 interpreted by the burghers of
Liege into a determination on the part of Louis openly to assist their cause;
and the apparition of an individual archer was magnified into a pledge of
immediate and active support from Louis - nay, into an assurance that his
auxiliary forces were actually entering the town at one or other, though no one
could distinctly tell which, of the city-gates.
    To remove a conviction so generally adopted, Quentin easily saw was
impossible - nay, that any attempt to undeceive men so obstinately prepossessed
in their belief, would be attended with personal risk, which, in this case, he
saw little use of incurring. He therefore hastily resolved to temporise, and to
get free the best way he could; and this resolution he formed while they were in
the act of conducting him to the Stadthouse, where the notables of the town were
fast assembling, in order to hear the tidings which he was presumed to have
brought, and to regale him with a splendid banquet.
    In spite of all his opposition, which was set down to modesty, he was on
every side surrounded by the donors of popularity, the unsavoury tide of which
now floated around him. His two burgomaster friends, who were Schoppen, or
Syndics of the city, had made fast both his arms. Before him, Nikkel Blok, the
chief of the butchers' incorporation, hastily summoned from his office in the
shambles, brandished his death-doing axe, yet smeared with blood and brains,
with a courage and grace which brantwein alone could inspire. Behind him came
the tall, lean, raw-boned, very drunk, and very patriotic figure of Claus
Hammerlain, president of the mystery of the workers in iron, and followed by at
least a thousand unwashed artificers of his class. Weavers, nailers, ropemakers,
artisans of every degree and calling, thronged forward to join the procession
from every gloomy and narrow street. Escape seemed a desperate and impossible
adventure.
    In this dilemma, Quentin appealed to Rouslaer, who held one arm, and to
Pavillon, who had secured the other, and who were conducting him forward at the
head of the ovation, of which he had so unexpectedly become the principal
object. He hastily acquainted them with his having thoughtlessly adopted the
bonnet of the Scottish Guard, on an accident having occurred to the head-piece
in which he had proposed to travel; he regretted that, owing to this
circumstance, and the sharp wit with which the Liegeois drew the natural
inference of his quality, and the purpose of his visit, these things had been
publicly discovered; and he intimated
