Grotius entirely approved of the answer when told to him.  Meantime Madame Daatselaer had gone to her brother-in-law van der Veen, a clothier by trade, whom she found in his shop talking with an officer of the Loevestein garrison.  She whispered in the clothier’s ear, and he, making an excuse to the officer, followed her home at once.  They found Grotius sitting where he had been left.  Van der Veen gave him his hand, saying: 

“Sir, you are the man of whom the whole country is talking?”

“Yes, here I am,” was the reply, “and I put myself in your hands—­”

“There isn’t a moment to lose,” replied the clothier.  “We must help you away at once.”

He went immediately in search of one John Lambertsen, a man in whom he knew he could confide, a Lutheran in religion, a master-mason by occupation.  He found him on a scaffold against the gable-end of a house, working at his trade.

He told him that there was a good deed to be done which he could do better than any man, that his conscience would never reproach him for it, and that he would at the same time earn no trifling reward.

He begged the mason to procure a complete dress as for a journeyman, and to follow him to the house of his brother-in-law Daatselaer.

Lambertsen soon made his appearance with the doublet, trunk-hose, and shoes of a bricklayer, together with trowel and measuring-rod.  He was informed who his new journeyman was to be, and Grotius at once put on the disguise.

The doublet did not reach to the waistband of the trunkhose, while those nether garments stopped short of his knees; the whole attire belonging to a smaller man than the unfortunate statesman.  His delicate white hands, much exposed by the shortness of the sleeves, looked very unlike those of a day-labourer, and altogether the new mason presented a somewhat incongruous and wobegone aspect.  Grotius was fearful too lest some of the preachers and professors frequenting the book-shop next door would recognize him through his disguise.  Madame Daatselaer smeared his face and hands with chalk and plaster however and whispered encouragement, and so with a felt hat slouched over his forehead and a yardstick in his hand, he walked calmly forth into the thronged marketplace and through the town to the ferry, accompanied by the friendly Lambertsen.  It had been agreed that van der Veen should leave the house in another direction and meet them at the landing-place.

When they got to the ferry, they found the weather as boisterous as ever.  The boatmen absolutely refused to make the dangerous crossing of the Merwede over which their course lay to the land of Altona, and so into the Spanish Netherlands, for two such insignificant personages as this mason and his scarecrow journeyman.

Lambertsen assured them that it was of the utmost importance that he should cross the water at once.  He had a large contract for purchasing stone at Altona for a public building on which he was engaged.  Van der Veen coming up added his entreaties, protesting that he too was interested in this great stone purchase, and so by means of offering a larger price than they at first dared to propose, they were able to effect their passage.