Wibisma looked at his son with surprise and displeasure, and because he felt his own firmness wavering, and a blustering word often does good service where there is lack of possibility or inclination to contend against reasons, he exclaimed more angrily than he had spoken to his son for years: 

“Are you, too, beginning to relish the bait with which Orange lures simpletons?  Another word of that kind, and I’ll show you how malapert lads are treated.  Here, landlord, what’s the meaning of that nonsense on yonder tree?”

“The people, my lord, the Leyden fools are to blame for the mischief, not I. They decked the tree out in that ridiculous way, when the troops stationed in the city during the siege retired.  I keep this house as a tenant of old Herr Van der Does, and dare not have any opinions of my own, for people must live, but, as truly as I hope for salvation, I’m loyal to King Philip.”

“Until the Leyden burghers come out here again,” replied Wibisma bitterly.  “Did you keep this inn during the siege?”

“Yes, my lord, the Spaniards had no cause to complain of me, and if a poor man’s services are not too insignificant for you, they are at your disposal.”

“Ah! ha!” muttered the baron, gazing attentively at the landlord’s disagreeable face, whose little eyes glittered very craftily, then turning to Nicolas, said: 

“Go and watch the blackbirds in the window yonder a little while, my son, I have something to say to the host.”

The youth instantly obeyed and as, instead of looking at the birds, he gazed after the two enthusiastic supporters of Holland’s liberty, who were riding along the road leading to Delft, remembered the simile of fetters that drag men down, and saw rising before his mental vision the glitter of the gold chain King Philip had sent his father, Nicolas involuntarily glanced towards him as he stood whispering eagerly with the landlord.  Now he even laid his hand on his shoulder.  Was it right for him to hold intercourse with a man whom he must despise at heart?  Or was he—­he shuddered, for the word “traitor,” which one of the school-boys had shouted in his ears during the quarrel before the church, returned to his memory.

When the rain grew less violent, the travellers left the inn.  The baron allowed the hideous landlord to kiss his hand at parting, but Nicolas would not suffer him to touch his.

Few words were exchanged between father and son during the remainder of their ride to the Hague, but the musician and the fencing-master were less silent on the way to Delft.

Wilhelm had modestly, as beseemed the younger man, suggested that his companion had expressed his hostile feelings towards the nobleman too openly.

“True, perfectly true,” replied Allertssohn, whom his friends called “Allerts.”  “Very true!  Temper oh! temper!  You don’t suspect, Herr Wilhelm—­But we’ll let it pass.”

“No, speak, Meister.”