The Silver Skates Page 19

  The poor child’s dismay was so genuine that Hilda hastened to reassure her.

  “Very well, Gretel, move your arms then – so. Why, your cheeks are as pink as roses already. I think the meester would let you in now – he certainly would. Is your father so very ill?”

  “Ah, Juffrouw,” cried Gretel, weeping afresh, “he is dying, I think. There are two meesters in with him at this moment, and Mother has scarce spoken today. Can you hear him moan, Juffrouw?” she added with sudden terror. “The air buzzes so I cannot hear. He may be dead! Oh, I do wish I could hear him!”

  Hilda listened. The cottage was very near, but not a sound could be heard.

  Something told her that Gretel was right. She ran to the window.

  “You cannot see there, my lady,” sobbed Gretel eagerly. “Mother has oiled paper hanging inside. But at the other one, in the south end of the cottage, you can look in where the paper is torn.”

  Hilda, in her anxiety, ran round, past the corner where the low roof was fringed with its loosened thatch.

  A sudden thought checked her.

  “It is not right for me to peep into another’s house in this way,” she said to herself. Then, softly calling to Gretel, she added in a whisper: “You may look – perhaps he is only sleeping.”

  Gretel tried to walk briskly towards the spot, but her limbs were trembling. Hilda hastened to her support.

  “You are sick yourself, I fear,” she said kindly.

  “No, not sick, Juffrouw, but my heart cries all the time now, even when my eyes are as dry as yours. Why! Juffrouw, your eyes are not dry! Are you crying for us? Oh, Juffrouw, if God sees you! Oh! I know Father will get better now!” And the little creature, even while reaching to look through the tiny window, kissed Hilda’s hand again and again.

  The sash was sadly patched and broken; a torn piece of paper hung halfway down across it. Gretel’s face was pressed to the window.

  “Can you see anything?” whispered Hilda at last.

  “Yes. Father lies very still; his head is bandaged, and all their eyes are fastened upon him. Oh, Juffrouw!” almost screamed Gretel as she started back, and by a quick, dexterous movement shook off her heavy wooden shoes, “I must go in to my mother! Will you come with me?”

  “Not now, the bell is ringing. I shall come again soon. Goodbye!”

  Gretel scarce heard the words. She remembered for many a day afterwards the bright, pitying smile on Hilda’s face as she turned away.

  Chapter 34

  The Awakening

  An angel could not have entered the cottage more noiselessly. Gretel, not daring to look at anyone, slid softly to her mother’s side.

  The room was very still. She could hear the old doctor breathe. She could almost hear the sparks as they fell into the ashes on the hearth. The mother’s hand was very cold, but a burning spot glowed on her cheek, and her eyes were like a deer’s – so bright, so sad, so eager.

  At last there was a movement upon the bed, very slight, but enough to cause them all to start. Dr Boekman leant eagerly forwards.

  Another movement. The large hand, so white and soft for a poor man’s hand, twitched, then raised itself steadily towards the forehead.

  It felt the bandage, not in a restless, crazy way, but with a questioning movement that caused even Dr Boekman to hold his breath. Then the eyes opened slowly.

  “Steady! Steady!” said a voice that sounded very strangely to Gretel. “Shift that mat higher, boys! Now throw on the clay. The waters are rising fast – no time to—”

  Dame Brinker sprang forwards like a young panther.

  She seized his hands, and leaning over him cried: “Raff! Raff, boy, speak to me!”

  “Is it you, Meitje?” he asked faintly. “I have been asleep – hurt, I think. Where is little Hans?”

  “Here I am, Father!” shouted Hans, half mad with joy. But the doctor held him back.

  “He knows us!” screamed Dame Brinker. “Great God! He knows us! Gretel! Gretel! Come, see your father!”

  In vain Dr Boekman commanded “Silence!” and tried to force them from the bedside. He could not keep them off.

  Hans and his mother laughed and cried together as they hung over the newly awakened man. Gretel made no sound, but gazed at them all with glad, startled eyes. Her father was speaking in a faint voice.

  “Is the baby asleep, Meitje?”

