and was born and brought up on a barge. When she was seventeen and
keeping house-boat for her father (the mother died when she was a child)
the poor man had an accident, and was drowned. There wasn't much money
saved up for Anna Maria, so the barge was sold, and she had to live on
dry land, and learn how to be a dressmaker. She was as miserable as a
goldfish would be if you took it out of its bowl and laid it on the
table. In a few months she'd fallen into a decline, and though, just at
that time, she met a dashing young chauffeur, who took a fancy to her
pretty, pale face, even love wasn't strong enough to save her. The
chauffeur, poor fellow, thought there was no flower in the garden of
girls as sweet as his white snowdrop. He felt, if he could only afford
to buy a lighter for himself, they might marry, and the bride's life
might be saved. But it was out of the question, and perhaps the idyl
would have ended in tragedy, had he not confided his troubles to his
master. That master, as it happened, had a lighter which he'd fitted up
with a motor. He'd used it all summer, and got his money's worth of fun
out of it; so when he heard the story, he told the chauffeur he would
give him the thing as it stood, for a wedding present, and it must be
rechristened 'Anna Maria.'
"What a lamb of a master! I quite love him!" exclaimed Miss Van Buren,
before she remembered that she was talking to One beyond the Pale.
"There wasn't much merit; he was tired of his toy," I answered
carelessly; but I felt my face grow red.
"I don't believe it a bit. He just said that," cried Miss Rivers. "I
should love him too. Is he a Dutchman?"
"I shouldn't be surprised if he was half English, half Dutch," remarked
Starr, good-naturedly.
"Or if he was making our wheel go round now," finished Aunt Fay, pulling
Tibe's ear.
"Oh!" said Miss Van Buren, and buried her nose in the map.
She and Starr were tracing, or pretending to trace, our route to Gouda,
whither we were going, and where we expected to lunch. Hurriedly she
threw herself into a discussion with him as to whether we were now in
the Lek or the Maas. Reason said Maas, but the map said Lek, though it
was a thing, thought the lady, about which there could be no two
opinions; it must be one or the other.
As a matter of fact, there are many opinions, and as I knew the history
of the dispute, after all she had to turn to me, and listen. I talked to
Starr, and at her, explaining how only experts could tell one river from
another here, and even experts differed.
"Our waters are split up into so many channels that they're as difficult
to separate one from the other as the twisted strands in a plait of
hair," said I. "It was like Napoleon's colossal cheek, wasn't it, to
claim the Netherlands for France, because they were formed from the
alluvium of French rivers?"
Instantly the Chaperon ceased to admire Tibe's new and expensive collar,
and opened a silver chain bag, also glittering with newness, which she
had in her lap. From this she brought forth a note-book of Russia
leather, and began to write with a stylographic pen, which had dangled
in a gold case on a richly furnished chatelaine. This little lady had
"done" herself well since yesterday.
"I shall take notes of everything," she announced. "That bit about
Napoleon goes down first."
"Surely you knew, Aunt Fay," said the Mariner, with a warning in his
lifted eyebrows.
"I don't know anything about Holland, except that it's flat and wet,"
she replied, defying him, as she can afford to do, now that, once an
aunt, she must be always an aunt, as far as this tour is concerned.
"It's not the fashion in _my_ part of Scotland for ladies of position to
know things about foreign countries they've not visited. It's considered
frumpish, and though I may not be as young as I once was, I am _not_
frumpish."
She certainly is not. The real Lady MacNairne does not dress as smartly,
or have such an air of Parisian elegance as this mysterious little
upstart has put on since assuming her part. Save for the gray hair and
the hideous glasses, there could scarcely be a daintier figure than that
of the Mariner's false Aunt Fay.
"However," she went on, "my doctor has recommended a tonic, and I
shouldn't wonder if a spice of information might be a mental stimulant.
Anyhow, I intend to try it, and ask questions of everybody about
everything."
All this she said with a quaint, bird-like air, and I began to be
impressed with the curious fascination which emanates from this strange,
small person. I am in her secret. I know she is a fraud, though of all
else concerning her I am in ignorance--perhaps blissful ignorance. I
have none too much respect for the little wretch, despite her gray
hairs; yet, somehow, I felt at this moment that I was _on her side_. I
was afraid that, if she asked any favor of me, I should run to do it;
and I could imagine myself being ass enough to quail before the mite's
Liliputian displeasure. As for Starr, I could see that he dared not say
his soul was his own, if she laid claim to it. He might raise his
eyebrows, or telegraph with his eyelids, but a certain note in that
crisp, youthful-sounding voice, would reduce him to complete subjection,
in what our German cousins call an _augenblick_. No wonder that
Tiberius--who looks as if he could play lion to her martyr without a
single rehearsal--fawns, crawls, and wriggles like the merest puppy at
the lifting of her tiny finger, when she wills--as is seldom--to be
obeyed by him. All must feel the same queer power in the woman, be we
dogs or men.
