The boys met at the museum and were soon engaged in examining its
extensive collection of curiosities, receiving a new insight into
Egyptian life, ancient and modern. Ben and Lambert had often visited the
British Museum, but that did not prevent them from being surprised at
the richness of the Leyden collection. There were household utensils,
wearing apparel, weapons, musical instruments, sarcophagi, and mummies
of men, women, and cats, ibexes, and other creatures. They saw a massive
gold armlet that had been worn by an Egyptian king at a time when some
of these same mummies, perhaps, were nimbly treading the streets of
Thebes; and jewels and trinkets such as Pharaoh’s daughter wore, and the
children of Israel borrowed when they departed out of Egypt.
There were other interesting relics, from Rome and Greece, and some
curious Roman pottery which had been discovered in digging near The
Hague--relics of the days when the countrymen of Julius Caesar had
settled there. Where have they not settled? I for one would hardly be
astonished if relics of the ancient Romans should someday be found deep
under the grass growing around the Bunker Hill monument.
When the boys left this museum, they went to another and saw a wonderful
collection of fossil animals, skeletons, birds, minerals, precious
stones, and other natural specimens, but as they were not learned men,
they could only walk about and stare, enjoy the little knowledge of
natural history they possessed, and wish with all their hearts they
had acquired more. Even the skeleton of the mouse puzzled Jacob. What
wonder? He was not used to seeing the cat-fearing little creatures
running about in their bones--and how could he ever have imagined their
necks to be so queer?
Besides the Museum of Natural History, there was Saint Peter’s Church
to be visited, containing Professor Luzac’s memorial, and Boerhaave’s
monument of white and black marble, with its urn and carved symbols of
the four ages of life, and its medallion of Boerhaave, adorned with his
favorite motto, Simplex sigillum veri. They also obtained admittance to
a tea garden, which in summer was a favorite resort of the citizens and,
passing naked oaks and fruit trees, ascended to a high mound which stood
in the center. This was the site of a round tower now in ruins, said by
some to have been built by Hengist the Anglo-Saxon king, and by others
to have been the castle of one of the ancient counts of Holland.
As the boys walked about on the top of its stone wall, they could get
but a poor view of the surrounding city. The tower stood higher when,
more than two centuries ago, the inhabitants of beleaguered Leyden
shouted to the watcher on its top their wild, despairing cries, “Is
there any help? Are the waters rising? What do you see?”
And for months he could only answer, “No help. I see around us nothing
but the enemy.”
Ben pushed these thoughts away and, resolutely looking down into the
bare tea garden, filled it in imagination with gay summer groups. He
tried to forget old battle clouds, and picture only curling wreaths of
tobacco smoke rising from among men, women, and children enjoying their
tea and coffee in the open air. But a tragedy came in spite of him.
Poot was bending over the edge of the high wall. It would be just like
him to grow dizzy and tumble off. Ben turned impatiently away. If the
fellow, with his weak head, knew no better than to be venturesome, why,
let him tumble. Horror! What mean that heavy, crashing sound?
Ben could not stir. He could only gasp. “Jacob!”
“Jacob!” cried another startled voice and another. Ready to faint, Ben
managed to turn his head. He saw a crowd of boys on the edge of the wall
opposite, but Jacob was not there!
“Good heavens!” he cried, springing forward, “where is my cousin?”
The crowd parted. It was only four boys, after all. There sat Jacob in
their midst, holding his sides and laughing heartily.
“Did I frighten you all?” he said in his native Dutch. “Well, I will
tell you how it was. There was a big stone lying on the wall and I put
my--my foot out just to push it a little, you see, and the first thing I
knew, down went the stone all the way to the bottom and left me sitting
here on top with both my feet in the air. If I had not thrown myself
back at that moment, I certainly should have rolled over after the
stone. Well, it is no matter. Help me up, boys.”
“You’re hurt!” said Ben, seeing a shade of seriousness pass over his
cousin’s face as they lifted him to his feet.
Jacob tried to laugh again. “Oh, no--I feels a little hurt ven I stant
up, but it ish no matter.”
