"Go round instantly to all the masters and summon them in my name to meet forthwith at the hall. Let them lay all else aside, and delay not a moment, for the matter is urgent."
The Clothworkers' Hall was a spacious building with a round gable. A single large window in front, over which stood the arms of the company, gave light to the great room on the first floor; over the wide doorway stood St. George and the dragon, artistically cut in stone. In all other respects, the front was without ornament or pretension; it would have been difficult in fact to guess from its appearance that it was here the wealthiest guild in Flanders held its meetings, for it was far excelled in magnificence by many of the houses around it.
Notwithstanding the considerable number of large and small chambers which the building contained, not one of them was empty or unemployed. In a spacious room on the second story were to be seen the masterpieces, or specimens of work which every one had to show before he could be admitted to the mastership; and also patterns of the most costly stufifs that the looms of Bruges could produce. In an adjoining chamber were exhibited models of all the implements made use of by weavers, fullers, and dyers. In a third apartment were laid away the dresses and arms which were used by the guild on occasions of ceremony.
The principal room, in which the masters held their meetings, lay toward the street. All the operations which the wool had to undergo, from those of the shepherd and shearer to those of the weaver and dyer, and even to the foreign merchant who came from distant lands to exchange his gold for the stuffs of Flanders, were exhibited upon the walls in well-executed paintings. Several oaken tables and a number of massive seats stood upon the stone floor. Six velvet-covered armchairs at the further end indicated the place of the Dean and Ancients.
The beadle once despatched, it was not long before a considerable number of master clothworkers were assembled at the hall, energetically discussing the matter which for the time most occupied them, and overspread every countenance with the deepest gloom. Most of them were violent in their expressions of indignation against the magistrates; nevertheless, there were some who seemed disinclined to take any extreme steps. While the assembly was thus each moment increasing, Deconinck entered the room, and passed slowly through the crowd of his fellows up to the great chair, where his place was. The Ancients took their seats beside him; the rest mostly remained standing by their seats, the better to catch sight of their Dean's countenance, and read ofif from his furrowed brow the full sense of his weighty and eloquent speech. The whole number present was sixty persons.
As soon as Deconinck saw the attention of his fellows directed upon himself, with an emphatic gesture of his hand he thus spoke:
"My brethren! give heed to my words, for the enemies of our freedom, the enemies of our prosperity, are forging fetters for our feet! The magistrates and Lilyards have flattered the foreigner who is become our master by receiving him with extraordinary pomp; they have pressed us into their service for the erection of their scaffoldings and arches, and now they require that we should make good the cost of their scandalous prodigality from the fruits of our honest labor; a demand which is an infringement alike on the liberties of our city and on the rights of our company. Understand me well, my brethren, and endeavor with me to penetrate the future; if for this once we submit to an arbitrary imposition, our liberty will soon be trampled under foot. This is the first experiment, the first pressure of the yoke that is hereafter to sit heavy upon our necks. The unfaithful Lilyards, who leave their Count, our lawful lord, in a foreign prison, that they may the better be able to gain the mastery over us, have long fattened upon the sweat of our brows. Long did the people serve them—serve them as beasts of burden, and with sighs and groans. To you, men of Bruges, my fellow-citizens, was it first given to receive the heavenly beam, the light of freedom; you were the first to break the chains of slavery; you rose up against your tyrants like men, and never again shall you bow your necks under the yoke of despotism. At present our prosperity is the envy, our greatness the admiration, of all the people of the earth; is it not then our bounden duty to preserve for ourselves—to hand down to our children—those liberties which our fathers won for us, and which have made us what we are? Yes, it is our duty, and a sacred one! and whoso forgets it is a caitiff undeserving the name of man, a slave worthy only of contempt!"
But here one of the masters present, by name Brakels, who had already twice filled the office of Dean, rose from his seat, and interrupted Deco.ninck's speech with these words:
"You are always talking of slavery and of our rights; but who tells us that the worshipful magistrates intend to infringe upon them? Is it not better to pay eight groats
