that. What may not a man come to? Only yesterday he was teaching my
daughter’s children their lessons, and to-day the poor lambs are running
after their master, because he’s been in jail just like some nasty
vagabond. And I can’t believe it of him, do you know—anything but that.
He has always been much too kind to every one. I’m not the only one here
whom he has helped for nothing—nothing at all—without your having to pay
a cent for it.”
“Yes, but, mother,” began a rich farmer,—with a face and attitude in
which the most condescending amiability could not altogether hide the
lowest greed, and a stupid arrogant conceit,—“you must understand that
there are well-founded reasons—I say, _well-founded reasons_—for the man
to have been taken up—eh? That’s surely self-evident—eh? No one is put
into handcuffs without important reasons; there must be a ground for
such a motive—I say, _for such a motive_.” And then the mighty orator
looked round him with a “What do you think of me now?” expression, and
enjoyed his victory over the old woman. But the latter was not to be
driven from the field so easily.
“You go along with your French talk. I know nothing about that,—and yet
I think I know quite as much as you do yourself. But this I know, that
it doesn’t look well for you, of all people, to abuse the schoolmaster
anyway. Even though it were as clear as a post above the water that the
Dominie had stolen, _you_ ought to stand up for him! Do you understand
me—eh?”
The rich farmer understood quite well. When his youngest boy had been
lying ill some months ago, he had been too mean to send for a doctor,
though he could well afford it, and had called the schoolmaster to his
assistance. Then, as at other times, the Dominie had said “No,” to keep
up appearances, as he was not supposed to practise any more; but he had
thought “Yes,” and acted on his thought. And the rich farmer had paid
him nothing. This was why he now hurriedly turned away from this covert
attack, muttering something about “old creatures getting quite
childish,” but abstained from further contradiction.
But the old woman could not be everywhere at once to take the Dominie’s
part, and the conclusion of most conversations was this: “Yes, you see,
folks don’t call a cow piebald, when there’s not a spot about her.”
Suddenly, however, all voices were hushed before the reverently-uttered
magic formula, “The Burgomaster!”
The crowd parted to let him pass, and he went up to the council-chamber,
where the faithful Kobus, in his Sunday suit, was awaiting him. He was
already going to meet the burgomaster, in order to tell him that “they”
were all there; but the great man was looking straight in front of him,
as stiff as a poker, and making, in a direct line, for his official
chair, like a guest who, on being ushered in, looks neither to right nor
left, but makes straight for the lady of the house.
This was “the proper form.” Kobus was so impressed by this ceremonial
that he stared with open mouth and eyes, and remained immovable, like a
masculine counterpart of Lot’s wife. The burgomaster had elegant
manners, that he had.
“Are all present?” asked the burgomaster, suddenly.
Kobus awakened with a start from his ecstatic trance. “Yes, your
worship,” he answered, regaining his composure.
“Then the trial may begin,” said the President of the Court. “And you,
Veldwachter, do you caligraph it!”
“I—I don’t altogether understand, your worship.”
“Caligraph, Veldwachter!”
“Oh!—ah!—hm—yes, I don’t understand——.”
“Write it down, Veldwachter. Caligraphy—that is the art of writing, you
know.”
“All right, your worship.” Kobus sat down at a table, took up a pen, and
bent over a sheet of paper. But the paper was destined to remain
unsoiled. For, all of a sudden, the burgomaster looked round him, and,
probably struck by the emptiness of the room, inquired, “Veldwachter,
are all the witnesses present?”
“All the witnesses are present, your worship,” answered Kobus,
indicating, with a majestic wave of the hand, his solitary son Hannes,
who sat so forlorn, that, looking at him and the schoolmaster, it would
have been hard to say which was witness and which defendant; for the
Dominie had his handcuffed hands on his knees under the table, and you
would not have guessed from his calm features—pale and worn with the
fatigues of the last few days—that he was accused of any crime.
“But,” pursued Kobus, “your worship has just said something that gives
me an idea. Ought there not to be some other witnesses?”
“Other witnesses?”
“Yes, I mean witnesses to witness _for_ him, do you see? I mean to say,
Hannes sits here, for instance, to speak against—I mean against the
Dominie,—but ought there not to be some witnesses to speak for him as
well?”
