The Silver Skates Read online

  “You are so tired,” she whispered. “Not once have you closed your eyes since that dreadful hour last night. See, I have straightened the willow bed in the corner, and spread everything soft upon it I could find, so that you might lie in comfort. Here is your jacket. Take off that pretty dress – I’ll fold it away very careful, and put it in the big chest before you go to sleep.”

  Dame Brinker shook her head without turning her eyes from her husband’s face.

  “I can watch, Mother,” urged Gretel, “and I’ll wake you every time Father stirs. You are so pale, and your eyes are so red. Oh, Mother, do!”

  The child pleaded in vain. Dame Brinker would not leave her post.

  Gretel looked at her in troubled silence, wondering whether it were very wicked to care more for one parent than for the other, and sure – yes, quite sure – that she dreaded her father, while she clung to her mother with a love that was almost idolatry.

  “Hans loves Father so well,” she thought. “Why cannot I? Yet I could not help crying when I saw his hand bleed that day, last month, when he snatched the knife – and now, when he moans, how I ache, ache all over. Perhaps I love him after all, and God will see I am not such a bad, wicked girl as I thought. Yes, I love poor Father, almost as Hans does – not quite, for Hans is stronger and does not fear him. Oh, will that moaning go on for ever and ever! Poor Mother, how patient she is. She never pouts, as I do, about the money that went away so strange. If he only could, just for one instant, open his eyes and look at us, as Hans does, and tell us where Mother’s guilders went, I would not care for the rest. Yes, I would care – I don’t want poor Father to die, to be all blue and cold like Annie Bouman’s little sister. I know I don’t – dear God, I don’t want Father to die.”

  Her thoughts merged into a prayer. When it ended the poor child scarcely knew. Soon she found herself watching a little pulse of light at the side of the fire, beating faintly but steadily, showing that somewhere in the dark pile there was warmth and light that would overspread it at last. A large earthen cup filled with burning peat stood near the bedside. Gretel had placed it there to “stop Father’s shivering”, she said. She watched it as it sent a glow around her mother’s form, tipping her faded skirt with light, and shedding a sort of newness over the threadbare bodice. It was a relief to Gretel to see the lines in that weary face soften as the firelight flickered gently across it.

  Next she counted the window panes, broken and patched as they were, and finally, after tracing every crack and seam in the walls, fixed her gaze upon a carved shelf made by Hans. The shelf hung as high as Gretel could reach. It held a large leather-covered Bible with brass clasps, a wedding present to Dame Brinker from the family at Heidelberg.

  “Ah, how handy Hans is! If he were here, he could turn Father some way so the moans would stop. Dear, dear, if this sickness lasts we shall never skate any more. I must send my new skates back to the beautiful lady. Hans and I will not see the race,” and Gretel’s eyes, that had been dry before, grew full of tears.

  “Never cry, child,” said her mother soothingly. “This sickness may not be as bad as we think. Father has lain this way before.”

  Gretel sobbed now.

  “Oh, Mother, it is not that alone – you do not know all – I am very, very bad and wicked!”

  “You, Gretel! You so patient and good!” and a bright, puzzled look beamed for an instant upon the child. “Hush, lovey, you’ll wake him.”

  Gretel hid her face in her mother’s lap and tried not to cry.

  Her little hand, so thin and brown, lay in the coarse palm of her mother, creased with many a hard day’s work. Rychie would have shuddered to touch either, yet they pressed warmly upon each other. Soon Gretel looked up, with that dull, homely look which, they say, poor children are apt to have, and said in a trembling voice:

  “Father tried to burn you. He did – I saw him – and he was laughing!”

  “Hush, child!”

  Her mother’s words came so suddenly and sharply that Raff Brinker, dead as he was to all that was passing round him, twitched slightly upon the bed.

  Gretel said no more, but plucked drearily at the jagged edge of a hole in her mother’s holiday gown. It had been burnt there – well for Dame Brinker that the gown was woollen.

