the Englishman, Shakespeare, who lived in his time. I have read them in
the German and very good they are--very, very good--but not like Father
Cats. Cats sees no daggers in the air; he has no white women falling in
love with dusky Moors; no young fools sighing to be a lady's glove; no
crazy princes mistaking respectable old gentlemen for rats. No, no. He
writes only sense. It is great wisdom in little bundles, a bundle for
every day of your life. You can guide a state with Cats' poems, and you
can put a little baby to sleep with his pretty songs. He was one of the
greatest men of Holland. When I take you to the Hague I will show you
the Kloosterkerk where he lies buried. _There_ was a man for you to
study, my sons! he was good through and through. What did he say?
"'Oh, Lord, let me obtain this from Thee
To live with patience, and to die with pleasure!'[17]
[Footnote 17:
O Heere! laat my dat van uwen hand verwerven,
Te leven met gedult, en met vermaak te sterven.]
"Did patience mean folding his hands? No, he was a lawyer, statesman,
ambassador, farmer, philosopher, historian, and poet. He was keeper of
the Great Seal of Holland! He was a--Bah! there is too much noise here,
I cannot talk"--and Mynheer, looking with astonishment into the bowl of
his meerschaum--for it had "gone out"--nodded to his vrouw and left the
apartment in great haste.
The fact is, his discourse had been accompanied throughout with a
subdued chorus of barking dogs, squeaking cats and bleating lambs, to
say nothing of a noisy ivory cricket, that the baby was whirling with
infinite delight. At the last, little Huygens taking advantage of the
increasing loudness of Mynheer's tones, had ventured a blast on his new
trumpet, and Wolfert had hastily attempted an accompaniment on the drum.
This had brought matters to a crisis, and well for the little creatures
that it had. The saint had left no ticket for them to attend a lecture
on Jacob Cats. It was not an appointed part of the ceremonies. Therefore
when the youngsters saw that the mother looked neither frightened nor
offended, they gathered new courage. The grand chorus rose triumphant,
and frolic and joy reigned supreme.
Good Saint Nicholas! For the sake of the young Hollanders, I, for one,
am willing to acknowledge him, and defend his reality against all
unbelievers.
Carl Schummel was quite busy during that day, assuring little children,
confidentially, that not Saint Nicholas, but their own fathers and
mothers had produced the oracle and loaded the tables. But _we_ know
better than that.
And yet if this were a saint, why did he not visit the Brinker cottage
that night? Why was that one home, so dark and sorrowful, passed by?
X
WHAT THE BOYS SAW AND DID IN AMSTERDAM
"Are we all here?" cried Peter, in high glee, as the party assembled
upon the canal early the next morning, equipped for their skating
journey. "Let me see. As Jacob has made me captain, I must call the
roll. Carl Schummel----You here?"
"Ya!"
"Jacob Poot!"
"Ya!"
"Benjamin Dobbs!"
"Ya-a!"
"Lambert van Mounen!"
"Ya!"
"[That's lucky! Couldn't get on without _you_, as you're the only one
who can speak English.] Ludwig van Holp!"
"Ya!"
"Voostenwalbert Schimmelpenninck!"
No answer.
"Ah! the little rogue has been kept at home. Now, boys, it's just eight
o'clock--glorious weather, and the Y is as firm as a rock--we'll be at
Amsterdam in thirty minutes. One, Two, Three, START!"
True enough, in less than half an hour they had crossed a dyke of solid
masonry, and were in the very heart of the great metropolis of the
Netherlands--a walled city of ninety-five islands and nearly two hundred
bridges. Although Ben had been there twice since his arrival in Holland,
he saw much to excite wonder; but his Dutch comrades, having lived near
by all their lives, considered it the most matter-of-course place in the
world. Everything interested Ben; the tall houses with their forked
chimneys and gable ends facing the street; the merchants' warerooms,
perched high up under the roofs of their dwellings, with long, arm-like
cranes hoisting and lowering goods past the household windows; the grand
public buildings erected upon wooden piles driven deep into the marshy
ground; the narrow streets; the canals everywhere crossing the city; the
bridges; the locks; the various costumes, and, strangest of all, shops
and dwellings crouching close to the fronts of the churches, sending
their long, disproportionate chimneys far upward along the sacred walls.