The burgomaster began to think. This was a difficult question, one of
those ticklish and delicate problems, the solution of which forms the
principal _raison d’être_ of a burgomaster’s career. If only this
miserable trial had never begun! He cast a furtive glance at the
defendant. If only he could consult the Dominie, and ask him to look up
his books about the matter! But away with such humiliating thoughts! No;
better, if it must be, to manifest his ignorance in a more becoming way:
“Veldwachter, is that what they do in town? It was different in my
time.”
“They do it that way now, your worship.”
“Then we had better move with the times, and adapt ourselves to the new
usages. But where are the—the _for_-witnesses to come from?”
“Oh! there’s a whole crowd outside the door, your worship—perhaps you
might find one among them. And if there’s no one to be had—well, at any
rate, we’ve done our best to find one.”
“Go outside, then, and proclaim a summons, on my behalf.”
Kobus went and did so, wording the “proclamation” as clearly as he knew
how. But a deathly stillness was all the answer he received. For though
many a simple soul was honestly convinced of the defendant’s innocence,
and though here and there a solitary voice had been raised in his
favour,—to go in there, into the council-chamber,—_to stand before the
tribunal_,—that was more than those timid folk could undertake.
Suddenly, however, a shrill voice cried, “Well, if no one else will do
it, I will.” And the little old woman who had already taken up the
cudgels for the Dominie, forced her way hastily to the front of the
crowd.
“Look’ee there; Auntie’s going to speak,” cried various voices. Every
one repeated, laughing, “Auntie’s going to speak!” for under this name
the old lady was known to all the village.
Auntie cared neither for laughter nor tears, but went straight forward,
climbed the court-house steps, and then suddenly turned round, waved her
thin old arms, and cried as loud as she could, “You’re a pack of
cowards, the lot of you,—do you hear, you great loobies?” Then she
disappeared inside. And though she was a funny figure enough as she
stood there, no one thought of laughing,—they all felt the truth of
Auntie’s words too deeply.
[Illustration:
“YOU’RE A PACK OF COWARDS.”
]
Auntie was conducted inside by the veldwachter, and her eye immediately
fell on her client. The Dominie remained seated in the same attitude,
discouraged and dejected—deeply humiliated by the thought that, at his
age, with his aspirations and such a past behind him, he should have to
bow his head beneath the weight of a criminal accusation! The trouble
dimmed his thinking powers, and drove the blood through his veins at
lightning speed. What a hammering in his pulses—what a thumping in his
temples—what a rushing in his ears! He felt like a swimmer who has been
long under water, and finds it press more and more crushingly on him,
and hears its noise in his ears. That was the fever—the fever that was
rising higher and higher in his blood, and brought that unnatural flush
to his usually pale cheeks.
Auntie looked at the sad spectacle he presented, and her indignation
rose, and craved for immediate utterance.
“Burgomaster!” she began, “don’t you call it a shame that the Dominie——”
But her flow of words was immediately interrupted by the burgomaster:
“Silence! witness, this is not as it should be. You have come here to
give your evidence voluntarily, and to do this effectually all the forms
must be observed. Witness, what is your name?”
“Well, I never—my name! Just as though the whole village didn’t know me?
Come, come, Burgomaster, every one knew my name long before yours was
ever thought of; and do you want to pretend that you don’t know me? No,
man, that won’t do. All those grand manners won’t go down with old
Auntie. All the same, I can tell you plainly why the poor fellow could
not have stolen the pears; and so you are quite out of it, with all your
fine forms and speeches, do you see? Now just let me ask you, if he took
the pears, where did he leave them,—say?”
And Auntie placed her arms akimbo, and assumed an attitude which seemed
to say, “Your turn now—come on!”
But the opposite party remained passive. The burgomaster, as it
happened, was seized with a violent fit of coughing, which seemed as
though it could not come to an end. It was a pity, for, but for that,
surely, the wise man would have answered the conundrum with Solomonic
perspicuity. The veldwachter-clerk said, “Hm, hm—yes, yes,” and covered
his beard with his hand. The witness for the prosecution yawned with
_ennui_ and hunger. The defendant sat still, and looked at the old woman
with rigid eyes.
But all things come to an end, and so did the presiding judge’s cough.
However, he seemed to have coughed away all his judicial sagacity, for
he remained silent. Not so Kobus Mulders, who awakened from his reverie
after this fashion—
“Yes, yes,—where did he leave them? I only say, your worship,—where did
he leave the pears, if he stole them?”
