Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates / Серебряные коньки. Книга для чтения на английском языке

As his party skimmed lightly along he told Van Mounen of a burial riot which in 1696 had occurred in that very city, where the women and children turned out, as well as the men, and formed mock funeral processions through the town, to show the burgomasters that certain new regulations, with regard to burying the dead would not be acceded to – how at last they grew so unmanageable and threatened so much damage to the city that the burgomasters were glad to recall the offensive law.

“There’s the corner,” said Jacob, pointing to some large buildings, where, about fifteen years ago, the great corn houses sank down in the mud. “They were strong affairs and set up on good piles, but they had over seven million pounds of corn in them, and that was too much.”

It was a long story for Jacob to tell, and he stopped to rest.

“How do you know there were seven million pounds in them?” asked Carl sharply. “You were in your swaddling clothes then.[105]”

“My father knows all about it,” was Jacob’s suggestive reply. Rousing himself with an effort, he continued, “Ben likes pictures. Show him some.”

“All right,” said the captain.

“If we had time, Benjamin,” said Lambert van Mounen in English, “I should like to take you to the City Hall, or Stadhuis. There are building piles for you! It is built on nearly fourteen thousand of them, driven seventy feet into the ground. But what I wish you to see there is the big picture of Van Speyk blowing up his ship – great picture.”

“Van WHO?” asked Ben.

“Van Speyk. Don’t you remember? He was in the height of an engagement with the Belgians, and when he found that they had the better of him[106] and would capture his ship, he blew it up, and himself, too, rather than yield to the enemy.”

“Wasn’t that Van Tromp?”

“Oh, no. Van Tromp was another brave fellow. They’ve a monument to him down at Delftshaven – the place where the Pilgrims took ship for America.”

“Well, what about Van Tromp? He was a great Dutch admiral, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, he was in more than thirty sea fights. He beat the Spanish fleet and an English one, and then fastened a broom to his masthead to show that he had swept the English from the sea. Takes the Dutch to beat[107], my boy!”

“Hold up!” cried Ben. “Broom or no broom, the English conquered him at last. I remember all about it now. He was killed somewhere on the Dutch coast in an engagement in which the English fleet was victorious. Too bad,” he added maliciously, “wasn’t it?”

“Ahem! Where are we?” exclaimed Lambert, changing the subject. “Halloo! The others are way ahead of us – all but Jacob. Whew! How fat he is! He’ll break down before we’re halfway.”

Ben, of course, enjoyed skating beside Lambert, who, though a staunch Hollander, had been educated near London and could speak English as fluently as Dutch, but he was not sorry when Captain van Holp called out, “Skates off! There’s the museum!”

It was open, and there was no charge on that day for admission. In they went, shufling, as boys will when they have a chance, just to hear the sound of their shoes on the polished floor.

This museum is in fact a picture gallery where some of the finest works of the Dutch masters are to be seen, besides nearly two hundred portfolios of rare engravings.

Ben noticed, at once, that some of the pictures were hung on panels fastened to the wall with hinges. These could be swung forward like a window shutter, thus enabling the subject to be seen in the best light. The plan served them well in viewing a small group by Gerard Douw[108], called the “Evening School,” enabling them to observe its exquisite finish and the wonderful way in which the picture seemed to be lit through its own windows. Peter pointed out the beauties of another picture by Douw, called “The Hermit,” and he also told them some interesting anecdotes of the artist, who was born at Leyden in 1613.

“Three days painting a broom handle!” echoed Carl in astonishment, while the captain was giving some instances of Douw’s extreme slowness of execution.

“Yes, sir, three days. And it is said that he spent five in finishing one hand in a lady’s portrait. You see how very bright and minute everything is in this picture. His unfinished works were kept carefully covered and his painting materials were put away in airtight boxes as soon as he had finished using them for the day. According to all accounts, the studio itself must have been as close as a bandbox. The artist always entered it on tiptoe, besides sitting still, before he commenced work, until the slight dust caused by his entrance had settled. I have read somewhere that his paintings are improved by being viewed through a magnifying glass. He strained his eyes so badly with the extra finishing, that he was forced to wear spectacles before he was thirty. At forty he could scarcely see to paint, and he couldn’t find a pair of glasses anywhere that would help his sight. At last, a poor old German woman asked him to try hers. They suited him exactly, and enabled him to go on painting as well as ever.”

