The King's High Way
In the last remnant of Belgium, a corner yet unconquered by
the German horde, I saw a tall young man walking among the dunes,
between the sodden lowland and the tumbling sea.
The hills where he trod were of sand heaped high by the western winds;
and the growth over them was wire-grass and thistles, bayberry and
golden broom and stunted pine, with many humble wild flowers--things
of no use, yet beautiful.
The sky above was gray; the northern sea was gray; the southern
fields were hazy gray over green; the smoke of shells bursting
in the air was gray. Gray was the skeleton of the ruined city in
the distance; gray were the shattered spires and walls of a dozen
hamlets on the horizon; gray, the eyes of the young man who walked
in faded blue uniform, in the remnant of Belgium. But there was an
indomitable light in his eyes, by which I knew that he was a King.
"Sir," I said, "I am sure that you are his Majesty, the King of
Belgium."
He bowed, and a pleasant smile relaxed his tired face.
"Pardon, monsieur," he answered, "but you make the usual mistake in
my title. If I were only 'the King of Belgium,' you see, I should
have but a poor kingdom now--only this narrow strip of earth, perhaps
four hundred square miles of debris, just a _'pou sto,'_ a
place to stand, enough to fight on, and if need be to die in."
His hand swept around the half-circle of dull landscape visible
southward from the top of the loftiest dune, the _Hooge Blikker._
It was a land of slow-winding streams and straight canals and flat
fields, with here and there a clump of woods or a slight rise of
ground, but for the most part level and monotonous, a checker-board
landscape--stretching away until the eyes rested on the low hills
beyond Ypres. Now all the placid charm of Flemish fertility as gone
from the land--it was scarred and marred and pitted. The shells
and mines had torn holes in it; the trenches and barbed-wire
entanglements spread over it like a network of scars and welts; the
trees were smashed into kindling-wood; the farmhouses were heaps
of charred bricks; the shattered villages were like mouths full
of broken teeth. As the King looked round at all this, his face
darkened and the slight droop of his shoulders grew more marked.
"But, no," he said, turning to me again, "that is not my kingdom.
My real title, monsieur, is _King of the Belgians._ It was for
their honor, for their liberty, that I was willing to lose my land
and risk my crown. While they live and hold true, I stand fast."
Then ran swiftly through me the thought, of how the little Belgian
army had fought, how the Belgian people had suffered, rather than
surrender the independence of their country to the barbarians. The
German cannonade was roaring along the Yser a few miles away; the
air trembled with the overload of sound; but between the peals of
thunder I could hear the brave song of the skylark climbing his
silver stairway of music, undismayed, hopeful, unconquerable. I
remembered how the word of this quiet man beside whom I stood had
been the inspiration and encouragement of his people through the
fierce conflict, the long agony: _"I have faith in our destiny;
a nation which defends itself does not perish; God will be with us
in that just cause."_
"Sir," I said, "you have a glorious kingdom which shall never be
taken away. But as for your land, the fates have been against you.
How will you ever get back to it? The Germans are strong as iron
and they bar the way. Will you make a peace with them and take what
they have so often offered you?"
"Never," he answered calmly; "that is not the way home, it is the
way to dishonor. When God brings me back, my army and my Queen are
going with me to liberate our people. There is only one way that
leads there--the King's high way. Look, _monsieur,_ you can
see the beginning of it down there. I hope you wish me well on that
road, for I shall never take another."
So he bade me good afternoon very courteously and walked away among
the dunes to his little cottage at La Panne.
Looking down through the light haze of evening I saw a strip of
the straight white road leading eastward across the level land. At
the beginning of it there was a broken bridge; in places it seemed
torn up by shells; it disappeared in the violet dusk. But as I
looked a vision came.
The bridge is restored, the road mended and built up, and on that
highway rides the King in his faded uniform with the Queen in white
beside him. At their approach ruined villages rejoice aloud and
ancient towns break forth into singing.
In Bruges the royal comrades stand beside the gigantic monument
in the centre of the Great Market, and above the shouting of the
multitude the music of the old belfry floats unheard. Ghent and
Antwerp have put on their glad raiment, and in their crooked streets
and crowded squares joy flows like a river surging as it goes. Into
Brussels I see this man and woman ride through a welcome that rises
around them like the voice of many waters--the welcome of those
who have waited and suffered, the welcome of those to whom liberty
and honor were more dear than life. In the _Grande Place,_
the antique, carven, gabled houses are gay with fluttering banners;
the people delivered from the cruel invader sing lustily the
_Marseillaise_ and the old songs of Belgium.
In the midst, Albert and Elizabeth sit quietly upon their horses.
They have come home. Not by the low road of cowardly surrender; not
by the crooked road of compromise and falsehood; not by the soft
road of ease and self-indulgence; but by the straight road of faith
and courage and self-sacrifice--the King's High Way.
-THE END-
Henry Van Dyke's short story: The King's High Way
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