street of the village, which is a long dyke of black Norwegian granite,
protecting little pointed-roofed houses, the lower stories of a sober
color, the upper ones with the peaked gables pea-green or blue, and the
sabots of the family lying on the door-steps. Here and there in a window
were a few bits of gaudy china for sale, or a sabot over a door as the
sign of a shoe-shop; but we hardly looked at the houses, so interesting
were their inmates, who seemed to be all in the street.
Along the dyke squatted a double row of men, old and young--mostly old;
but all as brown as if they had been carved out of oak. Every one had a
tight-fitting jersey and enormously baggy trousers, like those other men
round the corner of the Zuider Zee at Marken. But at Marken the jerseys
were dark and here of the most wonderful crimson; the new ones the shade
of a Jacqueminot rose, the faded ones like the lovely roses which Nell
calls "American beauties."
There they sat, tailor-fashion, with their legs crossed and their cloth
or fur caps tilted over their eyes as they smoked (very handsome, bold
eyes, some of them!) and, passing up and down, up and down in front of
the row as if in review, with a musical clatter of sabots, bands of
women, lovely girls, and charming little buttons of children.
Nell and I admired the costumes more than at Marken, though they're not
as striking, only innocently pretty. But I can't imagine anything more
becoming than the transparent white caps that fold back and flare out
over the ears like a soaring bird's wings. Perhaps it was partly the
effect of the light, but the young girls in their straight dark bodices,
with flowered handkerchief-chemisettes, full blue skirts--pieced with
pale-tinted stuff from waist to hips--and those flying, winged caps,
looked angelic.
They walked with their arms round each other's waists, or else they
knitted with gleaming needles. Quite toddling creatures had blue yokes
over their shoulders, and carried splashing pails of water as big as
themselves, or they had round tots of babies tucked under their arms.
But whatever they were doing--men, women, girls, boys, and babies--all
stopped doing it instantly when they spied Tibe. I don't believe they
knew he was a dog; and though he has invariably had a _succes fou_
wherever we have been, I never saw people so mad about him as at
Volendam.
The Jonkheer says there are nearly three thousand inhabitants, and half
of them were after Tibe on the dyke as we walked toward the hotel. The
news of him seemed to fly, as they say tidings travel through the
Indian bazaars. Faces appeared in windows; then quaint figures popped
out of doors, and Tibe was actually mobbed. A procession trailed after
him, shouting, laughing, calling.
Tibe was flattered at first, and preened himself for admiration; but
presently he became worried, then disgusted, and ran before the storm of
voices and wooden shoes. We were all glad to get him into the hotel.
Such a quaint hotel, with incredibly neat, box-like rooms, whose
varnished, green wooden walls you could use for mirrors. I didn't know
that it was famous, but it seems that it is; also the landlord and his
many daughters. Every artist who has ever come to Volendam has painted a
picture for the big room which you enter as you walk in from the street,
and I saw half a dozen which I should love to own.
It was fun dining out-of-doors on a big, covered balcony looking over
the Zuider Zee, and seeing the horizon populous with fishing-boats. In
the falling dusk they looked like the flitting figures of tall, graceful
ladies moving together hand in hand, with flowing skirts; some in
gossiping knots, others hovering proudly apart in pairs like princesses.
It is wonderful how our chaperon makes friends with people, and gets
them to do as she likes. If she were young and pretty it wouldn't be
strange--at least, where men are concerned; but though her complexion
(what one can see of it) looks fresh, if pale, and she has no hollows or
wrinkles, her hair is gray, and she wears blue spectacles, with only a
bit of face really visible. One hardly knows what she does look like.
Nevertheless, the men of our party are her slaves; and it is the same at
hotels. If at first landlords say Tibe can't live in the house, the next
minute, when she has wheedled a little, they are patting his head,
calling him "good dog," and telling his mistress that they will make an
exception in his case.
The morning after we arrived in Volendam I got up early, because Mr. van
Buren offered to show me the place if I cared to take a walk. It was
only half-past eight when we strolled out of the hotel, and the first
person I met was Lady MacNairne. She had been walking, and was on her
way back, looking like the Old Woman in the Shoe, surrounded by children
of all sizes. She had made friends with them, and taken their
photographs, and their grown-up sisters had told her lots of things
about Volendam.