“Humph!” exclaimed Ludwig indignantly. “That was high![109] What did SHE do without them, I wonder?”

“Oh,” said Peter, laughing, “likely she had another pair. At any rate she insisted upon his taking them. He was so grateful that he painted a picture of the spectacles for her, case and all, and she sold it to a burgomaster for a yearly allowance that made her comfortable for the rest of her days.”

“Boys!” called Lambert in a loud whisper, “come look at this ‘Bear Hunt.’”

It was a fine painting by Paul Potter[110], a Dutch artist of the seventeenth century, who produced excellent works before he was sixteen years old. The boys admired it because the subject pleased them. They passed carelessly by the masterpieces of Rembrandt and Van der Helst, and went into raptures over an ugly picture by Van der Venne, representing a sea fight between the Dutch and English. They also stood spellbound before a painting of two little urchins, one of whom was taking soup and the other eating an egg. The principal merit in this work was that the young egg-eater had kindly slobbered his face with the yolk for their entertainment.

An excellent representation of the “Feast of Saint Nicholas” next had the honor of attracting them.

“Look, Van Mounen,” said Ben to Lambert. “Could anything be better than this youngster’s face? He looks as if he KNOWS he deserves a whipping, but hopes Saint Nicholas may not have found him out. That’s the kind of painting I like; something that tells a story.”

“Come, boys!” cried the captain. “Ten o’clock, time we were off!”

They hastened to the canal.

“Skates on! Are you ready? One, two – halloo! Where’s Poot?”

Sure enough, where WAS Poot?

A square opening had just been cut in the ice not ten yards off. Peter observed it and, without a word, skated rapidly toward it.

All the others followed, of course.

Peter looked in. They all looked in; then stared anxiously at each other.

“Poot!” screamed Peter, peering into the hole again. All was still. The black water gave no sign; it was already glazing on top.

Van Mounen turned mysteriously to Ben. “DIDN’t HE HAVE A FIT ONCE?”

“My goodness! yes!” answered Ben in a great fright.

“Then, depend upon it, he’s been taken with one[111] in the museum!”

The boys caught his meaning. Every skate was off in a twinkling[112]. Peter had the presence of mind to scoop up a capful of water from the hole, and off they scampered to the rescue.

Alas! They did indeed find poor Jacob in a fit, but it was a fit of sleepiness. There he lay in a recess of the gallery, snoring like a trooper! The chorus of laughter that followed this discovery brought an angry official to the spot.

“What now! None of this racket! Here, you beer barrel, wake up!” And Master Jacob received a very unceremonious shaking.

As soon as Peter saw that Jacob’s condition was not serious, he hastened to the street to empty his unfortunate cap. While he was stufing in his handkerchief to prevent the already frozen crown from touching his head, the rest of the boys came down, dragging the bewildered and indignant Jacob in their midst.

The order to start was again given. Master Poot was wide-awake at last. The ice was a little rough and broken just there, but every boy was in high spirits.

“Shall we go on by the canal or the river?” asked Peter.

“Oh, the river, by all means,” said Carl. “It will be such fun; they say it is perfect skating all the way, but it’s much farther[113].”

Jacob Poot instantly became interested.

“I vote for the canal!” he cried.

“Well, the canal it shall be,” responded the captain, “if all are agreed[114].”

“Agreed!” they echoed, in rather a disappointed tone, and Captain Peter led the way.

“All right, come on. We can reach Haarlem in an hour!”

Big Manias and Little Oddities

While skating along at full speed, they heard the cars from Amsterdam coming close behind them.

“Halloo!” cried Ludwig, glancing toward the rail track, “who can’t beat a locomotive? Let’s give it a race!”

The whistle screamed at the very idea – so did the boys – and at it they went.

For an instant the boys were ahead, hurrahing with all their might – only for an instant, but even THAT was something.

This excitement over, they began to travel more leisurely and indulge in conversation and frolic. Sometimes they stopped to exchange a word with the guards who were stationed at certain distances along the canal. These men, in winter, attend to keeping the surface free from obstruction and garbage. After a snowstorm they are expected to sweep the feathery covering away before it hardens into a marble pretty to look at but very unwelcome to skaters. Now and then the boys so far forgot their dignity as to clamber among the icebound canal boats crowded together in a widened harbor off the canal, but the watchful guards would soon spy them out and order them down with a growl.

