Towards evening, a Papist sailor, who indignantly protested against this irreverent behaviour, provoked a scuffle in which blows were exchanged and swords drawn.
The priests and custodians of the church managed, however, to clear the building of the rioters and to close the Cathedral at the usual hour.
Duprès, who had stationed himself in the porch all day to exchange pleasantries with those of his acquaintances who came and went, had to return home without having seen the riots he had anticipated; but as he made his way through the crowded street he met one of Brederode's followers, a member of the Rhetoric Chamber of the "Marigold," who told him that the Senate was in consultation with the Margrave of Antwerp, that they were issuing a notice calling on the citizens to preserve law and order, and that an express had been sent to Brussels to implore the Prince of Orange to return.
So it seemed as if those in authority feared worse than the riot which Duprès had been so disappointed in not beholding. While he was eating his supper in one of the small sailors' inns on the quay of the Scheldt, he heard that the Senate was proposing to call to arms the city companies.
The next morning, the second after the feast of the Ommegang, Duprès rose in the early midsummer's dawn and proceeded to the Cathedral, which seemed to be the centre about which all the deep passions of Antwerp gathered.
As he had protected himself in Brussels by wearing Egmont's famous livery, so now he donned the popular costume of the "beggars," a plain suit of grey camlet, a mendicant's hat, a wallet and bowl at his waist, and one of the "beggar" medals hung round his neck.
Early as it was when he reached the Cathedral square, there were many already abroad—indeed, some had not been to bed at all. Artisans, apprentices, tradesmen, clerks, gentlemen, peasantry, women, girls, and boys stood about in groups, talking earnestly.
They all seemed emboldened by the fact that the Senate had, after all, done nothing: no proclamation had been issued, no companies called to arms, and the Cathedral was open as usual.
Duprès, wandering about the square from one knot of people to the other, was suddenly moved to glance up at the great church. He had often thought how seldom men lift their eyes from the level of their fellows; whenever he did so himself, he was conscious, as now, of a certain shock.
The sky was not yet wholly filled with the sun; the dark purple hue of the August night still lingered in the west, and the church was in shadow save for the exquisite spire which soared up erect into the upper air and light and into the sunbeams now passing over the roofs of the surrounding houses.