The boys soon found an unpretending establishment near the Breedstraat (Broad Street) with a funnily painted lion over the door. This was the Rood Leeuw or Red Lion, kept by one Huygens Kleef, a stout Dutchman with short legs and a very long pipe.
By this time they were in a ravenous condition. The tiffin, taken at Haarlem, had served only to give them an appetite, and this had been heightened by their exercise and swift sail upon the canal.
“Come, mine host! Give us what you can!” cried Peter rather pompously.
“I can give you anything—everything,” answered Mynheer Kleef, performing a difficult bow.
“Well, give us sausage and pudding.”
“Ah, mynheer, the sausage is all gone. There is no pudding.”
“Salmagundi, then, and plenty of it.”
“That is out also, young master.”
“Eggs, and be quick.”
“Winter eggs are VERY poor eating,” answered the innkeeper, puckering his lips and lifting his eyebrows.
“No eggs? Well—caviar.”
The Dutchman raised his fat hands:
“Caviar! That is made of gold! Who has caviar to sell?”
Peter had sometimes eaten it at home; he knew that it was made of the roes of the sturgeon and certain other large fish, but he had no idea of its cost.
“Well, mine host, what have you?”
“What have I? Everything. I have rye bread, sauerkraut, potato salad, and the fattest herring in Leyden.”
“What do you say, boys?” asked the captain. “Will that do?”
“Yes,” cried the famished youths, “if he’ll only be quick.”
Mynheer moved off like one walking in his sleep, but soon opened his eyes wide at the miraculous manner in which his herring were made to disappear. Next came, or rather went, potato salad, rye bread, and coffee—then Utrecht water flavored with orange, and, finally, slices of dry gingerbread. This last delicacy was not on the regular bill of fare, but Mynheer Kleef, driven to extremes, solemnly produced it from his own private stores and gave only a placid blink when his voracious young travelers started up, declaring they had eaten enough.
“I should think so!” he exclaimed internally, but his smooth face gave no sign.
Softly rubbing his hands, he asked, “Will your worships have beds?”
“‘Will your worships have beds?’” mocked Carl. “What do you mean? Do we look sleepy?”
“Not at all, master. But I would cause them to be warmed and aired. None sleep under damp sheets at the Red Lion.”
“Ah, I understand. Shall we come back here to sleep, captain?”
Peter was accustomed to finer lodgings, but this was a frolic.
“Why not?” he replied. “We can fare excellently here.”
“Your worship speaks only the truth,” said mynheer with great deference.
“How fine to be called ‘your worship,’” laughed Ludwig aside to Lambert, while Peter replied, “Well, mine host, you may get the rooms ready by nine.”
“I have one beautiful chamber, with three beds, that will hold all of your worships,” said Mynheer Kleef coaxingly.
“That will do.”
“Whew!” whistled Carl when they reached the street.
Ludwig startled. “What now?”
“Nothing, only Mynheer Kleef of the Red Lion little thinks how we shall make things spin in that same room tonight. We’ll set the bolsters flying!”
“Order!” cried the captain. “Now, boys, I must seek this great Dr. Boekman before I sleep. If he is in Leyden it will be no great task to find him, for he always puts up at the Golden Eagle when he comes here. I wonder that you did not all go to bed at once. Still, as you are awake, what say you to walking with Ben up by the Museum or the Stadhuis?”
“Agreed,” said Ludwig and Lambert, but Jacob preferred to go with Peter. In vain Ben tried to persuade him to remain at the inn and rest. He declared that he never felt “petter,” and wished of all things to take a look at the city, for it was his first “stop mit Leyden.”
“Oh, it will not harm him,” said Lambert. “How long the day has been—and what glorious sport we have had! It hardly seems possible that we left Broek only this morning.”
Jacob yawned.
“I have enjoyed it well,” he said, “but it seems to me at least a week since we started.”
Carl laughed and muttered something about “twenty naps.”
“Here we are at the corner. Remember, we all meet at the Red Lion at eight,” said the captain as he and Jacob walked away.
The boys were glad to find a blazing fire awaiting them upon their return to the Red Lion. Carl and his party were there first. Soon afterward Peter and Jacob came in. They had inquired in vain concerning Dr. Boekman. All they could ascertain was that he had been seen in Haarlem that morning.
