Jacqueline of the Carrier Pigeons | Page 5

message!"
Out into the street they sallied, mingling with the crowd that was
surging toward the open square in front of the great statehouse. The
bells of Saint Pancras sounded the signal for a public meeting, and one
could read from each earnest, excited countenance, the importance that
was placed on being present in this crisis.

"Look!" cried Gysbert. "There is Jan Van Buskirk not far ahead. I
thought he was too ill with lumbago to leave his bed! See how he
hobbles along! Let us join him, Jacqueline." They ran ahead and caught
up with the old man, who greeted them cheerily, in spite of the pains
with which his poor bent body was racked.
"Yes, I managed to crawl out of my bed," he assured them. "'Tis
important that every one should attend these meetings in such a pass as
we are now. Think you we will hear word from William the Silent?"
"Aye, but I hope so, though I do not yet know certainly," answered the
boy. "We have received no word from him since the siege began.
Surely he will not desert us in this hour of need!"
"See, Gysbert!" whispered Jacqueline. "There is that evil-looking Dirk
Willumhoog across the street. Do not let us get near him. His very
appearance makes me shudder!" The girl shrank closer to her brother
and old Jan.
"Surely thou art not afraid of him, Jacqueline!" said Gysbert scornfully.
"'Tis true I detest him myself, but I fear him not. What harm can he do
us?"
"I do not know," replied his sister, "but there is that in his look that
makes me think he would harm us if he could!"
"Poof!" exclaimed Gysbert. "Did I not tell thee that he stopped me in
the street one day, and asked me who we were, and where we lived, and
who took care of us? I reminded him that it was naught of his affairs, as
far as I could see, and left him to scowl his ugly scowl as I walked
away whistling."
But the crowd had swept Dirk Willumhoog from their sight, and in a
few moments they found themselves in the great square surging with
people, and as fortune would have it, almost directly in front of the
imposing statehouse, from whose high, carved steps the proclamations
were to be read. They were not a moment too soon, and had but just
pushed their way to the front, near a convenient wall against which Jan

might lean, when Adrian Van der Werf, the dignified and honored
Burgomaster of the city, appeared on the stone steps high above the
crowd. The universal babel of tongues immediately ceased, and the
hush that followed was broken only by the occasional booming of the
Spanish guns battering at the walls of the city. Then the Burgomaster
began to speak:
"Men and women of Leyden, I am here to read to you two
proclamations, - one from our beloved William the Silent, Prince of
Orange-Nassau, - " here he was interrupted by loud and prolonged
cheers from the multitude, " - and one from His Majesty, King Philip
the Second of Spain." The absolute and scornful silence with which the
people received the last name was but a fitting indication of their
hatred.
"I shall read the message from the Prince of Orange first." And while
the people listened in eager, respectful silence, he repeated to them how
their Prince and leader, whose headquarters were now at Delft and
Rotterdam, sympathized with them sincerely in their fresh trouble, and
how he deplored the fact that they had not followed his suggestion to
lay in large stocks of provisions and fortify their city while there had
been time in the months before the siege. The Prince reminded them
that they were now about to contend, not for themselves alone, but for
all future generations of their beloved land. The eyes of the world were
upon them. They would reap eternal glory, if they exhibited a courage
worthy of the cause of their liberty and religion. He implored them to
hold out for three months, in which time he would surely devise means
for their deliverance.
He warned them to take no heed of fair promises from the Spaniards if
they would surrender the city, reminding them of how these same
soldiers had behaved at the sieges of Naarden and Haarlem, when, in
spite of their declaration to let the citizens go out in peace, they had
rushed in and murdered every one as soon as the gates were opened.
Finally, he begged them to take a strict account of all the provisions in
the city, and be most saving and economical with food, lest it should
fail them before the siege was raised. When the message