noon
The carpenter 's axe flashed in the spring sunlight before the red walls , towers and gates , and cut sharply into the beams from which new scaffolds and frames were to be erected ; noble cattle grazed peacefully undisturbed around the city , whose desolated gardens were being dug , sowed and planted afresh . In the streets and houses a thousand hands , which but a short time before had guided spears and arquebuses on the walls and towers , were busy at useful work , and old people sat quietly before their doors to let the warm spring sun shine on their backs . Few discontented faces were to be seen in Leyden on this eighteenth of April . True , there was no lack of impatient ones , and whoever wanted to seek them need only go to the principal school , where noon was approaching and many boys gazed far more eagerly through the open windows of the school-room , than at the teacher 's lips . But in that part of the spacious hall where the older lads received instruction , no restlessness prevailed . True , the spring sun shone on their books and exercises too , the spring called them into the open air , but even more powerful than its alluring voice seemed the influence exerted on their young minds by what they were now hearing . Forty sparkling eyes were turned towards the bearded man , who addressed them in his deep voice .