than his schoolfellow. Was it the fault of the questions put by the
master, who seemed still more agitated than common, and became so
amazingly tragic in his simplest movements and gestures that he seemed
to be reciting one of Racine’s tragedies rather than conducting a school
examination?
Or was it the way the master knitted his brows and rolled his eyes,
wriggled and writhed and stretched himself, that confused Anton?
Or could it have been the little piece of paper that had just been put
into his hand, and on which Heer Hendriks had written in pencil, “Keep
cool, don’t let them make you lose your head!”—could that have been the
reason why Anton every now and then failed to answer a question?
William Ochtenraat, on the other hand, seemed in particularly good
spirits that morning. Again and again the master managed to bring him
round to one or other of the few subjects in which he was at home. He
made him tell the story of Alexander the Great’s horse, and of the
faithful hound who died on the grave of William the Silent, and,
finally, of the turf-boat by means of which Breda was surprised.
William’s eyes sparkled as he told of Bucephalus; and his mother would
have liked to kiss him when he nearly choked over William of Orange’s
dog; and when he laughed over the discomfiture of the Spaniards, the
whole room laughed with him.
Meanwhile, poor Anton became more and more uneasy; he no longer nodded
encouragingly to his mother, as he had done at first, but his anxious
looks sought Heer Hendriks, who was quite as pale as he.
The arithmetic began. Here dogs, horses, and jokes were alike out of
place; the thing, therefore, was to ask the Governor’s son as few
questions as possible.
“Now I shall be all right!” thought Anton; for this was the subject in
which he most excelled. But even now things continued to go wrong; time
after time he found he could not answer, and something began to glitter
in his eyes which ought to have warned Heer Doornik.
Again the master put a question. And the boy cried, pale with that
terrible bluish paleness one only sees where there is coloured blood,—“I
can’t answer that question, sir; and you know I can’t, because it’s not
on what I’ve learned.”
“But perhaps one of the other boys can,—William, for instance?” asked
Hendriks.
“Why, no,” cried Willie, “I never heard of it.”
Heer Doornik—in spite of his fondness for speeches in general—was far
from pleased with this speech; he understood how every one must feel
that there was something behind this, and shortly afterwards brought the
examination to a somewhat precipitate close by giving his wife the sign
to order up the refreshments.
Whoever else may have taken bread and butter, or pine-apple
tart,—whoever else was regaled with the cabinet-pudding,—neither Anton
nor his mother tasted them.
“Don’t be uneasy, madam,” said the Governor, to the widow, as he called
one of the boys to bring her a glass of wine and water, seeing that she
trembled in every limb. “Don’t be uneasy, Anton is sure to get the
prize.”
The examination was over, the bread and butter and cakes had
disappeared, the scholars having displayed in their extermination a far
greater zeal and endurance than in the ordeal of answering questions.
Now came the distribution of prizes, and—the Speech!
Many a time had people seen Heer Doornik nervous, and heard him get
entangled in his sentences, but the display he made to-day was
absolutely unprecedented.
The oration lasted fully a quarter of an hour, and it was not the heat
alone which made the ladies look so flushed and uncomfortable.
Some new-comers to the place were seriously alarmed lest the man should
break a blood-vessel, or dislocate his left arm,—which came in for the
hardest of the work,—or lose his balance in some of his sudden
evolutions; the children sat staring at him open-mouthed, the gentlemen
nudged one another, the ladies effaced themselves more and more behind
their colossal fans. Mevrouw Doornik, alone, sat with her hands folded
in her lap, gazing in silent admiration at the man of her choice.
The Widow Van Duijn, too, was listening in the greatest excitement, till
she felt he was going beyond her comprehension altogether; and Anton
stood, never taking his burning eyes from the master’s face, waiting for
his sentence.
It came at last, after many a long circuit. Considering this, and
weighing that, and giving its due prominence to this circumstance, and
noticing why, and not forgetting how the two boys in the first-class,
who alone had any claim to the prize, had learned what they had learned,
and answered as they had answered, he thought he was acting in harmony
with the esteemed head of the government, and all the gentlemen and
ladies who had honoured the school with their presence, by handing the
first prize herewith to the most industrious and highly gifted
pupil—William Ochtenraat!
Therewith he handed the boy a handsomely bound book, with a gesture so
powerful, so violent a swaying of his whole person, that one was
reminded of Samson at the moment when he seized the pillars of the
temple.
