# The Silent Prince/Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI.
THE BURGOMASTER'S DAUGHTER.
Conrad Chenoweth had planned an early trip to Antwerp to visit his parents and to renew his acquaintance with the playmate of his childhood, Hilvardine, only daughter of the Burgomaster, Anthony Van Straalen. The unsettled state of affairs in Brussels, and the absence of the Prince of Orange, made it impossible for the young advocate to leave his post for several months.
The famous Compromise, issued by the nobles in resistance to the Inquisition, had been fairly launched. Two hundred of the confederates, led by Count Brederode and Louis of Nassau, brother of Prince William, had marched with great pomp and ceremony to the royal palace, and presented the frightened Regent with their formidable petition. Baron Berlaymont quieted her fears with the celebrated remark, “Your Highness has nothing to fear from this crowd of beggars.” The nobles were indignant at this term of reproach, but the reckless Brederode laughed scornfully.
“They call us beggars,” he said. “Let us ​accept the name. We will contend with the Inquisition, but remain loyal to the King, even till compelled to wear the beggar's sack.”
The shibboleth was invented. For the first time, from these reckless and debauched nobles rose the cry, “Vivent les Gueulx! Long live the Beggars!” The beggar's wallet and the wooden bowl became the symbol of Protestantism in the Netherlands. The enemies of freedom had provided a watchword for the discontented nation, and the shout, “Vivent les Gueulx!” was soon to prove powerful enough to find an answering voice from palace and hovel, through the forest or on the sea; and the deeds of savagery perpetrated by these “wild beggars,” “forest beggars” and the “beggars of the sea,” convinced even Philip the Slow of the character of the nation which he had driven to madness.
It was not till one morning in May that Conrad Chenoweth found himself in old Antwerp. He was very fond of the picturesque town, with its cupolated water-gates, its busy wharves, its canals, its drawbridges and its windmills. The air was cool and fragrant with all the delicate freshness of May. Nature under the exquisite touch of Spring was irresistible. There was a pleasant undercurrent of sound in the air: the drowsy hum of bees, the musical tinkle of childish laughter, and the cheerful twitter of birds. The landscape was rich in color. The rose-red roofs, trees in first leaf, richly-tinted ​sails, gaily-painted windmills, and women in their blue or brown jackets and jaunty caps, made a varied yet harmonious picture. The broad Scheldt was alive with ships, which carried on a ceaseless traffic. The merchant fleets rested as proudly on her bosom as though the ashes of heretics did not lie beneath those dancing waters.
Conrad's heart swelled with sorrow as he saw a fleet of vessels sailing outside the harbor of Antwerp, bound for English shores. Too well he understood the reason. The Spanish Inquisition had driven the industrious Flemings from their homes, to enrich those port which welcomed the exiles.
“Unless the tide of emigration ceases,” he said to a countryman who was passing, “Antwerp is a doomed city. Yonder ships are sailing the wrong way.”
“You are right, Mynheer,” answered the burgher. Then lowering his voice he added, “King Philip will soon have no people left in the Netherlands to hang or burn.”
In the suburbs of this great commercial metropolis stood the house of Dr. John Chenoweth. It was a large brick structure, two stories high, with faint pencillings of white relieving the sombre coloring of the brick. Over the front door was a floriated arch, with artistically carved heads as finials. There were numerous projecting gables, and each gable was surmounted by the proverbial ​weathercock, and there were besides many architectural surprises in the form of cornices and quaint windows, which delighted the eye. The house had the usual accompaniment of houses in the suburbs, a large garden, which sloped down to the banks of the river. In the rear of the house stood the stable. At this moment the owner was delivering a stern rebuke to a villainous-looking groom.
Dr. Chenoweth was a large man, having the Flemish cast of features, with fair hair and blue eyes. His strong, plain face was smooth-shaven. There was unity in his simple face, his resolute expression and his searching yet kind eyes. The man and his mission were eminently harmonious. To serve his fellow men had ever been his purpose. Much of his service had been gratuitous, and although a man past the meridian of life, he was far from being in affluent circumstances.
“Maurits,” he was saying, “this is the third time within as many weeks that you have been carousing at the Golden Lion. I can stand it no longer. You quit my service to-day.”
With these stern words he paid the groom and discharged him. Had he seen the look of hatred which crossed Maurits' face the doctor might not have so quickly banished the episode from his mind. His attention was diverted by the sudden appearance of his son.