"Well, I'm glad you got your country back from Napoleon," said Miss
Rivers. "Nobody, except the Dutch, could have made it so cozy, so
radiantly clean and comfortable. _Dear_ little Holland!"
I laughed. "Dear little Holland! Yes, that's the way you all pet and
patronize our Hollow Land, and chuck it under the chin, so to speak. You
think of it as a nice little toy country, to come and play with, and
laugh at for its quaintness. And why shouldn't you? But it strikes us
Netherlanders as funny, that point of view of yours, if we have a sense
of humor--and we have, sometimes! You see, we've a good memory for our
past. We know what we're built upon.
"Think of the making of Holland, though I grant you it's difficult, when
you look at this peaceful landscape; but try to call up something as
different as darkness is to light. Forget the river, and the houses, and
the pretty branching canals, and see nothing but marshes, wild and
terrible, with sluggish rivers crawling through mud-banks to the sea,
beaten back by fierce tides, to overflow into oozy meers and stagnant
pools. Think of raging winds, never still, the howling of seas, and the
driving of pitiless rains. No other views but those, and no definite
forms rising out of the water save great forest trees, growing so
densely that no daylight shines through the black roof of branches.
Imagine the life of our forefathers, who fled here from an existence so
much more dreadful that they clung to the mud-banks and fought for them,
a never-ending battle with the sea. That was the beginning of the
Netherlands, as it was of Venice, and the fugitives built as the
Venetians built, on piles, with wattles. If you've seen Venice, you'll
often be reminded of it here. And what rest have we had since those
beginnings? If not fighting the sea, we had to fight Spain and England,
and even now our battles aren't over. They never will be, while we keep
our heads above water. Every hour of every day and night some one is
fighting to save the Netherlands from the fate of Atlantis. While her
men fight she's safe; but if they rested, this 'peaceful, comfortable
little country' would be blotted out under the waters, as so many
provinces vanished under the Zuider Zee in the thirteenth century, and
others, at other times, have been swept away."
"Do you think our motor-boat could ride on the flood, and drag
'Waterspin,' if any of the most important dykes or dams happened to
burst?" inquired the Chaperon. "I hope so, for what you've been saying
makes one feel exactly like a female member of the Ark party."
Everybody laughed; but her joke pricked me to shame of my harangue.
"Nothing will 'happen to burst,'" I assured her. "We Dutch don't lose
our sleep over such 'ifs.' Every country has something to dread, hasn't
it? Drought in India, earthquakes in Italy, cyclones and blizzards in
America, and so on. Our menace is water; but then, it's our friend as
well as foe, and we've subdued it to our daily uses, as every canal we
pass can prove. Besides, there's something else we're able to do with
it. The popular belief is that, at Amsterdam, one key is kept in the
central arsenal which can instantly throw open sluices to inundate the
whole country in case we should be in danger of invasion."
"But you'd drown your land and yourselves, as well as the enemy,"
exclaimed Aunt Fay.
"Better drown than lose the liberty we've paid for with so much blood.
The old spirit's in us still, I hope, though we may seem slow-going,
comfort-loving fellows in everyday life. When we make up our minds to do
a thing, we're prepared to suffer for the sake of carrying it through."
Again I met Miss Van Buren's eyes, and I think she realized that I am
typically Dutch.
XI
Rotterdam lay far behind us now. We'd passed the busy, crowded
water-thoroughfares, as thickly lined with barges and lighters as
streets with houses, and were nearing the point where the river,
disguised as the Issel, turns with many curves toward Gouda. We had a
few whiffs from brickfields and other ugly industries that scar the
banks, but the windings of the Issel bore us swiftly to regions of
grassy meadows, and waving reeds, threatening sometimes to lose us in
strange no-thoroughfares of water more like separate lakes and round
ponds, than the flowing reaches of a river.
Here the despised Albatross was worth his weight in gold. In charge of a
skipper not familiar with every foot of the water-road, "Lorelei" and
"Waterspin" would have been aground more than once. Even that
irresponsible head-among-the-stars Mariner guessed at the snares we
avoided, and flung me a word of appreciation.
