“That doesn’t give happiness.”

“But why has she remained unmarried?” The baron shrugged his shoulders, and replied:  “It certainly didn’t suit the men.”

“Then why didn’t she go into a convent?”

“Who knows?  Women’s hearts are harder to understand than your Greek books.  You’ll learn that later.  What were you saying to your aunt as I came up?”

“Why, just see,” replied the boy, putting the bridle in his mouth, and drawing the glove from his left hand, “she slipped this ring on my finger.”

“A splendid emerald!  She doesn’t usually like to part with such things.”

“She first offered me another, saying she would give it to me to make amends for the thumps I received yesterday as a faithful follower of the king.  Isn’t it comical?”

“More than that, I should think.”

“It was contrary to my nature to accept gifts for my bruises, and I hastily drew my hand back, saying the burgher lads had taken some home from me, and I wouldn’t have the ring as a reward for that.”

“Right, Nico, right.”

“So she said too, put the little ring back in the box, found this one, and here it is.”

“A valuable gem!” murmured the baron, thinking:  “This gift is a good omen.  The Hoogstratens and he are her nearest heirs, and if the silly girl doesn’t stay with her, it might happen—­”

But he found no time to finish these reflections, Nicolas interrupted them by saying: 

“It’s beginning to rain already.  Don’t the fogs on the meadows look like clouds fallen from the skies?  I am cold.”

“Draw your cloak closer.”

“How it rains and hails!  One would think it was winter.  The water in the canals looks black, and yonder—­see—­what is that?”

A tavern stood beside the road, and just in front of it a single lofty elm towered towards the sky.  Its trunk, bare as a mast, had grown straight up without separating into branches until it attained the height of a house.  Spring had as yet lured no leaves from the boughs, but there were many objects to be seen in the bare top of the tree.  A small flag, bearing the colors of the House of Orange, was fastened to one branch, from another hung a large doll, which at a distance strongly resembled a man dressed in black, an old hat dangled from a third, and a fourth supported a piece of white pasteboard, on which might be read in large black letters, which the rain was already beginning to efface: 

         “Good luck to Orange, to the Spaniard death. 
          So Peter Quatgelat welcomes his guests.”

This tree, with its motley adornments, offered a by no means pleasant spectacle, seen in the grey, cold, misty atmosphere of the rainy April morning.

Ravens had alighted beside the doll swaying to and fro in the wind, probably mistaking it for a man.  They must have been by no means teachable birds, for during the years the Spaniards had ruled in Holland, the places of execution were never empty.  They were screeching as if in anger, but still remained perched on the tree, which they probably mistook for a gibbet.  The rest of the comical ornaments and the thought of the nimble adventurer, who must have climbed up to fasten them, formed a glaring and offensive contrast to the caricature of the gallows.