The Silver Skates Page 7

  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.”

  “Ha! Ha! That’s true, unless you are over two hundred years old. Well, I tell you, sir, there was never 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, 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 Beckmann* only the day before yesterday. Well, sir, it was great. Everyone speculated in tulips, even the 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 geese they were making of themselves, and down went the price of tulips. Old tulip debts couldn’t be collected. Creditors went to law, 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 reduced to beggary in an hour. As old Beckmann says, ‘the bubble burst’.”

  “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 out 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, besides 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 odour 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 – much obliged to it. Holland without this glorious skating wouldn’t be the same thing to me at all.”

  “How very different you are from the Poots!” exclaimed Lambert, who had been listening in a sort of brown study. “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 his 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 that 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 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 parlour?”

  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 Kenau’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 parlour and sweep and polish and scrub. Then it is darkened and closed until Saturday comes again – not a soul enters it in the mean time – but the schoonmaken, as she calls it, must be done, just the same.”

  “That is nothing. Every parlour in Broek meets with the same treatment,” said Lambert. “What do you think of those moving figures in her neighbour’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,” 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. Hallo! 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.

  Chapter 12

  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 wife, and she was beating him smartly with a 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 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 enquired their errand.

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

  “Yes, and welcome,” was the reply, as the lower half of the door swung softly towards 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 windows. 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 wife 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 behaviour, and how blank she looked when Ben politely but firmly refused to take any black bread and sauerkraut! How she pulled off Jacob’s mitten, which was torn at the thumb, and mended it before his eyes, biting off the thread with her 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 Zwanenburg Castle, with its massive stone front and its gateway towers, each surmounted with a sculptured swan.

  “Halfweg,* boys,” said Peter. “Off with your skates.”

  “You see,” explained Lambert to his companion, “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 dykes and sluice gates, or there would be wet work at once. The sluice arrangements here 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. 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 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 dyke matters. The castle was once the residence of the celebrated Christiaan Brunings.”

  “What about him?” asked Ben.

  “Peter could answer you better than I,” said Lambert, “if you could only understand each other, or were not such cowards about leaving your mother tongues. But I have often heard my grandfather speak of Brunings. He is never tired of telling us of the great engineer – how good he was, and how learned, and how when he died the whole country seemed to mourn as for a friend. He belonged to a great many learned societies, and was at the head of the state department entrusted with the care of the dykes and other defences against the sea. There’s no counting the improvements he made in dykes and sluices and water mills, and all that kind of thing. We Hollanders, you know, consider our great engineers as the highest of public benefactors. Brunings died years ago – they’ve a monument to his memory in the cathedral of Haarlem. I have seen his portrait, and I tell you, Ben, he was right noble-looking. No wonder the castle looks so stiff and proud. It is something to have given shelter to such a man!”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Ben. “I wonder, van Mounen, whether you or I will ever give any old building a right to feel proud. Heigh-ho! There’s a great deal to be done yet in this world, and some of us who are boys now will have to do it. Look to your shoe latchet, van, it’s unfastened.”

  Chapter 13

  A Catastrophe

  It was nearly one o’clock when Captain van Holp and his command entered the grand old city of Haarlem. They had skated nearly seventeen miles since morning, and were still as fresh as young eagles. From the youngest (Ludwig van Holp, who was just fourteen) to the eldest, no less a personage than the captain himself, a veteran of seventeen, there was but one opinion – that this was the greatest frolic of their lives. To be sure, Jacob Poot had become rather short of breath during the last mile or two, and perhaps he felt ready for another nap, but there was enough jollity in him yet for a dozen. Even Carl Schummel, who had become very intimate with Ludwig during the excursion, forgot to be ill-natured. As for Peter, he was the happiest of the happy, and had sung and whistled so joyously while skating that the staidest passers-by had smiled as they listened.

  “Come, boys! It’s nearly tiffin hour,” he said, as they neared a coffee house on the main street. “We must have something more solid than the pretty maiden’s gingerbread.” And the captain plunged his hands into his pockets, as if to say: “There’s money enough here to feed an army!”

  “Hallo!” cried Lambert. “What ails the man?”

  Peter, pale and staring, was clapping his hands upon his breast and sides – he looked like one suddenly becoming deranged.


  “He’s sick!” cried Ben.

  “No, he’s lost something,” said Carl.

  Peter could only gasp: “The pocketbook – with all our money in it – it’s gone!”

  For an instant all were too much startled to speak.

  Carl at last came out with a gruff:

  “No sense in letting one fellow have all the money. I said so from the first. Look in your other pocket.”

  “I did – it isn’t there.”

  “Open your under-jacket.”

  Peter obeyed mechanically. He even took off his hat and looked into it, then thrust his hand desperately into every pocket.

  “It’s gone, boys,” he said at last, in a hopeless tone. “No tiffin for us, nor dinner either. What is to be done? We can’t get on without money. If we were in Amsterdam I could get as much as we want, but there is not a man in Haarlem from whom I can borrow a stiver. Don’t one of you know anyone here who would lend us a few guilders?”

  Each boy looked into five blank faces. Then something like a smile passed around the circle, but it got sadly knotted up when it reached Carl.

  “That wouldn’t do,” he said crossly. “I know some people here, rich ones too, but Father would flog me soundly if I borrowed a cent from anyone. He has ‘an honest man need not borrow’ written over the gateway of his summer house.”

  “Humph!” responded Peter, not particularly admiring the sentiment just at that moment.

  The boys grew desperately hungry at once.

  “It wash my fault,” said Jacob, in a penitent tone, to Ben. “I say first, petter all de boys put zair pursh into van Holp’s monish.”