  “The baby!” echoed Dame Brinker. “Oh, Gretel! That is you! And he calls Hans ‘little Hans’. Ten years asleep! Oh, Mynheer, you have saved us all. He has known nothing for ten years! Children, why don’t you thank the meester?”

  The good woman was beside herself with joy. Dr Boekman said nothing, but as his eye met hers, he pointed upwards. She understood. So did Hans and Gretel.

  With one accord they knelt by the cot, side by side. Dame Brinker felt for her husband’s hand even while she was praying. Dr Boekman’s head was bowed. The assistant stood by the hearth with his back towards them.

  “Why do you pray?” murmured the father, looking feebly from the bed as they rose. “Is it God’s day?”

  It was not Sunday, but his vrouw bowed her head – she could not speak.

  “Then we should have a chapter,” said Raff Brinker, speaking slowly, and with difficulty. “I do not know how it is. I am very, very weak. Mayhap the minister will read to us.”

  Gretel lifted the big Dutch Bible from its carved shelf. Dr Boekman, rather dismayed at being called a minister, coughed and handed the volume to his assistant.

  “Read,” he muttered. “These people must be kept quiet or the man will die yet.”

  When the chapter was finished, Dame Brinker motioned mysteriously to the rest by way of telling them that her husband was asleep.

  “Now, Juffrouw,” said the doctor in a subdued tone, as he drew on his thick woollen mittens, “there must be perfect quiet. You understand? This is truly a most remarkable case. I shall come again tomorrow. Give the patient no food today,” and, bowing hastily, he left the cottage, followed by his assistant.

  His grand coach was not far away. The driver had kept the horses moving slowly up and down by the canal nearly all the time the doctor had been in the cottage.

  Hans went out also.

  “May God bless you, Mynheer!” he said, blushing and trembling. “I can never repay you, but if—”

  “Yes you can,” interrupted the doctor crossly. “You can use your wits when the patient wakes again. This clacking and snivelling is enough to kill a well man, let alone one lying on the edge of his grave. If you want your father to get well, keep ’em quiet.”

  So saying, Dr Boekman, without another word, stalked off to meet his coach, leaving Hans standing there with eyes and mouth wide open.

  Hilda was reprimanded severely that day for returning late to school after recess, and for imperfect recitations.

  She had remained near the cottage until she heard Dame Brinker laugh, until she had heard Hans say “Here I am, Father!”, and then she had gone back to her lessons. What wonder that she missed them! How could she get a long string of Latin verbs by heart when her heart did not care a fig for them, but would keep saying to itself: “Oh, I am so glad! I am so glad!”

  Chapter 35

  Bones and Tongues

  Bones are strange things. One would suppose that they know nothing at all about school affairs, but they do. Even Jacob Poot’s bones, buried as they were in flesh, were sharp in the matter of study hours.

  Early on the morning of his return they ached through and through, giving Jacob a twinge at every stroke of the school bell – as if to say, “Stop that clapper! There’s trouble in it.” After school, on the contrary, they were quiet and comfortable – in fact, seemed to be taking a nap among their cushions.

  The other boys’ bones behaved in a similar manner, but that is not so remarkable. Being neare
r the daylight than Jacob’s, they might be expected to be more learned in the ways of the world. Master Ludwig’s, especially, were like beauty – only skin deep. They were the most knowing bones you ever heard of. Just put before him ever so quietly a grammar book with a long lesson marked in it, and immediately the sly bones over his eyes would set up such an aching! Request him to go to the garret for your foot stove – instantly the bones would remind him that he was “too tired”. Ask him to go to the confectioner’s, a mile away, and – presto! – not a bone would remember that it ever had been used before.

  Bearing all this in mind, you will not wonder when I tell you that our five boys were among the happiest of the happy throng pouring forth from the schoolhouse that day.

  Peter was in excellent spirits. He had heard through Hilda of Dame Blinker’s laugh and of Hans’s joyous words, and he needed no further proof that Raff Brinker was a cured man. In fact, the news had gone forth in every direction for miles around. Persons who had never before cared for the Brinkers, or even mentioned them, except with a contemptuous sneer or a shrug of pretended pity, now became singularly familiar with every point of their history. There was no end to the number of ridiculous stories that were flying about.

