"How different it would have been for us if father had lived!" exclaimed Gysbert, suddenly changing the subject. "It seems so long ago, and I was so young that I do not remember much about him. Tell me what thou knowest, Jacqueline. Thou art older and must remember him better."
"Yes, I was eleven," said Jacqueline with a dreamy look in her eyes, "and thou wast only eight, when he went away and we never saw him again. We had always lived in the city of Louvain, and father was a professor of medicine in the big university there. Mother died when thou wast but a little baby. I can just remember her as tall and pale and golden-haired, and very gentle. Good Vrouw Voorhaas always kept house for us, and we had a big house then,—a grand house,—and many servants.
"Father was so loving and so kind! He used to take me on his knee and tell me many tales of Holland and the former days. I liked best those about the beautiful Countess Jacqueline of Bavaria, after whom he said I was named, and of how good and beloved she was, and how much she suffered for her people.
"Then came the day when he disappeared—no one knew how or where for a while—till the news reached Vrouw Voorhaas that he had been captured by the cruel Duke of Alva and put to death. It was at the same time that the young Count de Buren, the eldest son of our great William of Orange, was kidnapped from the University where he was studying, and taken a captive to Spain. We had little time to think of that outrage, so great was our grief for our dear father. Vrouw Voorhaas dismissed all the servants, closed the house and sold it, and we came to Leyden to live in the little house in Belfry Lane, where we have been ever since."
The boy listened spellbound, though the recital was evidently one that had been oft-repeated, but had never lost its mystery and sorrowful charm.
"I was so little," he said at last, "I only remember our father as a tall man with gray hair and beard, and very blue, twinkling eyes. It is all like a dream to me! But is it not singular, Jacqueline, that Vrouw Voorhaas will never talk about him to us, nor answer any questions when we ask about him? And she has told us never to mention his name to others, and has made us change our last name from Cornellisen to Coovenden. I wonder why!"
"It is very strange," agreed Jacqueline, shaking her head, "and I do not understand it myself. She told me once that I should know some day, and till then must never question her." But the restless spirit had again seized Gysbert, and he scrambled to his feet to make another tour around the old fortress. Suddenly the girl was startled by his loud, insistent shout:
"Jacqueline, Jacqueline! come here! There is something very odd coming across the plains! Come quickly!" She rose and ran to the other side of the hill where she found Gysbert shading his eyes with one hand. With the other he pointed to a thin, dark, undulating line moving slowly in the direction of the city, while here and there the sun caught a flash of blue and white, as from waving banners. Jacqueline's cheeks grew white.
"The Spaniards!" she breathed.