Here they waited, and looking scornfully down on the Cardinal's coach as it passed, watched it lumbering along the road to Namur until a turn hid it from their eyes.
"At the first stage Granvelle will write of this to the Duchess," remarked Hoogstraaten, in a grave voice; his high spirits had left him, his prudence, though not his courage, was alarmed at what he had done.
But Brederode laughed; prudence was as unknown to him as fear; he had a far better claim than Philip to the Countship of all Holland, for his ancestry went unbrokenly back five hundred years to the ancient sovereigns of that province. In his heart he regarded the King as a usurper, and he had no respect either for him or his ministers; indeed, his furious loathing of Granvelle and his policies was based on his hatred of seeing his native land, where his forebears had ruled, in the hands of foreigners.
"Well, we have seen the last flick of the fox's tail," he said joyously, "and now we may go home to dinner, this keen air has given me an appetite."
Hoogstraaten turned the horse's head towards Brussels.
"Yes, the Cardinal has gone, but his disciples remain," he answered thoughtfully.
"The seigneurs will see to them," said Brederode confidently.
"Ah, I know not," remarked Hoogstraaten; "I believe Armenteros, the Regent's secretary, has more influence with her than Orange himself. But we shall see."
"Ay, we shall see, my Anthony," returned Brederode, "for my part I do not think so gloomily; if Armenteros behave as Granvelle has, then he may follow the same road—we have cast down a Cardinal, do you think we are to be baffled by a clerk?"
And he began to sing a cheerful song in a merry bass voice which rose very pleasantly over the still winter woodlands.