afterwards, and our father would be fairly driven out of his library."

"It is all very well to be clean," Lionel said; "but I think they carry
it too far here. Peace and quietness count for something, and it
doesn't seem to me that Dutchmen, fond of it as they say they are, know
even the meaning of the words as far as their homes are concerned. Why,
it always seems to be cleaning day, and they must be afraid of going
into their own houses with their boots on!"

"Yes, I felt quite like a criminal to-day," Geoffrey laughed, "when I
came in muddy up to the waist, after working down there by the sluices.
I believe when the Spaniards open fire these people will be more
distracted by the dust caused by falling tiles and chimneys than by any
danger of their lives."

Great difficulties beset the Duke of Parma at the commencement of the
siege. Sluys was built upon the only piece of solid ground in the
district, and it was surrounded by such a labyrinth of canals, ditches,
and swamps, that it was said that it was almost as difficult to find
Sluys as it was to capture it. Consequently, it was impossible to find
ground solid enough for a camp to be pitched upon, and the first labour
was the erection of wooden huts for the troops upon piles driven into
the ground. These huts were protected from the fire of the defenders by
bags of earth brought in boats from a long distance. The main point
selected for the attack was the western gate; but batteries were also
placed to play upon the castle and the bridge of boats connecting it
with the town.

"There is one advantage in their determining to attack us at the
western extremity of the town," John Menyn, the merchant at whose house