She had found out that as soon as the fisherfolk's sons begin to dress
like boys, they are given their buckles and neck-buttons: the gold or
silver knobs which are different for each fishing-village of Holland; so
that, if a man is found drowned, you can tell where he comes from by his
buttons.
She had learned that the trousers are baggy, because in storms the men
don't get as wet as in tight ones. That the women wear eight petticoats,
not only because it's "the mode," but because it's considered beautiful
for a girl to look stout; and besides, it's not thought modest to show
how you are shaped.
Another thing she learned was that, just as the boys must have their
buckles and buttons (and ear-rings, if they can get them), each Volendam
girl, if she wishes to be anybody, must have a coral necklace with a
gold cross; several silver rings; a silver buckle for her purse; and a
scent-bottle with a silver top and foot. No girl could hope to marry
well, Lady MacNairne said, without these things; and as the ones who
told her had no rings or scent-bottles in their collections, she would
get her nephew to buy them. It wouldn't do for him to make the presents
himself, as the girls were proud, though their fathers earned only five
gulden a week; but she would give them, and then it would be all right.
One of the girls was unhappy, as she was in love with a young fisherman,
and they were too poor to marry, so she expected to go to Rotterdam as a
nursemaid.
"It seems," said Lady MacNairne, "that Volendam girls are in demand all
over Holland, as nurses; they're so good to children and animals. But
this one won't have to go, for dear Ronny must supply her _dot_."
"Have you asked him?" I inquired.
She laughed. "No," said she. "He'll do it, though, to please me, I
know."
These things were not all she had found out. She knew that Volendam had
first been made famous twenty or thirty years ago by an artist named
Clausen, who came by accident and went away to tell all his friends. She
knew how the Hotel Spaander had been started to please the artists, and
how it had grown year by year; and all the things that people told her
she had written in a note-book which she wears dangling from a
chatelaine. It does seem odd for a Scotswoman, and one of her rank, to
be so keen about every detail of travel, that she must scribble it down
in a book, in a frantic hurry. But then, many things about Lady
MacNairne _are_ odd.
The sun was blazing that morning, but a wind had come up in the night,
and beaten the waves into froth. The dark sea-line stretched unevenly
along the horizon, and there were no fishing-boats to be seen. All were
snugly nestled in harbor, with their gay pennants just visible over the
pointed roofs of the houses; and we had an exciting breakfast on the
balcony, because, though it wasn't cold, the tablecloths and napkins
flapped wildly in the wind, like big white rings of frightened swans.
Jonkheer Brederode had planned to go northward, skirting the coast to
see two more Dead Cities of the Zuider Zee, Hoorn and Enkhuisen, and cut
across the sea to Stavoren on the other side, to enter the Frisian
Meers. But now he refused to take us that way. The men might go, if they
liked, he said, and there really wasn't much danger; but in such rough
weather he couldn't allow women to run the risk in "Lorelei."
"But it wouldn't be in 'Lorelei,' Lady MacNairne put in. 'Lorelei' has
ceased to exist."
Nell grew pink and I think I grew pale. It was an awful shock to hear
her speak so calmly about the loss of our dear boat, of which we have
grown so fond.
"Ceased to exist!" I repeated, cold all over. "Has she _gone under_?"
"Only under a coat of paint," said Mr. Starr, hurriedly. "You know, Miss
Van Buren consented to humor my aunt, who thought the name unlucky, by
rechristening the boat 'Mascotte,' so I did it myself, this morning, the
first thing, before there were many people about to get in my way."
"I'd forgotten," said Nell. "But if she's 'Mascotte' now, isn't that a
sign she could take us safely through the sea? They're only miniature
waves."
"You wouldn't think so if you were in their midst in a motor-boat," said
the Jonkheer.
"I'm ready to try," Nell answered.
"But I'm not ready to let you," he said, with one of his nice smiles.
However, this didn't conciliate Nell. In an instant she bristled up, as
she used to with him, before Amsterdam.
"It's my boat," she said.
"But I'm the boat's skipper. The skipper must act according to his
judgment. Joking apart though----"
"I'm _not_ joking. If men can go, why can't women? We're not afraid. It
would be fun."
"Not for the men, if they had women to think of. You see, the boat is
top-heavy, owing to the cabin superstructure, and it wouldn't be
impossible for her to turn turtle in a heavy sea. Besides, rough waves
might break the cabin windows, and if she began to take in water in that
way, we should be done, for no bailing could help us. Do you still want
to make the trip, Miss Van Buren?"
