The Burgomaster's Wife (Historical Novel). Georg Ebers
arm with his right hand and ran swiftly around the church. Several other boys followed, but the new-comer of whom they were afraid, a man scarcely thirty years old, had legs of considerable length, and knew how to use them bravely.
“Stop, boys!” he shouted in an echoing voice of command. “Stop! What has Happened here?”
Every one in Leyden respected the learned and brave young nobleman, so all the lads who had not instantly obeyed Van Swieten’s warning shout, stood still until Herr von Nordwyk reached them.
A strange, eager light sparkled in this man’s clever eyes, and a subtle smile hovered around his moustached lip, as he called to the musician:
“What has happened here, Meister Wilhelm? Didn’t the clamor of Minerva’s apprentices harmonize with your organ-playing, or did—but by all the colors of Iris, that’s surely Nico Matanesse, young Wibisma! And how he looks! Brawling in the shadow of the church—and you here too, Adrian, and you, Meister Wilhelm?”
“I separated them,” replied the other quietly, smoothing his rumpled cuffs.
“With perfect calmness, but impressively—like your organ-music,” said the commander, laughing.
“Who began the fight? You, young sir? or the others?”
Nicolas, in his excitement, shame, and indignation, could find no coherent words, but Adrian came forward saying: “We wrestled together. Don’t be too much vexed with us, Herr Janus.”
Nicolas cast a friendly glance at his foe.
Herr von Nordwyk, Jan Van der Does, or as a learned man he preferred to call himself, Janus Dousa, was by no means satisfied with this information, but exclaimed:
“Patience, patience! You look suspicious enough, Meister Adrian; come here and tell me, ‘atrekeos,’ according to the truth, what has been going on.”
The boy obeyed the command and told his story honestly, without concealing or palliating anything that had occurred.
“Hm,” said Dousa, after the lad had finished his report. “A difficult case. No one is to be acquitted. Your cause would be the better one, had it not been for the knife, my fine young nobleman, but you, Adrian, and you, you chubby-cheeked rascals, who—There comes the rector—If he catches you, you’ll certainly see nothing but four walls the rest of this beautiful day. I should be sorry for that.”
The chubby-cheeked rascals, and Adrian also, understood this hint, and without stopping to take leave scampered around the corner of the church like a flock of doves pursued by a hawk.
As soon as they had vanished, the commander approached young Nicolas, saying:
“Vexatious business! What was right to them is just to you. Go to your home. Are you visiting your aunt?”
“Yes, my lord,” replied the young noble. “Is your father in the city too?” Nicolas was silent.
“He doesn’t wish to be seen?”
Nicolas nodded assent, and Dousa continued:
“Leyden stands open to every Netherlander, even to you. To be sure, if you go about like King Philip’s page, and show contempt to your equals, you must endure the consequences yourself. There lies the dagger, my young friend, and there is your hat. Pick them up, and remember that such a weapon is no toy. Many a man has spoiled his whole life, by thoughtlessly using one a single moment. The superior numbers that pressed upon you may excuse you. But how will you get to your aunt’s house in that tattered doublet?”
“My cloak is in the church,” said the musician, “I’ll give it to the young gentleman.”
“Bravo, Meister Wilhelm!” replied Dousa. “Wait here, my little master, and then go home. I wish the time, when your father would value my greeting, might come again. Do you know why it is no longer pleasant to him?”
“No, my lord.”
“Then I’ll tell you. Because he is fond of Spain, and I cling to the Netherlands.”
“We are Netherlanders as well as you,” replied Nicolas with glowing cheeks.
“Scarcely,” answered Dousa calmly, putting his hand up to his thin chin, and intending to add a kinder word to the sharp one, when the youth vehemently exclaimed:
“Take back that ‘scarcely,’ Herr von Nordwyk.” Dousa gazed at the bold lad in surprise, and again an expression of amusement hovered about his lips. Then he said kindly:
“I like you, Herr Nicolas; and shall rejoice if you wish to become a true Hollander. There comes Meister Wilhelm with his cloak. Give me your hand. No, not this one, the other.”
Nicolas hesitated, but Janus grasped the boy’s right hand in both of his, bent his tall figure to the latter’s ear, and said in so low a tone that the musician could not understand:
“Ere we part, take with you this word of counsel from one who means kindly. Chains, even golden ones, drag us down, but liberty gives wings. You shine in the glittering splendor, but we strike the Spanish chains with the sword, and I devote myself to our work. Remember these words, and if you choose repeat them to your father.”
Janus Dousa turned his back on the boy, waved a farewell to the musician, and went away.
CHAPTER II.
Young Adrian hurried down the Werffsteg, which had given his family its name. He heeded neither the lindens on both sides, amid whose tops the first tiny green leaves were forcing their way out of the pointed buds, nor the birds that flew hither and thither among the hospitable boughs of the stately trees, building their nests and twittering to each other, for he had no thought in his mind except to reach home as quickly as possible.
Beyond the bridge spanning the Achtergracht, he paused irresolutely before a large building.
The knocker hung on the central door, but he did not venture to lift it and let it fall on the shining plate beneath, for he could expect no pleasant reception from his family.
His doublet had fared ill during his struggle with his stronger enemy. The torn neck-ruffles had been removed from their proper place and thrust into his pocket, and the new violet stocking on his right leg, luckless thing, had been so frayed by rubbing on the pavement, that a large yawning rent showed far more of Adrian’s white knee than was agreeable to him.
The peacock feather in his little velvet cap could easily be replaced, but the doublet was torn, not ripped, and the stocking scarcely capable of being mended. The boy was sincerely sorry, for his father had bade him take good care of the stuff to save money; during these times there were hard shifts in the big house, which with its three doors, triple gables adorned with beautifully-arched volutes, and six windows in the upper and lower stories, fronted the Werffsteg in a very proud, stately guise.
The burgomaster’s office did not bring in a large income, and Adrian’s grandfather’s trade of preparing chamois leather, as well as the business in skins, was falling off; his father had other matters in his head, matters that claimed not only his intellect, strength and time, but also every superfluous farthing.
Adrian had nothing pleasant to expect at home—certainly not from his father, far less from his aunt Barbara. Yet the boy dreaded the anger of these two far less, than a single disapproving glance from the eyes of the young wife, whom he had called “mother” scarcely a twelve month, and who was only six years his senior.
She never said an unkind word to him, but his defiance and wildness melted before her beauty, her quiet, aristocratic manner. He scarcely knew himself whether he loved her or not, but she appeared like the good fairy of whom the fairy tales spoke, and it often seemed as if she were far too delicate, dainty and charming for her simple, unpretending home. To see her smile rendered the boy happy, and when she