Hans Brinker; Or, The Silver Skates

"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 started. "What now?"

"Nothing – only Mynheer Kleef of the Red Lion little thinks how we shall make things spin in that same room to-night – 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.

XXII

THE RED LION BECOMES DANGEROUS

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 Vliet canal than give him lodgment."

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. After receiving a few more rough words, 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 checker-board. 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 fire-dogs; a tiled hearth, tiled sides, tiled top, with a Dutch sentence upon it; and over all, high above one's head, a narrow mantel-shelf, filled with shining brass candle-sticks, pipe-lighters and tinder-boxes. 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 dim with tobacco smoke, but otherwise 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 on the evening of December 6th, 184 – . For supper, gingerbread again; slices of Dutch sausage, rye-bread sprinkled with annis-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 a while, 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 axe.

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 courtesy, 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?"