Without waiting for her reply he left the room, while she stood motionless, gazing after him.

Barbara watched her anxiously for several minutes, then busied herself with the papers on her brother’s writing-table, saying as if to herself, though turning slightly towards her sister-in-law: 

“Evil times!  Let every one, who is not oppressed with such burdens as Peter, thank the Lord.  He has to bear the responsibility of everything, and people can’t dance lightly with hundred-pound weights on their legs.  Nobody has a better heart, and nobody means more honestly.  How the traders at the fair praised his caution!  In the storm people know the pilot, and Peter was always greatest, when things were going worst.  He knows what he is undertaking, but the last few weeks have aged him years.”

Maria nodded.  Barbara left the room, but returning after a few minutes, said beseechingly: 

“You look ill, child, come and lie down.  An hour’s sleep is better than three meals.  At your age, such a night as this last one doesn’t pass without leaving traces.  The sun is shining so brightly, that I’ve drawn your window-curtains.  I’ve made your bed, too.  Be sensible and come.”

While uttering the last words, she took Maria’s hand and drew her away.  The young wife made no resistance, and though her eyes did not remain dry when she was alone, sleep soon overpowered her.

Towards noon, refreshed by slumber, and newly dressed, she went to the captain’s house.  Her own heart was heavy, and compassion for herself and her own fate again had the mastery.  Eva Peterstochter, the fencing-master’s widow, a quiet, modest woman, whom she scarcely knew by sight, did not appear.  She was sitting alone in her room, weeping, but Maria found in her house the musician, Wilhelm, who had spoken comforting words to his old friend’s son, and promised to take charge of him and make him a good performer.

The burgomaster’s wife sent a message to the widow, begging to see her the next day, and then went out into the street with Wilhelm.  Everywhere groups of citizens, women, and journeymen were standing together, talking about what had happened and the coming trouble.  While Maria was telling the musician who the dead Castilian was, and that Henrica desired to speak with him, Wilhelm, as soon as possible, she was interrupted more than once; for sometimes a company of volunteers or city guards, relieved from duty in the towers and on the walls, sometimes a cannon barred their way.  Was it the anticipation of coming events, or the beat of drums and blare of trumpets, which so excited her companion, that he often pressed his hand to his forehead and she was obliged to request him to slacken his pace.  There was a strange, constrained tone in his voice as, in accordance with her request, he told her that the Spaniards had come by ship up the Amstel, the Drecht, and the Brasem See to the Rhine and landed at Leyderdorp.