"I do," Nell insisted. "Because I don't believe those things will
happen."
"Neither do I, or I shouldn't care to risk your boat. But there's a
chance."
"I shouldn't dream of venturing," said Lady MacNairne, "and I'm sure
Phyllis wouldn't go without her chaperon, would you, dear?"
"No," I answered; and that mercifully settled it for Nell, as she
couldn't take a trip alone with the men.
"In any case, it's pleasanter to drive from here to Hoorn and
Enkhuisen," went on the Jonkheer, "and the only real reason for sticking
to the boat even in fine weather would have been that you came to 'do'
Holland in a motor-boat, and wanted to be true to your principles. The
coast is flat and low, and you'd have seen nothing except a line of land
which would have looked uninteresting across the water, whereas in my
car----"
"But your car isn't here," objected Nell.
"It may be, any minute now. I've been expecting it for the last hour. I
wasn't trusting entirely to luck, when we came; and my chauffeur had
orders to hold himself in readiness for a telegram. Last night, as soon
as I saw the wind getting up, I wired him in Amsterdam, where he was
waiting, to start as soon as it was light."
"You're a wonderful fellow," said Mr. van Buren, and I complimented him
too; but Nell didn't speak.
A few minutes later we heard the whirr of a motor, and the buzz of
excited voices. We had just finished breakfast, so we rushed from the
balcony at the back of the house, through the big room of the pictures,
to the front door; and there was Jonkheer Brederode's car (on the dyke,
which is the only road), with the smart little chauffeur smiling and
touching his cap to his master, amid a swarm of girls and boys.
By-and-by it was decided that only Jonkheer Brederode and Hendrik (with
Toon on the barge) should test the motor-boat's seaworthy qualities,
while Mr. van Buren and Mr. Starr stopped with us. This was the
Jonkheer's idea. He would prefer it, he said, as the fewer there were on
"Lorelei"--alias "Mascotte"--the better. And Mr. van Buren ought to be
with us, to tell us about places.
I think all the men would have liked the adventure, but they couldn't
say that they didn't want to be of our party, and Lady MacNairne
actually begged her nephew to come in the motor. She didn't confess that
she was afraid for him. The reason she gave was that she couldn't take
care of Tibe in the car without his help. I was sure she was anxious.
Though I couldn't help being glad for his family's sake that Mr. van
Buren was safe (as safe as any one can be in a motor-car) it did seem
sad that Jonkheer Brederode was left to brave the danger without his
friends.
All Lady MacNairne's thought was for her nephew, and so I felt it would
be only kind to show the Jonkheer that some one cared about _him_. I
begged him to let Hendrik manage the boat alone, for I said we should
all be so worried, that it would spoil our drive. I supposed Nell would
join with me, as Lady MacNairne did, if only enough for civility, but
she wouldn't say a word. However, though she pretended to be more
interested in examining the car than listening to our conversation, she
was pale, with the air of having a headache.
Jonkheer Brederode was pleased, I think, to feel that some one took an
interest in him; but he made light of the danger, and saw us off so
merrily that I forgot to worry.
Mr. van Buren didn't want to drive; Mr. Starr doesn't know how; and as
Nell said she would like to sit in front with the chauffeur, Lady
MacNairne and I had the two men in the _tonneau_ with us.
We were gay; but Nell didn't turn round once to join in our talk. She
sat there beside the chauffeur, as glum as if she had lost her last
friend. Perhaps she was alarmed for her boat, as she doesn't care about
the Jonkheer.
Now we began to see what a Dutch dyke really is, and I could imagine men
riding furiously along the high, narrow road, carrying the news to
village after village that the water was rising.
There was just room on top for anything we might meet to pass; but the
chauffeur drove slowly, and Mr. van Buren said there was no danger, so I
wasn't afraid. There was a sense of protection in sitting next to him,
he is so big and dependable. I felt he would not _let_ anything hurt me;
and once in a while he looked at me with a very nice look. I suppose he
has even nicer ones for Freule Menela, though, when they are alone
together. It is a pity her manner is so much against her.