“Ah, Conrad, my boy,” said the doctor, ​stretching out his hand in pleased surprise. “Welcome home! It has been a long time since you were able to visit us.”
“The affairs of the Prince of Orange are in such a disturbed condition that it is well-nigh impossible for me to leave Brussels. But it is good to be here. By the way, who was that hangdog knave whom I just met skulking off the premises?”
“It was a drunken, thieving groom whom I have just discharged.”
“I am glad to hear that. The man is a villain if ever there was one. It is such crop-eared rogues who should fill our jails and make the hangman's business good, instead of respectable, God-fearing burghers.”
“You are right, my son. Now let us find the good vrouw. I think we shall surprise her in the kitchen, giving her directions for the evening meal.”
They stole unobserved to the window and stood a moment gazing at the domestic scene. In the twilight the kitchen was the pleasantest spot in the house. It was a large, low room, with a brick floor and a wide hearth, flanked on each side by huge iron dogs, so massive that they could have supported with ease the trunk of a tree. Over this hung the ancient spit, within whose gloomy depths were strung necklaces of sausages and shapely hams to smoke. As the wood fire snapped and ​crackled showers of sparks flew up the wide chimney, and the ruddy light sent grotesque shadows dancing over the walls. In the centre of the room, superintending, the servants as they prepared a substantial repast, was the stately figure of the doctor's wife.
Agatha Chenoweth was still a handsome woman, although no longer young. Her face was beautiful, not with the fragile delicacy which is so often called beauty, but with the beauty of strength. Her mother was a French Huguenot and her father a Flemish nobleman. John Chenoweth knew when first he saw her in one of the forbidden conventicles that she was as dear to him as his own soul. With a quiet persistence which was a part of his heritage, he made her acquaintance. Although he was aware that Agatha Van Cortlandt had refused the hand of more than one nobleman, this penniless young doctor, with boldness, yet with manly dignity, pressed his suit. His simple integrity and unselfish devotion won the heart of this noble maiden. Their mutual friend, the French Huguenot preacher Peregrine de la Grange, married them. Four children had been given them, two of whom died in infancy, leaving to comfort their hearts the talented young advocate, Conrad, and a little daughter, Elizabeth.
The remaining occupant of the kitchen was the Burgomaster's daughter, who sat before the huge ​fireplace with the sleepy Elizabeth on her knees, telling the child a story from the quaint Dutch tiles.
Hilvardine Van Straalen was a tall, slender girl, with a figure which gave promise of a richer outline in the years to come. Her dark hair, broad, white brow, large, brown eyes fringed with dark lashes, her changing expression and fleeting color, made her face singularly attractive. Possibly some would say that the small mouth closed a trifle too firmly for a girl of eighteen years, and that her chin was too clear-cut and resolute for amiability. But no one could deny that her voice was soft and low, and there was witchery in her musical laugh.
The sudden opening of the outer door made the occupants of the kitchen look anxiously around.
“My son, my Conrad!” cried Madam Chenoweth as she folded her boy to her heart and pressed a fond kiss on his lips.
Little Elizabeth roused at the commotion, and with a cry of joy ran and threw her arms about her brother.
“Softly, softly, thou small hurricane!” said Conrad as he disengaged himself from this violent embrace and tossed his little sister to a perch on his shoulder.
Hilvardine rose as though to leave the kitchen, but the young advocate, who had noted her every movement since he entered the room, came forward and intercepted her flight.
​“Hilvardine, my little playfellow, have you no welcome for me?”
“I am certainly glad to see you, Heer Chenoweth,” was the demure reply. “But I think it is time that I returned. I do not wish to intrude on this your first night at home for many months.”
“Nonsense, Hilvardine!” replied Madam Chenoweth. “Of course you will remain until after tea and hear the news from the Capital. Then if you insist upon going early, Conrad will take you to your father's house in safety.”
With a mother's keen intuition Madam Chenoweth divined her son's wish, for she had long ago read his secret. The burgomaster's daughter did not need much urging to accede to a request which was evidently an agreeable one.
Lysken, the nurse, now came to put Elizabeth to bed. Dr. Chenoweth took the delicate, fairy-like form of his child in his arms and kissed her many times.
“Ah, my little daughter,” he said, “I fear that you were born in an ill-starred time. The reign of tyranny is but just begun. Every Netherlander will soon be deprived of all just rights, and even to hold up one's head fearlessly will soon be accounted a crime. Now, Conrad, give us the latest report from Brussels,” he added, as they sat down to supper.