There was a sudden stillness in the spacious school building. The master
looked at the Governor. The latter let his glance rest on William, who,
more amazed than delighted, looked first at the glittering volume, and
then at the deathly pale boy who sat next him, motionless, with clenched
fists and set teeth.
Already Heer Doornik, mopping his face all the time with his
handkerchief, was approaching the prize-winner to offer his
congratulations,—already there were sounds of sniffling and rustling,
caused by ladies and gentlemen rising to congratulate the parents, when
Heer Ochtenraat slowly rose in his place, and, with a quiet gesture of
his delicate white hand, asked for a hearing.
Once more there was silence as of death.
“William,” said the Governor, in his clear, resonant voice, “William,
tell me honestly, have you earned that prize?”
One moment the boy hesitated, with a glance at the book.
“No, papa!”
“Well, my boy, give the book to the one who has earned it.”
Without stopping to think for one moment, the boy went up to Anton van
Duijn, and put the book into his hand.
It needs a good deal to excite an East Indian audience, but when Heer
Hendriks, with a pale face, and a suspicious look of moisture about his
eyes, made his way forward, wrung Anton’s hand, and cried aloud,
“Hurrah! three cheers for the Governor,” the universal enthusiasm found
vent in long and loud cheering. Heer Ochtenraat immediately rose to go;
he looked at the head-master coldly and sternly, and passed him without
a word.
ANNIE FOORE.
_HOW MATHIS KNOUPS TURNED “LIBERAL” AND THEN “CATHOLIC” AGAIN._
Every one in Limburg who is not “Catholic” is “liberal”—that is an
established fact. There may be a few Protestants here and there; but
these are _gueux_, interlopers, mostly from the direction of
Hertogenbosch, and therefore Hollanders,[23] who have accidentally come
into the country at one time or another. _Gueux_ means one who has
fallen away from the Roman Catholic faith, and therefore from
Christianity. Also, among other rarities, one finds here and there a few
Jews; but they, of course, do not count. A “liberal” is one who is not
always and altogether of the same opinion as the parish priest and his
_Kapelaan_ (curate)—outside church matters, that is to say, for if he
were to differ from their reverences on any point of doctrine, he would
be no liberal, but a heretic. Also that person is a liberal who, for
instance, may, on occasion, give his opinion of a sermon thus,—“Oh! yes,
they”—_i.e._, the clergy—“must find something to talk about, I suppose.”
Or likewise he who, instead of going regularly to high mass, contents
himself, on Sundays and festivals, with a “snap-mass,”—a little, short
service; or he who dares to declare, with a smile, that he cannot think
how all the fast-days came into existence. There are indeed even a few,
but only a few, and those only to be found in towns, who recognise no
fast-days at all, entirely godless and irreligious people, who never go
to church, and do not even attend confession at Easter. Such people as
those are worse than any liberals or heretics,—they are, in one word,
_bad_.
Thus, whoever is not a liberal is a Catholic; but there are _Catholics_,
and _good Catholics_. A Catholic is any man who faithfully performs his
religious duties; who would not, for any money, presume to differ in
opinion from the parish priest, and never asks whence that gentleman
gets the text of his sermons, or how the church fasts originated. But
any one who, in addition to all this, also walks in procession with a
lighted torch or leads the prayers as master of the confraternity of St
Joseph or St Rochus, who duly informs the villagers whom the priest
would like elected into the parish council, who comes to the Holy
Communion at least once a month, and, in the tavern, of an evening, can
describe all liberals, gueux, freemasons, and all such like rabble, in
their true colours, that man is a good _Catholic_.
Mathis Knoups, master-carpenter, and landlord of the “Sun” at Haffert,
did not belong to this category; he was a Catholic _tout court_. He
went to high mass on Sundays, and four times in the year to
confession. This, he said, was doing no more than his duty; and, for
the rest, he had no time to take any further trouble about the church
or religion,—every man must know what he is about, and he had to think
of his children.... There were plenty of other men to carry torches in
the procession,—fast-days had always existed, and did not seem to have
made people leaner or less healthy,—and he was willing to take for
granted that what M. le Curé said in his sermons was true, provided he
were not obliged to listen to them. Also, he was quite ready to vote
for Jan, Piet, or Klaas, just as M. le Curé pleased,—he had no quarrel
with any of the three, and so it was all the same to him.