Although I wasn't terrified, it was an exciting drive, running along on
the high dyke (I could hardly believe it when Mr. van Buren said there
were bigger ones in Zeeland), with the Zuider Zee on one side and the
wide green reaches of Jonkheer Brederode's Hollow Land on the other.
I shivered to think what would happen if the hungry sea, forever gnawing
at the granite pile, were to break it down and pour over the low-lying
land. Many times in the past such awful things happened; what if to-day
were the day for it to happen again?
I asked Mr. van Buren if he didn't wake up sometimes in the night with
an attack of the horrors; but he seemed anxious to soothe me, as if he
didn't want his country spoiled for me by fears.
"The corps of engineers who look after the coast defenses is the best in
the world," he said.
Edam was our first town; and it was odd to see it, after nibbling its
cheeses more or less all one's life, and never thinking of the place
they came from. The funniest thing was that it smelled of cheese--a
delicious smell that seemed a part of the town's tranquillity, just as
the perfume seems part of a flower. In most of the pretty old houses
with their glittering ornamental tiles, there was some sign of
cheese-making; and all the people of Edam must have been busy making it,
as we saw only two or three.
We stopped in a large public square, with a pattern in the colored
pavement, like carpet, and the place was so quiet that the sound of the
silence droned in our ears.
"And this," said Mr. van Buren, "was once one of the proudest cities of
the Zuider Zee!"
"My goodness!" exclaimed Lady MacNairne, "is this little old thing
another of the Dead Cities? Well, I'm sure it couldn't have been half as
nice when it was alive." And down something went in her note-book.
We drove by a park, a noble church, and the loveliest cemetery I ever
saw, not at all sad. I could not think of the dead there, but only of
children playing and lovers strolling under the trees.
As soon as we were outside Edam we began to pass windmills quite
different from any we had seen before. They were just like stout Dutch
ladies, smartly dressed in green, with coats and bonnets of gray thatch
and greenish veils over their faces, half hiding the big eyes which
gazed alway toward the dyke that imprisons the Zuider Zee.
We had been off the dyke and skimming along an ordinary Dutch road for a
while; but presently we swerved toward the right and were again on a
dyke sloping toward the sea. Sailing along its level top we could see
far off the embowered roofs and spires of a town which Mr. van Buren
said was the once powerful city of Hoorn.
"Isn't there a Cape somewhere named after it?" asked Lady MacNairne
gaily; and Mr. van Buren (answering that William Schouten, the sailor
who discovered the Cape, named it after his native town) looked
surprised at her ignorance.
She doesn't seem to know much about history, but she will know a great
deal about Holland before we finish this trip if she goes on as she is
going now.
In ten minutes we were in the suburbs; in five more we were in the Dead
City itself; but it had the air of having been resurrected and being
delighted to find itself alive again. We passed row upon row of
wonderful carts, shaped like the cars of classical goddesses, though no
self-respecting goddess would have her car painted green outside and
blue or scarlet within.
"By Jove, now I know why Brederode was so keen on our getting off early
and not waiting at Volendam till to-morrow for the wind to die!"
exclaimed Mr. van Buren. "What a fellow he is to think of everything!
This is the one and only time to find Hoorn at its best--market-day. And
now you will see some nice things."
He had the chauffeur slow down the car in a fascinating street, with
quaint houses leaning back or sidewise, and bearing themselves as they
pleased.
"Which way for the cheese market?" Mr. van Buren asked an old man with a
wreath of white fur under his chin.
He asked in Dutch, but so many Dutch words sound like caricatures of
English ones that I begin to understand now. Besides, I have bought a
grammar and study it in the evenings. This pleased Mr. van Buren when I
told him, and he says I have made splendid progress. I've got as far as
"I love, you love, he loves," and so on. I think Dutch an extremely
interesting language.
The old man told us which way to go, and turning up a street we should
never have thought of, we came out in a huge market-place presided over
by a statue of Coen, a man who founded the Dutch dominion in the West
Indies, or something which Mr. van Buren thought important.
We have often wondered where the people of the towns hide themselves;
but there was no such puzzle in Hoorn. The market-place looked as if
half the population of North Holland might be there. The whole of the
square was covered with cheeses, large shiny cheeses, yellow as
monstrous oranges. They glittered so radiantly in the sunlight that you
felt they might at any instant burst out into a flame. Between the great
glowing mounds little paths had been left, and along these paths walked
lines of solemn men inspecting the burning globes and bargaining with
their possessors; while outside the huge, cheese-paved space there was a
moving crowd, gay and shifting as the figures made by bits of colored
glass in a kaleidoscope.