Nothing could be straighter than the canal upon which our party were skating, and nothing straighter than the long rows of willow trees that stood, bare and wispy, along the bank. On the opposite side, lifted high above the surrounding country, lay the carriage road on top of the great dike built to keep the Haarlem Lake within bounds; stretching out far in the distance, until it became lost in a point, was the glassy canal with its many skaters, its brown-winged iceboats, its push-chairs, and its queer little sleds, light as cork, flying over the ice by means of iron-pronged sticks in the hands of the riders. Ben was in ecstasy with the scene.

Ludwig van Holp had been thinking how strange it was that the English boy should know so much of Holland. According to Lambert’s account, he knew more about it than the Dutch did. This did not quite please our young Hollander. Suddenly he thought of something that he believed would make the “Shon Pull” open his eyes; he drew near Lambert with a triumphant “Tell him about the tulips!”

Ben caught the word tulpen.

“Oh, yes!” said he eagerly, in English, “the Tulip Mania – are you speaking of that? I have often heard it mentioned but know very little about it. It reached its height in Amsterdam, didn’t it?”

Ludwig moaned; the words were hard to understand, but there was no mistaking the enlightened expression on Ben’s face. Lambert, happily, was quite unconscious of his young countryman’s distress as he replied, “Yes, here and in Haarlem, principally; but the excitement ran high all over Holland, and in England too for that matter.”

“Hardly in England, I think,” said Ben, “but I am not sure, as I was not there at the time.”[115]

“Ha! ha! that’s true, unless you are over two hundred years old. Well, I tell you, sir, there never was anything like it before nor since. Why, persons were so crazy after tulip bulbs in those days that they paid their weight in gold for them.”

“What, the weight of a man!” cried Ben, showing such astonishment in his eyes that Ludwig fairly capered.

“No, no, the weight of a BULB. The first tulip was sent here from Constantinople about the year 1560. It was so much admired that the rich people of Amsterdam sent to Turkey for more. From that time they grew to be the rage[116], and it lasted for years. Single roots brought from one to four thousand florins; and one bulb, the Semper Augustus, brought fifty-five hundred.”

“That’s more than four hundred guineas of our money,” interposed Ben.

“Yes, and I know I’m right, for I read it in a translation from Beckman, only day before yesterday. Well, sir, it was great. Everyone speculated in tulips, even bargemen and rag women and chimney sweeps. The richest merchants were not ashamed to share the excitement. People bought bulbs and sold them again at a tremendous profit without ever seeing them. It grew into a kind of gambling. Some became rich by it in a few days, and some lost everything they had. Land, houses, cattle, and even clothing went for tulips when people had no ready money. Ladies sold their jewels and finery to enable them to join in the fun. Nothing else was thought of. At last the States-General interfered. People began to see what dunces they were making of themselves[117], and down went the price of tulips. Old tulip debts couldn’t be collected. Creditors went to law[118], and the law turned its back upon them; debts made in gambling were not binding, it said. Then there was a time! Thousands of rich speculators were reduced to beggary in an hour. As old Beckman says, ‘The bubble was burst at last.’”

“Yes, and a big bubble it was,” said Ben, who had listened with great interest. “By the way, did you know that the name tulip came from a Turkish word, signifying turban?”

“I had forgotten that,” answered Lambert, “but it’s a capital idea. Just fancy a party of Turks in full headgear squatted upon a lawn – perfect tulip bed! Ha! ha! Capital idea!”

“There,” groaned Ludwig to himself, “he’s been telling Lambert something wonderful about tulips – I knew it!”

“The fact is,” continued Lambert, “you can conjure up quite a human picture of a tulip bed in bloom, especially when it is nodding and bobbing in the wind. Did you ever notice it?”

“Not I. It strikes me, Van Mounen, that you Hollanders are prodigiously fond of the flower to this day.”

“Certainly. You can’t have a garden without them; prettiest flower that grows, I think. My uncle has a magnificent bed of the finest varieties at his summer house on the other side of Amsterdam.”

“I thought your uncle lived in the city?”

“So he does; but his summer house, or pavilion, is a few miles off. He has another one built out over the river. We passed near it when we entered the city. Everybody in Amsterdam has a pavilion somewhere, if he can.”

