Jacqueline of the Carrier Pigeons | Page 5

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 was ended the crowds cheered themselves hoarse, and when the burgomaster inquired what word they desired him to send the Prince, they shouted as with one voice:
"Tell him that while there is a living man left in the city we will contend for our liberty and our religion!"
"And now," continued Adrian Van der Werf, "hear the proclamation of the King of Spain. He invites all his erring and repentant subjects