This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By Georg Ebers
A second and third rainy day followed the first one. White mists andgrey fog hung over the meadows. The cold, damp north-west wind droveheavy clouds together and darkened the sky. Rivulets dashed into thestreets from the gutters on the steep roofs of Leyden; the water in thecanals and ditches grew turbid and rose towards the edges of the banks.Dripping, freezing men and women hurried past each other without any formof greeting, while the pair of storks pressed closer to each other intheir nest, and thought of the warm south, lamenting their prematurereturn to the cold, damp, Netherland plain.
In thoughtful minds the dread of what must inevitably come wasincreasing. The rain made anxiety grow as rapidly in the hearts of manycitizens, as the young blades of grain in the fields. Conversations,that sounded anything but hopeful, took place in many tap-rooms—inothers men were even heard declaring resistance folly, or loudlydemanding the desertion of the cause of the Prince of Orange and liberty.
Whoever in these days desired to see a happy face in Leyden might havesearched long in vain, and would probably have least expected to find itin the house of Burgomaster Van der Werff.
Three days had now elapsed since Peter's departure, nay the fourth wasdrawing towards noon, yet the burgomaster had not returned, and nomessage, no word of explanation, had reached his family.
Maria had put on her light-blue cloth dress with Mechlin lace in thesquare neck, for her husband particularly liked to see her in this gownand he must surely return to-day.
The spray of yellow wall-flowers on her breast had been cut from theblooming plant in the window of her room, and Barbara had helped arrangeher thick hair.
It lacked only an hour of noon, when the young wife's delicate, slenderfigure, carrying a white duster in her hand, entered the burgomaster'sstudy. Here she stationed herself at the window, from which the pouringrain streamed in numerous crooked serpentine lines, pressed her foreheadagainst the panes, and gazed down into the quiet street.
The water was standing between the smooth red tiles of the pavement. Aporter clattered by in heavy wooden shoes, a maid-servant, with a shawlwrapped around her head, hurried swiftly past, a shoemaker's boy, with apair of boots hanging on his back, jumped from puddle to puddle,carefully avoiding the dry places;—no horseman appeared.
It was almost unnaturally quiet in the house and street; she heardnothing except the plashing of the rain. Maria could not expect herhusband until the beat of horses' hoofs was audible; she was not evengazing into the distance—only dreamily watching the street and theceaseless rain.
The room had been thoughtfully heated for the drenched man, whose returnwas expected, but Maria felt the cold air through the chinks in thewindows. She shivered, and as she turned back into the dusky room, itseemed as if this twilight atmosphere must always remain, as if no morebright days could ever come.
Minutes passed before she remembered for what purpose she had entered theroom and began to pass the dusting-cloth over the writing-table, thepiles of papers, and the