But--Klaas Verlaan and his rough companions! What did all that gab about M'neer Kopperlith mean? There were other questions too; but--Femke had called him brother; and that was one thing which with him was as firm as the rock of Gibraltar.
Brooding thus, he slipped along through the streets. Weak and tired, he came to the "Dam." Here he saw a long row of carriages. The coachmen sat in their places waiting for the princely guests, who had wanted to see a Holland sunrise. The sun was already in sight; but there were no princes and princesses to see him. A few laborers were looking on indifferently.
Yesterday Walter would have exerted himself to see a live, fullgrown king, just to find out if he looked like Macbeth, or Arthur, or Lear. To-day he was so tired that kings did not interest him.
He was just starting on, when the coachmen suddenly assumed a rigid attitude. A boy remarked that "they" were coming now. He was right: they did come; and all, except one old lady, drove away so rapidly that scarcely anyone saw them. She touched her coachman on the shoulder.
"She has forgotten something," said the boy.
Three or four cavaliers stormed back into the palace and brought her fan. While they were gone, the boys wondered at the pimples on her face. Walter's pictures had had nothing of that kind. How different Femke's face was!
Walter trudged along further; and, without thinking of where he was going, he came to the meadow where Femke and her mother dried their clothes. He sat down on the grass, intending to wait for the first signs of life in Femke's home. He was not certain that she was there; he did not know but that she might still be at Holsma's; but there would be somebody there.
Overcome by weariness he lay down and gradually fell asleep. His cap came off, rolled down into the ditch and disappeared in the mud.
If anyone passed by, he remarked that there lay a drunken fellow. Yes, youth begins early. Possibly the fellow was sick; but then the police would take care of him. Nobody hurt him; nobody touched him. His dreams were undisturbed.
He dreamed of various things; but the principal object of his dreams was a young girl, who was standing on a platform playing ball with heavy men, as if that were nothing. Suddenly it was little Sietske Holsma.