If he looked up, he saw tall, leaning houses, seeming to pierce the sky
with their shining roofs; if he looked down, there was the queer street,
without crossing or curb--nothing to separate the cobblestone pavement
from the foot-path of brick--and if he rested his eyes half-way, he saw
complicated little mirrors [_spionnen_] fastened upon the outside of
nearly every window, so arranged that the inmates of the houses could
observe all that was going on in the street, or inspect whoever might be
knocking at the door, without being seen themselves.
Sometimes a dog-cart, heaped with wooden ware, passed him; then a donkey
bearing a pair of panniers filled with crockery or glass; then a sled
driven over the bare cobblestones (the runners kept greased with a
dripping oil rag so that it might run easily); and then, perhaps, a
showy, but clumsy family-carriage, drawn by the brownest of Flanders
horses, swinging the whitest of snowy tails.
The city was in full festival array. Every shop was gorgeous in honor of
Saint Nicholas. Captain Peter was forced, more than once, to order his
men away from the tempting show-windows, where everything that is, has
been, or can be thought of in the way of toys was displayed. Holland is
famous for this branch of manufacture. Every possible thing is copied in
miniature for the benefit of the little ones; the intricate mechanical
toys that a Dutch youngster tumbles about in stolid unconcern would
create a stir in our Patent Office. Ben laughed outright at some of the
mimic fishing boats. They were so heavy and stumpy, so like the queer
craft that he had seen about Rotterdam. The tiny trekschuiten, however,
only a foot or two long, and fitted out, complete, made his heart
ache--he so longed to buy one at once for his little brother in England.
He had no money to spare, for with true Dutch prudence, the party had
agreed to take with them merely the sum required for each boy's
expenses, and to consign the purse to Peter for safekeeping.
Consequently Master Ben concluded to devote all his energies to
sightseeing, and to think as seldom as possible of little Robby.
He made a hasty call at the Marine school and envied the sailor students
their full-rigged brig and their sleeping-berths swung over their trunks
or lockers; he peeped into the Jews' Quarter of the city, where the rich
diamond cutters and squalid old-clothes men dwell, and wisely resolved
to keep away from it; he also enjoyed hasty glimpses of the four
principal avenues of Amsterdam--the Prinsen gracht, Keizers gracht,
Heeren gracht and Singel. These are semicircular in form, and the first
three average more than two miles in length. A canal runs through the
centre of each, with a well-paved road on either side, lined with
stately buildings. Rows of naked elms, bordering the canal, cast a
network of shadows over its frozen surface; and everything was so clean
and bright that Ben told Lambert it seemed to him like petrified
neatness.
Fortunately the weather was cold enough to put a stop to the usual
street-flooding, and window-washing, or our young excursionists might
have been drenched more than once. Sweeping, mopping and scrubbing form
a passion with Dutch housewives, and to soil their spotless mansions is
considered scarcely less than a crime. Everywhere a hearty contempt is
felt for those who neglect to rub the soles of their shoes to a polish
before crossing the door-sill; and, in certain places, visitors are
expected to remove their heavy shoes before entering.
Sir William Temple, in his Memoirs of "What passed in Christendom from
1672 to 1679," tells a story of a pompous magistrate going to visit a
lady of Amsterdam. A stout Holland lass opened the door, and told him in
a breath that the lady was at home and that his shoes were not very
clean. Without another word, she took the astonished man up by both
arms, threw him across her back, carried him through two rooms, set him
down at the bottom of the stairs, seized a pair of slippers that stood
there and put them upon his feet. Then, and not until then, she spoke,
telling him that her mistress was on the floor above, and that he might
go up.
While Ben was skating, with his friends, upon the crowded canals of the
city, he found it difficult to believe that the sleepy Dutchmen he saw
around him, smoking their pipes so leisurely, and looking as though
their hats might be knocked off their heads without their making any
resistance, were capable of those outbreaks that had taken place in
Holland--that they were really fellow-countrymen of the brave, devoted
heroes of whom he had read in Dutch history.
As his party skimmed lightly along he told Van Mounen of a burial-riot
which in 1696 had occurred in that very city, where the women and
children turned out, as well as the men, and formed mock funeral
processions through the town, to show the burgomasters that certain new
regulations, with regard to burying the dead, would not be acceded
to--how at last they grew so unmanageable, and threatened so much damage
to the city that the burgomasters were glad to recall the offensive law.
"There's the corner," said Jacob, pointing to some large buildings,
"where, about fifteen years ago, the great corn-houses sank down in the
mud. They were strong affairs, and set up on good piles, but they had
over seventy thousand hundred-weight of corn in them; and that was too
much."
It was a long story for Jacob to tell and he stopped to rest.
