A current of warm air, redolent of beer and food, met the travellers
as they entered the large, low room, dimly lighted by the tiny windows,
scarcely more than loop-holes, pierced in two sides. The tap-room itself
looked like the cabin of a ship. Ceiling and floor, chairs and tables,
were made of the same dark-brown wood that covered the walls, along
which beds were ranged like berths.
The host, with many bows, came forward to receive the aristocratic
guests, and led them to the fire-place, where huge pieces of peat were
glimmering. The heat they sent forth answered several purposes at the
same time. It warmed the air, lighted a portion of the room, which
was very dark in rainy weather, and served to cook three fowl that,
suspended from a thin iron bar over the fire, were already beginning to
brown.
As the new guests approached the hearth, an old woman, who had been
turning the spit, pushed a white cat from her lap and rose.
The landlord tossed on a bench several garments spread over the backs
of two chairs to dry, and hung in their place the dripping cloaks of the
baron and his son.
While the elder Wibisma was ordering something hot to drink for himself
and servants, Nicolas led the black page to the fire.
The shivering boy crouched on the floor beside the ashes, and stretched
now his soaked feet, shod in red morocco, and now his stiffened fingers
to the blaze.
The father and son took their seats at a table, over which the
maid-servant had spread a cloth. The baron was inclined to enter into
conversation about the decorated tree with the landlord, an over-civil,
pock-marked dwarf, whose clothes were precisely the same shade of brown
as the wood in his tap-room; but refrained from doing so because two
citizens of Leyden, one of whom was well known to him, sat at a short
distance from his table, and he did not wish to be drawn into a quarrel
in a place like this.
After Nicolas had also glanced around the tap-room, he touched his
father, saying in a low tone:
“Did you notice the men yonder? The younger one--he’s lifting the cover
of the tankard now--is the organist who released me from the boys and
gave me his cloak yesterday.”
“The one yonder?” asked the nobleman. “A handsome young fellow. He might
be taken for an artist or something of that kind. Here, landlord, who
is the gentleman with brown hair and large eyes, talking to Allertssohn,
the fencing-master?”
“It’s Herr Wilhelm, younger son of old Herr Cornelius, Receiver General,
a player or musician, as they call them.”
“Eh, eh,” cried the baron. “His father is one of my old Leyden
acquaintances. He was a worthy, excellent man before the craze for
liberty turned people’s heads. The youth, too, has a face pleasant to
look at.
“There is something pure about it--something-it’s hard to say,
something--what do you think, Nico? Doesn’t he look like our Saint
Sebastian? Shall I speak to him and thank him for his kindness?”
The baron, without waiting for his son, whom he treated as an equal,
to reply, rose to give expression to his friendly feelings towards the
musician, but this laudable intention met with an unexpected obstacle.
The man, whom the baron had called the fencing-master Allertssohn, had
just perceived that the “Glippers” cloaks were hanging by the fire,
while his friend’s and his own were flung on a bench. This fact seemed
to greatly irritate the Leyden burgher; for as the baron rose, he pushed
his own chair violently back, bent his muscular body forward, rested
both arms on the edge of the table opposite to him and, with a jerking
motion, turned his soldierly face sometimes towards the baron, and
sometimes towards the landlord. At last he shouted loudly:
“Peter Quatgelat--you villain, you! What ails you, you, miserable
hunchback!--Who gives you a right to toss our cloaks into a corner?”
“Yours, Captain,” stammered the host, “were already--”
“Hold your tongue, you fawning knave!” thundered the other in so loud a
tone and such excitement, that the long grey moustache on his upper lip
shook, and the thick beard on his chin trembled. “Hold your tongue! We
know better. Jove’s thunder! Nobleman’s cloaks are favored here. They’re
of Spanish cut. That exactly suits the Glippers’ faces. Good Dutch cloth
is thrown into the corner. Ho, ho, Brother Crooklegs, we’ll put you on
parade.”
