ly follow it, I am going to give myself
the luxury of speaking only when I choose and of being dumb if the fancy
so takes me ... while my three florins last and I know that I need not
sleep under the stars, I shall owe my fealty only to my whim--I shall
dream when and what I I like, sing what I like, walk in company or
alone. For four and twenty hours I need not be the ivy that clings nor
the hose that is ragged at the knee. I shall be at liberty to wear my
sash awry, my shoes unbuckled, my hat tilted at an angle which pleases
me best. Above all, O worthy rat of the gutter, I need not stoop for
four and twenty hours one inch lower than I choose, or render aught to
Caesar for Caesar will have rendered naught to me. On this the first day
of the New Year there is no man or woman living who can dictate to me
what I shall do, and to-night in the lodgings for which I have paid,
when I am asleep I can dream that I am climbing up the heights toward a
mountain top which mayhap doth not quite stretch as far as the clouds,
but which I can reach alone. To-day and to-night I am a man and not a
bit of ribbon that flutters at the breath of man or woman who has paid
for the fluttering with patronage."

Gradually as he spoke and his fresh young voice, sonorous with
enthusiasm rang clearly from end to end of the raftered room,
conversation, laughter, bibulous songs were stilled and every one turned
to look at the speaker, wondering who he could be. The good burghers of
Haarlem had no liking for the foreign mercenaries for whom they
professed vast contempt because of their calling, and because of the
excesses which they committed at the storming of these very walls, which
event was within the memory of most. Therefore, though they were
attracted by the speaker, they were disgusted to find that he belonged
to that rabble; but the women thought that he was goodly to look upon,
with those merry, twinkling eyes of his, and that atmosphere of
light-heartedness and a gaiety which he diffused around him. Some of the
men who were there and who professed knowledge in such matters, declared
that this man's speech betrayed him for an Englishman.

"I like not the race," said a pompous man who sat with wife and kindred
round a table loaded with good things. "I remember the English Leicester
and his crowd, men of loose morals and doubtful piety; braggarts and
roisterers we all thought them. This man is very like some of them in
appearance."

"Thou s