  Chapter 16

  Haarlem – the Boys Hear Voices

  Refreshed and rested, our boys came forth from the coffee house just as the big clock in the square, after the manner of certain Holland timekeepers, was striking two with its half-hour bell, for half-past two.

  The captain was absorbed in thought at first, for Hans Brinker’s sad story still echoed in his ears. Not until Ludwig rebuked him with a laughing “Wake up, Grandfather!” did he reassume his position as gallant boy leader of his band.

  “Ahem! This way, young gentlemen!”

  They were walking through the streets of the city, not a kerbed sidewalk, for such a thing is rarely to be found in Holland, but on the brick pavement that lay on the borders of the cobblestone carriageway without breaking its level expanse.

  Haarlem, like Amsterdam, was gayer than usual, in honour of St Nicholas.

  A strange figure was approaching them. It was a small man dressed in black, with a short cloak. He wore a wig and a cocked hat from which a long crape streamer was flying.

  “Who comes here?” cried Ben. “What a queer-looking object!”

  “That’s the aanspreeker,” said Lambert. “Someone is dead.”

  “Is that the way men dress in mourning in this country?”

  “Oh no. The aanspreeker attends funerals, and it is his business, when anyone dies, to notify all the friends and relatives.”

  “What a strange custom.”

  “Well,” said Lambert, “we needn’t feel very badly about this particular death, for I see another man has lately been born to the world to fill up the vacant place.”

  Ben stared. “How do you know that?”

  “Don’t you see that pretty red pincushion hanging on yonder door?” asked Lambert in return.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s a boy.”

  “A boy! What do you mean?”

  “I mean that here in Haarlem, whenever a boy is born, the parents have a red pincushion put out at the door. If our young friend had been a girl instead of a boy, the cushion would have been white. In some places they have much more fanciful affairs, all trimmed with lace, and even among the very poorest houses you will see a bit of ribbon or even a string tied on the door latch—”

  “Look!” almost screamed Ben. “There is a white cushion at the door of that double-jointed house with the funny roof.”

  “I don’t see any house with a funny roof.”

  “Oh, of course not,” said Ben. “I forget you’re a native – but all the roofs are queer to me, for that matter. I mean the house next to that green building.”

  “True enough – there’s a girl. I tell you what, captain,” called out Lambert, slipping easily into Dutch, “we must get out of this street as soon as possible. It’s full of babies! They’ll set up a squall in a moment.”

  The captain laughed. “I shall take you to hear better music than that,” he said. “We are just in time to hear the organ of St Bavo.* The church is open today.”

  “What, the great Haarlem organ?” asked Ben. “That will be a treat indeed. I have often read of it, with its tremendous pipes, and its vox humana that sounds like a giant singing.”

  “The same,” answered Lambert van Mounen.

  Peter was right. The church was open, though not for religious services. Someone was playing upon the organ. As the boys entered, a swell of sound rushed forth to meet them. It seemed to bear them, one by one, into the shadows of the building.

  Louder and louder it grew, until it became like the din and roar of some mighty tempest, or like the ocean surging upon
the shore. In the midst of the tumult a tinkling bell was heard; another answered, then another, and the storm paused as if to listen. The bells grew bolder – they rang out loud and clear. Other deep-toned bells joined in – they were tolling in solemn concert: ding, dong! ding, dong! The storm broke forth again with redoubled fury, gathering its distant thunder. The boys looked at each other, but did not speak. It was growing serious. What was that? Who screamed? What screamed – that terrible musical scream? Was it man or demon? Or was it some monster shut up behind that carved brass frame, behind those great silver columns – some despairing monster begging, screaming for freedom? It was the vox humana!

  At last an answer came – soft, tender, loving, like a mother’s song. The storm grew silent; hidden birds sprang forth, filling the air with glad, ecstatic music, rising higher and higher until the last faint note was lost in the distance.