“Oh, yes, that’s what I should like to know,” said Auntie, shortly, and
closed her lips with a look of firm conviction.
Another pause.
“Yes,” resumed Kobus, “he can’t have swallowed them all down at once.”
This joke appeared to him so inexpressibly funny, that he burst into a
loud hoarse laugh, which was echoed by no one except Hannes. But
suddenly the joker’s features became rigid, and he looked at every one
present with a face whose expression plainly said, “How is it possible
that I did not think of it before?” and exclaimed, “I know! Your
worship, the little chest that we found in Klaas’s cottage the day after
he died——”
“Well, Kobus?” asked the burgomaster, in great excitement—so much so
that he quite forgot to speak officially.
“It is the Dominie’s, and now I understand everything. The Dominie
_didn’t_ steal, and Auntie is quite right. It could not be, either. Just
listen. The Dominie has been at his doctoring again. He went to see
Klaas when he was dying, and forgot to take his medicine-chest away with
him when he left. I am quite sure it is his medicine-chest, because it
is the same thing I used to see in his hands in the old times, when
nobody minded his doctoring folks. And the time just corresponds. On the
day after we arrested the Dominie, I went to see Klaas, and found him
dead. It’s as plain—as—well, it’s quite plain!”
Every one had listened with the greatest attention, and the explanation
seemed to have made a deep impression on all. The Dominie, however,
seemed to feel it most. He suddenly started up out of his apathy, leaned
his handcuffed hands on the table, and tried to speak. Everything melted
into a dull roar inside his head—the light turned to scarlet—he had
fainted.
All of them hastened up to help him—Auntie foremost, in spite of her old
legs. Slowly he came to himself again, and then he tried to think. He
remembered what had happened, in a dim sort of way. What now? What
should he answer if they asked him whether Kobus’s supposition was
correct? It was—and yet, if he acknowledged that he had gone to Klaas on
that particular evening to give him medical help, then he would have to
expect for the future so strict a supervision of his forbidden practice,
that it would thenceforth be almost impossible to carry it on. And he
could not give it up—he could not, and would not. But to be looked on as
a thief! Oh, if he could only think—think quietly and calmly. But this
fever! this fever! No, it was his duty, his calling, and he must be true
to it, though he should be crushed by the contempt of the whole
world—the world he longed to do good to. And wildly, as a wave of
delirium swept over him, he said, “No! no! no! I didn’t do that! The
chest is not mine! I know nothing about it, and wish to know nothing—do
you hear? I am no doctor; I am only a poor schoolmaster! I am much too
stupid to be a doctor, and I have never done anything of the sort! I’m a
thief—a wretched thief—a thief!” He cried shrilly once more, with all
his strength, “A thief!” and let his burning head drop on his heaving
breast.
His hearers looked at each other. Not one of them now believed in his
guilt, and even in the burgomaster—who was only narrow-minded, not
bad-hearted—every hostile feeling now gave place to pity.
“Come, Dominie,” he said, laying his hand on the old man’s shoulder,
“come, you mustn’t make so much of it as all that. We all understand the
whole business now; and as for the medicine-chest, I forbid every one
here present to say one word about it!” At these words the burgomaster
looked round him with such a solemn air of command, that Kobus cast down
his eyes, and Hannes shuddered with sheer reverence. But the great man,
mindful of his duties as presiding judge, went on—“Now, defendant, you
are acquitted; you may go.”
But Auntie flew up in a storm of indignation. “What! go? My patience,
me! Burgomaster, don’t you see the poor soul can hardly sit in his
chair? Come, Hannes, you great lout, what are you loafing about there
for, you great long booby, you? Run out, and tell them to send some
menfolks to carry the Dominie home. Quick now!”
This classic oration produced a visible impression on Hannes, and,
before long, he came back with several men, who carried the schoolmaster
away, Auntie walking behind, and saying, from time to time, “Take care!
take care!” When it became known outside that the Dominie’s innocence
was established, every one set up a loud cry of joy.
Inside, however, the burgomaster and Kobus were looking at each other
with serious faces. “I haven’t written down anything, with all the
confusion,” said Kobus. The burgomaster considered. If the matter were
reported in town, he would probably get well laughed at for his mistake.