“Pray, most noble Captain--”
“I’ll blow away your most noble, you worthless scamp, you arrant rascal!
First come, first served, is the rule in Holland, and has been ever
since the days of Adam and Eve. Prick up your ears, Crooklegs! If my
‘most noble’ cloak, and Herr Wilhelm’s too, are not hanging in their old
places before I count twenty, something will happen here that won’t suit
you. One-two-three--”
The landlord cast a timid, questioning glance at the nobleman, and as
the latter shrugged his shoulders and said audibly: “There is probably
room for more than two cloaks at the fire,” Quatgelat took the Leyden
guests’ wraps from the bench and hung them on two chairs, which he
pushed up to the mantel-piece.
While this was being done, the fencing-master slowly continued to count.
By the time he reached twenty the landlord had finished his task, yet
the irate captain still gave him no peace, but said:
“Now our reckoning, man. Wind and storm are far from pleasant, but
I know even worse company. There’s room enough at the fire for four
cloaks, and in Holland for all the animals in Noah’s ark, except
Spaniards and the allies of Spain. Deuce take it, all the bile in my
liver is stirred. Come to the horses with me, Herr Wilhelm, or there’ll
be mischief.”
The fencing-master, while uttering the last words, stared angrily at
the nobleman with his prominent eyes, which even under ordinary
circumstances, always looked as keen as if they had something marvellous
to examine.
Wibisma pretended not to hear the provoking words, and, as the
fencing-master left the room, walked calmly, with head erect, towards
the musician, bowed courteously, and thanked him for the kindness he had
shown his son the day before.
“You are not in the least indebted to me,” replied Wilhelm
Corneliussohn. “I helped the young nobleman, because it always has an
ill look when numbers attack one.”
“Then allow me to praise this opinion,” replied the baron.
“Opinion,” repeated the musician with a subtle smile, drawing a few
notes on the table.
The baron watched his fingers silently a short time, then advanced
nearer the young man, asking:
“Must everything now relate to political dissensions?”
“Yes,” replied Wilhelm firmly, turning his face with a rapid movement
towards the older man. “In these times ‘yes,’ twenty times ‘yes.’ You
wouldn’t do well to discuss opinions with me, Herr Matanesse.”
“Every man,” replied the nobleman, shrugging his shoulders, “every
man of course believes his own opinion the right one, yet he ought to
respect the views of those who think differently.”
“No, my lord,” cried the musician. “In these times there is but one
opinion for us. I wish to share nothing, not even a drink at the table,
with any man who has Holland blood, and feels differently. Excuse me, my
lord; my travelling companion, as you have unfortunately learned, has an
impatient temper and doesn’t like to wait.”
Wilhelm bowed distantly, waved his hand to Nicolas, approached the
chimney-piece, took the half-dried cloaks on his arm, tossed a coin
on the table and, holding in his hands a covered cage in which several
birds were fluttering, left the room.
The baron gazed after him in silence. The simple words and the young
man’s departure aroused painful emotions. He believed he desired what
was right, yet at this moment a feeling stole over him that a stain
rested on the cause he supported.
It is more endurable to be courted than avoided, and thus an expression
of deep annoyance rested on the nobleman’s pleasant features as he
returned to his son.
Nicolas had not lost a single word uttered by the organist, and the
blood left his ruddy cheeks as he was forced to see this man, whose
appearance had especially won his young heart, turn his back upon his
father as if he were a dishonorable man to be avoided.
The words, with which Janus Dousa had left him the day before, returned
to his mind with great force, and when the baron again seated himself
opposite him, the boy raised his eyes and said hesitatingly, but with
touching earnestness and sincere anxiety:
“Father, what does that mean? Father--are they so wholly wrong, if they
would rather be Hollanders than Spaniards?”