The monument to Van der Werf in the Hooglandsche Kerk was not accessible
that day, but the boys spent a few pleasant moments in the Stadhuis
or town hall, a long irregular structure somewhat in the Gothic style,
uncouth in architecture but picturesque from age. Its little steeple,
tuneful with bells, seemed to have been borrowed from some other
building and hastily clapped on as a finishing touch.
Ascending the grand staircase, the boys soon found themselves in a
rather gloomy apartment, containing the masterpiece of Lucas van Leyden,
or Hugens, a Dutch artist born three hundred and seventy years ago, who
painted well when he was ten years of age and became distinguished
in art when only fifteen. This picture, called the Last Judgment,
considering the remote age in which it was painted, is truly a
remarkable production. The boys, however, were less interested in
tracing out the merits of the work than they were in the fact of its
being a triptych--that is, painted on three divisions, the two outer
ones swung on hinges so as to close, when required, over the main
portion.
The historical pictures of Harel de Moor and other famous Dutch artists
interested them for a while, and Ben had to be almost pulled away from
the dingy old portrait of Van der Werf.
The town hall, as well as the Egyptian Museum, is on the Breedstraat,
the longest and finest street in Leyden. It has no canal running
through it, and the houses, painted in every variety of color, have a
picturesque effect as they stand with their gable ends to the street;
some are very tall with half their height in their step-like roofs;
others crouch before the public edifices and churches. Being clean,
spacious, well-shaded, and adorned with many elegant mansions, it
compares favorably with the finery portions of Amsterdam. It is kept
scrupulously neat. Many of the gutters are covered with boards that open
like trapdoors, and it is supplied with pumps surmounted with shining
brass ornaments kept scoured and bright at the public cost. The city
is intersected by numerous water roads formed by the river Rhine, there
grown sluggish, fatigued by its long travel, but more than one hundred
and fifty stone bridges reunite the dissevered streets. The same
world-renowned river, degraded from the beautiful, free-flowing Rhine,
serves as a moat from the rampart that surrounds Leyden and is crossed
by drawbridges at the imposing gateways that give access to the city.
Fine broad promenades, shaded by noble trees, border the canals and add
to the retired appearance of the houses behind, heightening the effect
of scholastic seclusion that seems to pervade the place.
Ben, as he scanned the buildings on the Rapenburg Canal, was somewhat
disappointed in the appearance of the great University of Leyden. But
when he recalled its history--how, attended with all the pomp of a grand
civic display, it had been founded by the Prince of Orange as a tribute
to the citizens for the bravery displayed during the siege; when he
remembered the great men in religion, learning, and science who had once
studied there and thought of the hundreds of students now sharing the
benefits of its classes and its valuable scientific museums--he was
quite willing to forego architectural beauty, though he could not
help feeling that no amount of it could have been misplaced on such an
institution.
Peter and Jacob regarded the building with an even deeper, more
practical interest, for they were to enter it as students in the course
of a few months.
“Poor Don Quixote would have run a hopeless tilt in this part of
the world,” said Ben after Lambert had been pointing out some of the
oddities and beauties of the suburbs. “It is all windmills. You remember
his terrific contest with one, I suppose.”
“No,” said Lambert bluntly.
“Well, I don’t, either, that is, not definitely. But there was something
of that kind in his adventures, and if there wasn’t, there should have
been. Look at them, how frantically they whirl their great arms--just
the thing to excite the crazy knight to mortal combat. It bewilders one
to look at them. Help me to count all those we can see, Van Mounen.
I want a big item for my notebook.” And after a careful reckoning,
superintended by all the party, Master Ben wrote in pencil, “Saw, Dec.,
184--, ninety-eight windmills within full view of Leyden.”
He would have been glad to visit the old brick mill in which the painter
Rembrandt was born, but he abandoned the project upon learning that it
would take them out of their way. Few boys as hungry as Ben was by this
time would hesitate long between Rembrandt’s home a mile off and tiffin
close by. Ben chose the latter.
After tiffin, they rested awhile, and then took another, which, for
form’s sake, they called dinner. After dinner the boys sat warming
themselves at the inn; all but Peter, who occupied the time in another
fruitless search for Dr. Boekman.
This over, the party once more prepared for skating. They were thirteen
miles from The Hague and not as fresh as when they had left Broek early
on the previous day, but they were in good spirits and the ice was
excellent.