The Prince took his whip from Mr. Bromley and stuck it in his boot.
“M. Van Odyk,” he said, coughing, “tell them I will ride to the Stadhuis; I am smothered in their coach and six.”
Attended by M. de Zuylestein and Mr. Bromley, and followed by several of his gentlemen, the Prince descended the narrow, polished stairs and came out into the courtyard.
It was a cloudy autumn morning, windy and cold. The brown and yellow leaves circled the tree-trunks in shivering crowds and sank fluttering from the almost bare branches. The red-brick Abbey buildings, with their blue and yellow painted shutters, the pointed towers pierced with irregular windows, rose up distinct and clearly coloured.
Directly behind them Lange Jan towered, his Gothic windows bricked up or furnished with coloured shutters, his bells visible in his leaden cupola and crowned with the weathercock. Beside the tower, just above the line of the Abbey roof, rose the majestic outline of the body of the church.
One of the Zeeland nobles explained.
“When this was the Abbey church, Highness, it was possible to reach it from the Palace, through the cloisters, but these have fallen into disuse and have been built up.”
“It was a pleasant dwelling,” remarked William. It seemed, by the swift look he swept over the Abbey, as if he remembered that his ancestors, the counts of Holland, had lived in it.
They passed under the low entrance arch, and almost immediately to their right was the small side door of the church.
It was open.