  The vox humana was stilled, but in the glorious hymn of thanksgiving that now arose one could almost hear the throbbing of a human heart. What did it mean? That man’s imploring cry should in time be met with a deep content? That gratitude would give us freedom? To Peter and Ben it seemed that the angels were singing. Their eyes grew dim, and their souls dizzy with a strange joy. At last, as if borne upwards by invisible hands, they were floating away on the music, all fatigue forgotten, and with no wish but to hear for ever those beautiful sounds – when suddenly van Holp’s sleeve was pulled impatiently and a gruff voice beside him asked:

  “How long are you going to stay here, Captain, blinking at the ceiling like a sick rabbit? It’s high time we started.”

  “Hush!” whispered Peter, only half aroused.

  “Come, man! let’s go,” said Carl, giving the sleeve a second pull.

  Peter turned reluctantly. He would not detain the boys against their will. All but Ben were casting rather reproachful glances upon him.

  “Well, boys,” he whispered, “we will go. Softly now.”

  “That’s the greatest thing I’ve seen or heard since I’ve been in Holland!” cried Ben enthusiastically, as soon as they reached the open air. “It’s glorious!”

  Ludwig and Carl laughed slyly at the English boy’s wartaal, or gibberish; Jacob yawned; Peter gave Ben a look that made him instantly feel that he and Peter were not so very different after all, though one hailed from Holland and the other from England; and Lambert, the interpreter, responded with a brisk: “You may well say so. I believe there are one or two organs nowadays that are said to be as fine, but for years and years this organ of St Bavo was the grandest in the world.”

  “Do you know how large it is?” asked Ben. “I noticed that the church itself was prodigiously high and that the organ filled the end of the great aisle almost from floor to roof.”

  “That’s true,” said Lambert, “and how superb the pipes looked – just like grand columns of silver. They’re only for show, you know. The real pipes are behind them – some big enough for a man to crawl through, and some smaller than a baby’s whistle. Well, sir, for size, the church is higher than Westminster Abbey, to begin with, and, as you say, the organ makes a tremendous show even then. Father told me last night that it is one hundred and eight feet high, fifty feet broad and has over five thousand pipes. It has sixty-four stops, if you know what they are – I don’t – and three keyboards.”

  “Good for you,” said Ben. “You have a fine memory. My head is a perfect colander for figures: they slip through as fast as they’re poured in. But other facts and historical events stay behind – that’s some consolation.”

  “There we differ,” returned van Mounen. “I’m great on names and figures, but history, take it altogether, seems to me to be the most hopeless kind of a jumble.”

  Meantime, Carl and Ludwig were having a discussion concerning some square wooden monuments they had observed in the interior of the church. Ludwig declared that each bore the name of the person buried beneath, and Carl insisted that they had no names, but only the heraldic arms of the deceased painted on a black ground, with the date of the death in gilt letters.

  “I ought to know,” said Carl, “for I walked across to the east side to look for the cannon ball which Mother told me was embedded there. It was fired into the church, in the year fifteen hundred and something, by those rascally Spaniards, while the services were going on. There it was in the wall, sure enough, and while I was walking back, I noticed the monuments. I tell you they haven’t a sign of a name upon them.”

  “Ask Peter,” said Ludwig, only half convinced.

  “Carl is right,” replied Peter, who, though conversing with Jacob, had overheard their dispute. “Well, Jacob, as I was saying, Handel, the great composer,* chanced to visit Haarlem, and of course he at once hunted up this famous organ. He gained admittance, and was playing upon it with all his might when the regular organist chanced to enter the building. The man stood awestruck. He was a good player himself, but he had never heard such music before. ‘Who is there?’ he cried. ‘If it is not an angel or the devil, it must be Handel!’ When he discovered that it was the great musician, he was still more mystified. ‘But how is this?’ said he. ‘You have done impossible things. No ten fingers on earth can play the passages you have given. Human hands couldn’t control all the keys and stops!’ ‘I know it,’ said Handel coolly, ‘and for that reason I was forced to strike some notes with the end of my nose.’ Donder! Just think how the old organist must have stared!”