“Do they ever live there?” asked Ben.

“Bless you, no! They are small affairs, suitable only to spend a few hours in on summer afternoons. There are some beautiful ones on the southern end of the Haarlem Lake – now that they’ve commenced to drain it into polders, it will spoil THAT fun. By the way, we’ve passed some red-roofed ones since we left home. You noticed them, I suppose, with their little bridges and ponds and gardens, and their mottoes over the doorway.”

Ben nodded.

“They make but little show, now,” continued Lambert, “but in warm weather they are delightful. After the willows sprout, uncle goes to his summer house every afternoon. He dozes and smokes; aunt knits, with her feet perched upon a foot stove, never mind how hot the day; my cousin Rika and the other girls fish in the lake from the windows or chat with their friends rowing by; and the youngsters tumble about or hang upon the little bridges over the ditch. Then they have coffee and cakes, beside a great bunch of water lilies on the table. It’s very fine, I can tell you; only (between ourselves), though I was born here, I shall never fancy the odor of stagnant water that hangs about most of the summer houses. Nearly every one you see is built over a ditch. Probably I feel it more, from having lived so long in England.”

“Perhaps I shall notice it too,” said Ben, “if a thaw comes. The early winter has covered up the fragrant waters for my benefit[119] – much obliged to it. Holland without this glorious skating wouldn’t be the same thing at all.”

“How very different you are from the Poots!” exclaimed Lambert, who had been listening in a sort of brown study[120]. “And yet you are cousins – I cannot understand it.”

“We ARE cousins, or rather we have always considered ourselves such, but the relationship is not very close. Our grandmothers were half-sisters. MY side of the family is entirely English, while he is entirely Dutch. Old Great-grandfather Poot married twice, you see, and I am a descendant of his English wife. I like Jacob, though, better than half of my English cousins put together. He is the truest-hearted, best-natured boy I ever knew. Strange as you may think it, my father became accidentally acquainted with Jacob’s father while on a business visit to Rotterdam. They soon talked over their relationship – in French, by the way – and they have corresponded in the language ever since. Queer things come about in this world. My sister Jenny would open her eyes at some of Aunt Poot’s ways. Aunt is a thorough lady, but so different from mother – and the house, too, and furniture, and way of living, everything is different.”

“Of course,” assented Lambert, complacently, as if to say You could scarcely expect such general perfection anywhere else than in Holland. “But you will have all the more to tell Jenny when you go back.”

“Yes, indeed. I can say one thing – if cleanliness is, as they claim, next to godliness, Broek is safe. It is the cleanest place I ever saw in my life. Why, my Aunt Poot, rich as she is, scrubs half the time, and her house looks as if it were varnished all over. I wrote to mother yesterday that I could see my double always with me, feet to feet, in the polished floor of the dining-room.”

“Your DOUBLE! That word puzzles me; what do you mean?”

“Oh, my reflection, my apparition. Ben Dobbs number two.”

“Ah, I see,” exclaimed Van Mounen. “Have you ever been in your Aunt Poot’s grand parlor?”

Ben laughed. “Only once, and that was on the day of my arrival. Jacob says I shall have no chance of entering it again until the time of his sister Kanau’s wedding, the week after Christmas. Father has consented that I shall remain to witness the great event. Every Saturday Aunt Poot and her fat Kate go into that parlor and sweep and polish and scrub; then it is darkened and closed until Saturday comes again; not a soul enters it in the meantime; but the schoonmaken[121], as she calls it, must be done just the same.”

“That is nothing. Every parlor in Broek meets with the same treatment,” said Lambert. “What do you think of those moving figures in her neighbor’s garden?”

“Oh, they’re well enough; the swans must seem really alive gliding about the pond in summer; but that nodding mandarin in the corner, under the chestnut trees, is ridiculous, only fit for children to laugh at. And then the stiff garden patches, and the trees all trimmed and painted. Excuse me, Van Mounen, but I shall never learn to admire Dutch taste.”

“It will take time[122],” answered Lambert condescendingly, “but you are sure to agree with it at last. I saw much to admire in England, and I hope I shall be sent back with you to study at Oxford, but, take everything together, I like Holland best.”

“Of course you do,” said Ben in a tone of hearty approval. “You wouldn’t be a good Hollander if you didn’t. Nothing like loving one’s country. It is strange, though, to have such a warm feeling for such a cold place. If we were not exercising all the time, we should freeze outright.”

