CHAPTER XII.
WILLIAM OF ORANGE.
On the third day after Captain Salt departed for Paris certain events befell at The Hague which demand our attention.
The campaign of 1691 in Flanders was conducted on both sides with the utmost vigour and the least possible result.

Between May and September the armies marched and counter-marched, walked up to each other and withdrew with every expression of defiance.

No important action was fought, though for some time less than a league divided their hostility.

William, whose patience was worn out almost sooner than the shoe-leather of his subjects, left the command in Marlborough's hands, and retired to his park at Loo, whence, in the beginning of July, he posted to The Hague to attend a meeting of the States-General.
On the 17th day of that month, and at ten o'clock in the morning--at which time the King was taking the air in his famous park on the outskirts of the town--a couple of old gentlemen were advancing upon The Hague from the westward, along the old Scheveningen road.
They walked slowly, by reason of their years, but with a certain solemnity of pace which indicated that, in their own opinion at least, they were bound upon an errand of importance.

At intervals they paused to mop their faces; and at every pause they regarded the landscape with contempt.