r Baersdorp, who, clad in
his costly fur-bordered cloak, was coming from the town-hall and had
heard the last speaker's words. "But let me set you right. To-day the
credulous are beginning to hope again, and the time for pressing your
just desire is ill-chosen. Wait a few days and then, if the relief does
not appear, urge your views. I'll speak for you, and with me many a
good man in the magistracy. We have nothing to expect from Valdez, but
gentleness and kindness. To rise against the King was from the first a
wicked deed--to fight against famine, the plague and death is sin and
madness. May God be with you, men!"

"The burgomaster is sensible," cried a cloth-dyer.

"Van Swieten and Norden think as he does, but Meister Peter rules
through the Prince's favor. If the Spaniards rescue us, his neck will be
in danger, when they make their entrance into the city So no matter who
dies; he and his are living on the fat of the land and have plenty."

"There goes his wife," said a master-weaver, pointing to Maria. "How
happy she looks! The leather business must be doing well. Holloa--Frau
Van der Werff! Holloa! Remember me to your husband and tell him, his
life may be valuable; but ours are not wisps of straw."

"Tell him, too," cried a cattle-dealer, who did not yet seem to have
been specially injured by the general distress, "tell him oxen can be
slaughtered, the more the better; but Leyden citizens--"

The cattle-dealer did not finish his sentence, for Herr Aquanus had seen
from the Angulus what was happening to the burgomaster's wife, came
out of the tavern into the street, and stepped into the midst of the
malcontents.

"For shame!" he cried. "To assail a respectable lady in the street! Are
these Leyden manners? Give me your hand, Frau Maria, and if I hear a
single reviling word, I'll call the constables. I know you. The gallows
Herr Van Bronkhorst had erected for men like you, is still standing by
the Blue Stone. Which of you wants to inaugurate them?"

The men, to whom these words were addressed, were not the bravest of
mortals, and not a syllable was heard, as Aquanus led the young wife
into the tavern. The landlord's wife and daughter received her in their
own rooms, which were separated from those occupied by guests of the
inn, and begged her to make herself comfortable there until the crowd
had dispersed. But Maria longed to reach home, and when she said she
must go, Aquanus offered his company.

Georg von Do