And what about the forms in which such a narrative, if reported, would
have to be clothed? No; it was best to put the whole thing aside, and
say no more about it.
“Veldwachter, it seems to me that this matter is not now of sufficient
importance for us to communicate it to the judicial authorities of the
_parquet_; so you may go too.”
Without understanding half of this speech, Kobus was able to catch the
burgomaster’s drift,—the matter was at an end. So he went home,
reflecting how frightfully learned the burgomaster was.
C. K. ELOUT.
_MY HERO._
I was a boy of twelve or thirteen, and, just like other boys of that
age, full of life, mischief, ideals, and illusions.
A good-for-nothing little scamp out of school, I was, under the master’s
eye, a queer mixture of the genuine mischief-loving boy and the zealous
pupil. If I found no attraction in the dry science of arithmetic and the
rules of grammar, all the more did I feel attracted by the history of
all nations in general, and ours in particular.
Yet not altogether; it was only the warlike Spartans and Romans, our own
crusading knights, and the fierce and enterprising Gueux,—in short, only
those whom I looked upon as heroes who could arrest my attention.
Frequently it vexed me that my lunch-slice of bread and butter did not
consist of black, coarse bread; sometimes I felt a deep disdain for my
clothes, so different from those in which the Roman legions marched to
victory; all peaceable merchant-vessels were an abomination to me,—I
knew but one ideal—to be a hero.
What I understood by a hero was not quite clear, even to myself,—only
this was certain, that no one could be a hero unless he had won many
great battles over stronger adversaries, or had blown up his ship in
order to save the flag, or ended his glorious life covered with wounds
in the breast (never in the back, of course!). In short, my idea of a
hero was somewhat complicated; but this much was certain, that a great
hero ought to be able to show a large number of wounds and scars, and
that his bravery should be equalled by his generosity.
I wished to be a hero myself, but as I quite understood that I was too
young for the position at present, my great desire was, at least, to see
and know a hero.
I sought everywhere for this superior being, and thought at last that I
had found my ideal in our new “odd man,” who had been a soldier, and had
a large scar on his cheek.
From this one outward and visible token of his bravery, I argued that he
must have more hidden about his person, under his clothes. These wounds,
alas! I could never hope to see, as he did not live in the house, but
came every day to clean boots and run errands.
I was, however, firmly convinced that they existed. The only drawback to
his greatness was the fact that he had both his arms and no wooden leg.
I would much rather it had been otherwise, but managed to content myself
with his many unseen wounds.
I was still seeking an opportunity of asking him how and when he had
become a hero, when I was suddenly bereft of my illusion.
Our kitchenmaid was beforehand with me.
One day, when I had furtively slipped out to the kitchen, in order to
question Frans, I heard Mie, our maid, say—
“I say, Frans, have you been in the wars, that you have such a mark over
your face?”
Then he replied—
“In the wars! I believe you! We’ve nothing more to do with wars in this
country, now! No,—when I was leaving the service, I treated my chum one
night. But he got drunk and outrageous, and chucked me through a window,
so that I cut my face open. No—I didn’t get it in the wars—and jolly
glad of it, too!”
I stood thunderstruck—the tears rose in my eyes.
No wounds on his breast! Even the scar was a delusion and a snare. I no
longer believed in living heroes. They no longer existed.
But I was going to be a hero all the same. And till I was able to
re-introduce the breed, I would content myself with the dead heroes of
the past.
[Illustration:
“I HAD FURTIVELY SLIPPED OUT TO THE KITCHEN.”
]
But there were so many of them—and I wanted a special hero all to
myself. Where should I find him?
De Ruyter was a hero, killed by the enemy’s shot—but I had nowhere read
that he had many wounds.
Bayard!—but I knew so little of him—and besides, he was not a Dutchman.
Cæsar—Napoleon—Blücher!—but how about the wounds?
Besides, every one knew that these were heroes; and I wanted one for
myself—for my own special worship—not one of the universally famous
ones.
My search, however, was not to be fruitless long. I found my hero in the
following way.
There were to be drains laid down round the old church in our city; and
the ground being dug up for that purpose, a number of skulls and bones
were found in the black earth.
