he city, until
the deserters mended their ways, and adopted a course of conduct that
would permit the magistrates to again open their gates to them. Whoever
continued to cling to the Spaniards and oppose the cause of liberty,
would forfeit his share of the inheritance. This was no new procedure.
King Philip had taught its practice, nay not only the estates of
countless innocent persons who had been executed, banished or gone into
voluntary exile for the sake of the new religion, but also the property
of good Catholic patriots had been confiscated for his benefit. After
being anvil so many years, it is pleasant to play hammer; and if
that was not always done in a proper and moderate way, people excused
themselves on the ground of having experienced a hundred-fold harsher
and more cruel treatment from the Spaniards. It might have been
unchristian to repay in the same coin, but they dealt severe blows only
in mortal conflict, and did not seek the Glippers' lives.
At the door of the house of death, the magistrates met the musician
Wilhelm Corneliussohn and his mother, who had come to offer Henrica
a hospitable reception in their house. The mother, who had at first
refused to extend her love for her neighbor to the young Glipper girl,
now found it hard to be deprived of the opportunity to do a good work,
and gave expression to these feelings in the sturdy fashion peculiar to
her.
Belotti was standing in the entry, no longer attired in the silk hose
and satin-bordered cloth garments of the steward, but in a plain burgher
dress. He told the musician and Peter, that he remained in Leyden
principally because he could not bear to leave the sick maid, Denise,
in the lurch; but other matters also detained him, especially, though he
was reluctant to acknowledge it, the feeling, strengthened by long years
of service, that he belonged to the Hoogstraten house. The dead woman's
attorney had said that his account books were in good order, and
willingly paid the balance due him. His savings had been well invested,
and as he never touched the interest, but added to the capital, had
considerably increased. Nothing detained him in Leyden, yet he could not
leave it until everything was settled in the house where he had so long
ruled.
He had daily inquired for the sick lady, and after her death, though
Denise began to recover, still lingered in Leyden; he thought it his
duty to show the last honors to the dead by attending her funeral.
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