"You're earning your salt," said he, "and you shall have a little at
Gouda."
But as to Gouda, a struggle was going on between my inclination and my
conscience. It was my duty as skipper to take "Lorelei" through the town
that she might be ready to start from the other side after luncheon.
There would be delays at swing-bridges, and time would be lost if the
party remained on board, and tried to see the place afterwards. If I
trusted Hendrik to act as captain and chauffeur in one, something would
go wrong, and I should be blamed. Nevertheless, I did not relish the
thought of seeing Starr march off in triumph with the ladies while I
remained behind to work, and lunch on a cheese sandwich. I was tempted
to shift responsibility upon Hendrik's shoulders to-day, and on other
days to come; but as we slowed up for the sluice, or lock, something
inside me would have no self-indulgence. To be sure, I am playing my
part for a purpose, but while I play it, I must play well; and it was
the conscientious captain who advised his passengers to get out, told
them how to find the best inn, and what they were to see when they had
lunched.
"The hotel is in the Markt Platz," I said, "and you must have a good
look at the old Weigh House while you're on the spot. It will be your
first Weigh House, and it's really a good one, with a splendid relief by
Eggers, and a delightful outside staircase. Then there's the Stadhuis,
too, and if you care for old stained glass, the work of the brothers
Crabeth in the Groote Kerk----"
"But aren't you going with us?" asked Miss Rivers.
I explained why I could not.
"Oh dear, and we can't speak Dutch!" she sighed. "Fancy a procession
straggling through a strange town, wanting to know everything, and not
able to utter a word."
"Nonsense, Phil, we can get on perfectly well," said Miss Van Buren,
mutinous-eyed. "I've learned things out of the phrase-book. You can't
expect a skipper to be a guide as well."
This was a stab, and I think it pleased her; but I laughed.
"I shall often be able to go with you, I hope, Miss Rivers," I said. "In
many places the boat will start from the same spot where she gets in;
then I shall be free and at your service."
I had to see them off without me, Miss Van Buren walking with Starr; and
the only one who threw me a backward glance was Tibe. But the task I had
before me was easier than I expected. There were fewer barges in waiting
than on most days. Here and there a tip to a bridge-master (a gulden
stuck conspicuously in my eye, like a silver monocle, just long enough
to suggest a different destination) worked wonders, and in an hour I had
piloted "Lorelei" through the water-streets of Gouda, ready to take her
passengers again on the Leiden side. Standing at the wheel, I had eaten
a sandwich and drunk a glass of beer brought by Hendrik, so there was no
need to seek food in the town. The others, having finished lunch, would
have begun sight-seeing, and if I strolled to the Groote Kerk, it was
just possible I might find something even more desirable than the
exquisite glass.
"They'll have saved the church for the last," I said to myself. "I
should like to see her face while she looks at the Haarlem window."
I could not have calculated more exactly, had we made an appointment. As
I arrived within sight of the verger's door, I saw the party going in.
There was a moment's pause, and then all save one disappeared. That
figure was Starr's, and he was left in charge of the dog.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed, "you're just in time."
"Yes," said I. "Clever, wasn't I?"
"I mean in time to play with this brute, while I go in. He'll be pleased
with the exchange; besides, you've seen the church and I haven't."
"I've never seen it in such companionship."
"Callous-hearted Albatross! You'll unconsecrate the church for Miss Van
Buren. Can't you see she'll have none of you?"
"I shall need the more time to make her change her mind. Every minute
counts. Au revoir. Don't let Tibe escape, or I pity you with your
_aunt_."
"I wish he'd jump into the nearest canal. Look here, Gouda's a fraud.
We've had a loathsome lunch--cold ham and pappy bread--with paper
napkins, and the whole meal served on one plate, by a female even my
aunt was afraid of. There isn't a cow within miles, much less a cow
with a coat----"
"Perhaps one may pass while you wait. Ta, ta. Your turn will come soon."
And I left him glaring at Tibe and muttering threats of revenge against
me.
All the windows of the Gouda church are beautiful, but the Haarlem
window would warm the coldest heart, and I was not surprised to find
Miss Van Buren already gazing at it, a lovely light streaming through
the old glass upon her uplifted face. She is a girl to find out the best
things at once, by instinct.
There she stood, lost in delight, and when I, assuming more boldness
than I felt, walked quietly across the church and stopped close behind
her, she threw just enough of a look at the new-comer to see that it was
a tallish man in gray.