"How do you know there were seventy thousand hundred-weight in them?"
asked Carl sharply--"you were in your swaddling clothes then."
"My father knows all about it," was Jacob's suggestive reply. Rousing
himself with an effort, he continued--"Ben likes pictures. Show him
some."
"All right," said the captain.
"If we had time, Benjamin," said Lambert van Mounen in English, "I
should like to take you to the City Hall or _Stadhuis_. There are
building-piles for you! It is built on nearly fourteen thousand of
them, driven seventy feet into the ground. But what I wish you to see
there is the big picture of Van Speyk blowing up his ship--great
picture."
"Van _who_?" asked Ben.
"Van Speyk. Don't you remember? He was in the height of an engagement
with the Belgians, and when he found that they had the better of him and
would capture his ship, he blew it up, and himself too, rather than
yield to the enemy."
"Wasn't that Van Tromp?"
"Oh, no. Van Tromp was another brave fellow. They've a monument to him
down at Delft Haven--the place where the Pilgrims took ship for
America."
"Well, what about Van Tromp? He was a great Dutch Admiral; wasn't he?"
"Yes, he was in more than thirty sea-fights. He beat the Spanish fleet
and an English one, and then fastened a broom to his masthead to show
that he had swept the English from the sea. Takes the Dutch to beat, my
boy!"
"Hold up!" cried Ben, "broom or no broom, the English conquered him at
last. I remember all about it now. He was killed somewhere on the Dutch
coast, in an engagement in which the British fleet was victorious. Too
bad," he added maliciously, "wasn't it?"
"Ahem! where are we?" exclaimed Lambert changing the subject. "Hollo!
the others are way ahead of us--all but Jacob. Whew! how fat he is!
He'll break down before we're half-way."
Ben of course enjoyed skating beside Lambert, who though a staunch
Hollander, had been educated near London, and could speak English as
fluently as Dutch; but he was not sorry when Captain van Holp called
out:
"Skates off! There's the Museum!"
It was open, and there was no charge on that day for admission. In they
went, shuffling, as boys will, when they have a chance, just to hear the
sound of their shoes on the polished floor.
This Museum is in fact a picture gallery where some of the finest works
of the Dutch masters are to be seen, beside nearly two hundred
portfolios of rare engravings.
Ben noticed, at once, that some of the pictures were hung on panels
fastened to the wall with hinges. These could be swung forward like a
window-shutter, thus enabling the subject to be seen in the best light.
The plan served them well in viewing a small group by Gerard Douw,
called the "Evening School," enabling them to observe its exquisite
finish and the wonderful way in which the picture seemed to be lit
through its own windows. Peter pointed out the beauties of another
picture by Douw, called "The Hermit," and he also told them some
interesting anecdotes of the artist, who was born at Leyden in 1613.
"Three days painting a broom handle!" echoed Carl in astonishment, while
the captain was giving some instances of Douw's extreme slowness of
execution.
"Yes, sir; three days. And it is said that he spent five in finishing
one hand in a lady's portrait. You see how very bright and minute
everything is in this picture. His unfinished works were kept carefully
covered, and his painting materials were put away in airtight boxes as
soon as he had finished using them for the day. According to all
accounts, the studio itself must have been as close as a band-box. The
artist always entered it on tiptoe, besides sitting still, before he
commenced work, until the slight dust caused by his entrance had
settled. I have read somewhere that his paintings are improved by being
viewed through a magnifying glass. He strained his eyes so badly with
this extra finishing, that he was forced to wear spectacles before he
was thirty. At forty he could scarcely see to paint, and he couldn't
find a pair of glasses anywhere that would help his sight. At last, a
poor old German woman asked him to try hers. They suited him exactly,
and enabled him to go on painting as well as ever."
"Humph!" exclaimed Ludwig, indignantly, "that was high! What did _she_
do without them, I wonder?"
"Oh," said Peter, laughing, "likely she had another pair. At any rate
she insisted upon his taking them. He was so grateful that he painted a
picture of the spectacles for her, case and all, and she sold it to a
burgomaster for a yearly allowance that made her comfortable for the
rest of her days."
"Boys!" called Lambert, in a loud whisper, "come look at this Bear
Hunt."
It was a fine painting by Paul Potter, a Dutch artist of the seventeenth
century, who produced excellent works before he was sixteen years old.
