Several other boys followed, but the new-comer of whom they were afraid, a man scarcely thirty years old, had legs of considerable length, and knew how to use them bravely.
"Stop, boys!" he shouted in an echoing voice of command.

"Stop! What has Happened here ?" Every one in Leyden respected the learned and brave young nobleman, so all the lads who had not instantly obeyed Van Swieten's warning shout, stood still until Herr von Nordwyk reached them.
A strange, eager light sparkled in this man's clever eyes, and a subtle smile hovered around his moustached lip, as he called to the musician: "What has happened here, Meister Wilhelm?
Didn't the clamor of Minerva's apprentices harmonize with your organ-playing, or did--but by all the colors of Iris, that's surely Nico Matanesse, young Wibisma! And how he looks! Brawling in the shadow of the church--and you here too, Adrian, and you, Meister Wilhelm ?" "I separated them," replied the other quietly, smoothing his rumpled cuffs.
"With perfect calmness, but impressively--like your organ-music," said the commander, laughing.
"Who began the fight?
You, young sir?
or the others ?" Nicolas, in his excitement, shame, and indignation, could find no coherent words, but Adrian came forward saying: "We wrestled together.
Don't be too much vexed with us, Herr Janus." Nicolas cast a friendly glance at his foe.
Herr von Nordwyk, Jan Van der Does, or as a learned man he preferred to call himself, Janus Dousa, was by no means satisfied with this information, but exclaimed: "Patience, patience! You look suspicious enough, Meister Adrian; come here and tell me, 'atrekeos,' according to the truth, what has been going on." The boy obeyed the command and told his story honestly, without concealing or palliating anything that had occurred.
"Hm," said Dousa, after the lad had finished his report.

"A difficult case.

No one is to be acquitted.

Your cause would be the better one, had it not been for the knife, my fine young nobleman, but you, Adrian, and you, you chubby-cheeked rascals, who--There comes the rector--If he catches you, you'll certainly see nothing but four walls the rest of this beautiful day.