“As for his being in Leyden,” the landlord of the Golden Eagle had said to Peter, “the thing is impossible. He always lodges here when in town. By this time there would be a crowd at my door waiting to consult him. Bah! People make such fools of themselves!”
“He is called a great surgeon,” said Peter.
“Yes, the greatest in Holland. But what of that? What of being the greatest pill choker and knife slasher in the world? The man is a bear. Only last month on this very spot, he called me a PIG, before three customers!”
“No!” exclaimed Peter, trying to look surprised and indignant.
“Yes, master—A PIG,” repeated the landlord, puffing at his pipe with an injured air. “Bah! If he did not pay fine prices and bring customers to my house, I would sooner see him in the Vleit Canal than give him lodging.”
Perhaps mine host felt that he was speaking too openly to a stranger, or it may be he saw a smile lurking in Peter’s face, for he added sharply, “Come, now, what more do you wish? Supper? Beds?”
“No, mynheer, I am but searching for Dr. Boekman.”
“Go find him. He is not in Leyden.”
Peter was not to be put off so easily. He succeeded in obtaining permission to leave a note for the famous surgeon, or rather, he BOUGHT from his amiable landlord the privilege of writing it there, and a promise that it should be promptly delivered when Dr. Boekman arrived. This accomplished, Peter and Jacob returned to the Red Lion.
This inn had once been a fine house, the home of a rich burgher, but having grown old and shabby, it had passed through many hands, until finally it had fallen into the possession of Mynheer Kleef. He was fond of saying as he looked up at its dingy, broken walls, “Mend it and paint it, and there’s not a prettier house in Leyden.” It stood six stories high from the street. The first three were of equal breadth but of various heights, the last three were in the great, high roof, and grew smaller and smaller like a set of double steps until the top one was lost in a point. The roof was built of short, shining tiles, and the windows, with their little panes, seemed to be scattered irregularly over the face of the building, without the slightest attention to outward effect. But the public room on the ground floor was the landlord’s joy and pride. He never said, “Mend it and paint it,” there, for everything was in the highest condition of Dutch neatness and order. If you will but open your mind’s eye, you may look into the apartment.
Imagine a large, bare room, with a floor that seemed to be made of squares cut out of glazed earthen pie-dishes, first a yellow piece, then a red, until the whole looked like a vast checkerboard. Fancy a dozen high-backed wooden chairs standing around; then a great hollow chimney place all aglow with its blazing fire, reflected a hundred times in the polished steel firedogs; a tiled hearth, tiled sides, tiled top, with a Dutch sentence upon it; and over all, high above one’s head, a narrow mantleshelf, filled with shining brass candlesticks, pipe lighters, and tinderboxes. Then see, in one end of the room, three pine tables; in the other, a closet and a deal dresser. The latter is filled with mugs, dishes, pipes, tankards, earthen and glass bottles, and is guarded at one end by a brass-hooped keg standing upon long legs. Everything is dim with tobacco smoke, but otherwise as clean as soap and sand can make it.
Next, picture two sleepy, shabby-looking men, in wooden shoes, seated near the glowing fireplace, hugging their knees and smoking short, stumpy pipes; Mynheer Kleef walking softly and heavily about, clad in leather knee breeches, felt shoes, and a green jacket wider than it is long; then throw a heap of skates in the corner and put six tired well-dressed boys, in various attitudes, upon the wooden chairs, and you will see the coffee room of the Red Lion just as it appeared at nine o’clock upon the evening of December 6, 184—. For supper, gingerbread again, slices of Dutch sausage, rye bread sprinkled with anise seed, pickles, a bottle of Utrecht water, and a pot of very mysterious coffee. The boys were ravenous enough to take all they could get and pronounce it excellent. Ben made wry faces, but Jacob declared he had never eaten a better meal. After they had laughed and talked awhile, and counted their money by way of settling a discussion that arose concerning their expenses, the captain marched his company off to bed, led on by a greasy pioneer boy who carried skates and a candlestick instead of an ax.
One of the ill-favored men by the fire had shuffled toward the dresser and was ordering a mug of beer, just as Ludwig, who brought up the rear, was stepping from the apartment. “I don’t like that fellow’s eye,” he whispered to Carl. “He looks like a pirate or something of that kind.”
