you can see anywhere else."
"Dear me, how awkward. How _are_ you to find it?" sighed Phyllis.
"Ask Alb to rapidly mention all islands in Holland, and perhaps it will
come back to you," suggested the Mariner. "Begin with A, Alb."
"Not worth while wasting the letters of the alphabet," said I. "Lady
MacNairne (the name invariably sticks in my throat) means Marken."
"_That's_ it!" exclaimed the Chaperon. "How could you guess?"
"There's only one island that people talk about like that," I replied.
"It's the great show place; and it's like going to the theater. The
curtain rings up when the audience arrives, and rings down when it
departs. You'll see to-morrow."
"To-morrow?"
"My idea was to take you there to-morrow, unless you prefer another
place."
I looked at the mistress of the boat, and no hardness came into her
eyes. The contrast between her manner yesterday and her manner since
this morning was so marked that, instead of being wholly pleased, I was
half alarmed. It seemed too good to be true that her feelings should
have changed, and that the sun should continue to shine.
"Why, certainly, let's go to Marken," she said. "I was thinking of
Broek-in-Waterland, as I read it was near, and the sweetest place in
Holland; however, we can go by-and-by, if----"
"But my plan includes Broek-in-Waterland, gives you a glimpse of
Monnikendam, takes you to Marken, and winds up at Volendam, beloved of
artists," said I. "I don't believe we'll find it easy to tear Starr from
Volendam."
So it was settled, and every one agreed to be ready at ten o'clock next
morning. But ten o'clock came, and no Nell, no Phyllis, no Chaperon.
My car was at the door, as I intended to save time by motoring to the
Club harbor, where the yacht was lying; and when Starr and I had waited
in the hall for some minutes, Aunt Fay appeared.
"Haven't the girls come in yet with Tibe?" she asked. There was a note
of anxiety in her voice, though, owing to the fact that the blue
spectacles are very large, the wings of gray hair droop very low, a
perky bow of white gauzy stuff worn under the chin comes up very high,
and the face is very small, it is difficult to tell by the lady's
expression what she may be feeling; indeed, there is remarkably little
room for an expression to be revealed; which adds to the mystery of the
Chaperon's personality.
"Are they out?" asked Starr.
"Yes. But they promised to be back at a quarter to ten, without fail,
or I shouldn't have let them go. Tibe's had no breakfast, and he _must_
have his teeth brushed before we start. Oh dear, I'm afraid something's
happened."
"For goodness' sake, don't be excited. You get such an American accent
when you're excited," whispered the Mariner, fiercely. "Be brave.
Remember you're a Scotswoman."
"If I lose Tibe, I shall be a madwoman," she retorted.
"You won't lose him. Alb and I care at least as much for the girls as
you do for your dog, and we're not worrying----"
"That's different. The girls don't belong to you," almost wept the tiny
creature. "You haven't fed them, and brushed them, and washed their feet
every day of their lives since they were a few months old, as I have
with Tibe, and if you're not _very_ nice to me, you never will."
"We never dared hope for quite as much as that," said Starr, "but we
_are_ being nice to you. What do you want us to do? They're half an hour
behind time. Shall we give an order for the Town Crier? I dare say
there's one in use still, as this is Holland."
"If you're sarcastic, Ronald, I'll _leave_ you the moment I have my
darling Tibe again," replied the Chaperon, and the threat reduced Ronald
to crushed silence.
"What took them out so early in the morning?" I asked.
"Oh, Tibe escaped from my room for a minute, and was eating a boot which
he found at somebody's door--a horrid, elastic-sided boot: I'm sure it
couldn't have been good for him--and the two girls brought him back.
They were going out for one last glimpse of that quaint, hidden square
you call 'the village,' which they longed to see again, and they asked
if they should take Tibe, so I said yes, as he's fond of driving.
"Oh, they were driving?" said I.
"Yes. They could easily have been in long ago. There _must_ have been an
accident. Miss Rivers is always so depressingly prompt. Such a strange
girl! She considers it quite a sin to break a promise, even to a man,
and she seems actually to _like_ telling the truth."
We soothed the Chaperon's fears as well as we could; but when half-past
ten came, and there were still no signs of the missing ones, we both
began to be troubled.