"Is that you, Mr. Starr?" she asked; but sure that no stranger would
approach so near, and believing me at a safe distance, she took the
answer for granted. "What a fairyland in glass there is in this church!"
she went on, joyously. "What skies, and backgrounds of medieval castles
and towers, and what luminous colors. I'd love to be one of those little
red and yellow men looking out of the tower at the battle going on
below, among the queer ships wallowing in the crisp waves, and live
always in that fantastic glass country. I want to know what's inside the
tower, don't you? Which man will you choose to be?"
"The one on your right side," said I, quietly.
Then she whisked round, and blushed with vexation.
"That you could _never_ be," she flung at me, and walked away; but I
followed.
"Won't you tell me why?" I asked. "What have I done to offend you?"
"If you don't know, I couldn't make you understand."
"Perhaps it's you who don't understand. But you will, some day."
"Oh, I've no curiosity."
"Am I spoiling your trip?"
"I'm not going to let you."
"Thanks. Then you'd better let me help to make it pleasanter. I can, in
many ways."
"I don't need help in enjoying Holland. I intend to enjoy it every
instant, in--in----"
"Won't you finish?"
"In spite of you."
"I vow it shall be partly because of me."
"You're very fond of vowing."
Then, at last, I knew where I stood. I knew that Robert _had_ said
something.
Into the midst of this crisis dropped Miss Rivers. No doubt she had seen
the expression on our faces, and intervened in pure good-heartedness to
snatch me as a brand from the burning; for she threw herself into talk
about the church, crying out against the hideous havoc we Protestants
had wrought with whitewash and crude woodwork.
"I'm not Catholic, not a bit Catholic, though I may be a little high
church; but I _couldn't_ have spoiled everything just for the sake of
getting a place to worship in, cheap, without having to put up a new
building. Why, it's like _murder_!"
Then my lady flashed out at her unexpectedly, and saved me an answer.
"Where's your imagination, Phil? It must have gone wool-gathering, or
you could put yourself into the place of these people and see why they
tore away the pictures and statues, and hid every bit of color with
whitewash. I love beauty, but I would have done as they did. Color in
churches was to them the life-blood of their nearest and dearest,
splashed upon the walls. Those statues, those pictured saints they
pulled down or covered up, had smiled on persecution. They had to have a
kind of frenzied house-cleaning to get out the smell of incense. Oh, I
know how they felt when they did it, as if I'd been here myself with a
broom full of whitewash."
"Perhaps some ancestress of yours was here, and did some sweeping," said
I. But it was a mistake for me to speak. She froze in an instant, and
suggested that if everybody had seen enough, we should go out and give
"poor Mr. Starr a chance."
"I'll stop and show him the Haarlem window," said she. And I hated
Starr. Perhaps that was the state of mind she wished to create; at all
events her eyes retained the exaltation of the whitewashing. Nor should
I wonder if those two enjoyed the thought that I was kept waiting
outside, as much as they enjoyed roaming together in "glass country."
In any case, they stayed so long that we were able to visit a shop near
by, and come back, before they reappeared. It was a nice shop, where
sweets and cakes were sold, especially the rich treacle "cookies," for
which Gouda is celebrated. There was much gold-bright brass; there were
jars and boxes painted curiously; and we were served by an apple-cheeked
old lady in a white cap, whom Miss Rivers and the Chaperon thought
adorable. We bought _hopjes_ as well as cookies, because they wanted to
make acquaintance with the national sweets of Holland; and afterwards,
when Miss Van Buren was given some, she pronounced them nothing but "the
caramellest caramels" she had ever tasted.
She and Starr had developed a pleasant private understanding, which
comprised jokes too subtle to be understood by outsiders; and as the
Mariner and I were shoulder to shoulder for a moment on our way back to
the boat, he gave me a look charged with meaning.
"Who laughs last, laughs best," he quoted; and inwardly I could not but
agree, though I shrugged my shoulders.
Tibe attracted enormous attention in Gouda. As we walked along shady
streets, lit by the clear shining of canals, children ran after us as at
Hamlin they ran after the Pied Piper. If for one instant the strangers
paused to study a beautiful, carved door, or to peer into the window of
an antiquary's at blue and white jars, or to gaze up at the ferocious
head of a Turk over a chemist's shop, or to laugh at a house with
window-blinds painted in red and white diamonds, a crowd of flaxen heads
collected round us, little hands fluttered over the dog's wrinkled head
as butterflies flit about a clover blossom, baby laughter tinkled, and
tiny shrieks cut the stillness of the sleepy, summer afternoon.
It was all so dream-like to Miss Van Buren that she declared incredulity
in Holland's real existence. "There is no such country," she said, "and
worse than all, I have no motor-boat."
