THE INQUISITOR’S SECRETARY

Chapter XVI

THE RECOGNITION

After a long sleep, which had almost completely restored and refreshed him, Harm Hiddesz awoke the next day. Only faintly some shimmering of light filtered through to his cell, but it was sufficient for him to see by. After having thanked God on his knees for His preserving love, he got from underneath the straw of his sleeping place the Bible which had never left him during his greatest adversities, and it somehow seemed to him that there would come an end to his grievous afflictions. With joyful voice he commenced to read Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” The longer Harm read, the greater the joy in his soul became, and he cried out with the sacred poet of old: “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.”

Again Harm heard footsteps and, although unwillingly, he hurriedly hid his book again underneath the straw.

It was Bouke who approached, accompanied by a young priest, the Inquisitor’s secretary.

Harm Hiddesz recognized the clerk who had been present in the torture chamber the day before, and his heart started to beat wild-ly. Was it so unusual, then, that an imprisoned heretic was visited by monks and priests? On the contrary, Harm knew that those people often did everything they could to attempt to convince the heretics of their errors.

The secretary, too, seemed to hesitate to enter after Bouke had opened the door of the cell.

At last he crossed the threshold, and asked Bouke to leave him alone with the prisoner. The servant retreated, but then stopped and stood listening in the hall.

“Master,” the clerk began, “yesterday I was present at your examination and have written down your answers which so crushingly testify against you. Nevertheless, I have not come here to quarrel about differences of faith with you. There is another matter that has struck me when reading over your confessions once more, and which has made me wonder whether you are the person it is here being thought you are. So would you kindly answer quite unreservedly and openly a few questions which may be of the highest importance, possibly to you as well as to me?

“I can hardly promise that in advance. But ask, Sir, maybe I shall be able to answer you.”

“You are being called Harmen of Antwerp. Were you born in that city?”

“It is true that I recently came from Antwerp, and I often stay there,” was the reply, “but my place of birth is The Hague.”

The clerk started to tremble.

“H a v e you,” he continued, “known a cheese merchant in the Achterom by the name of Hidde?”

“That was my father,” Harm said, “but why these questions?”

“Did you have a son who …”

Suddenly it was as if the scales fell from the prisoner’s eyes!

“Hidde, my son!” Harm cried wildly.

“Father! Father!” — and the clerk threw himself at the bosom of the heretic and kissed the face of the prisoner, “Father, must I find you back at this place?”

Bouke stepped closer to the door and looked through the cross-barred window, greatly stirred. “Found at last” he said to himself, “but, ah, Lord, under what circumstances!”

After the first emotions of father and son had passed, each had to tell the other what had happened during the twelve years they had been separated from each other.

Harm told about his fruitless efforts to find his son; and Cor-nelio, now Hidde again, could fathom the deep grief which had tormented the father all these years.

Hidde then told what he knew about his mother’s passing away. Undoubtedly the priest of St. Mary’s Chapel in The Hague could not have imagined that his description of the deathbed of Harm’s wife would be of such great importance and comfort to the imprisoned heretic. When Harm heard how his wife had passed away, singing for joy in the “peace through the blood of the cross,” he knelt down and thanked God with a Psalm of praise for the certainty that was now given him that his faithful wife had preceded him to the New Jerusalem on high.

Harm Hiddesz’ prayer did stir Hidde’s soul, but at the same time it made him realize what a distance separated him from his father.

The shocked secretary of the Inquisitor faced the cold reality. With all the urgency of his fiery, loving heart, he tried to move his father to return to holy Mother Church. How could he ever witness his father’s execution? He exerted every bit of strength of conviction he possessed to retain his father, whom he had found back so unexpectedly. Upon his plea Del Castro would certainly pardon the heretic if he would return from the errors of his way.

Harm Hiddesz listened to his son. With great inward joy he listened to that voice which he had not heard for so many years; but his heart remained deaf to Hidde’s arguments.

“Father dear!” Hidde cried at last, “answer me! Say that you will recant, and even if I had to go to the Governess, I shall save you from the hangman!”

Harm Hiddesz smiled.

“Sit down beside me, Hidde,” he said. “I have a message for you. This message will at the same time be the answer to your questions.”

Hidde sat down beside his father, and Harm began, slowly and with great feeling, to describe the deathbed of Adrian; and all the while he was speaking he unfolded the doctrine of justification, based on the eternal truth of God’s free grace, to his son.

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