  Hilda, in the excitement of the moment, had stopped to exchange a word with the doctor’s coachman as he stood by the horses, pummelling his chest and clapping his hands. Her kind heart was overflowing. She could not help pausing to tell the cold, tired-looking man that she thought the doctor would be out soon. She even hinted to him that she suspected – only suspected – that a wonderful cure had been performed: an idiot brought to his senses. Nay, she was sure of it, for she had heard his widow laugh – no, not his widow, of course, but his wife, for the man was as much alive as anybody, and, for all she knew, sitting up and talking like a lawyer.

  All this was very indiscreet. Hilda, in an impenitent sort of way, felt it to be so.

  But it is always so delightful to impart pleasant or surprising news!

  She went tripping along by the canal, quite resolved to repeat the sin ad infinitum, and tell nearly every girl and boy in the school.

  Meantime, Janzoon Kolp came skating by. Of course, in two seconds he was striking slippery attitudes, and shouting saucy things to the coachman, who stared at him in indolent disdain.

  This, to Janzoon, was equivalent to an invitation to draw nearer. The coachman was now upon his box, gathering up the reins and grumbling at his horses.

  Janzoon accosted him.

  “I say! What’s going on at the idiot’s cottage? Is your boss in there?”

  The coachman nodded mysteriously.

  “Whew!” whistled Janzoon, drawing closer. “Old Brinker dead?”

  The driver grew big with importance, and silent in proportion.

  “See here, old pincushion, I’d run home yonder and get you a chunk of gingerbread if I thought you could open your mouth.”

  Old pincushion was human – long hours of waiting had made him ravenously hungry. At Janzoon’s hint, his countenance showed signs of a collapse.

  “That’s right, old fellow,” pursued his tempter, “hurry up! What news – old Brinker dead?”

  “No – cured! Got his wits,” said the coachman, shooting forth his words, one at a time, like so many bullets.

  Like bullets (figuratively speaking) they hit Janzoon Kolp. He jumped as if he had been shot.

  “Goede Gunst! You don’t say so!”

  The man pressed his lips together, and looked significantly towards Master Kolp’s shabby residence.

  Just then Janzoon saw a group of boys in the distance. Hailing them in a rowdy style, common to boys of his stamp all over the world, whether in Africa, Japan, Amsterdam or Paris, he scampered towards them, forgetting coachman, gingerbread – everything but the wonderful news.

  Therefore by sundown it was well known throughout the neighbouring country that Dr Boekman, chancing to stop at the cottage, had given the idiot Brinker a tremendous dose of medicine, as brown as gingerbread. It had taken six men to hold him while it was poured down. The idiot had immediately sprung to his feet, in full possession of all his faculties, knocked over the doctor or thrashed him (there was admitted to be a slight uncertainty as to which of these penalties was inflicted), then sat down and addressed him, for all the world like a lawyer. After that, he had turned and spoken beautifully to his wife and children. Dame Brinker had laughed herself into violent hysterics. Hans had said “Here I am, Father! Your own dear son”, and Gretel had said “Here I am, Father! Your own dear Gretel!” and the doctor had afterwards been seen leaning back in his carriage looking just as white as a corpse.

  Chapter 36

  A New Alarm

  When Dr Boekman called the next day at the Brinker cottage, he could not help noticing the cheerful, comfortable aspect of the place. An atmosphere of happiness breathed upon him as he opened the door. Dame Brinker sat complacently knitting beside the bed, her husband was enjoying a tranquil slumber and Gretel was noiselessly kneading rye bread on the table in the corner.

  The doctor did not remain long. He asked a few simple questions, appeared satisfied with the answers and, after feeling his patient’s pulse, said: “Ah, very weak yet, Juffrouw – very weak, indeed. He must have nourishment. You may begin to feed the patient – ahem! – not too much, but what you do give him, let it be strong and of the best.”

