"Sh!" she whispered. "Papa will pay for it all. Besides, I have money; and William, too; and Hermann. Just be quiet."
Walter still did not understand. When, under the protection of the Holsmas, he was safe on the outside again, and the entire party had escaped the mob by taking a side street, he reiterated that he did dare show his face to his mother and Stoffel.
"It doesn't make any difference about the money," said Holsma. "I will attend to that. Why, boy, you're scared half to death. You're shaking. Come along home with us where you can rest a bit and quiet yourself."
The distance, however, proved too short to have the desired quieting effect on Walter.
"My mother will be angry when I come home late."
Holsma told him that a messenger should be sent to his mother at once, so that she would know where he was.
The doctor gave him a sedative and led him into a room adjoining that in which the Holsma family were sitting. Walter was to walk up and down the room till he felt better; but he soon got tired of this and did the very thing that he was not to do; he sat down on a sofa and fell asleep.
Whether, in general, it is a good thing to keep in motion after a fright--that I do not know. Walter, on the contrary, always felt the need of sleep under such circumstances; and this remedy, with which nature provided him, usually restored his mental equilibrium. Perhaps, after all, it wasn't real sleep: he merely dreamed.
Again he was lifted up, higher and higher, borne by strong hands. A man bit him in the hand. The fact was he had scratched his hand on a refractory horsehair, which had become tired of acting as stuffing for a sofa-pillow.
An angry woman assailed him with abuse. Stupid? Not stupid? We, the masses? She let him fall. But he fell in Sietske's lap; and there wasn't a single sliver of glassware.
He was happy--but the horsehair scratched him again. Then he heard a voice. Was he still dreaming? Yes, dreaming again of soaring and falling. There was Femke.
Of course there had to be something about her in his dream, and about bleaching the clothes. Father Jansen was there, too, exhibiting to the stars the particular garment that Femke had patched. Orion and the Great Bear admired this specimen of her handiwork. Walter did not.