"If they don't appear in ten minutes, I'll drive slowly in the direction
by which they should return," I said; but the words had hardly left my
lips when the girls walked into the hall, with Tibe. Both charming faces
were flushed, and it was evident that something exciting had happened.
But whatever it was, nobody was the worse for it. Tibe flew to his
mistress, knocking down a child, and almost upsetting an old gentleman
by darting unexpectedly between his legs, while the girls rushed into
explanations.
"We're so sorry to have kept you waiting, but we've had _such_ an
adventure!" cried Nell. "We were driving back from the 'village,' when
Tibe gave a leap and jumped out of the cab before we could hold him."
"We were _terrified_," broke in Phyllis.
"And he disappeared in the most horribly mysterious way," finished Nell.
"We thought some one in the crowd must have stolen him, so we stopped
the cab----"
"And began tearing about looking for him, asking every human being in
every known language _except_ Dutch, if they'd seen a dog, or a _chien_,
or a _hund_----"
"But nobody understood, so we went into a lot of shops, and he wasn't in
any of them----"
"And we were in _despair_. We shouldn't have _dared_ come back without
him----"
"I should think not!" cut in the Chaperon.
"And we were on the way to the nearest police-station, with a dear old
gentleman who could speak English, and a whole procession of extraneous
creatures who couldn't, when we saw Tibe, calmly driving in a carriage
with----"
"A strange man, and----"
"He never so much as looked at us, but we were _sure_ we couldn't be
mistaken, at least Nell was; so we deserted our old gentleman, and began
running after Tibe's carriage, shrieking for it to stop."
"Naturally, every one thought we were mad; but we didn't care, and at
last the man in the carriage realized we were after him. If he _hadn't_
stopped, we should have known that he'd deliberately stolen Tibe; but he
did stop, and we said, both together, it was our dog."
"The man took off his hat, and answered in English, such a nice man, and
quite good-looking, with a big mustache, and quick-tempered blue eyes.
He said that the first thing he knew, Tibe had jumped into his cab, and
he had no idea where he came from, as he'd been reading in a guide-book;
but the strangest thing was, he felt certain Tibe had belonged to _him_
when a puppy; only his dog wasn't named Tibe, but John Bull--Bully for
short, and he sold him to an American, because it turned out his wife
didn't like bulldogs in the house, she thought them too ugly."
"What a _cat_!" interpolated the Chaperon.
"Could it be possible that Tibe ever _was_ his?" asked Nell. "He sold
his dog just a year ago, when he was six months old----"
"I bought Tibe ten months ago, poor lamb, for a song, because he was
ill--he'd been seasick on a long voyage, so I nursed him up, and _see_
what he is now," said Tibe's mistress. "It may be he'd belonged to this
man, for it's always the strangest things that are true. Tibe has a
wonderful memory for faces; but I'm sure if I'd been with him, he
wouldn't have run away from me for twenty old masters."
"The _second_ queerest thing in the adventure is, that this 'old
master' must be some relation of yours, Lady MacNairne," said Nell. "He
gave us his card. See, here it is." She handed it to the Chaperon, who
gazed at it through her blue spectacles for a moment without speaking;
then passed it to Starr. "Merely--a relation by marriage," said she.
"Quite a distant relation. I never saw this gentleman myself; but I
believe you've met him, haven't you, dear Ronny?"
There is plenty of room on the Mariner's face for expression. He grew
red, and his eyebrows were eloquent as he looked at the card.
"Oh--er--yes, I've seen him, I think," he mumbled, "when I was in
Scotland last. Odd he happens to be here."
"He only arrived this morning, on important business," Nell explained.
"If it weren't for that, he would have asked to bring us back to our
hotel, but it was something that had to be attended to without a
moment's delay, so he was obliged to leave us at once. He was on the way
to the Hotel de l'Europe, where he hoped to find the people he'd come to
seek."
No need for me to see that card. I knew well who was the hero of the
girls' adventure, and would have guessed without the aid of Starr's
expression. He saw that I guessed, and turned to me with a look of
appeal.
"Well, at all events, Tibe is safe," I said, "and we ought to start, if
we're to get through our program to-day. Ladies, is your luggage ready?