[Illustration: _Solemn men inspecting burning globes, and bargaining
with their possessors_]
We expected to create a sensation with the motor, but the cheeses were
more interesting, and nobody had time for more than a glance at us.
Suddenly, as we sat gazing at the scene, affairs in the market-place
came to some kind of crisis. A stream of men appeared, dressed in
spotless white from head to foot, and wearing varnished, hard straw hats
of different colors. Soon, we saw it was the hats which determined
everything. The blue-hatted men walked together; the red hats formed
another party; the yellow hats a third; and so on. Each corps carried
large yet shallow trays suspended from their shoulders--two men to a
tray--and falling upon the piles of cheeses they gathered them up with
incredible quickness. Then, when the trays were loaded with a pyramid of
cheeses, off rushed the men to a wonderful Weigh House which Mr. van
Buren says is famous throughout all North Holland. Inside were many men,
busy as bees, weighing cheeses with enormous scales. Down dropped the
trays; the weight was taken, and away darted the men bearing the yellow
treasures to some neighboring warehouse.
We watched the weighing for a long time, until we were so hungry that we
could feel no enthusiasm for anything except lunch. But as we drove
through crowded streets to a hotel, it was interesting to pass
warehouses where cheeses were being stored. The porters with the
bright hats (worn to denote their ancient guilds) were standing on the
pavement tossing up cheeses, like conjurors keeping a lot of oranges in
the air. Men above, standing in open lofts, caught the golden balls as
they flew up, and stored them among crowds of others that seemed to
illuminate the dim background like half-extinguished lanterns glowing in
the dark.
We lunched at an old-fashioned hotel with enormous rooms; and then, as
we had time, we wound through the chief streets of the Dead City,
stopping now and then to study _bas-reliefs_ on ancient houses, telling
of stirring events when the name of Hoorn sounded loud in the world.
There was one stone picture of many old ships in commotion among
impossible waves, and the description was all in one
word--"Bossuzeeslag." It seemed very impressive to sit staring up at it
while Mr. van Buren told how "we" whipped the Spanish ship "Inquisition"
after thirty hours' fighting on the sand-bank, and all the people of
Hoorn assembled to look on.
After seeing the house where Graaf Bossu was kept prisoner our interest
in the Hoorn of long ago was kindled to a blaze. Mr. van Buren proposed
taking us to the Museum, so we all went, except poor Mr. Starr, who sat
in front of the handsome building in the motor-car, on "dog duty," as he
calls it.
I liked the reproduction of an old Dutch inn, and the plans of the Dead
Cities as they used to be; but the paintings of determined-looking
burgomasters in black with ruffles and conical hats, were pathetic. The
men in their short frilled trousers and high boots, thought themselves
so important, poor dears, with their piteous forefingers proudly
pointing to maps and specifications, that it was sad to see them still
doing it when all their plans had come to nothing long ago. We admired
Hoorn as it is, but it would break their hearts if they could see it,
given up to cheese, and only of importance in the cheese world.
We were not in the Museum long, but Mr. Starr had suffered tortures
meanwhile, and looked ten years older when we came out. Tibe had been
asleep on the floor of the _tonneau_ while we were in the market-place
before lunch, so nobody had seen him. But, deserted by his mistress, he
sat up in the car to look for her, and the passers-by caught sight of
him. Word went round that there was a strange monster, a cross between a
monkey and a goblin, sitting in an automobile, and all the people of
Hoorn poured into the street to see the show, just as they had poured to
the harbor more than three hundred years ago when the "zeeslag" was
going on.
We came out to find the car almost lost to sight in the crush; but Mr.
van Buren, who is like a great, handsome Viking, pushed the people
aside, and said things to them in Dutch which made some laugh and others
grumble.
To escape, we drove out of the town into toy-like suburbs, with little
streets, and tiny houses on dykes, each one with its drawbridge across
the stream running on either side a dyke-road. And now we seemed to be
in the heart of toyland. It was like a place built by Santa Claus, to
come to at Christmas time, and choose presents to fill his pack.
Aalsmeer and Broek-in-Waterland, which we had thought toy-like, were
grown-up villages for grown-up people compared to this toy-world.