord understands as no one else could. And at least I can mend his clothes, and take care of his money for him, poor half-witted body that he is, with all his queer learning. I think, but for us, he would be now in rags, and belike in debt also. Wouldst believe it, Juffrouw, he managed to get through more money, by himself alone, than keeps the four of us in comfort now? What he did with

it, Heaven knows. No doubt he bought books, and physic bottles, and dead men's bones-like that horror in the next room I cannot bear to think of even yet. Still I warrant me the beggars at the Church doors, and in the Place could tell a story, an' if they would. I think he never said 'no' in his life; and he would not know whether he was giving away good silver florins or brass tokens. God help him!

"Do you know, Betgen, he and my father sometimes talk now-for quite a long time together?"

"It cheers thy father to talk with a man. Hark! Do you hear his voice even now with something of the old sound in it, as he talks to Master Junius?"

In Adrian's absence, though not without his permission, a friend had been admitted to see the sick man. He came

diguised as a merchant's clerk, but he was really a pastor; no other than the celebrated Francis Junius, just returned

from a mission to Brussels, which has become historical. He had much to tell his lonely, secluded brother. So their talk was prolonged and eager. But at last the continuous sound of one solemn voice, in place of two rapidly changing ones, told that the older and feebler soldier of Christ was giving thanks to the Great Captain for his young and dauntless comrade, who had come back in safety from a difficult and perilous enterprise.

Rose dropped her work and covered her face. The old woman laid her worn hand tenderly on the bowed head of the girl. "Be comforted," she said, "God is not saying just yet 'Give him up to Me.' When He does He will make you willingtrust one for whom He has done it these many times. Only I would not have you quite unprepared. For it must come to that, dear little one. What else?"

"Martyrdom, perhaps, for all of us," Rose faltered. She was only seventeen; but we are told that in those days even the little children of the Huguenots "instead of playing, talked together of martyrdom."

"Which looks far less likely now than it did a while ago," said Betgen. "But hearken, the prayer is over. We must pay our respects to M. Junius as he passes out."

66 MARTYRDOM, PERHAPS, FOR ALL OF US."

Rose and Betgen lowered their voices in sympathy. Almost in a whisper, yet with a slightly aggressive air, as if challenging contradiction, Rose observed, "My father's voice is changed scarcely at all."

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Only weaker."

Oh, but he is not weaker, nor worse in any way." Betgen held her peace; though those sad words so often lightly spoken, especially of the aged, "a gradual failing," "a general breaking up," trembled on her lips. She knew with what a sharp pang they stab the loving heart. But Rose persisted, "You don't think he is worse, surely, dear Betgen?"

"My child, what is it you wish for him? Think of the home and the welcome waiting for him; of the holy angels and the spirits of just men made perfect; above all, of the Master, and the Master's own' well done!' How long do you want to keep him from all that, dear heart?"

They did so, and the brilliant, gifted young pastor gave them his blessing. He it was, who on one occasion had preached to a congregation of the faithful, while the burning of several of their brethren was taking place in the square outside, the light of the pile flashing in through the windows of the room. From amongst the rank and file of the heroic army of Reformation missionary martyrs, he stands out before us, a noble, well defined, memorable figure.

His visit had done Marchemont good. Soon after his de

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parture, Adrian came in with a large book under his arm, and looking rather disturbed. He went at once into the inner room, where Rose and Betgen were with Marchemont. "I cannot think what the masters of the guilds are about, not to keep better order among their craftsmen,' he said. "Nowadays the streets are always full of idle fellows, who shout after quiet people and call them ill names. How they have got hold of my surname, I know not, but I am pestered by the beggars at the church doors, and all the ragged street urchins crying after me, 'There goes the old Cardinal's cousin,' with other civilities of the kind."

Betgen knew nothing about the betrayal of his surname, that was probably due to the indiscretion of his landlord; but she could have made a shrewd guess at the secret of the beggars' ill-will. Of late she had taken care that when he went out his pockets should only contain a limited supply of

small brass or copper coins. "Mynheer forgets this is a many idle folk about."

But she merely said, holiday, so there be

"I did forget it, but it was brought to my mind when I came to M. Plantin's house, and found the shop shut up. But, at my knocking, he kindly opened to me himself, and gave me what I wanted this book, which I think you may be glad to have, M. de Marchemont."

It was a fine edition of the Latin Bible, which Plantin had recently printed. The sick man's eyes shone with pleasure, and he stretched out his hand for the precious volume with the eagerness of one dying of thirst for a cup of cold water. He had concealed about his person, on the night of his escape, a French Gospel of St. John, and upon this, and a memory well stored with the words of Scripture, he had been living ever since. To possess the whole again was a joy he had never expected.

"How can I thank you, M. Adrian?" he said with emotion. "But I fear it must have been very costly."

"Oh, I don't know. I found I had forgotten my purse," said Adrian innocently. "M. Plantin was kind enough to say it could wait until I settled my other account. Besides," he added with a flash of that tact which he sometimes displayed unexpectedly, "I want it partly for myself. I think I should like to read it now and then, for a change."

CHAPTER VI.-ADRIAN BECOMES A BEGGAR.

N 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 feeling, there were dark tales whispered of secret and no less cruel executions within the sombre grey walls of the "Stein," 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 practically 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, sure to be numerous in great cities, who always 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 individualstopped him as he was going out to see his patients.

"A word with you, 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 honour."

"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'

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"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 say what he thinks, and think what he likes?"

"I 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. Francis 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 honourableness?"

1 A nickname given by the Protestants to the zealous Papists.

"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 a 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 wil be hawkers in the field well furnished with such wares."

"Then, if I go, I had best take my purse. Any thieves like to be in the crowd?"

"Your honourableness knows very well that even the enemies of the Reformed bear witness to their honesty, quietness and good behaviour."

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, Le repeated it to Marchemont, with whom he was now on very confidential terms. "Our good landlord sets his sail to the favouring wind," said the preacher. "In your ab sence, one of my friends was here. He tells us a 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."

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"Scarcely. Five hundred gentlemencounts, barons and seignieurs of reputecannot 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 Berlaymont, who called the petitioners 'a lot of beggars,' but he is scarce like to h.ve 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 de Brederode, whereat, I grieve to say, there seems to have been much disorder and very deep drinking. I know De Brederode of old, and cannot but regret that the defence 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 such

an arrangement would be extremely pleasant. Hepictured 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 Betgen 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

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A DANGEROUS SECRET.

to the preaching, and so did Rose, under the care of Dame Catherine Blois, Peregrine's far more sincere and earnest wife.

Adrian ever afterwards retained a vivid remembrance of the striking scene, but 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 De Brederode was coming to Antwerp, to enrol the citizens in the league of the Beggars.

When the assembly broke up, Dame Catherine Blois was obliged to lend her aid to a poor woman

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