handles, while his wife, instead of helping him, tore her hair and
shrieked: "I told you so, you fool, you simpleton, you blockhead!
They'll come and rob us of everything."

At the entrance of the street that led past the Assendelft house to the
Leibfrau Bridge, several loaded wagons had become entangled, and the
drivers, instead of getting down and procuring help, struck at each other
in their terror, hitting the women and children seated among the bales.
Their cries and shrieks echoed a long distance, but were destined to be
drowned, for a dancing-bear had broken loose and was putting every one
near him to flight. The people, who were frightened by the beast, rushed
down the street, screaming and yelling, dragging with them others who did
not know the cause of the alarm, and misled by the most imminent fear,
roared: "The Spaniards! The Spaniards!" Whatever came in the way of the
terrified throngs was overthrown. A sieve-dealer's child, standing
beside its father's upset cart, fell beneath the mob close beside Adrian,
who had stationed himself in the door-way of a house. But the lad was
crowded so closely into his hiding-place, that he could not spring to the
little one's aid, and his attention was attracted to a new sight, as
Janus Dousa appeared on horseback. In answer to the cry of "The
Spaniards! The Spaniards!" he shouted loudly: "Quiet, people, quiet!
The enemy hasn't come yet! To the Rhine! Vessels are waiting there for
all strangers. To the Rhine! There are no Spaniards there, do you hear,
no Spaniards!"

The nobleman stopped just before Adrian, for his horse could go no
farther and stood snorting and trembling under his rider. The advice
bore little fruit, and not until hundreds had rushed past him, did the
frightened crowd diminish. The bear, from which they fled, had been
caught by a brewer's apprentice and taken back to its owner long before.