The boys admired it because the subject pleased them. They passed
carelessly by the masterpieces of Rembrandt and Van der Helst, and went
into raptures over an ugly picture by Van der Venne, representing a
sea-fight between the Dutch and English. They also stood spellbound
before a painting of two little urchins, one of whom was taking soup and
the other eating an egg. The principal merit in this work was that the
young egg-eater had kindly slobbered his face with the yolk for their
entertainment.
An excellent representation of the "Feast of Saint Nicholas" next had
the honor of attracting them.
"Look, Van Mounen," said Ben to Lambert, "could anything be better than
this youngster's face? He looks as if he _knows_ he deserves a whipping
but hopes Saint Nicholas may not have found him out. That's the kind of
painting _I_ like; something that tells a story."
"Come, boys!" cried the captain, "ten o'clock, time we were off!"
They hastened to the canal.
"Skates on! Are you ready? ONE, TWO--hollo! where's Poot?"
Sure enough where _was_ Poot?
A square opening had just been cut in the ice not ten yards off. Peter
observed it, and without a word skated rapidly toward it.
All the others followed, of course.
Peter looked in. They all looked in; then stared anxiously at each
other.
"Poot!" screamed Peter, peering into the hole again. All was still. The
black water gave no sign; it was already glazing on top.
Van Mounen turned mysteriously to Ben.
"_Didn't he have a fit once?_"
"My goodness! yes!" answered Ben, in a great fright.
"Then, depend upon it, he's been taken with one in the Museum!"
The boys caught his meaning. Every skate was off in a twinkling. Peter
had the presence of mind to scoop up a cap-full of water from the hole,
and off they scampered to the rescue.
Alas! They did indeed find poor Jacob in a fit--but it was a fit of
sleepiness. There he lay in a recess of the gallery, snoring like a
trooper! The chorus of laughter that followed this discovery brought an
angry official to the spot.
"What now! None of this racket! Here, you beer-barrel, wake up!" and
Master Jacob received a very unceremonious shaking.
As soon as Peter saw that Jacob's condition was not serious, he hastened
to the street to empty his unfortunate cap. While he was stuffing his
handkerchief to prevent the already frozen crown from touching his head,
the rest of the boys came down, dragging the bewildered and indignant
Jacob in their midst.
The order to start was again given. Master Poot was wide awake at last.
The ice was a little rough and broken just there, but every boy was in
high spirits.
"Shall we go on by the canal or the river?" asked Peter.
"Oh, the river, by all means," said Carl. "It will be such fun; they say
it is perfect skating all the way, but it's much farther."
Jacob Poot instantly became interested.
"_I_ vote for the canal!" he cried.
"Well, the canal it shall be," responded the captain, "if all are
agreed."
"Agreed!" they echoed, in rather a disappointed tone--and Captain Peter
led the way.
"All right--come on--we can reach Haarlem in an hour!"
XI
BIG MANIAS AND LITTLE ODDITIES
While skating along at full speed, they heard the cars from Amsterdam
coming close behind them.
"Hollo!" cried Ludwig, glancing toward the rail-track--"who can't beat a
locomotive? Let's give it a race!"
The whistle screamed at the very idea--so did the boys--and at it they
went.
For an instant the boys were ahead, hurrahing with all their might--only
for an instant, but even _that_ was something.
This excitement over, they began to travel more leisurely, and indulge
in conversation and frolic. Sometimes they stopped to exchange a word
with the guards who were stationed at certain distances along the canal.
These men, in Winter, attend to keeping the surface free from
obstruction and garbage. After a snow-storm they are expected to sweep
the feathery covering away before it hardens into a marble pretty to
look at but very unwelcome to skaters. Now and then the boys so far
forgot their dignity as to clamber among the ice-bound canal-boats
crowded together in a widened harbor off the canal, but the watchful
guards would soon spy them out and order them down with a growl.
Nothing could be straighter than the canal upon which our party were
skating, and nothing straighter than the long rows of willow trees that
stood, bare and wispy, along the bank. On the opposite side, lifted high
above the surrounding country, lay the carriage road on top of the
great dyke built to keep the Haarlem Lake within bounds; stretching out
far in the distance until it became lost in a point, was the glassy
canal with its many skaters, its brown-winged ice-boats, its push-chairs
and its queer little sleds, light as cork, flying over the ice by means
of iron-pronged sticks in the hands of the riders. Ben was in ecstasy
with the scene.
Ludwig van Holp had been thinking how strange it was that the English
boy should know so much of Holland. According to Lambert's account he
knew more about it than the Dutch did. This did not quite please our
young Hollander. Suddenly he thought of something that he believed would
make the "Shon Pull" open his eyes; he drew near Lambert with a
triumphant:
"Tell him about the tulips!"
