The Laughing Cavalier by Emma Orczy

Thus am I proved right in saying that but for the conglomeration of minor circumstances within the past half hour, the great events which subsequently linked the fate of a penniless foreign adventurer with that of a highly honorable and highly esteemed family of Haarlem never would or could have occurred.

For had the three philosophers adhered to their usual custom of retiring to the warmth and comfort of the Lame Cow, situate in the Kleine Hout Straat, as soon as the as the streets no longer presented an agreeable lolling place, they would never have known the tumult that went on at this hour under the very shadow of the cathedral.