“Looks like a granny!” answered Carl in sleepy disdain.
Ludwig laughed uneasily.
“Granny or no granny,” he whispered, “I tell you he looks just like one of those men in the voetspoelen.”
“Pooh!” sneered Carl, “I knew it. That picture was too much for you. Look sharp now, and see if yon fellow with the candle doesn’t look like the other villain.”
“No, indeed, his face is as honest as a Gouda cheese. But, I say, Carl, that really was a horrid picture.”
“Humph! What did you stare at it so long for?”
“I couldn’t help it.”
By this time the boys had reached the “beautiful room with three beds in it.” A dumpy little maiden with long earrings met them at the doorway, dropped them a curtsy, and passed out. She carried a long-handled thing that resembled a frying pan with a cover.
“I am glad to see that,” said Van Mounen to Ben.
“What?”
“Why, the warming pan. It’s full of hot ashes; she’s been heating our beds.”
“Oh, a warming pan, eh! Much obliged to her, I’m sure,” said Ben, too sleepy to make any further comment.
Meantime, Ludwig still talked of the picture that had made such a strong impression upon him. He had seen it in a shop window during their walk. It was a poorly painted thing, representing two men tied back to back, standing on shipboard, surrounded by a group of seamen who were preparing to cast them together into the sea. This mode of putting prisoners to death was called voetspoelen, or feet washing, and was practiced by the Dutch upon the pirates of Dunkirk in 1605; and again by the Spaniards against the Dutch, in the horrible massacre that followed the siege of Haarlem. Bad as the painting was, the expression upon the pirates’ faces was well given. Sullen and despairing as they seemed, they wore such a cruel, malignant aspect that Ludwig had felt a secret satisfaction in contemplating their helpless condition. He might have forgotten the scene by this time but for that ill-looking man by the fire. Now, while he capered about, boylike, and threw himself with an antic into his bed, he inwardly hoped that the voetspoelen would not haunt his dreams.
It was a cold, cheerless room; a fire had been newly kindled in the burnished stove and seemed to shiver even while it was trying to burn. The windows, with their funny little panes, were bare and shiny, and the cold waxed floor looked like a sheet of yellow ice. Three rush-bottomed chairs stood stiffly against the wall, alternating with three narrow wooden bedsteads that made the room look like the deserted ward of a hospital. At any other time the boys would have found it quite impossible to sleep in pairs, especially in such narrow quarters, but tonight they lost all fear of being crowded and longed only to lay their weary bodies upon the feather beds that lay lightly upon each cot. Had the boys been in Germany instead of Holland, they might have been covered, also, by a bed of down or feathers. This peculiar form of luxury was at that time adopted only by wealthy or eccentric Hollanders.
Ludwig, as we have seen, had not quite lost his friskiness, but the other boys, after one or two feeble attempts at pillow firing, composed themselves for the night with the greatest dignity. Nothing like fatigue for making boys behave themselves!
“Good night, boys!” said Peter’s voice from under the covers.
“Good night,” called back everybody but Jacob, who already lay snoring beside the captain.
“I say,” shouted Carl after a moment, “don’t sneeze, anybody. Ludwig’s in a fright!”
“No such thing,” retorted Ludwig in a smothered voice. Then there was a little whispered dispute, which was ended by Carl saying, “For my part, I don’t know what fear is. But you really are a timid fellow, Ludwig.”
Ludwig grunted sleepily, but made no further reply.
It was the middle of the night. The fire had shivered itself to death, and, in place of its gleams, little squares of moonlight lay upon the floor, slowly, slowly shifting their way across the room. Something else was moving also, but the boys did not see it. Sleeping boys keep but a poor lookout. During the early hours of the night, Jacob Poot had been gradually but surely winding himself with all the bed covers. He now lay like a monster chrysalis beside the half-frozen Peter, who, accordingly, was skating with all his might over the coldest, bleakest of dreamland icebergs.
Something else, I say, besides the moonlight, was moving across the bare, polished floor—moving not quite so slowly, but quite as stealthily.
Wake up, Ludwig! The voetspoelen is growing real!
