was the messenger, Dominie Verstroot had finished his stirring speech.
Van der Werff was still speaking. The sacred fire of enthusiasm sparkled
in his eyes, and though the few words he addressed to his fellow-
combatants in the deepest chest tones of his powerful voice were plain
and unadorned, they found their way to the souls of his auditors.

Nicolas also followed the speech with a throbbing heart; it seemed as if
the tall, earnest man under the linden were speaking directly to him and
to him alone, when at the close he raised his voice once more and
exclaimed enthusiastically:

"And now let what will, come! A brave man from your midst has said
to-day: 'We will not yield, so long as an arm is left on our bodies, to
raise food to our lips and wield a sword!' If we all think thus, twenty
Spanish armies will find their graves before these walls. On Leyden
depends the liberty of Holland. If we waver and fall, to escape the
misery that only threatens us to-day, but will pitilessly oppress and
torture us later, our children will say: 'The men of Leyden were blind
cowards; it is their fault, that the name of Hollander is held in no
higher esteem, than that of a useless slave.' But if we faithfully hold
out and resist the gloomy foreigner to the last man and the last mouthful
of bread, they will remember us with tears and joyfully exclaim: 'We owe
it to them, that our noble, industrious, happy people is permitted to
place itself proudly beside the other nations, and need no longer
tolerate the miserable cuckoo in its own nest. Let whoever loves honor,
whoever is no degenerate wretch, that betrays his parents' house, whoever
would rather be a free man than a slave, ere raising his hand before God
to take the oath, exclaim with me: 'Long live our shield, Orange, and a
free Holland!'"