I SET the position of the harbor by my pocket-compass, and then followed
the course of the first street that lay before me.
On either side, as I advanced, the desolate old houses frowned on me.
There were no lights in the windows, no lamps in the streets. For a
quarter of an hour at least I penetrated deeper and deeper into the
city, without encountering a living creature on my way--with only the
starlight to guide me. Turning by chance into a street broader than
the rest, I at last saw a moving figure, just visible ahead, under the
shadows of the houses. I quickened my pace, and found myself following
a man in the dress of a peasant. Hearing my footsteps behind him, he
turned and looked at me. Discovering that I was a stranger, he lifted
a thick cudgel that he carried with him, shook it threateningly, and
called to me in his own language (as I gathered by his actions) to
stand back. A stranger in Enkhuizen at that time of night was evidently
reckoned as a robber in the estimation of this citizen! I had learned on
the voyage, from the captain of the boat, how to ask my way in Dutch,
if I happened to be by myself in a strange town; and I now repeated
my lesson, asking my way to the fishing office of Messrs. Van Brandt.
Either my foreign accent made me unintelligible, or the man's suspicions
disinclined him to trust me. Again he shook his cudgel, and again he
signed to me to stand back. It was useless to persist. I crossed to the
opposite side of the way, and soon afterward lost sight of him under the
portico of a house.
Still following the windings of the deserted streets, I reached what I
at first supposed to be the end of the town.
Before me, for half a mile or more (as well as I could guess), rose a
tract of meadow-land, with sheep dotted over it at intervals reposing
for the night. I advanced over the grass, and observed here and there,
where the ground rose a little, some moldering fragments of brickwork.
Looking onward as I reached the middle of the meadow, I perceived on
its further side, towering gaunt and black in the night, a lofty arch or
gateway, without walls at its sides, without a neighboring building
of any sort, far or near. This (as I afterward learned) was one of
the ancient gates of the city. The walls, crumbling to ruin, had been
destroyed as useless obstacles that cumbered the ground. On the waste
meadow-land round me had once stood the shops of the richest merchants,
the palaces of the proudest nobles of North Holland. I was actually
standing on what had been formerly the wealthy quarter of Enkhuizen! And
what was left of it now? A few mounds of broken bricks, a pasture-land
of sweet-smelling grass, and a little flock of sheep sleeping.
The mere desolation of the view (apart altogether from its history)
struck me with a feeling of horror. My mind seemed to lose its balance
in the dreadful stillness that was round me. I felt unutterable
forebodings of calamities to come. For the first time, I repented having
left England. My thoughts turned regretfully to the woody shores of
Greenwater Broad. If I had only held to my resolution, I might have been
at rest now in the deep waters of the lake. For what had I lived and
planned and traveled since I left Dermody's cottage? Perhaps only to
find that I had lost the woman whom I loved--now that I was in the same
town with her!
Regaining the outer rows of houses still left standing, I looked about
me, intending to return by the street which was known to me already.
Just as I thought I had discovered it, I noticed another living creature
in the solitary city. A man was standing at the door of one of the
outermost houses on my right hand, looking at me.
At the risk of meeting with another rough reception, I determined to
make a last effort to discover Mrs. Van Brandt before I returned to the
boat.
Seeing that I was approaching him, the stranger met me midway. His dress
and manner showed plainly that I had not encountered this time a person
in the lower ranks of life. He answered my question civilly in his own
language. Seeing that I was at a loss to understand what he said, he
invited me by signs to follow him. After walking for a few minutes in
a direction which was quite new to me, we stopped in a gloomy little
square, with a plot of neglected garden-ground in the middle of it.
Pointing to a lower window in one of the houses, in which a light dimly
appeared, my guide said in Dutch: "Office of Van Brandt, sir," bowed,
and left me.
I advanced to the window. It was open, and it was just high enough to be
above my head. The light in the room found its way outward through the
interstices of closed wooden shutters. Still haunted by misgivings of
trouble to come, I hesitated to announce my arrival precipitately by
ringing the house-bell. How did I know what new calamity might not
confront me when the door was opened? I waited under the window and
listened.
Hardly a minute passed before I heard a woman's voice in the room. There
was no mistaking the charm of those tones. It was the voice of Mrs. Van
Brandt.
"Come, darling," she said. "It is very late--you ought to have been in
bed two hours ago."
The child's voice answered, "I am not sleepy, mamma."
"But, my dear, remember you have been ill. You may be ill again if you
keep out of bed so late as this. Only lie down, and you will soon fall
asleep when I put the candle out."
"You must _not_ put the candle out!" the child returned, with strong
emphasis. "My new papa is coming. How is he to find his way to us, if
you put out the light?"
The mother answered sharply, as if the child's strange words had
irritated her.
"You are talking nonsense," she said; "and you must go to bed. Mr.
Germaine knows nothing about us. Mr. Germaine is in England."
I could restrain myself no longer. I called out under the window:
"Mr. Germaine is here!"