n.
Could anything be nicer or in better feeling than his allusions to
Cousin Pieter in his after-supper speech? Also, and this was a graver
matter, the man had shown that he was tolerant and kindly by the way
in which he dealt with the poor creature called the Mare, a woman whose
history Dirk knew well; one whose sufferings had made of her a crazy and
rash-tongued wanderer, who, so it was rumoured, could use a knife.

In fact, for the truth may as well be told at once, Dirk was a Lutheran,
having been admitted to that community two years before. To be a
Lutheran in those days, that is in the Netherlands, meant, it need
scarcely be explained, that you walked the world with a halter round
your neck and a vision of the rack and the stake before your eyes;
circumstances under which religion became a more earnest and serious
thing than most people find it in this century. Still even at that date
the dreadful penalties attaching to the crime did not prevent many of
the burgher and lower classes from worshipping God in their own fashion.
Indeed, if the truth had been known, of those who were present at
Lysbeth's supper on the previous night more than half, including Pieter
van de Werff, were adherents of the New Faith.

To dismiss religious considerations, however, Dirk could have wished
that this kindly natured Spaniard was not quite so good-looking or quite
so appreciative of the excellent points of the young Leyden ladies,
and especially of Lysbeth's, with whose sterling character, he now
remembered, Montalvo had assured him he was much impressed. What he
feared was that this regard might be reciprocal. After all a Spanish
hidalgo in command of the garrison was a distinguished person, and,
alas! Lysbeth also was a Catholic. Dirk loved Lysbeth; he loved her with
that patient sincerity which was characteristic of his race and his own
temperament, but in addition to and above the reasons that have been
given already it was this fact of the difference of religion which
hitherto had built a wall between them. Of course she was unaware of
anything of the sort. She did not know even that he belonged to the New
Faith, and without the permission of the elders of his sect, he would
not dare to tell her, for the lives of men and of their families could
not be confided lightly to the hazard of a girl's discretion.

Herein lay the real reason why, although Dirk was so devoted to Lysbeth,
and although he imagined that she was not indif