No. Ludwig does not waken, but he moans in his sleep.
Does not Carl hear it—Carl the brave, the fearless?
No. Carl is dreaming of the race.
And Jacob? Van Mounen? Ben?
Not they. They, too, are dreaming of the race, and Katrinka is singing through their dreams—laughing, flitting past them; now and then a wave from the great organ surges through their midst.
Still the thing moves, slowly, slowly.
Peter! Captain Peter, there is danger!
Peter heard no call, but in his dream, he slid a few thousand feet from one iceberg to another, and the shock awoke him.
Whew! How cold he was! He gave a hopeless, desperate tug at the chrysalis in vain. Sheet, blanket, and spread were firmly wound around Jacob’s inanimate form.
Clear moonlight, he thought. We shall have pleasant weather tomorrow. Halloo! What’s that?
He saw the moving thing, or rather something black crouching upon the floor, for it had halted as Peter stirred.
He watched in silence.
Soon it moved again, nearer and nearer. It was a man crawling upon hands and feet!
The captain’s first impulse was to call out, but he took an instant to consider matters.
The creeper had a shining knife in one hand. This was ugly, but Peter was naturally self-possessed. When the head turned, Peter’s eyes were closed as if in sleep, but at other times, nothing could be keener, sharper than the captain’s gaze.
Closer, closer crept the robber. His back was very near Peter now. The knife was laid softly upon the floor. One careful arm reached forth stealthily to drag the clothes from the chair by the captain’s bed—the robbery was commenced.
Now was Peter’s time! Holding his breath, he sprang up and leaped with all his strength upon the robber’s back, stunning the rascal with the force of the blow. To seize the knife was but a second’s work. The robber began to struggle, but Peter sat like a giant astride the prostrate form.
“If you stir,” said the brave boy in as terrible a voice as he could command, “stir but one inch, I will plunge this knife into your neck. Boys! Boys! Wake up!” he shouted, still pressing down the black head and holding the knife at pricking distance. “Give us a hand! I’ve got him!”
The chrysalis rolled over, but made no other sign.
“Up, boys!” cried Peter, never budging. “Ludwig! Lambert! Donder! Are you all dead?”
Dead? Not they! Van Mounen and Ben were on their feet in an instant.
“Hey! What now?” they shouted.
“I’ve got a robber here,” said Peter coolly. “Lie still, you scoundrel, or I’ll slice your head off! Now, boys, cut out your bed cord—plenty of time—he’s a dead man if he stirs.”
Peter felt that he weighed a thousand pounds. So he did, with that knife in his hand.
The man growled and swore but dared not move.
Ludwig was up by this time. He had a great jackknife, the pride of his heart, in his breeches pocket. It could do good service now. They bared the bedstead in a moment. It was laced backward and forward with a rope.
“I’ll cut it,” cried Ludwig, sawing away at the knot. “Hold him tight, Peter!”
“Never fear!” answered the captain, giving the robber a warning prick.
The boys were soon pulling at the rope like good fellows. It was out at last—a long, stout piece.
“Now, boys,” commanded the captain, “lift up his rascally arms! Cross his hands over his back! That’s right—excuse me for being in the way—tie them tight!”
“Yes, and his feet too, the villain!” cried the boys in great excitement, tying knot after knot with Herculean jerks.
The prisoner changed his tone.
“Oh—oh!” he moaned. “Spare a poor sick man—I was but walking in my sleep.”
“Ugh!” grunted Lambert, still tugging away at the rope. “Asleep, were you? Well, we’ll wake you up.”
The man muttered fierce oaths between his teeth, then cried in a piteous voice, “Unbind me, good young masters! I have five little children at home. By Saint Bavon I swear to give you each a ten-guilder piece if you will but free me!”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Peter.
“Ha! ha!” laughed the other boys.
Then came threats, threats that made Ludwig fairly shudder, though he continued to bind and tie with redoubled energy.
“Hold up, mynheer housebreaker,” said Van Mounen in a warning voice. “That knife is very near your throat. If you make the captain nervous, there is no telling what may happen.”
The robber took the hint, and fell into a sullen silence.
Just at this moment the chrysalis upon the bed stirred and sat erect.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, without opening his eyes.
