"Let us go to sleep," he begged.
"Very well," said his Guide, opening a tavern door.
It was oppressive there, and reeking with the fumes of gin and tobacco. They pressed their way through the crowd and went up to the bar.
"Have you lodgings for us, Vrouw Schimmel?" asked Johannes' Guide.
"Lodgings? Well, seeing it's you, Markus. But otherwise not! See? Go now—the two of you!"
They crept up to a small dark garret, and there received a couple of mattresses which the maid had dragged upstairs; and then they could lie down.
Johannes lay awake through the clamor and jingling and the stamping of the Fair-goers downstairs until long after the morning light had broken. The day just passed—long as a year, and full of great and weighty matters—was thought over from beginning to end. Serene, open-eyed—quietly, not restlessly, he lay there meditating till morning dawned, and the sunlight, like a red-gold stain, touched the wall above him, and till the din downstairs had subsided and died away. Then he fell asleep, thinking of Marjon—her bright eyes and silver crown.
II
He was awakened by jovial sounds. There was something hopeful and powerful about and within him when he opened his eyes again, and looked around the close, dark little garret. A column of sunbeams stood slanting from the floor to the little dormer window, and motes were glistening in the light.