l. True, there was no lack of impatient ones, and whoever wanted to
seek them need only go to the principal school, where noon was
approaching and many boys gazed far more eagerly through the open windows
of the school-room, than at the teacher's lips.

But in that part of the spacious hall where the older lads received
instruction, no restlessness prevailed. True, the spring sun shone on
their books and exercises too, the spring called them into the open air,
but even more powerful than its alluring voice seemed the influence
exerted on their young minds by what they were now hearing.

Forty sparkling eyes were turned towards the bearded man, who addressed
them in his deep voice. Even wild Jan Mulder had dropped the knife with
which he had begun to cut on his desk a well-executed figure of a ham,
and was listening attentively.

The noon bell now rang from the neighboring church, and soon after was
heard from the tower of the town-hall, the little boys noisily left the
room, but--strange-=the patience of the older ones still held out; they
were surely hearing things that did not exactly belong to their lessons.

The man who stood before them was no teacher in the school, but the city
clerk, Van Hout, who, to-day filled the place of his sick friend,
Verstroot, master of arts and preacher. During the ringing of the bells
he had closed the book, and now said:

"'Suspendo lectionem.' Jan Mulder, how would you translate my
'suspendere'?"

"Hang," replied the boy.

"Hang!" laughed Van Hout. "You might be hung from a hook perhaps, but
where should we hang a lesson? Adrian Van der Werff."

The lad called rose quickly, saying:

"'Suspendere lectionen' means to break off the lesson."

"Very well; and if we wanted to hang up Jan Mulder, what should we say?"

"Patibulare--ad patibulum!" cried the scholars. Van Hout, who had just
been smiling, grew very grave. Drawing a long breath, he said:

"Patibulo is a bad Latin word, and your fathers, who formerly sat here,
understood its meaning far less thoroughly than you. Now, every child in
the Netherlands knows it, Alva has impressed it on our minds. More than
eighteen thousand worthy citizens have come to the gallows through his
'ad patibulum.'"

With these words he pulled his short black doublet through his girdle,
advanced nearer the first desk, and bending his muscular body forward,
said with constantly increasing emotion:

"'This shall be enough for to-day, boys. It