The boy clung to a limb with his hands, let himself drop to the ground and stood before his father with a penitent face, which he knew how to assume when occasion required.  The burgomaster uttered no further words of reproof, but bade him go home and tell his mother, that he saw no possibility of getting Belotti through the Spanish lines in safety, and also that Father Damianus had promised to call on the young lady in the course of the day.

“Hurry, Adrian, and you, constables, keep all unbidden persons away from these trees, for any place where an oath is taken becomes sacred ground—­ The clergymen have seated themselves yonder near the target.  They have the precedence.  Have the kindness to summon them, Herr Van Hout.  Dominie Verstroot wishes to make an address, and then I would like to utter a few words of admonition to the citizens myself.”

Van Hout withdrew, but before he had reached the preachers Junker von Warmond appeared, and reported that a messenger, a handsome young lad, had come as an envoy.  He was standing before the White Gate and had a letter.

“From Valdez?”

“I don’t know; but the young fellow is a Hollander and his face is familiar to me.”

“Conduct him here; but don’t interrupt us until the ceremony of taking the oath is over.  The messenger can tell Valdez what he has seen and heard here.  It will do the Castilian good, to know in advance what we intend.”

The Junker withdrew, and when he returned with Nicolas Van Wibisma, who was the messenger, Dominie Verstroot had finished his stirring speech.  Van der Werff was still speaking.  The sacred fire of enthusiasm sparkled in his eyes, and though the few words he addressed to his fellow-combatants in the deepest chest tones of his powerful voice were plain and unadorned, they found their way to the souls of his auditors.

Nicolas also followed the speech with a throbbing heart; it seemed as if the tall, earnest man under the linden were speaking directly to him and to him alone, when at the close he raised his voice once more and exclaimed enthusiastically: 

“And now let what will, come!  A brave man from your midst has said to-day:  ’We will not yield, so long as an arm is left on our bodies, to raise food to our lips and wield a sword!’ If we all think thus, twenty Spanish armies will find their graves before these walls.  On Leyden depends the liberty of Holland.  If we waver and fall, to escape the misery that only threatens us to-day, but will pitilessly oppress and torture us later, our children will say:  ’The men of Leyden were blind cowards; it is their fault, that the name of Hollander is held in no higher esteem, than that of a useless slave.’  But if we faithfully hold out and resist the gloomy foreigner to the last man and the last mouthful of bread, they will remember us with tears and joyfully exclaim:  ’We owe it to them, that our noble, industrious, happy people is permitted to place itself proudly beside the other nations, and need no longer tolerate the miserable cuckoo in its own nest.  Let whoever loves honor, whoever is no degenerate wretch, that betrays his parents’ house, whoever would rather be a free man than a slave, ere raising his hand before God to take the oath, exclaim with me:  ’Long live our shield, Orange, and a free Holland!’”