“Matter!” echoed Ludwig, half trembling, half laughing. “Get up, Jacob. Here’s work for you. Come sit on this fellow’s back while we get into our clothes, we’re half perished.”
“What fellow? Donder!”
“Hurrah for Poot!” cried all the boys as Jacob, sliding quickly to the floor, bedclothes and all, took in the state of affairs at a glance and sat heavily beside Peter on the robber’s back.
Oh, didn’t the fellow groan then!
“No use in holding him down any longer, boys,” said Peter, rising, but bending as he did so to draw a pistol from the man’s belt. “You see I’ve been keeping a guard over this pretty little weapon for the last ten minutes. It’s cocked, and the least wriggle might have set it off. No danger now. I must dress myself. You and I, Lambert, will go for the police. I’d no idea it was so cold.”
“Where is Carl?” asked one of the boys.
They looked at one another. Carl certainly was not among them.
“Oh!” cried Ludwig, frightened at last. “Where is he? Perhaps he’s had a fight with the robber and got killed.”
“Not a bit of it,” said Peter quietly as he buttoned his stout jacket. “Look under the beds.”
They did so. Carl was not there.
Just then they heard a commotion on the stairway. Ben hastened to open the door. The landlord almost tumbled in; he was armed with a big blunderbuss. Two or three lodgers followed; then the daughter, with an upraised frying pan in one hand and a candle in the other; and behind her, looking pale and frightened, the gallant Carl!
“There’s your man, mine host,” said Peter, nodding toward the prisoner.
Mine host raised his blunderbuss, the girl screamed, and Jacob, more nimble than usual, rolled quickly from the robber’s back.
“Don’t fire,” cried Peter, “he is tied, hand and foot. Let’s roll him over and see what he looks like.”
Carl stepped briskly forward, with a bluster, “Yes. We’ll turn him over in a way he won’t like. Lucky we’ve caught him!”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Ludwig. “Where were you, Master Carl?”
“Where was I?” retorted Carl angrily. “Why, I went to give the alarm, to be sure!”
All the boys exchanged glances, but they were too happy and elated to say anything ill-natured. Carl certainly was bold enough now. He took the lead while three others aided him in turning the helpless man.
While the robber lay faceup, scowling and muttering, Ludwig took the candlestick from the girl’s hand.
“I must have a good look at the beauty,” he said, drawing closer, but the words were no sooner spoken than he turned pale and started so violently that he almost dropped the candle.
“The voetspoelen!” he cried! “Why, boys, it’s the man who sat by the fire!”
“Of course it is,” answered Peter. “We counted out money before him like simpletons. But what have we to do with voetspoelen, brother Ludwig? A month in jail is punishment enough.”
The landlord’s daughter had left the room. She now ran in, holding up a pair of huge wooden shoes. “See, father,” she cried, “here are his great ugly boats. It’s the man that we put in the next room after the young masters went to bed. Ah! It was wrong to send the poor young gentlemen up here so far out of sight and sound.”
“The scoundrel!” hissed the landlord. “He has disgraced my house. I go for the police at once!”
In less than fifteen minutes two drowsy-looking officers were in the room. After telling Mynheer Kleef that he must appear early in the morning with the boys and make his complaint before a magistrate, they marched off with their prisoner.
One would think the captain and his band could have slept no more that night, but the mooring has not yet been found that can prevent youth and an easy conscience from drifting down the river of dreams. The boys were much too fatigued to let so slight a thing as capturing a robber bind them to wakefulness. They were soon in bed again, floating away to strange scenes made of familiar things. Ludwig and Carl had spread their bedding upon the floor. One had already forgotten the voetspoelen, the race—everything; but Carl was wide-awake. He heard the carillons ringing out their solemn nightly music and the watchman’s noisy clapper putting in discord at the quarter hours; he saw the moonshine glide away from the window and the red morning light come pouring in, and all the while he kept thinking, Pooh! what a goose I have made of myself!
Carl Schummel, alone, with none to look or to listen, was not quite so grand a fellow as Carl Schummel strutting about in his boots.
You may believe that the landlord’s daughter bestirred herself to prepare a good meal for the boys next morning. Mynheer had a Chinese gong that could make more noise than a dozen breakfast bells. Its hideous reveille, clanging through the house, generally startled the drowsiest lodgers into activity, but the maiden would not allow it to be sounded this morning.