Lambert laughed.

“That’s your English blood, Benjamin. I’m not cold. And look at the skaters here on the canal – they’re red as roses and happy as lords. Halloo, good Captain van Holp,” called out Lambert in Dutch, “what say you to stopping at yonder farmhouse and warming our toes?”

“Who is cold?” asked Peter, turning around.

“Benjamin Dobbs.”

“Benjamin Dobbs shall be warmed,” and the party was brought to a halt[123].

On the Way to Haarlem

On approaching the door of the farmhouse the boys suddenly found themselves in the midst of a lively domestic scene. A burly Dutchman came rushing out, closely followed by his dear vrouw, and she was beating him smartly with her long-handled warming pan. The expression on her face gave our boys so little promise of a kind reception that they prudently resolved to carry their toes[124] elsewhere to be warmed.

The next cottage proved to be more inviting. Its low roof of bright red tiles extended over the cow stable that, clean as could be, nestled close to the main building. A neat, peaceful-looking old woman sat at one window, knitting. At the other could be discerned part of the profile of a fat figure that, pipe in mouth, sat behind the shining little panes and snowy curtain. In answer to Peter’s subdued knock, a fair-haired, rosy-cheeked lass in holiday attire opened the upper half of the green door (which was divided across the middle) and inquired their errand.

“May we enter and warm ourselves, jufvrouw?” asked the captain respectfully.

“Yes, and welcome,” was the reply as the lower half of the door swung softly toward its mate. Every boy, before entering, rubbed long and faithfully upon the rough mat, and each made his best bow to the old lady and gentleman at the window. Ben was half inclined to think that these personages were automata like the moving figures in the garden at Broek; for they both nodded their heads slowly, in precisely the same way, and both went on with their employment as steadily and stiffly as though they worked by machinery. The old man puffed, puffed, and his vrouw clicked her knitting needles, as if regulated by internal cog wheels. Even the real smoke issuing from the motionless pipe gave no convincing proof that they were human.

But the rosy-cheeked maiden. Ah, how she bustled about. How she gave the boys polished high-backed chairs to sit upon, how she made the fire blaze as if it were inspired, how she made Jacob Poot almost weep for joy by bringing forth a great square of gingerbread and a stone jug of sour wine! How she laughed and nodded as the boys ate like wild animals on good behavior, and how blank she looked when Ben politely but firmly refused to take any black bread and Sauerkraut[125]! How she pulled off Jacob’s mitten, which was torn at the thumb, and mended it before his eyes[126], biting off the thread with her white teeth, and saying “Now it will be warmer” as she bit; and finally, how she shook hands with every boy in turn and, throwing a deprecating glance at the female automaton, insisted upon filling their pockets with gingerbread!

All this time the knitting needles clicked on, and the pipe never missed a puff.

When the boys were fairly on their way again, they came in sight of the Zwanenburg Castle with its massive stone front, and its gateway towers, each surmounted with a sculptured swan.

“Halfweg[127], boys,” said Peter, “off with your skates.”

“You see,” explained Lambert to his companions, “the Y and the Haarlem Lake meeting here make it rather troublesome. The river is five feet higher than the land, so we must have everything strong in the way of dikes and sluice gates, or there would be wet work at once. The sluice arrangements are supposed to be something extra. We will walk over them and you shall see enough to make you open your eyes. The spring water of the lake, they say, has the most wonderful bleaching powers of any in the world; all the great Haarlem bleacheries use it. I can’t say much upon that subject, but I can tell you ONE thing from personal experience.”

“What is that?”

“Why, the lake is full of the biggest eels you ever saw. I’ve caught them here, often – perfectly prodigious! I tell you they’re sometimes a match for a fellow; they’d almost wriggle your arm from the socket if you were not on your guard[128]. But you’re not interested in eels, I perceive. The castle’s a big affair, isn’t it?”

“Yes. What do those swans mean? Anything?” asked Ben, looking up at the stone gate towers.

“The swan is held almost in reverence[129] by us Hollanders. These give the building its name – Zwanenburg, swan castle. That is all I know. This is a very important spot; for it is here that the wise ones hold council with regard to dike matters. The castle was once the residence of the celebrated Christian Brunings.”