This was Knoups’ way of reasoning, when the question was discussed by
the guests who came to take their evening glass of beer at the “Sun.” On
such occasions, the surveyor Hommels, well known in the town for a
“great liberal,” would usually answer, “Yes, yes, you village people let
yourselves be finely humbugged and led by the nose!”
“Oh! Lord!” Knoups would then retort, “you have been bitten by that
dog too!” And then, with a smile of complete assurance and
self-satisfaction, he would add, “One has to keep one’s soul clean,
you see!” Whereupon the ex-burgomaster Kormann would signify his
approval in the words,—
“Very good, Master Knoups! the man who does not need that, is not called
on to take any trouble about it!”
“Then don’t let him trouble himself with my affairs,” answered Knoups.
Master Knoups’ inn was about twenty minutes’ walk from the little town,
at the point where the “grintweg” leading to Haffert branches off from
the high-road. Among the other advantages of this situation was a
toll-gate, which was farmed by Mathis. What Limburg carter would not
willingly turn in for a half-pint of beer or a dram, at the place where
he has to stop and pay “barrière”? Thus the “Sun” was always full of
“coming and going folk.”
Knoups let his wife attend to the taproom and the toll-gate; he himself
was all day long in his workshop, when not busy on his bit of land.
Well, Geutruu (Gertrude) was a handy woman, who helped him to provide
for the children, had a pleasant word for every one,—if there was a cent
to be earned anyhow,—but who let no one steal the cheese off her bread.
[Illustration:
“M. LE CURÉ.”
]
In the evening there assembled at the “Sun” the “permanent company”—the
ex-burgomaster Kormann of Haffert, the surveyor Hommels, Spinwek the
baker, and one or two other gentlemen from the town, who would sit
playing at cards, sometimes till eleven, and frequently asked the
landlord to take a hand.
Besides the field, the carpenter’s trade, the toll-gate, and the usual
custom of the inn, there was another great annual source of income, the
Haffert kermis (fair) at St Rochustide in August, when the burghers with
their wives and daughters, and the young men from the city, streamed to
the village for three days following. And the man who did not put up at
the “Sun” had not been at the Haffert kermis.
If on these occasions Knoups did not, taking one day with another, tap
his six casks of beer per day, he had every reason to shake his head,
pass his thumb over his forefinger as though he had been counting money,
drop his under-lip, and sigh:
“It’s bad times with people, ... they’re short of money.”
“Knoups,” Hommels had sometimes said to him, “you ought to have
dance-music at St Rochus. Then you might tap ten casks in a day, or even
twelve.”
Knoups looked serious, pulled somewhat harder at his pipe, considered
for a moment, and replied:
“Thirty casks! ... it would be a good deal.”
Next year, having used up twenty casks in the three days, he said to
Geutruu:
“Wife, we must have the dancing next year.”
“You know best, I suppose,” said Geutruu; “every cask counts. But what
will the Pastoor say?”
Whereto Knoups replied:
“Well, every one ought to know what he’s about, and I have to think of
the children.”
[Illustration:
“THEIR EVENING GLASS OF BEER AT THE ‘SUN.’”
]
Next year there was music and dancing at the “Sun,” and some forty-two
casks of beer were tapped.
Knoups and Geutruu laughed in their sleeves.
All the same, it had been a frightful moment for them, when they sat
side by side at early mass, and the Curé had preached against dancing,
and hinted at the risks run as regards the next world by those who took
part in such amusements. Geutruu did not know where to hide her head for
shame, and kept bending lower and lower over her prayer-book. Mathis
cast a furious glance at the preacher, but the latter stared at the
couple till the whole congregation had turned their eyes in their
direction; and Mathis himself at last, fiery red at one moment and
deadly pale the next, cast down his eyes and bowed his head.
But now that he and Geutruu were home again, and counting the Brabant
and Prussian cents—the groschen, half-francs, and _couranten_—which went
to make up the payment for forty-two casks of beer, he exploded with
laughter, and said, pointing to the money:
“Geutruu, the Curé may give us another sermon for that.”
Well, the people from the town had never troubled their heads about the
Curé of Haffert’s preaching, and the peasants said, “If the burghers
dance, why should we keep away?”
When All Saints’ Day came, Mathis and Geutruu went to confession as
usual.
“If he speaks about the dancing, we’ll say that we don’t know yet what
we’re going to do next year,” said Mathis at the church door.