“Let the brave young gentlemen sleep,” she said to the greasy kitchen boy. “They shall be warmly fed when they awaken.”
It was ten o’clock when Captain Peter and his band came straggling down one by one.
“A pretty hour,” said mine host, gruffly. “It is high time we were before the court. Fine business, this, for a respectable inn. You will testify truly, young masters, that you found most excellent fare and lodging at the Red Lion?”
“Of course we will,” answered Carl saucily, “and pleasant company, too, though they visit at rather unseasonable hours.”
A stare and a “humph!” was all the answer mynheer made to this, but the daughter was more communicative. Shaking her earrings at Carl, she said sharply, “Not so very pleasant, either, master traveler, if you could judge by the way YOU ran away from it!”
“Impertinent creature!” hissed Carl under his breath as he began busily to examine his skate straps. Meantime the kitchen boy, listening outside at the crack of the door, doubled himself with silent laughter.
After breakfast the boys went to the police court, accompanied by Huygens Kleef and his daughter. Mynheer’s testimony was principally to the effect that such a thing as a robber at the Red Lion had been unheard of until last night, and as for the Red Lion, it was a most respectable inn, as respectable as any house in Leyden. Each boy, in turn, told all that he knew of the affair and identified the prisoner in the box as the same man who entered their room in the dead of night. Ludwig was surprised to find that the prisoner in the box was a man of ordinary size—especially after he had described him, under oath, to the court as a tremendous fellow with great, square shoulders and legs of prodigious weight. Jacob swore that he was awakened by the robber kicking and thrashing upon the floor, and immediately afterward, Peter and the rest (feeling sorry that they had not explained the matter to their sleepy comrade) testified that the man had not moved a muscle from the moment the point of the dagger touched his throat, until, bound from head to foot, he was rolled over for inspection. The landlord’s daughter made one boy blush, and all the court smile, by declaring, “If it hadn’t been for that handsome young gentleman there”—pointing to Peter—“they might have all been murdered in their beds; for the dreadful man had a great, shining knife most as long as Your Honor’s arm,” and SHE believed, “the handsome young gentleman had struggled hard enough to get it away from him, but he was too modest, bless him! to say so.”
Finally, after a little questioning, and cross-questioning from the public prosecutor, the witnesses were dismissed, and the robber was handed over to the consideration of the criminal court.
“The scoundrel!” said Carl savagely when the boys reached the street. “He ought to be sent to jail at once. If I had been in your place, Peter, I certainly should have killed him outright!”
“He was fortunate, then, in falling into gentler hands,” was Peter’s quiet reply. “It appears he has been arrested before under a charge of housebreaking. He did not succeed in robbing this time, but he broke the door-fastenings, and that I believe constitutes a burglary in the eyes of the law. He was armed with a knife, too, and that makes it worse for him, poor fellow!”
“Poor fellow!” mimicked Carl. “One would think he was your brother!”
“So he is my brother, and yours too, Carl Schummel, for that matter,” answered Peter, looking into Carl’s eye. “We cannot say what we might have become under other circumstances. WE have been bolstered up from evil, since the hour we were born. A happy home and good parents might have made that man a fine fellow instead of what he is. God grant that the law may cure and not crush him!”
“Amen to that!” said Lambert heartily while Ludwig van Holp looked at his brother in such a bright, proud way that Jacob Poot, who was an only son, wished from his heart that the little form buried in the old church at home had lived to grow up beside him.
“Humph!” said Carl. “It’s all very well to be saintly and forgiving, and all that sort of thing, but I’m naturally hard. All these fine ideas seem to rattle off me like hailstones—and it’s nobody’s business, either, if they do.”
Peter recognized a touch of good feeling in this clumsy concession. Holding out his hand, he said in a frank, hearty tone, “Come, lad, shake hands, and let us be good friends, even if we don’t exactly agree on all questions.”
“We do agree better than you think,” sulked Carl as he returned Peter’s grasp.
“All right,” responded Peter briskly. “Now, Van Mounen, we await Benjamin’s wishes. Where would he like to go?”
“To the Egyptian Museum?” answered Lambert after holding a brief consultation with Ben.