  “Black bread we have, Mynheer, and porridge,” replied Dame Brinker cheerily. “They have always agreed with him well.”

  “Tut! tut!” said the doctor, frowning, “nothing of the kind. He must have the juice of fresh meat, white bread, dried and toasted, good Malaga wine and – ahem! – the man looks cold – give him more covering, something light and warm. Where is the boy?”

  “Hans, Mynheer, has gone into Broek to look for work. He will be back soon. Will the meester please be seated?”

  Whether the hard, polished stool offered by Dame Brinker did not look particularly tempting, or whether the dame herself frightened him – partly because she was a woman, and partly because an anxious, distressed look had suddenly appeared in her face – I cannot say. Certain it is that our eccentric doctor looked hurriedly about him, muttered something about “extraordinary case”, bowed and disappeared before Dame Brinker had time to say another word.

  Strange that the visit of their good benefactor should have left a cloud, yet so it was. Gretel frowned, an anxious childish frown, and kneaded the bread dough violently, without looking up. Dame Brinker hurried to her husband’s bedside, leant over him and fell into silent but passionate weeping.

  In a moment Hans entered.

  “Why, Mother,” he whispered in alarm, “what ails thee? Is Father worse?”

  She turned her quivering face towards him, making no attempt to conceal her distress.

  “Yes. He is starving – perishing. The meester said it.”

  Hans turned pale.

  “What does this mean, Mother? We must feed him at once. Here, Gretel, give me the porridge.”

  “Nay!” cried his mother distractedly, yet without raising her voice. “It may kill him. Our poor fare is too heavy for him. Oh, Hans, he will die – your father will die if we use him this way. He must have meat, and sweet wine, and a dekbed.* Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?” she sobbed, wringing her hands. “There is not a stiver in the house.”

  Gretel pouted. It was the only way she could express sympathy just then. Her tears fell one by one into the dough.

  “Did the meester say he must have these things, Mother?” asked Hans.

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Well, Mother, don’t cry – he shall have them. I shall bring meat and wine before night. Take the cover from my bed – I can sleep in the straw.”

  “Yes, Hans, but it is heavy, scant as it is. The meester said he must have something light and warm. He will perish.
Our peat is giving out, Hans. Father has wasted it sorely, throwing it on when I was not looking, dear man.”

  “Never mind, Mother,” whispered Hans cheerfully. “We can cut down the willow tree and burn it, if need be, but I’ll bring home something tonight. There must be work in Amsterdam, though there’s none in Broek. Never fear, Mother. The worst trouble of all is past. We can brave anything now that Father is himself again.”

  “Ay!” sobbed Dame Brinker, hastily drying her eyes, “that is true indeed.”

  “Of course it is. Look at him, Mother – how softly he sleeps. Do you think God would let him starve, just after giving him back to us? Why, Mother, I’m as sure of getting all Father needs as if my pocket was bursting with gold. There, now – don’t fret.” And, hurriedly kissing her, Hans caught up his skates and slipped from the cottage.

  Poor Hans! Disappointed in his morning’s errand, half sickened with this new trouble, he wore a brave look, and tried to whistle as he tramped resolutely off with the firm intention of mending matters.

  Want had never before pressed as sorely upon the Brinker family. Their stock of peat was nearly exhausted, and all the flour in the cottage was in Gretel’s dough. They had scarcely cared to eat during the past few days – scarcely realized their condition. Dame Brinker had felt so sure that she and the children could earn money before the worst came that she had given herself up to the joy of her husband’s recovery. She had not even told Hans that the few pieces of silver in the old mitten were quite gone.

  Hans reproached himself, now, that he had not hailed the doctor when he saw him enter his coach and drive rapidly away in the direction of Amsterdam.

  “Perhaps there is some mistake,” he thought. The meester surely would have known that meat and sweet wine were not at our command. And yet Father looks very weak – he certainly does. I must get work. If Mynheer van Holp were back from Rotterdam, I could get plenty to do. But Master Peter told me to let him know if he could do aught to serve us. I shall go to him at once. Oh, if it were but summer!”