“All hope of justice or mercy from the King is ​now over,” said the young advocate sternly. “The decrees of the Council of Trent are to be rigidly enforced, and the inquisitors are to be confirmed in their authority. In spite of all this, heresy continues to spread. The scaffold has its daily victims, but it fails to make a single convert. The truth is imported with every bale of merchandise. Bigotry or cruelty cannot devise a quarantine which will effectually exclude the religious germs, which are wafted to the Netherlands on every breeze. The terror and wrath of the people has reached a crisis. There is but one topic of shuddering conversation, and that is the Edicts and the Inquisition. The movement of the nobles is hailed with universal delight.”
“Does the Prince of Orange favor the federation of nobles?” inquired Dr. Chenoweth.
“I am sorry to say he regards it with distrust. When he learned of it he made the remark, ‘The curtain has opened upon a great tragedy.’ He thinks the action of the nobles savors too much of open rebellion.”
“Is it rebellion to insist that the King shall keep his sacred pledges, and to preserve the charters of a people which are older than the titles of his royal house?” asked Hilvardine with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes.
“I think not,” replied the young advocate. “If all appeals to the King's clemency have proved ​fruitless, we will make an appeal to the manhood of the Netherlands, and I am confident we shall elicit such a reply as will make the bigot tremble on his throne.”
The girl flashed a glance at the young man, which fairly bewildered him with its sweetness.
“I think the Prince is wise in his caution,” said Dr. Chenoweth. “He is a sagacious statesman, and I have implicit faith in his judgment.”
The Prince's brother, Louis of Nassau, is with the nobles, as well as Count Mansfeldt and St. Aldegonde,” continued the advocate. “The Prince of Orange has shown his colors, however. At the last meeting of the State Council he resigned his seat in that august body because he could not countenance the violent measures which were adopted.”
“God be praised for this!” said Dr. Chenoweth, “The Prince of Orange is the one hope of this persecuted country, the one man among the many who can successfully mediate between the government and the people—between Catholics and Protestants. I wish, my son, that you could have witnessed his triumphal entry into Antwerp. No monarch was ever awaited with such feverish impatience. Tens of thousands of citizens lined the streets for several miles outside the city to welcome him. When he came in sight the people pressed about him like perplexed children to a parent, ​calling him ‘Father William! Our Deliverer! Our Protector!’ The Prince looked anxious and distressed, and made no response to the rapturous shouts of welcome.”
“My father,” said Hilvardine, “rode beside the Prince, and he said His Excellency spoke but once, and that was when the watchword of the confederate nobles, ‘Vivent les Gueulx,’ was raised. ‘This idle cry,’ said the Prince, ‘must be stopped. I cannot have it. The people will rue it some day!’”
“I think the wonderful power and magnetism of the Prince,” said Madam Chenoweth, “was signally shown in the way he controlled that enthusiastic crowd. When they saw that he was not fond of noisy demonstration they quietly dispersed and went to their homes. Still it seems to me, after all, that we are relying altogether too much on the influence of one man, and that man not even a publicly avowed Protestant.”
“Do you not remember, wife,” said the doctor, “that God saved the children of Israel, not through a committee, but by a man? The Netherlanders will never be delivered from their troubles by means of a confederation of nobles, or by a synod of reformed pastors, but by a man. I firmly believe that William of Orange is the man God has selected for this purpose. Let us pray that the nation may recognize their leader, and submit to his guidance.”
​Just at this moment Hilvardine gave a low cry. “A face at the window!” she gasped. “I certainly saw two burning eyes watching our every movement.”
Conrad Chenoweth went to the window and looked out. It was a cloudless night. A soft, white radiance suffused the eastern sky. Presently the moon appeared on the horizon, first a point, then a rim of silver, and finally the gibbous disk lifted itself above the sky-line, and long shadows lay across the yard and the surrounding grounds. There was no person to be seen.
“Hilvardine, you have been the victim of a strange hallucination,” said the young man as he returned to the table. “Everything is quiet outside, and there is no one to be seen.”
“I presume you are right,” said Hilvardine with a forced smile. “So much talk about the Inquisition has evidently made me nervous.”
The subject was dismissed, and the family adjourned to the sitting-room.
Had Conrad watched long enough he might have seen a shadow creeping stealthily from beside the garden wall, and, flitting across the road, disappear in the wood beyond.
The slouching gait and distorted figure were those of Maurits the groom.