Hans Brinker; Or, The Silver Skates

"That's true," said Lambert, "and how superb the pipes looked – just like grand columns of silver. They're only for show, you know; the real pipes are behind them, some big enough for a man to crawl through, and some smaller than a baby's whistle. Well, sir, for size, the church is higher than Westminster Abbey, to begin with, and, as you say, the organ makes a tremendous show even then. Father told me last night that it is one hundred and eight feet high, fifty feet broad, and has over five thousand pipes; it has sixty-four stops, if you know what they are, I don't, and three keyboards."

"Good for you!" said Ben. "You have a fine memory. My head is a perfect colander for figures; they slip through as fast as they're poured in. But other facts and historical events stay behind – that's some consolation."

"There we differ," returned Van Mounen. "I'm great on names and figures, but history, take it altogether, seems to me to be the most hopeless kind of a jumble."

Meantime Carl and Ludwig were having a discussion concerning some square wooden monuments they had observed in the interior of the church; Ludwig declared that each bore the name of the person buried beneath, and Carl insisted that they had no names, but only the heraldic arms of the deceased painted on a black ground, with the date of the death in gilt letters.

"I ought to know," said Carl, "for I walked across to the east side, to look for the cannon-ball which mother told me was embedded there. It was fired into the church, in the year fifteen hundred and something, by those rascally Spaniards, while the services were going on. There it was in the wall, sure enough, and while I was walking back, I noticed the monuments – I tell you they haven't a sign of a name upon them."

"Ask Peter," said Ludwig, only half convinced.

"Carl is right," replied Peter, who though conversing with Jacob, had overheard their dispute. "Well, Jacob, as I was saying, Handel the great composer chanced to visit Haarlem and of course he at once hunted up this famous organ. He gained admittance, and was playing upon it with all his might, when the regular organist chanced to enter the building. The man stood awe-struck; he was a good player himself, but he had never heard such music before. 'Who is there?' he cried. 'If it is not an angel or the devil, it must be Handel!' When he discovered that it was the great musician, he was still more mystified! 'But how is this?' said he; 'you have done impossible things – no ten fingers on earth can play the passages you have given; human hands couldn't control all the keys and stops!' 'I know it,' said Handel, coolly, 'and for that reason, I was forced to strike some notes with the end of my nose.' Donder! just think how the old organist must have stared!"

"Hey! What?" exclaimed Jacob, startled when Peter's animated voice suddenly became silent.

"Haven't you heard me, you rascal?" was the indignant rejoinder.

"Oh, yes – no – the fact is – I heard you at first – I'm awake now, but I do believe I've been walking beside you half asleep," stammered Jacob, with such a doleful, bewildered look on his face, that Peter could not help laughing.

XVII

THE MAN WITH FOUR HEADS

After leaving the church, the boys stopped near by in the open market-place, to look at the bronze statue of Laurens Janzoon Coster, who is believed by the Dutch to have been the inventor of printing. This is disputed by those who award the same honor to Johannes Gutenberg of Mayence; while many maintain that Faustus, a servant of Coster, stole his master's wooden types on a Christmas eve, when the latter was at church, and fled with his booty, and his secret, to Mayence. Coster was a native of Haarlem, and the Hollanders are naturally anxious to secure the credit of the invention for their illustrious townsman. Certain it is, that the first book he printed, is kept, by the city, in a silver case wrapped in silk, and is shown with great caution as a most precious relic. It is said, he first conceived the idea of printing from cutting his name upon the bark of a tree, and afterward pressing a piece of paper upon the characters.

Of course Lambert and his English friend fully discussed this subject. They also had rather a warm argument concerning another invention. Lambert declared that the honor of giving both the telescope and microscope to the world lay between Metius and Jansen, both Hollanders; while Ben as stoutly insisted that Roger Bacon, an English monk of the thirteenth century, "wrote out the whole thing, sir, perfect descriptions of microscopes and telescopes, too, long before either of those other fellows were born."

On one subject, however, they both agreed: that the art of curing and pickling herrings was discovered by William Beukles of Holland, and that the country did perfectly right in honoring him as a national benefactor, for its wealth and importance had been in a great measure due to its herring trade.

"It is astonishing," said Ben, "in what prodigious quantities those fish are found. I don't know how it is here, but on the coast of England, off Yarmouth, the herring shoals have been known to be six and seven feet deep with fish."

"That is prodigious, indeed," said Lambert, "but you know your word herring is derived from the German heer, an army, on account of a way the fish have of coming in large numbers."

Soon afterward, while passing a cobbler's shop, Ben exclaimed:

"Hollo! Lambert, here is the name of one of your greatest men over a cobbler's stall! Boerhaave – if it were only Herman Boerhaave instead of Hendrick, it would be complete."