Ben caught the word "_tulpen_."
"Oh! yes," said he eagerly, in English, "the Tulip Mania--are you
speaking of that? I have often heard it mentioned, but know very little
about it. It reached its height in Amsterdam, didn't it?"
Ludwig moaned; the words were hard to understand, but there was no
mistaking the enlightened expression on Ben's face; Lambert, happily,
was quite unconscious of his young countryman's distress as he replied:
"Yes, here and in Haarlem, principally; but the excitement ran high all
over Holland, and in England too for that matter."
"Hardly in England,[18] I think," said Ben, "but I am not sure, as I was
not there at the time."
[Footnote 18: Although the Tulip Mania did not prevail in England as in
Holland, the flower soon became an object of speculation and brought
very large prices. In 1636, Tulips were publicly sold on the Exchange of
London. Even as late as 1800, a common price was fifteen guineas for one
bulb. Ben did not know that in his own day a single Tulip plant, called
the "Fanny Kemble" had been sold in London for more than 70 guineas.
Mr. Mackay in his "Memoirs of Popular Delusions" tells a funny story of
an English botanist who happened to see a tulip bulb lying in the
conservatory of a wealthy Dutchman. Ignorant of its value, he took out
his penknife and, cutting the bulb in two, became very much interested
in his investigations. Suddenly the owner appeared, and pouncing
furiously upon him, asked him if he knew what he was doing. "Peeling a
most extraordinary onion," replied the philosopher. "Hundert tousant
tuyvel!" shouted the Dutchman, "it's an Admiral Vander Eyk!" "Thank
you," replied the traveler, immediately writing the name in his note
book; "pray are these very common in your country?" "Death and the
tuyvel!" screamed the Dutchman, "come before the Syndic and you shall
see!" In spite of his struggles the poor investigator, followed by an
indignant mob, was taken through the streets to a magistrate. Soon he
learned to his dismay that he had destroyed a bulb worth 4,000 florins
($1,600). He was lodged in prison until securities could be procured for
the payment of the sum.]
"Ha! ha! that's true, unless you are over two hundred years old. Well, I
tell you, sir, there was never anything like it before nor since. Why,
persons were so crazy after tulip bulbs in those days, that they paid
their weight in gold for them."
"What, the weight of a man?" cried Ben, showing such astonishment in his
eyes, that Ludwig fairly capered.
"No, no, the weight of a _bulb_. The first tulip was sent here from
Constantinople about the year 1560. It was so much admired that the rich
people of Amsterdam sent to Turkey for more. From that time they grew to
be the rage, and it lasted for years. Single roots brought from one to
four thousand florins; and one bulb, the Semper Augustus, brought
fifty-five hundred."
"That's more than four hundred guineas of our money," interposed Ben.
"Yes, and I know I'm right, for I read it in a translation from
Beckman, only day before yesterday. Well, sir, it was great. Every one
speculated in Tulips, even the barge-men and rag-women, and
chimney-sweeps. The richest merchants were not ashamed to share the
excitement. People bought bulbs and sold them again at a tremendous
profit without ever seeing them. It grew into a kind of gambling. Some
became rich by it in a few days, and some lost everything they had.
Land, houses, cattle and even clothing went for Tulips when people had
no ready money. Ladies sold their jewels and finery to enable them to
join in the fun. Nothing else was thought of. At last the States-general
interfered. People began to see what geese they were making of
themselves, and down went the price of Tulips. Old tulip debts couldn't
be collected. Creditors went to law, and the law turned its back upon
them; debts made in gambling were not binding, it said. Then, there was
a time! Thousands of rich speculators reduced to beggary in an hour. As
old Beckman says, 'the bubble was burst at last.'"
"Yes, and a big bubble it was," said Ben, who had listened with great
interest. "By the way, did you know that the name Tulip came from a
Turkish word, signifying turban?"
"I had forgotten that," answered Lambert, "but it's a capital idea. Just
fancy a party of Turks in full head-gear, squatted upon a lawn--perfect
tulip bed! Ha! ha! capital idea!"
["There," groaned Ludwig to himself, "he's been telling Lambert
something wonderful about Tulips--I knew it!"]
"The fact is," continued Lambert, "you can conjure up quite a human
picture out of a tulip bed in bloom, especially when it is nodding and
bobbing in the wind. Did you ever notice it?"