  “Hey! What?” exclaimed Jacob, startled, when Peter’s animated voice suddenly became silent.

  “Haven’t you heard me, you rascal?” was the indignant rejoinder.

  “Oh yes – no – the fact is – I heard you at first – I’m awake now, but I do believe I’ve been walking beside you half asleep,” stammered Jacob, with such a doleful, bewildered look on his face that Peter could not help laughing.

  Chapter 17

  The Man with Four Heads

  After leaving the church, the boys stopped nearby in the open marketplace to look at the bronze statue of Laurens Janszoon Coster, who is believed by the Dutch to have been the inventor of printing. This is disputed by those who award the same honour to Johannes Gutenberg of Mainz; while many maintain that Fust, a servant of Coster, stole his master’s wooden types on a Christmas Eve, when the latter was at church, and fled with his booty, and his secret, to Mainz. Coster was a native of Haarlem, and the Hollanders are naturally anxious to secure the credit of the invention for their illustrious townsman. Certain it is that the first book he printed is kept by the city in a silver case wrapped in silk, and is shown with great caution as a most precious relic. It is said he first conceived the idea of printing from cutting his name upon the bark of a tree, and afterwards pressing a piece of paper upon the characters.

  Of course, Lambert and his English friend fully discussed this subject. They also had rather a warm argument concerning another invention. Lambert declared that the honour of giving both the telescope and microscope to the world lay between Metius and Janssen, both Hollanders, while Ben as stoutly insisted Roger Bacon, an English monk of the thirteenth century, “wrote out the whole thing, sir, perfect descriptions of microscopes and telescopes too, long before either of those other fellows were born”.*

  On one subject, however, they both agreed: that the art of curing and pickling herrings was discovered by Willem Beuckel* of Holland, and that the country did perfectly right in honouring him as a national benefactor, for its wealth and importance had been in a great measure due to its herring trade.

  “It is astonishing,” said Ben, “in what prodigious quantities those fish are found. I don’t know how it is here, but on the coast of England, off Yarmouth, the herring shoals have been known to be six and seven feet deep with fish.”

  “That is prodigious, indeed,” said Lambert, “but you know your word “herring” is derived from the German “Heer” – an army – on account of a way the fish have of comi
ng in large numbers.”

  Soon afterwards, while passing a cobbler’s shop, Ben exclaimed:

  “Hallo! Lambert, here is the name of one of your greatest men – over a cobbler’s stall! Boerhaave – if it were only Herman Boerhaave, instead of Hendrick, it would be complete.”

  Lambert knit his brows reflectively as he replied:

  “Boerhaave – Boerhaave – the name is perfectly familiar. I remember, too, he was born in 1668, but the rest is all gone, as usual. There have been so many famous Hollanders, you see, it is impossible for a fellow to know them all. What was he? Did he have two heads? Or was he one of your great natural swimmers like Marco Polo?”

  “He had four heads,” answered Ben, laughing, “for he was a great physician, naturalist, botanist and chemist. I am full of him just now, for I read his life a few weeks ago.”

  “Pour out a little, then,” said Lambert. “Only walk faster – we shall lose sight of the other boys.”

  “Well,” resumed Ben, quickening his pace, and looking with great interest at everything going on in the crowded street, “this Dr Boerhaave was a great anspewker.”

  “A great what?” roared Lambert.

  “Oh, I beg pardon, I was thinking of that man over there, with the cocked hat. He’s an anspewker, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. He’s an aanspreeker, if that is what you mean to say. But what about your friend with the four heads?”

  “Well, as I was going to say, the doctor was left a penniless orphan at sixteen, without education or friends.”