Lambert knit his brows reflectively, as he replied:

"Boerhaave – Boerhaave – the name is perfectly familiar; I remember, too, he was born in 1668, but the rest is all gone, as usual. There have been so many famous Hollanders, you see, it is impossible for a fellow to know them all. What was he? Did he have two heads? or was he one of your great, natural swimmers like Marco Polo?"

"He had four heads," answered Ben, laughing, "for he was a great physician, naturalist, botanist and chemist. I am full of him just now, for I read his life a few weeks ago."

"Pour out a little then," said Lambert; "only walk faster, we shall lose sight of the other boys."

"Well," resumed Ben, quickening his pace, and looking with great interest at everything going on in the crowded street. "This Dr. Boerhaave was a great anspewker."

"A great what?" roared Lambert.

"Oh, I beg pardon – I was thinking of that man over there, with the cocked hat. He's an anspewker, isn't he?"

"Yes. He's an aanspreeker – if that is what you mean to say. But what about your friend with the four heads?"

"Well, as I was going to say, the doctor was left a penniless orphan at sixteen without education or friends."

"Jolly beginning!" interposed Lambert.

"Now don't interrupt. He was a poor friendless orphan at sixteen, but he was so persevering and industrious, so determined to gain knowledge, that he made his way, and in time became one of the most learned men of Europe. All the – What is that?"

"Where? What do you mean?"

"Why, that paper on the door opposite. Don't you see? Two or three persons are reading it; I have noticed several of these papers since I've been here."

"Oh, that's only a health-bulletin. Somebody in the house is ill, and to prevent a steady knocking at the door, the family write an account of the patient's condition on a placard, and hang it outside the door, for the benefit of inquiring friends – a very sensible custom, I'm sure. Nothing strange about it that I can see – go on, please – you said 'all the' – and there you left me hanging."

"I was going to say," resumed Ben, "that all the – all the – how comically persons do dress here, to be sure! Just look at those men and women with their sugar-loaf hats – and see this woman ahead of us with a straw-bonnet like a scoop-shovel tapering to a point in the back. Did ever you see anything so funny? And those tremendous wooden shoes, too – I declare she's a beauty!"

"Oh, they are only back-country folk," said Lambert, rather impatiently – "You might as well let old Boerhaave drop, or else shut your eyes – "

"Ha! ha! Well, I was going to say – all the big men of his day sought out this great professor. Even Peter the Great when he came over to Holland from Russia to learn ship-building, attended his lectures regularly. By that time Boerhaave was professor of Medicine and Chemistry and Botany in the University of Leyden. He had grown to be very wealthy as a practicing physician; but he used to say that the poor were his best patients because God would be their pay-master. All Europe learned to love and honor him. In short, he became so famous that a certain mandarin of China addressed a letter to 'The illustrious Boerhaave, physician in Europe,' and the letter found its way to him without any difficulty."

"My goodness! That is what I call being a public character. The boys have stopped. How now, Captain van Holp, what next?"

"We propose to move on," said Van Holp; "there is nothing to see at this season in the Bosch – the Bosch is a noble wood, Benjamin, a grand Park where they have most magnificent trees, protected by law – Do you understand?"

"Ya!" nodded Ben, as the captain proceeded:

"Unless you all desire to visit the Museum of Natural History, we may go on the grand canal again. If we had more time it would be pleasant to take Benjamin up the Blue Stairs."

"What are the Blue Stairs, Lambert?" asked Ben.

"They are the highest point of the Dunes. You have a grand view of the ocean from there, besides a fine chance to see how wonderful these Dunes are. One can hardly believe that the wind could ever heap up sand in so remarkable a way. But we have to go through Bloemendal to get there – not a very pretty village, and some distance from here. What do you say?"

"Oh, I am ready for anything. For my part, I would rather steer direct for Leyden, but we'll do as the captain says – hey, Jacob?"

"Ya, dat ish goot," said Jacob, who felt decidedly more like taking another nap, than ascending the Blue Stairs.

The captain was in favor of going to Leyden.

"It's four long miles from here. (Full sixteen of your English miles, Benjamin.) We have no time to lose if you wish to reach there before midnight. Decide quickly, boys – Blue Stairs or Leyden?"

"Leyden," they answered – and were out of Haarlem in a twinkling, admiring the lofty, tower-like windmills and pretty country-seats as they left the city behind them.

"If you really wish to see Haarlem," said Lambert to Ben, after they had skated a while in silence, "you should visit it in summer. It is the greatest place in the world for beautiful flowers. The walks around the city are superb; and the 'Wood' with its miles of noble elms, all in full feather, is something to remember. You need not smile, old fellow, at my saying 'full feather' – I was thinking of waving plumes, and got my words mixed up a little. But a Dutch elm beats everything; it is the noblest tree on earth, Ben – if you except the English oak – "

"Aye," said Ben, solemnly, "if you except the English oak" – and for some moments he could scarcely see the canal because Robby and Jenny kept bobbing in the air before his eyes.

XVIII