However, it was not so easy to get absolution. The Curé was terribly
angry, and the confession lasted more than half-an-hour; however, for
this once, his reverence at last showed himself willing to lean to the
side of mercy.
“But,” he added, “if you let the devil loose in my parish again next
year, I can do nothing more for you.”
[Illustration:
“THE CURÉ MAY GIVE US ANOTHER SERMON FOR THAT.”
]
At Christmas, Easter, and Ascensiontide they again went to confession,
but on none of these occasions was anything said about dancing.
In the beginning of August, a fortnight before St Roch’s Day, Mathis
said to his wife:
“Wife, we must have the dancing again.”
“You know best,” answered Geutruu, as before; “but what will M. le Curé
say?”
To which he gave the same answer as last year.
And there was dancing at the “Sun.” The Curé preached with all his
might, but the townspeople went first and the peasants followed, and no
less than forty-five casks of beer were consumed at the “Sun.” Such a
thing had not happened anywhere in the neighbourhood within the memory
of man.
But, alas! for the following All Saints’ Day. As soon as the Curé caught
sight of Mathis Knoups through the grating of the confessional, he
closed the slide in his face. Geutruu received absolution, after many
entreaties and arguments, because she could plead that she had warned
her husband.
“That’s his own business,” said Mathis; “every one must know what he is
about.”
Henceforth Knoups went to confession only once a year—at Easter.
“Once is a man’s duty,” said he; “but to be turned away four times in
the year is only mere waste of time and trouble.”
Again the wicket was shut in his face. Hommels, in the tavern parlour
that evening, laughed over it, and said:
“Well, M. le Curé keeps you all in order like a flock of sheep.”
Knoups smiled, and replied, shortly:
“The stayer wins. We shall see who’ll hold out longest.”
These strained relations between Knoups and the Curé lasted some four or
five years, and then another incident occurred.
Hubertienke, Knoups’ eldest girl, was now nine, and went to school at
Haffert. The master said that she was one of the cleverest and
best-behaved children that had ever come under his care. And now that
she went twice a week to M. le Chapelain’s “Christian doctrine” class,
it was quite likely that next St Rochus’ Day she would walk with the
other children as a “little bride” in the procession, and carry a little
flag, a shepherd’s crook, perhaps even a cornucopia, or a great crimson
heart with gold flames. The child had talked and dreamed of this
possibility for a whole year or so, and Geutruu had had a little white
dress and white satin shoes made for her in town, and bought a wreath of
May-blossom from the milliner.
But Geutruu and her little daughter had reckoned without their host—that
is to say, without the Curé. Two days before St Rochus, his reverence
had sent for Vrouw Knoups, and asked her whether Mathis was going to
have the dance-music again. Whereupon, embarrassed and confused, she had
answered, “I think so, M. le Curé.”
“Then Hubertine can’t walk in the procession,” was the Curé’s verdict.
“If the father doesn’t keep his Easter, the child can’t be a ‘little
bride.’”
Geutruu came home with the tears in her eyes.
“Bad luck to the whole thing!” raged Mathis. “Geutruu, you dress the
child properly, and take her to the church. We’ll see what the Curé does
then.”
The wife did as he had said—dressed the child in the white frock, put on
the satin shoes, and fastened the wreath into her hair. Then she went
with Hubertienke to high mass, and when the procession started
Hubertienke took her place with the other children of the “catechising.”
Scarcely however had the procession got out of the church, and reached
the market-place, when the Curé entered the ranks of the “little
brides,” took Hubertienke by the hand, and made the child take her place
behind the file of school children who did not yet come to “Christian
doctrine,” and were posted a long way in advance at the head of the
procession, in their black or dark blue Sunday frocks.
[Illustration:
“DRESSED THE CHILD IN THE WHITE FROCK.”
]
All this was clearly seen by Mathis Knoups, standing among the crowd of
spectators. He rushed up, looking daggers, fetched his child out of the
procession, and, grinding his teeth, made his way homewards with
Hubertienke.
He could scarcely eat his dinner for the next three days.
When Hommels began touching on the occurrence in the evening, Mathis
cried, his lips trembling:
“Fine religion that! As he can’t be revenged on me, he wreaks his spite
on my child! If that’s our religion, I’d rather not have no more
religion at all!”