Wibisma looked at his son with surprise and displeasure, and because he
felt his own firmness wavering, and a blustering word often does good
service where there is lack of possibility or inclination to contend
against reasons, he exclaimed more angrily than he had spoken to his son
for years:
“Are you, too, beginning to relish the bait with which Orange lures
simpletons? Another word of that kind, and I’ll show you how malapert
lads are treated. Here, landlord, what’s the meaning of that nonsense on
yonder tree?”
“The people, my lord, the Leyden fools are to blame for the mischief,
not I. They decked the tree out in that ridiculous way, when the troops
stationed in the city during the siege retired. I keep this house as a
tenant of old Herr Van der Does, and dare not have any opinions of my
own, for people must live, but, as truly as I hope for salvation, I’m
loyal to King Philip.”
“Until the Leyden burghers come out here again,” replied Wibisma
bitterly. “Did you keep this inn during the siege?”
“Yes, my lord, the Spaniards had no cause to complain of me, and if a
poor man’s services are not too insignificant for you, they are at your
disposal.”
“Ah! ha!” muttered the baron, gazing attentively at the landlord’s
disagreeable face, whose little eyes glittered very craftily, then
turning to Nicolas, said:
“Go and watch the blackbirds in the window yonder a little while, my
son, I have something to say to the host.”
The youth instantly obeyed and as, instead of looking at the birds, he
gazed after the two enthusiastic supporters of Holland’s liberty, who
were riding along the road leading to Delft, remembered the simile of
fetters that drag men down, and saw rising before his mental vision
the glitter of the gold chain King Philip had sent his father, Nicolas
involuntarily glanced towards him as he stood whispering eagerly with
the landlord. Now he even laid his hand on his shoulder. Was it right
for him to hold intercourse with a man whom he must despise at heart?
Or was he--he shuddered, for the word “traitor,” which one of the
school-boys had shouted in his ears during the quarrel before the
church, returned to his memory.
When the rain grew less violent, the travellers left the inn. The baron
allowed the hideous landlord to kiss his hand at parting, but Nicolas
would not suffer him to touch his.
Few words were exchanged between father and son during the remainder of
their ride to the Hague, but the musician and the fencing-master were
less silent on the way to Delft.
Wilhelm had modestly, as beseemed the younger man, suggested that his
companion had expressed his hostile feelings towards the nobleman too
openly.
“True, perfectly true,” replied Allertssohn, whom his friends called
“Allerts.” “Very true! Temper oh! temper! You don’t suspect, Herr
Wilhelm--But we’ll let it pass.”
“No, speak, Meister.”
“You’ll think no better of me, if I do.”
“Then let us talk of something else.”
“No, Wilhelm. I needn’t be ashamed, no one will take me for a coward.”
The musician laughed, exclaiming: “You a coward! How many Spaniards has
your Brescian sword killed?”
“Wounded, wounded, sir, far oftener than killed,” replied the other. “If
the devil challenges me I shall ask: Foils, sir, or Spanish swords? But
there’s one person I do fear, and that’s my best and at the same time
my worst friend, a Netherlander, like yourself, the man who rides here
beside you. Yes, when rage seizes upon me, when my beard begins to
tremble, my small share of sense flies away as fast as your doves when
you let them go. You don’t know me, Wilhelm.”
“Don’t I? How often must one see you in command and visit you in the
fencing-room?”
“Pooh, pooh--there I’m as quiet as the water in yonder ditch--but when
anything goes against the grain, when--how shall I explain it to you,
without similes?”
“Go on.”
“For instance, when I am obliged to see a sycophant treated as if he
were Sir Upright--”
“So that vexes you greatly?”
“Vexes? No! Then I grow as savage as a tiger, and I ought not to be so,
I ought not. Roland, my foreman, probably likes--”
“Meister, Meister, your beard is beginning to tremble already!”
“What did the Glippers think, when their aristocratic cloaks--”
“The landlord took yours and mine from the fire entirely on his own
responsibility.”
