Hans Brinker; Or, The Silver Skates

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 Cæsar had settled there. Where have they not settled? I for one would hardly be astonished if relics of the ancient Romans should some day be found deep under the grass growing round 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 a high mound which stood in the centre. 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 meant 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 Heaven!" 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 are hurt, Jacob!" 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 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 rather a 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 by 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 Breede Straat, 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 of 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 finer portions of Amsterdam. It is kept scrupulously neat; many of the gutters are covered with boards that open like trap-doors; 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 around the rampart that surrounds Leyden, and is crossed by draw-bridges 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 even a 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 note-book" – 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 a while, and then – took another, which, for form 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.

XXVI

THE PALACE AND THE WOOD

As the boys skated onward, they saw a number of fine country seats, all decorated and surrounded according to the Dutchest of Dutch taste, but impressive to look upon, with their great, formal houses, elaborate gardens, square hedges, and wide ditches – some crossed by a bridge, having a gate in the middle to be carefully locked at night. These ditches, everywhere traversing the landscape, had long ago lost their summer film, and now shone under the sunlight, like trailing ribbons of glass.

The boys traveled bravely, all the while performing the surprising feat of producing gingerbread from their pockets and causing it to vanish instantly.

Twelve miles were passed. A few more long strokes would take them to the Hague, when Van Mounen proposed that they should vary their course, by walking into the city through The Bosch.

"Agreed!" cried one and all – and their skates were off in a twinkling.

The Bosch is a grand park or wood, nearly two miles long, containing the celebrated House in the Wood —Huis in't Bosch– sometimes used as a royal residence.

This building, though plain outside for a palace, is elegantly furnished within, and finely frescoed – that is, the walls and ceiling are covered with groups and designs painted directly upon them while the plaster was fresh. Some of the rooms are tapestried with Chinese silk, beautifully embroidered. One contains a number of family portraits, among them a group of royal children who in time were orphaned by a certain axe which figures very frequently in European history. These children were painted many times by the Dutch artist Van Dyck, who was court-painter to their father, Charles the First of England. Beautiful children they were – what a deal of trouble the English nation would have been spared, had they been as perfect in heart and soul, as they were in form!

The park surrounding the palace is charming, especially in summer, for flowers and birds make it bright as fairyland. Long rows of magnificent oaks rear their proud heads, conscious that no profaning hand will ever bring them low. In fact the Wood has for ages been held as an almost sacred spot. Children are never allowed to meddle with its smallest twig; the axe of the Woodman has never resounded there. Even war and riot have passed it reverently, pausing for a moment in their devastating way. Philip of Spain, while he ordered Dutchmen to be mowed down by hundreds, issued a mandate that not a bough of the beautiful Wood should be touched – and once when in a time of great necessity the State was about to sacrifice it to assist in filling a nearly exhausted treasury, the people rushed to the rescue, and nobly contributed the required amount rather than that the Bosch should fall.

What wonder then that the oaks have a grand, fearless air? Birds from all Holland have told them how, elsewhere, trees are cropped and bobbed into shape – but they are untouched. Year after year, they expand in unclipped luxuriance and beauty; their wide-spreading foliage, alive with song, casts a cool shade over lawn and pathway, or bows to its image in the sunny ponds.

Meanwhile, as if to reward the citizens for allowing her to have her way for once, Nature departs from the invariable level, wearing gracefully the ornaments that have been reverently bestowed upon her – So the lawn slopes in a velvety green; the paths wind in and out; flower-beds glow and send forth perfume; and ponds and sky look at each other in mutual admiration.

Even on that winter day the Bosch was beautiful. Its trees were bare, but beneath them still lay the ponds, every ripple smoothed into glass. The blue sky was bright overhead, and as it looked down through the thicket of boughs, it saw another blue sky, not nearly so bright, looking up from the dim thicket under the ice.

Never had the sunset appeared more beautiful to Peter than when he saw it exchanging farewell glances with the windows and shining roofs of the city before him. Never had the Hague itself seemed more inviting. He was no longer Peter van Holp, going to visit a great city, nor a fine young gentleman bent on sightseeing; he was a knight, an adventurer, travel-soiled and weary, a Hop-o'-my-Thumb grown large, a Fortunatus approaching the enchanted castle where luxury and ease awaited him – for his own sister's house was not half a mile away.

"At last, boys," he cried, in high glee, "we may hope for a royal resting-place – good beds, warm rooms and something fit to eat. I never realized before what a luxury such things are. Our lodgings at the Red Lion have made us appreciate our own homes."

XXVII

THE MERCHANT PRINCE, AND THE SISTER-PRINCESS

Well might Peter feel that his sister's house was like an enchanted castle. Large and elegant as it was, a spell of quiet hung over it. The very lion crouching at its gate seemed to have been turned into stone through magic. Within, it was guarded by genii, in the shape of red-faced servants, who sprang silently forth at the summons of bell or knocker. There was a cat, also, who appeared as knowing as any Puss-in-Boots; and a brass gnome in the hall whose business it was to stand with outstretched arms ready to receive sticks and umbrellas. Safe within the walls bloomed a Garden of Delight, where the flowers firmly believed it was summer, and a sparkling fountain was laughing merrily to itself because Jack Frost could not find it. There was a Sleeping Beauty, too, just at the time of the boys' arrival; but when Peter, like a true prince, flew lightly up the stairs, and kissed her eyelids, the enchantment was broken. The princess became his own good sister, and the fairy castle just one of the finest, most comfortable houses of the Hague.

As may well be believed, the boys received the heartiest of welcomes. After they had conversed a while with their lively hostess, one of the genii summoned them to a grand repast in a red-curtained room, where floor and ceiling shone like polished ivory, and the mirrors suddenly blossomed into rosy-cheeked boys as far as the eye could reach.

They had caviare now, and salmagundi, and sausage and cheese, besides salad and fruit and biscuit and cake. How the boys could partake of such a medley was a mystery to Ben; for the salad was sour, and the cake was sweet; the fruit was dainty, and the salmagundi heavy with onions and fish. But, while he was wondering, he made a hearty meal, and was soon absorbed in deciding which he really preferred, the coffee or the anisette cordial. It was delightful, too – this taking one's food from dishes of frosted silver and liqueur glasses from which Titania herself might have sipped. The young gentleman afterward wrote to his mother that pretty and choice as things were at home, he had never known what cut-glass, china and silver services were until he visited the Hague.

Of course Peter's sister soon heard of all the boys' adventures. How they had skated over forty miles and seen rare sights on the way; how they had lost their purse and found it again. How one of the party had fallen and given them an excuse for a grand sail in an ice-boat; how above all, they had caught a robber, and so for a second time saved their slippery purse.

"And now, Peter," said the lady, when the story was finished, "you must write at once to tell the good people of Broek that your adventures have reached their height, that you and your fellow-travelers have all been taken prisoners."

The boys looked startled.