“That is on the Breedstraat. To the museum let it be. Come, boys!”
“This open square before us,” said Lambert, as he and Ben walked on together, “is pretty in summer, with its shady trees. They call it the Ruine. Years ago it was covered with houses, and the Rapenburg Canal, here, ran through the street. Well, one day a barge loaded with forty thousand pounds of gunpowder, bound for Delft, was lying alongside, and the bargemen took a notion to cook their dinner on the deck, and before anyone knew it, sir, the whole thing blew up, killing lots of persons and scattering about three hundred houses to the winds.”
“What!” exclaimed Ben. “Did the explosion destroy three hundred houses!”
“Yes, sir, my father was in Leyden at the time. He says it was terrible. The explosion occurred just at noon and it was like a volcano. All this part of the town was on fire in an instant, buildings tumbling down and men, women, and children groaning under the ruins. The king himself came to the city and acted nobly, Father says, staying out in the streets all night, encouraging the survivors in their efforts to arrest the fire and rescue as many as possible from under the heaps of stone and rubbish. Through his means a collection for the benefit of the sufferers was raised throughout the kingdom, besides a hundred thousand guilders paid out of the treasury. Father was only nineteen years old then. It was in 1807, I believe, but he remembers it perfectly. A friend of his, Professor Luzac, was among the killed. They have a tablet erected to his memory, in Saint Peter’s Church, farther on—the queerest thing you ever saw, with an image of the professor carved upon it, representing him just as he looked when he was found after the explosion.”
“What a strange idea! Isn’t Boerhaave’s monument in Saint Peter’s also?”
“I cannot remember. Perhaps Peter knows.”
The captain delighted Ben by saying that the monument was there and that he thought they might be able to see it during the day.
“Lambert,” continued Peter, “ask Ben if he saw Van der Werf’s portrait at the town hall last night?”
“No,” said Lambert, “I can answer for him. It was too late to go in. I say, boys, it is really wonderful how much Ben knows. Why, he has told me a volume of Dutch history already. I’ll wager he has the siege of Leyden at his tongue’s end.”
“His tongue must burn, then,” interposed Ludwig, “for if Bilderdyk’s account is true, it was a pretty hot affair.”
Ben was looking at them with an inquiring smile.
“We are speaking of the siege of Leyden,” explained Lambert.
“Oh, yes,” said Ben, eagerly, “I had forgotten all about it. This was the very place. Let’s give old Van der Werf three cheers. Hur—”
Van Mounen uttered a hasty “Hush!” and explained that, patriotic as the Dutch were, the police would soon have something to say if a party of boys cheered in the street at midday.
“What? Not cheer Van der Werf?” cried Ben, indignantly. “One of the greatest chaps in history? Only think! Didn’t he hold out against those murderous Spaniards for months and months? There was the town, surrounded on all sides by the enemy; great black forts sending fire and death into the very heart of the city—but no surrender! Every man a hero—women and children, too, brave and fierce as lions, provisions giving out, the very grass from between the paving stones gone—till people were glad to eat horses and cats and dogs and rats. Then came the plague—hundreds dying in the streets—but no surrender! Then when they could bear no more, when the people, brave as they were, crowded about Van der Werf in the public square begging him to give up, what did the noble old burgomaster say? ‘I have sworn to defend this city, and with God’s help, I MEAN TO DO IT! If my body can satisfy your hunger, take it, and divide it among you, but expect no surrender so long as I am alive.’ Hurrah! hur—”
Ben was getting uproarious; Lambert playfully clapped his hand over his friend’s mouth. The result was one of those quick India-rubber scuffles fearful to behold but delightful to human nature in its polliwog state.
“Vat wash te matter, Pen?” asked Jacob, hurrying forward.
“Oh! nothing at all,” panted Ben, “except that Van Mounen was afraid of starting an English riot in this orderly town. He stopped my cheering for old Van der—”
“Ya! ya—it ish no goot to sheer—to make te noise for dat. You vill shee old Van der Does’s likeness mit te Stadhuis.”
“See old Van der Does? I thought it was Van der Werf’s picture they had there.”