I'll see that Tibe has a nice bone instead of breakfast. He can eat it
in the car, going to the boat; and as it's dusty, you had better put on
your motor-veils when you leave the hotel. Starr and I are going to wear
goggles."
"Alb," said Starr, as the ladies moved away, "you may have a bad heart,
but you have a good head. Disguise and flight are our only hope. If Sir
Alec should recognize me----"
("If he should recognize me," I echoed inwardly.)
"The game would be up."
"Speed, veils, and goggles may do the trick," said I.
"But afterwards? By Jove, what we're let in for!"
"We must set our wits to work. Change 'Lorelei's' name and disappear
into space."
Five minutes later we were off, unrecognizable by our best friends, and
Tibe well hidden, deeply interested in his bone at the bottom of the
_tonneau_. But hardly were we away when Miss Rivers cried out----
"Oh, look, Nell; there's Sir Alec MacNairne. Oughtn't we to stop a
minute, so that Lady MacNairne----"
"I'm afraid we haven't time," I said hastily, and put on speed, as much
as I dared in traffic. We whizzed by a cab, and might have passed the
gloomy-faced man who sat in it with his traveling-bag (hastily packed,
I'll warrant) had not the two girls bowed.
Their faces were not to be recognized behind the small, triangular tale
windows of the silk and lace motor-veils they bought in Haarlem; but
their bow attracted Sir Alec MacNairne's attention, and those
"quick-tempered blue eyes" of his looked the whole party over as he
lifted his hat from his crisply curling auburn hair. He probably divined
that the two veiled figures must be the girls of his late adventure; and
as he was now acquainted with them and with Tibe, there would be one
less chance of our boat slipping away from under his nose, in case he
got upon our track.
I realized that Sir Alec could not have been in Scotland when the fatal
paragraph appeared, which reached our eyes only yesterday. If he had
been, he could not have arrived in Amsterdam to-day. My idea now is that
he must have come abroad in search of his wife, have seen the Paris
_Herald_ at some Continental resort, and have rushed off post-haste to
Holland, expecting to find her.
Exactly why he should have chosen Amsterdam to begin his quest, is not
so clear; but he must have had reason to hope that he might get news of
Lady MacNairne and my (supposed) motor-boat here. Doubtless he will
sooner or later come upon a clue. If he turns up at the Amstel to
prosecute his inquiries, he may hear of Tibe, and of the two beautiful
young ladies. Then he will put two and two together, and will be after
us--as Starr's favorite expression is--"before we can say knife."
At present I have all the sensations of being a villain, with none of
the advantages.
XIX
It seemed homelike to be on board "Lorelei" again, in my place at the
wheel, with the two girls and the Chaperon in their deck-chairs close
by. Starr had been meaning to make a sketch of the group under the
awning, but the dread apparition of his aunt's husband had twisted his
nerves like wires struck by lightning, and he could do nothing. His is
essentially the artistic temperament, and he is a creature of moods,
impish in some, poetic in others; an extraordinary fellow, like no one I
ever saw, yet curiously fascinating, and I find myself growing oddly
fond of him, in an elder-brotherly, protecting sort of way.
Even I have my moods sometimes, though I can hide them better than he
can; and this morning I was in the wrong key for the idyllic peace and
prim prettiness of Broek-in-Waterland. I should have liked better to be
out on a meer in Friesland, in a stiff breeze; but since it had to be
Broek, I made the best of it.
The canal leading to that sleepy little village, which seems to float on
the water like a half-closed lily, is one of the prettiest in the
Netherlands. Almost at once, after parting from Amsterdam, we turned out
of the North Sea Canal; and the smoke and bustle of the port were left
behind like a troubled dream. We lifted a veil of sunbright mist, and
found ourselves in the country--a friendly country of wide spaces such
as we passed through in motoring between Amersfoort and Spaakenberg; of
mossy farmhouses and hayfields, grazing cows, and swallows skimming low
over little side-canals carpeted with vegetation like a netting of green
beads. But here the hay was not protected by the elevated roofs of
thatch we had seen yesterday. It lay in loose heaps of yellowing grass,
shining in the sun like giant birds' nests of woven gold; and all the
low-lying landscape shimmered pale golden and filmy green, too sweet and
fresh for the green of any other country save mine, in mid-July. Here
and there a peasant in some striking costume, or a horse in a blue coat,
made a spot of color in the pearl and primrose light, under clouds
changeful as opal; and each separate, dainty picture of farmhouse, or
lock, or group of flags and reeds had its double in the water, lying
bright and clear as a painting under glass, until our vandal boat came
to shiver picture after picture.
