Whilst the clamour of the crowd in the square of Buytenhof,
which grew more and more menacing against the two brothers,
determined John de Witt to hasten the departure of his
brother Cornelius, a deputation of burghers had gone to the
Town-hall to demand the withdrawal of Tilly's horse.

It was not far from the Buytenhof to Hoogstraet (High
Street); and a stranger, who since the beginning of this
scene had watched all its incidents with intense interest,
was seen to wend his way with, or rather in the wake of, the
others towards the Town-hall, to hear as soon as possible
the current news of the hour.

This stranger was a very young man, of scarcely twenty-two
or three, with nothing about him that bespoke any great
energy. He evidently had his good reasons for not making
himself known, as he hid his face in a handkerchief of fine
Frisian linen, with which he incessantly wiped his brow or
his burning lips.

With an eye keen as that of a bird of prey, -- with a long
aquiline nose, a finely cut mouth, which he generally kept
open, or rather which was gaping like the edges of a wound,
-- this man would have presented to Lavater, if Lavater had
lived at that time, a subject for physiognomical
observations which at the first blush would not have been
very favourable to the person in question.