Nevertheless, a shape which closely resembled "Lorelei" was floating
like a white water-lily on a green calyx of canal, in the place where I
had, or dreamed that I had, left her an hour ago. And having assembled
on board that white apparition, we started, or dreamed that we started
for Leiden--a place where I hoped to score a point or two with my lady.
The boisterous wind of the early morning had dropped at noon, leaving
the day hot and unrefreshed, with no breath of air stirring. But on the
water, traveling at eight or nine miles an hour, we forgot the heavy
July heat which on shore had burned our faces. They were fanned by a
constant breeze of our own making which tossed us a bouquet of perfume
from flowery fields as we slipped by, the only sound in our ears the cry
of sea-going gulls overhead, and the delicate fluting of the water as
our bows shattered its crystals among pale, shimmery sedges and tall
reeds.
Tiny canals of irrigation wandered like azure veins through a maze of
blossoming pink and gold in the sun-bright meadows, and as far as the
most sweeping glance could reach, the horizon seemed pinned down to
earth with windmills.
Suddenly the land lay far below the level of the canal, and people
walking in the main streets of villages, behind the dykes, were visible
for us only as far as their knees. Quaint little houses had sat
themselves down close to the water's edge, as if determined to miss no
detail of canal gossip; and from their bright windows, like brilliant
eyes, they watched the water with a curious expression of
self-satisfaction and contentment on their painted, wooden faces. On
verandas, half as big as the houses themselves, the life of the family
went on. Children played, young girls wrote letters to their lovers;
mothers busily worked sewing-machines, but saw everything that passed on
the water; fathers read newspapers, and white-haired old grandpapas
nodded over long-stemmed pipes. Every garden blazed with color; and
close-planted rows of trees, with their branches cut and trained (as
Miss Van Buren said) "flat as trees for paper dolls," shaded the upper
windows of the toy mansions.
Little things which were matters of every day for me in this country so
characteristic of the Netherlands, tickled the fancy of the strangers,
and kept them constantly exclaiming. The extravagantly polished wood of
the house doors; the lifting cranes protruding from the gables; the
dairymen in boats, with their shining pails; the bridges that pivoted
round to let us pass through; the drawbridges that opened in the middle
and swung up with leisured dignity; the bridgeman in sorrel-colored
coats, collecting tolls in battered wooden shoes suspended from long
lines; the dogs (which they call "Spitz" and are really Kees) who barked
ferociously at our motor, from every barge and lighter; the yellow carts
with black, bonnet-like hoods, from which peasant heads peered curiously
out at us, from shore; and, above all, the old women or young children
with ropes across their breasts, straining to tow enormous barges like
great dark, following whales.
"What can Dutchmen be like to let them do it, while they loaf on board?"
Miss Van Buren flashed at me, as if I were responsible for the faults of
all my male countrymen.
"It isn't exactly loafing to steer those big barges," said I. "And the
whole family take turns, anywhere between the ages of ten and a hundred.
They don't know what hard work it is, because nobody has told them, and
our river people are among the most contented."
Starr was interested in seeing me salute the men of passing craft, and
in their grave return of the courtesy. Soon, he could imitate my motion,
though he exaggerated it slightly, letting his arm float gracefully out
to full length before it came back to his cap, somewhat, as he remarked,
"like a lily-stem blown by the wind." When he had got the knack he was
enchanted, and every yacht, sail-boat, lighter, and barge had a
theatrical greeting from him as it slipped silently past, perhaps never
to be seen again by our eyes.
"But are they happy?" he asked. "You never hear bursts of laughter, or
chattering of voices, as you would in other countries. The youngest
children's faces are grave, while as for the men, they look as if they
were paid so much a day not to shed a smile, and were mighty
conscientious about earning their money. Yet you say they're contented."
"We Dutch are a reserved people," I explained, under Miss Van Buren's
critical gaze. "We don't make much noise when we're glad, or sad; and it
takes something funny to make us laugh. We don't do it to hear the sound
of our own voices, but prefer to rest our features and our minds."
"Some of these bargemen look as if they'd rested their minds so much
that vegetables had grown on them," mused Starr, which made Miss Van
Buren giggle; and somehow I was angry with her for finding wit in his
small sallies.
"You'll discover on this trip that as you treat the Dutch, so will they
treat you," I went on. "If you're impatient, they'll be rude; if you
show contempt, they'll pay you back in the same coin; but if you're
polite and considerate there's nothing they won't do for you in their
quiet way."