As we moved, our progress not only sent an advance wave racing along the
dyke, but tossed up a procession of tiny rainbow fountains, as if we
threw handfuls of sapphires and diamonds into the water in passing.
Sometimes we had glimpses of mysterious villages, a line of
pink-and-green houses stretching along the canal banks below the level
of the water, shielded by rows of trees trained, in the Dutch way, to
grow flat and wide, screening the windows as an open fan screens the
sparkling eyes of a woman who peeps behind its sticks.
These half-hidden dwelling-places inspired Starr to launch out in a
disquisition upon some of the characteristics he has observed among my
people.
"Funny thing," said Starr, "the Dutch are a queer mixture of reserve and
curiosity. You don't see a town or village where the windows aren't
covered with curtains, and protected by squares of blue netting. But
though the beings behind those windows are so anxious to live in
private, they're consumed with curiosity about what's going on outside.
For fear of missing something, they stick up looking-glasses on the
walls to tell them what happens in the street. 'Seeing, unseen,' is the
motto that ought to be written over the house doors."
"The Lady of Shalott started the fashion," said Nell.
As we drew nearer to Broek-in-Waterland, the landscape, already fragrant
with daintiness, began to tidy itself anew, out of deference to Broek's
reputation. The smallest and rudest wooden houses on the canal banks had
frilled their windows with stiff white curtains and tied them with
ribbon. Railings had painted themselves blue or green, and smartened
their tips with white. Even the rakes, hoes, and implements of labor had
got themselves up in red and yellow, and green buckets had wide-open
scarlet mouths.
As we walked to the village, after mooring "Lorelei" at the bridge, the
girls laughed and chatted together, but involuntarily they hushed their
voices on entering the green shadow of the little town under its
slow-marching procession of great trees; and the spell of somnolent
silence seized them.
I think no one coming into Broek-in-Waterland could escape that spell.
There is no noise there. Even the trees whisper, and not the most badly
brought up dog would dare to bark aloud.
"Have you noticed," Nell asked me softly, "that you never hear _sounds_
in dreams? No matter how exciting things are, there's never any noise;
everything seems to be acted in pantomime. Well, it's like that here.
We're dreaming Broek-in-Waterland as we have other places."
"And dreaming each other, too?"
"I shouldn't wonder."
"Then I hope nothing will happen to wake me up."
Just then we arrived at a dream curiosity-shop which gave her an excuse
not to answer.
On the edge of the town it stands, one of the first among the little old
houses, which look as if they had been made to accommodate well-to-do
dolls of a century or two ago. Modestly retired in a doll's garden, with
an imitation stalactite grotto, and groups of miniature statues among
box-tree animals, its door is always open to welcome visitors and
allure them. Within, vague splashes of color against a dim background;
blues that mean old Delft; yellow that means ancient brass; and all
gleaming in the dusk with the strange values that flowers gain in
twilight.
I knew that Nell and Phyllis and the Chaperon would not pass by, and
they didn't.
There was a man inside, but he did not ask us to buy anything. He had
the air of a host, pleased to show his treasures, and the Chaperon
feared that I was playing some joke when I encouraged them to invade the
quaint and pretty rooms.
"I don't believe it _is_ a shop," said she. "It's just an eccentric
little house, that belongs to somebody who's away--a dear old maiden
lady, perhaps, a collector of antiques, for her own pleasure. This man's
her caretaker."
"She's strayed into some other dream, maybe," suggested Nell. "She's
lost her way, poor old dear, and can never find it again, to come back,
so that's why the things are for sale--if they really _are_. But listen,
all the clocks in the house are talking to each other about her. _They_
expect her to come, and that's why they keep on ticking, through the
years, to make the time seem short in passing; for some of them must
have had their hundredth birthday, long, long ago."
"He's a faithful caretaker then, to keep everything in such good order,"
said Phyllis. "But perhaps he believes what the clocks are saying about
the old lady coming back. He's got the sweetest little clean curtains at
the windows, and this too adorable wall-bed is ready for her to hop
into, and dream the right dream again."