“Ya,” responded Jacob, “Van der Werf—vell, vot of it! Both ish just ash goot—”
“Yes, Van der Does was a noble old Dutchman, but he was not Van der Werf. I know he defended the city like a brick, and—”
“Now vot for you shay dat, Penchamin? He no defend te city mit breek, he fight like goot soltyer mit his guns. You like make te fun mit effrysinks Tutch.”
“No! No! No! I said he defended the city LIKE a brick. That is very high praise, I would have you understand. We English call even the Duke of Wellington a brick.”
Jacob looked puzzled, but his indignation was already on the ebb.
“Vell, it ish no matter. I no tink, before, soltyer mean breek, but it ish no matter.”
Ben laughed good-naturedly, and seeing that his cousin was tired of talking in English, he turned to his friend of the two languages.
“Van Mounen, they say the very carrier pigeons that brought news of relief to the besieged city are somewhere here in Leyden. I really should like to see them. Just think of it! At the very height of the trouble, if the wind didn’t turn and blow in the waters, and drown hundreds of Spaniards and enable the Dutch boats to sail in right over the land with men and provisions to the very gates of the city. The pigeons, you know, did great service, in bearing letters to and fro. I have read somewhere that they were reverently cared for from that day, and when they died, they were stuffed and placed for safekeeping in the town hall. We must be sure to have a look at them.”
Van Mounen laughed. “On that principle, Ben, I suppose when you go to Rome you’ll expect to see the identical goose who saved the capitol. But it will be easy enough to see the pigeons. They are in the same building with Van der Werf’s portrait. Which was the greater defense, Ben, the siege of Leyden or the siege of Haarlem?”
“Well,” replied Ben thoughtfully, “Van der Werf is one of my heroes. We all have our historical pets, you know, but I really think the siege of Haarlem brought out a braver, more heroic resistance even, than the Leyden one; besides, they set the Leyden sufferers an example of courage and fortitude, for their turn came first.”
“I don’t know much about the Haarlem siege,” said Lambert, “except that it was in 1573. Who beat?”
“The Spaniards,” said Ben. “The Dutch had stood out for months. Not a man would yield nor a woman, either, for that matter. They shouldered arms and fought gallantly beside their husbands and fathers. Three hundred of them did duty under Kanau Hesselaer, a great woman, and brave as Joan of Arc. All this time the city was surrounded by the Spaniards under Frederic of Toledo, son of that beauty, the Duke of Alva. Cut off from all possible help from without, there seemed to be no hope for the inhabitants, but they shouted defiance over the city walls. They even threw bread into the enemy’s camps to show that they were not afraid of starvation. Up to the last they held out bravely, waiting for the help that never could come—growing bolder and bolder until their provisions were exhausted. Then it was terrible. In time, hundreds of famished creatures fell dead in the streets, and the living had scarcely strength to bury them. At last they made the desperate resolution that, rather than perish by lingering torture, the strongest would form a square, placing the weakest in the center, and rush in a body to their death, with the faint chance of being able to fight their way through the enemy. The Spaniards received a hint of this, and believing that there was nothing the Dutch would not dare to do, they concluded to offer terms.”
“High time, I should think.”
“Yes, with falsehood and treachery they soon obtained an entrance into the city, promising protection and forgiveness to all except those whom the citizens themselves would acknowledge as deserving of death.”
“You don’t say so!” said Lambert, quite interested. “That ended the business, I suppose.”
“Not a bit of it,” returned en, “for the Duke of Alva had already given his son orders to show mercy to none.”
“Ah! That was where the great Haarlem massacre came in. I remember now. You can’t wonder that the Hollanders dislike Spain when you read of the way they were butchered by Alva and his hosts, though I admit that our side sometimes retaliated terribly. But as I have told you before, I have a very indistinct idea of historical matters. Everything is confusion—from the flood to the battle of Waterloo. One thing is plain, however, the Duke of Alva was about the worst specimen of a man that ever lived.”
“That gives only a faint idea of him,” said Ben, “but I hate to think of such a wretch. What if he HAD brains and military skill, and all that sort of thing! Give me such men as Van der Werf, and—What now?”
“Why,” said Van Mounen, who was looking up and down the street in a bewildered way. “We’ve walked right past the museum, and I don’t see the boys. Let us go back.”