From that day forth the publican-carpenter went neither to church nor to
confession, not even at Easter, and was in the eyes of every one “a
downright liberal.” At the elections, he filled in his voting ticket
with his own name. When Hommels abused the Curé, and scoffed at
religion, then Knoups laughed till he shook all over. And when the
ex-burgomaster Kormann exhorted him to return to the bosom of Holy
Church, Mathis would answer:
“_Paja!_ the whole business isn’t worth a cent!” or, “Mind your own
business, and let me attend to mine—every one ought to know what he’s
about!”
That every one ought to know his own business best, he maintained with
equal consistency when Geutruu went with Hubertienke and the other
children to church on Sundays. Hommels, indeed, laughed at this curious
compromise between man and wife; but Geutruu would reply, when teased on
the subject:
“I can’t bring up the children like heathen savages, can I?”
The breach between Mathis Knoups and the Church had lasted quite three
years, when, one baking day in July, the lightning struck Haffert
church, and the whole roof was burnt off.
Knoups looked important and thoughtful, as he remarked:
“I should like to know who’s going to put the new roof on?”
“Why, I suppose the Curé will somehow beg the money for it!” said
Hommels, who did not exactly see the connection.
The thought of the new roof pursued Mathis night and day. He knew very
well how _he_ would do it—he had some choice timber lying by that would
just do—he trimmed the rafters—he made all sorts of calculations, and
was able to tell his guests to a cent that evening how much the new roof
ought to cost—not an _oortje_[24] more. But, when talking to his wife
alone, he said, half vexed and half sad:
“The Curé is sure to take care to get another builder into Haffert this
time!”
A week before St Rochus, Knoups went to the brewer in the town to order
the _kermis_ beer for the dancing-tent as usual. There was no brewery at
Haffert, or Knoups would certainly not have gone outside the village.
“I have nothing but new beer for you, Master Knoups,” said the brewer;
“you will find there’s going to be sharp competition this year.”
“How so?” asked Knoups.
“Why, you know, don’t you, that Stamel-Joob has rented the piece of land
just opposite your house, on the other side of the Haffert road?”
Knoups nodded an affirmative.
“Stammering Joob is going into partnership with Crippled Manes, and they
mean to get a big dancing-tent over from Prussia, and set it up there.”
The landlord of the “Sun” stared at the brewer with all his eyes. He was
vainly seeking for arguments to combat his own inner conviction that
Stammering Joob the never-sober host of the “City of Algiers,” and
Crippled Manes the recruiting-sergeant, who also did a good business as
a kind of broker in procuring substitutes for unwilling conscripts, were
two dangerous opponents, and capable of anything.
“Where should they get the money from?” he suddenly exclaimed.
The brewer shrugged his shoulders.
Mathis became lost in thought for some minutes, and at last whispered,
looking at his purveyor with flashing eyes,—
“Do you think the Curé of Haffert could be mixed up in this?”
Once more the brewer shrugged his shoulders.
“All that I know,” said he, “is that Stammering Joob and Crippled Manes
have ordered sixty casks of beer of me.”
Mathis ordered only twenty casks for the present, and returned home with
a long face.
Two days before St Rochus, three great Prussian freight-waggons, laden
with planks and battens and canvas, passed through Haffert, and stopped
at the Schei, right opposite the “Sun” inn. A moment after, Crippled
Manes was seen hobbling up from another direction, with an old
police-cap on his head, and followed by a number of schoolboys and
loafers from the town, where the rumour of the arrival of the “foreign
dancing-tent” had already spread. A large number of hands went to work
at once; timbers were unloaded, posts set up, canvas spread out; and in
the middle of all the bustle the lame recruiting-sergeant moved about
with his bottle of Hollands, encouraging the workmen, and sometimes
garnishing the offered glass with some such facetious remark as, “To the
health of M. le Curé of Haffert;” or, “To the health of Mathis Knoups,
our neighbour!”
However, Mathis Knoups, who, with compressed lips, stood on the watch
behind the door of his workshop, could not hear what he said.
But all this was nothing to the commotion which was caused on the
following day—the Eve of St Rochus—in Haffert and on the Schei, by the
arrival of twelve Prussian musicians, in faded light-green coats,
sky-blue caps, and all sorts of brass instruments,—one or two of them of
such a size that they curled all round the blower like serpents. They
marched through Haffert playing all the way, drew up in a line before
the dancing-tent, which was decked with flags and pennons, and then
entered the town, accompanied by Crippled Manes, who now, armed with a
big stick, marched in front, and acted the part of drum-major.