you perhaps does not belong to the school-room; but,
my lads, this battle is still far from being ended, and though you must
occupy the school-benches for a while, you are the future soldiers.
Lowing, remain behind, I have something to say to you."

He slowly turned his back to the boys, who rushed out of doors. In a
corner of the yard of St. Peter's church, which was behind the building
and entered by few of the passers-by, they stood still, and from amid
the wild confusion of exclamations arose a sort of consultation,
to which the organ-notes echoing from the church formed a strange
accompaniment.

They were trying to decide upon the game to be played in the afternoon.

It was a matter of course, after what Van Hout had said, that there
should be a battle; it had not even been proposed by anybody, but the
discussion that now arose proceeded from the supposition.

It was soon decided that patriots and Spaniards, not Greeks and
Persians, were to appear in the lists against each other; but when the
burgomaster's son, Adrian Van der Werff, a lad of fourteen, proposed to
form the two parties, and in the imperious way peculiar to him attempted
to make Paul Van Swieten and Claus Dirkson Spaniards, he encountered
violent opposition, and the troublesome circumstance was discovered that
no one was willing to represent a foreign soldier.

Each boy wanted to make somebody else a Castilian, and fight himself
under the banner of the Netherlands. But friends and foes are necessary
for a war, and Holland's heroic courage required Spaniards to prove
it. The youngsters grew excited, the cheeks of the disputants began
to flush, here and there clenched fists were raised, and everything
indicated that a horrible civil war would precede the battle to be given
the foes of the country.

In truth, these lively boys were ill-suited to play the part of King
Philip's gloomy, stiff-necked soldiers. Amid the many fair heads, few
lads were seen with brown locks, and only one with black hair and dark
eyes. This was Adam Baersdorp, whose father, like Van der Werff's,
was one of the leaders of the citizens. When he too refused to act a
Spaniard, one of the boys exclaimed:

"You won't? Yet my father says your father is half a Glipper,--[The
name given in Holland to those who sympathized with Spain]--and a whole
Papist to boot."

At these words young Baersdorp threw his books on the ground, and was
rushing with upraised fist upon his enemy--but