“Oh! Mynheer, let me be your guide, I beg you,” answered she of the red bow clasping her hands and looking up into his face. Just then he heard the first woman who had accosted him speaking to her companion in a loud voice.
“Look,” she said, “Red Bow is trying her best. Ah! my dear, do you think that you’ll get a supper out of a holy Leyden ranter, or a skin off an eel for the asking?”
“Oh! he isn’t such a selfish fish as he looks,” answered Red Bow over her shoulder, while her eyes told Foy that it was his turn to play.
So he played to the best of his ability, with the result that ten minutes later any for whom the sight had interest might have observed a yellow-haired young gallant and a black-haired young woman walking down the Broad Street with their arms affectionately disposed around each other’s middles. Following them was a huge and lumbering serving man with a beard like fire, who, in a loyal effort to imitate the actions of his master, had hooked a great limb about the neck of Red Bow’s stout little attendant, and held her thus in a chancery which, if flattering, must have been uncomfortable. As Martin explained to the poor woman afterwards, it was no fault of his, since in order to reach her waist he must have carried her under his arm.
Foy and his companion chatted merrily enough, if in a somewhat jerky fashion, but Martin attempted no talk. Only as he proceeded he was heard to mutter between his teeth, “Lucky the Pastor Arentz can’t see us now. He would never understand, he is so one-sided.” So at least Foy declared subsequently in Leyden.
Presently, at a hint from his lady, Foy turned down a side street, unobserved, as he thought, till he heard a mocking voice calling after them, “Good-night, Red Bow, hope you will have a fine supper with your Leyden shopboy.”
“Quick,” whispered Red Bow, and they turned another corner, then another, and another. Now they walked down narrow streets, ill-kept and unsavoury, with sharp pitched roofs, gabled and overhanging so much that here and there they seemed almost to meet, leaving but a ribbon of star-specked sky winding above their heads. Evidently it was a low quarter of the town and a malodourous quarter, for the canals, spanned by picturesque and high-arched bridges, were everywhere, and at this summer season the water in them was low, rotten, and almost stirless.
At length Red Bow halted and knocked upon a small recessed door, which instantly was opened by a man who bore no light.
“Come in,” he whispered, and all four of them passed into a darksome passage. “Quick, quick!” said the man, “I hear footsteps.”
Foy heard them also echoing down the empty street, and as the door closed it seemed to him that they stopped in the deep shadow of the houses. Then, holding each other by the hand, they crept along black passages and down stairs till at length they saw light shining through the crevices of an ill-fitting door. It opened mysteriously at their approach, and when they had all entered, shut behind them.