"He'd be mobbed by other Broekites, if he didn't keep things clean," I
answered. "You know, Broek-in-Waterland is supposed to be the cleanest
place in the Netherlands, which is something of a boast, isn't it? The
saying used to be that, if a leaf dropped off a tree, or a wisp of hay
off a passing cart, and one of the inhabitants saw it, he ran out of his
house and threw the dreadful thing into the canal."
"Let's scatter a few bits of paper," said Starr, "and see what would
happen."
"I'm afraid they're not as observant or energetic as they used to be. I
counted three straws on the bricks, coming up."
"What wouldn't I give to have lunch in this house, on that charming old
mahogany table, with those Delft plates and pewter mugs," sighed Miss
Rivers, her eyes traveling over the old furniture which, as she said,
seems to be ready and waiting till the wrong dream shall break.
"I'm going to take you to lunch somewhere else," I told her. "But you
can buy Delft plates and pewter mugs here for your own table, if you
like."
Then some exchange and barter did take place; although Nell said it
seemed cruel to buy anything and separate it from its old friends. One
ought to apologize to the things that were left for tearing their
companions away.
There was time to step into the nearest cheese factory, and to go on and
see the old church, I said, if they didn't mind lunching late. Of course
they did not; so we strolled into the show place of Broek, a large house
where cows live in neat bedrooms carpeted with something which resembles
grated cheese. The Chaperon suggested that, after all, it was nothing
but sawdust, and probably she was right; nevertheless each little
cubicle in the long row, with its curtained window and blue-white wall,
looked pretty enough for a fastidious human being. We should have
lingered looking at the cheeses and sniffing dairy smells, but suddenly
a tidal wave of tourists from an excursion steamer swept in, swamped us,
and swallowed Tibe. He was retrieved after a search, in the doorway of
the curiosity-shop, whither he had wisely returned to await his friends,
and we then went on past the meer with its deserted bandstand, to one
of the few lovable churches left in my country.
It is whitewashed and bare, but somehow, instead of making it grim, the
whiteness has given it a religious look. The old canopied rosewood
pulpit makes you feel good, though not disagreeably good, and the
brass-work is a joy.
"You've seen a comic opera cheese factory," said I, when we had left the
church. "Now, I'll show you the real thing, and then you shall have
lunch. It won't be conventional, but I think you'll like it."
"For heaven's sake let's drown our sorrows in cheese, or something else
supporting, and soon, or we perish," said the Mariner. "Our blood will
then be upon your head, and as it's blue, and you're brown, it won't be
at all becoming."
At this, I hurried them on, and presently arrived at a red-brick house
set in a little garden. The glass of the white-curtained windows, and
the varnished woodwork of the door at which I knocked, glittered so
intolerably that they hurt the eyes, and made one envy the Chaperon her
blue glasses. It was a relief when the dazzling door flew back to
disclose a dim interior, and a delightful old lady in a lace-covered
gold helmet, a black dress, and an elaborate apron.
"Something to eat?" she echoed my demand. "But, mynheer, we have nothing
which these ladies would fancy. For you two we could do well enough, for
you are men, and young. What does it matter what you eat, if it is
enough? These ladies will laugh at our fare."
"They'll laugh with pleasure," said I. "You can give us eggs, cheese,
bread and butter, and coffee, can't you, and strawberries and cream,
perhaps?"
"Yes, mynheer, and some fresh cake."
"Food for kings and queens, as you'll serve it, y'vrouw," I assured her;
and we flocked into the hall.
"Would you like to show your friends how we make our cheese, while I
get ready the food?" asked the dame. "If you would, I will send for my
son to guide you, though you know it so well yourself, mynheer, you need
no explanations."
Her son being one of the principal objects of interest at
Wilhelminaberg, however, the visit would not be complete without his
society, and his presence was commanded. Promptly he appeared, bringing
with him a smell of clover, and milk, and new-made cheese; a young man
with the long, clever nose, narrow blue eyes, and length of upper lip,
which you can see on any canvas of an old Dutch master.
Wilhelminaberg is not a show place; few tourists find their way there,
and it is never flooded by a wave of strangers; but if some of the stage
effects are lacking, it is more interesting for that reason.