“I don’t care! The crook-legged ape did it to honor the Spanish
sycophant. It enraged me, it was intolerable.”
“You didn’t keep your wrath to yourself, and I was surprised to see how
patiently the baron bore your insults.”
“That’s just it, that’s it!” cried the fencing-master, while his beard
began to twitch violently. “That’s what drove me out of the tavern,
that’s why I took to my heels. That--that--Roland, my fore man.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Don’t you, don’t you? How should you; but I’ll explain. When you’re
as old as I am, young man, you’ll experience it too. There are few
perfectly sound trees in the forest, few horses without a blemish, few
swords without a stain, and scarcely a man who has passed his fortieth
year that has not a worm in his breast. Some gnaw slightly, others
torture with sharp fangs, and mine--mine.--Do you want to cast a glance
in here?”
The fencing-master struck his broad chest as he uttered these words and,
without waiting for his companion’s reply, continued:
“You know me and my life, Herr Wilhelm. What do I do, what do I
practise? Only chivalrous work.
“My life is based upon the sword. Do you know a better blade or surer
hand than mine? Do my soldiers obey me? Have I spared my blood in
fighting before the red walls and towers yonder? No, by my fore man
Roland, no, no, a thousand times no.”
“Who denies it, Meister Allerts? But tell me, what do you mean by your
cry: Roland, my fore man?”
“Another time, Wilhelm; you mustn’t interrupt me now. Hear my story
about where the worm hides in me. So once more: What I do, the calling I
follow, is knightly work, yet when a Wibisma, who learned how to use his
sword from my father, treats me ill and stirs up my bile, if I should
presume to challenge him, as would be my just right, what would he do?
Laugh and ask: ‘What will the passado cost, Fencing-master Allerts? Have
you polished rapiers?’ Perhaps he wouldn’t even answer at all, and we
saw just now how he acts. His glance slipped past me like an eel, and he
had wax in his ears. Whether I reproach, or a cur yelps at him, is all
the same to his lordship. If only a Renneberg or Brederode had been in
my place just now, how quickly Wibisma’s sword would have flown from
its sheath, for he understands how to fight and is no coward. But I--I?
Nobody would willingly allow himself to be struck in the face, yet so
surely as my father was a brave man, even the worst insult could be more
easily borne, than the feeling of being held in too slight esteem to be
able to offer an affront. You see, Wilhelm, when the Glipper looked past
me--”
“Your beard lost its calmness.”
“It’s all very well for you to jest, you don’t know--”
“Yes, yes, Herr Allerts; I understand you perfectly.”
“And do you also understand, why I took myself and my sword out of doors
so quickly?”
“Perfectly; but please stop a moment with me now. The doves are
fluttering so violently; they want air.” The fencing-master stopped his
steed, and while Wilhelm was removing the dripping cloth from the little
cage that rested between him and his horse’s neck, said:
“How can a man trouble himself about such gentle little creatures? If
you want to diminish, in behalf of feathered folk, the time given to
music, tame falcons, that’s a knightly craft, and I can teach you.”
“Let my doves alone,” replied Wilhelm. “They are not so harmless as
people suppose, and have done good service in many a war, which is
certainly chivalrous pastime. Remember Haarlem. There, it’s beginning
to pour again. If my cloak were only not so short; I would like to cover
the doves with it.”
“You certainly look like Goliath in David’s garments.”
“It’s my scholar’s cloak; I put my other on young Wibisma’s shoulders
yesterday.”
“The Spanish green-finch?”
“I told you about the boys’ brawl.”
“Yes, yes. And the monkey kept your cloak?”
“You came for me and wouldn’t wait. They probably sent it back soon
after our departure.”
“And their lordships expect thanks because the young nobleman accepted
it!”
“No, no; the baron expressed his gratitude.”
“But that doesn’t make your cape any longer. Take my cloak, Wilhelm.
I’ve no doves to shelter, and my skin is thicker than yours.”