These
were accompanied by servants bearing foot stoves and cloaks.
There were the peasant folk arrayed in every possible Dutch
costume, shy young rustics in brazen buckles; simple village
maidens concealing their flaxen hair under fillets of gold; women
whose long, narrow aprons were stiff with embroidery; women with
short corkscrew curls hanging over their foreheads; women with
shaved heads and close-fitting caps; and women in striped skirts
and windmill bonnets. Men in leather, in homespun, in velvet,
and in broadcloth; burghers in model European attire, and
burghers in short jackets, wide trousers, and steeple-crowned
hats.
There were beautiful Friesland girls in wooden shoes and coarse
petticoats, with solid gold crescents encircling their heads,
finished at each temple with a golden rosette and hung with lace
a century old. Some wore necklaces, pendants, and earrings of
the purest gold. Many were content with gilt or even with brass,
but it is not an uncommon thing for a Friesland woman to have all
the family treasure in her headgear. More than one rustic lass
displayed the value of two thousand guilders upon her head that
day.
Scattered throughout the crowd were peasants from the Island or
Marken, with sabots, black stockings, and the widest of breeches;
also women from Marken with short blue petticoats, and black
jackets, gaily figured in front.
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