It was a quiet, cheerful, yet somewhat drowsy little city, that ancient burgh of Delft.  The placid canals by which it was intersected in every direction were all planted with whispering, umbrageous rows of limes and poplars, and along these watery highways the traffic of the place glided so noiselessly that the town seemed the abode of silence and tranquillity.  The streets were clean and airy, the houses well built, the whole aspect of the place thriving.

One of the principal thoroughfares was called the old Delftstreet.  It was shaded on both sides by lime trees, which in that midsummer season covered the surface of the canal which flowed between them with their light and fragrant blossoms.  On one side of this street was the “old kirk,” a plain, antique structure of brick, with lancet windows, and with a tall, slender tower, which inclined, at a very considerable angle, towards a house upon the other side of the canal.  That house was the mansion of William the Silent.  It stood directly opposite the church, being separated by a spacious courtyard from the street, while the stables and other offices in the rear extended to the city wall.  A narrow lane, opening out of Delft-street, ran along the side of the house and court, in the direction of the ramparts.  The house was a plain, two-storied edifice of brick, with red-tiled roof, and had formerly been a cloister dedicated to Saint Agatha, the last prior of which had been hanged by the furious Lumey de la Merck.

The news of Anjou’s death had been brought to Delft by a special messenger from the French court.  On Sunday morning, the 8th of July, 1584, the Prince of Orange, having read the despatches before leaving his bed, caused the man who had brought them to be summoned, that he might give some particular details by word of mouth concerning the last illness of the Duke.  The courier was accordingly admitted to the Prince’s bed-chamber, and proved to be one Francis Guion, as he called himself.  This man had, early in the spring, claimed and received the protection of Orange, on the ground of being the son of a Protestant at Besancon, who had suffered death for—­his religion, and of his own ardent attachment to the Reformed faith.  A pious, psalm-singing, thoroughly Calvinistic youth he seemed to be having a bible or a hymn-book under his arm whenever he walked the street, and most exemplary in his attendance at sermon and lecture.  For, the rest, a singularly unobtrusive personage, twenty-seven years of age, low of stature, meagre, mean-visaged, muddy complexioned, and altogether a man of no account—­quite insignificant in the eyes of all who looked upon him.  If there were one opinion in which the few who had taken the trouble to think of the puny, somewhat shambling stranger from Burgundy at all coincided, it was that he was inoffensive but quite incapable of any important business.  He seemed well educated, claimed to be of respectable parentage and had considerable facility of speech, when any person could be found who thought it worth while to listen to him; but on the whole he attracted little attention.