All the boys of the school went to look as soon as they could get away,
and it may be supposed that I did not remain behind. We were all
inspired with a frenzied enthusiasm for relics of antiquity. We grubbed
about in the earth of the opened graves, to find coins, pots, or even
potsherds if we could get nothing else. We envied the town workmen, who
were allowed to keep on digging and finding all day long; and scarcely
had it struck twelve when we flew to the Kerkplein, to see what these
greedy persons had left us, and to discover anything that might have
escaped their search.
But we found nothing—neither did the diggers. Most of the boys,
therefore, gave up the search—I, alone, did not. I was seeking a dead,
unknown hero,—while they were looking only for coins and nicknacks. I
knew for certain that I should find something, when there were not so
many eyes on the watch, and therefore I remained away from school one
morning in order to go to the old churchyard.
For a long time nothing at all had been found—not even bones or
mouldering boards; so that all the other boys too—those who did not
belong to our school—had grown tired of coming.
Luck, however, was with me!
On one particular spot, at some distance from the church, pieces of
skeletons again began to be dug up. The workmen examined the earth to
see if it contained anything of value, but found nothing. My eager eye,
however, spied among the clods a lump of a different colour. I loosened
the earth from it, and found, to my great joy, a flattened bullet.
That was a discovery!
I turned over the heap of earth, and thus came into possession of six
bullets, and a little copper plate covered with earth and rust.
The bullets!—My hero was found!
Reverently I picked up some bones which had been thrown aside, and
carefully packed the remains of my hero in my school satchel.
My hero!—a real hero now!—not an imaginary one, like Frans, the odd man.
When I came home, in a tumult of joyful excitement, I secured my
treasure safely in my play-box, to which I had a key. And then I had my
hero safe—all to myself!
At dinner, I looked round triumphantly, and felt the deepest disdain for
my parents and sisters. They had never made such a discovery! They could
not even understand what it is to possess the very remains of a hero—the
hero himself! I scarcely ate anything for pride and joy, till my mother
said—
“Why, Con, you’re not eating. Are you not well?”
I could only stammer a few words, and then thrust a whole potato into my
mouth in order to prove my appetite, which, happily, reassured my
mother.
As soon as dinner was over, I darted to my own room to assure myself
that I had not been dreaming, and that my hero existed in very truth.
The bones and bullets, and the little metal plate, were there still.
I contemplated them all once more, with a look full of love and
reverence, and went downstairs again, so as to arouse no suspicion.
Never had I been a better-behaved boy than on that evening. I played
with my little sister as nicely as possible; I was obedient as I had
never been before,—all for fear that some unlucky circumstance might
lead to a discovery of my hero on the part of my parents.
At last it was time to go to bed. At last I was alone with the sacred
relics of the man who had stood six bullets, without reckoning the
innumerable wounds—to be taken for granted—on his breast!
I gazed at the bones, brown and dirty as they looked—at the flattened
bullets, and rusty bit of metal, with deep reverence. The plate probably
bore his name; but if so, it was illegible with the dirt. Should I clean
it? I burned with eagerness to know his name, and felt half inclined to
do it; but desisted, thinking that, being rusty, and covered with earth,
it would prove its age much better than if it were bright and polished
up like new.
At last, after long contemplation of my treasures, I locked them up, and
put the key under my pillow, for fear of burglars. Once in bed, however,
I could get no sleep. All sorts of ideas relating to my hero crossed and
recrossed my brain.
In the first place, I resolved to make a secret of him. It is a glorious
thing to have a secret all to one’s self—and such a secret!
It was settled, then—no one was to see or hear anything of him. I alone
was to possess my Hero, and be able to worship Him.
Then I began to wonder who he could have been, and when he had lived,
and where he had fought and died.
It was quite clear to me that the six bullets represented but a small
part of his wounds, for it was not possible that he had been killed on
the field of battle by the sixth of those bullets. I knew that the
fallen are always buried on the field of honour. Therefore he must have
died of other wounds,—probably sword-cuts, lance-thrusts, or the
like.... Then I fancied all sorts of biographies for my hero.
I should have liked best of all for him to have been a Crusader; but I
was forced to give up that idea, seeing that in those days there were no
guns, and therefore no bullets.
I therefore resolved to seek in more modern times.
A Water Gueux slain in fight? That, too, would not do. _They_ were
wrapped in a flag, and with a “One, two, three—in God’s name,” let down
into the sea.
I weighed all possible cases—to reject them again immediately.