German fiction -- Translations into English; Netherlands -- History -- Eighty Years' War, 1568-1648 -- Fiction
Early next morning the citizens saw that a part of the city-wall near
the Cow-Gate had fallen, and then unexampled rejoicing arose at the
breach, no longer dangerous; exultant cries echoed through every street
and alley, drawing from the houses men and women, grey-beards and
children, the sick and the well, one after another thronging to
the Cow-Gate, where the Beggars’ fleet was seen approaching. The
city-carpenter, Thomassohn, and other men, tore out of the water the
posts by which the Spaniards had attempted to bar the vessels’ advance,
then the first ship, followed by a second and third, arrived at the
walls. Stern, bearded men, with fierce, scarred, weather-beaten faces,
whose cheeks for years had been touched by no salt moisture, save the
sea-spray, smiled kindly at the citizens, flung them one loaf of bread
after another, and many other good things of which they had long been
deprived, weeping and sobbing with emotion like children, while the poor
people eat and eat, unable to utter a word of thanks. Then the leaders
came, Admiral Boisot embraced the Van der Does and Burgomaster Van der
Werff, the Beggar captain Van Duijkenburg was clasped in the arms of his
mother, Barbara, and many a Leyden man hugged a liberator, on whom his
eyes now rested for the first time. Many, many tears fell, thousands of
hearts overflowed, and the Sunday bells, sounding so much clearer and
gayer than usual, summoned rescuers and rescued to the churches to pray.
The spacious sanctuary was too small for the worshippers, and when the
pastor, Corneliussohn, who filled the place of the good Verstroot, now
ill from caring for so many sufferers, called upon the congregation to
give thanks, his exhortation had long since been anticipated; from the
first notes of the organ, the thousands who poured into the church
had been filled with the same eager longing, to utter thanks, thanks,
fervent thanks.
In the Grey Sisters’ chapel Father Damianus also thanked the Lord, and
with him Nicolas Van Wibisma and other Catholics, who loved their native
land and liberty.
After church Adrian, holding a piece of bread in one hand and his shoes
in the other, waded at the head of his school-mates through the higher
meadows to Leyderdorp, to see the Spaniards’ deserted camp. There stood
the superb tent of General Valdez, in which, over the bed, hung a map of
the Rhine country, drawn by the Netherlander Beeldsnijder to injure his
own nation. The boys looked at it, and a Beggar, who had formerly been
in a writing-school and now looked like a sea-bear, said:
“Look here, my lads. There is the Land-scheiding.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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