It was nine in the morning—a clean-washed morning of blue and gold—when I arrived on board "Lorelei," with a small box which my man brought me from Liliendaal, according to telegraphed orders.
No one was there but the chauffeur, though on board the barge "Waterspin" the "handy man" had arrived, and was settling into his new quarters. Toon de Jongh is his name, and I conceived a liking for his grave brown face, at sight. I know his type well, a type which excels in deeds, not words, and was bred in the Low Countries by certain policies of Philip Second of Spain. He liked me too, for some reason or other, I saw by his eyes, in a way one never mistakes but can never explain.
I had to find my quarters on the barge, and going below, on the first door I saw a visiting card of Mr. Ronald L. Starr's conspicuously pinned, with the one word "Alb" printed large upon it, in red ink. Chuckling, I took possession of the cabin, hauled my things out from my box, and had got them mostly packed in lockers and drawers, when I heard the sound of voices on "Lorelei."
She was there. What would she say when she discovered that the man she had "thanked enough and didn't want to see again" had foisted himself upon her party?
The evil moment couldn't be postponed for long. I might give them time to go below, and add the contents of their dressing-bags to the belongings they had bestowed in the cabins yesterday afternoon, but that would take fifteen minutes at most, and then they would be wanting to start. I should have to get on board "Lorelei," be introduced, and face the music, whether it played the "Rogue's March," or "Hail, the Conquering Hero!"
The sound of girls' laughter was so upsetting that I couldn't decide what to do with my collars and neckties. I wandered aimlessly about the cabin with my hands full, grumbling aloud, "What an ass you are!" and hadn't yet made up my mind to cross over to "Lorelei" when Starr pounded on the half-open door.
"Thank goodness, you're here!" he exclaimed, as the door fell back and revealed me.
"What has happened to make you give thanks?" I asked, disposing hurriedly of the neckties.
"Any port in a storm—even Albport. And thereisa storm, an awful storm; at least "Lorelei's" staggering about as if she were half-seas over, and if you don't get us off at once every soul on board will be lost, or, what's worse, seasick. A nice beginning for the trip!"
I am so much at home on the water that I hadn't noticed the tossing and lolloping of the barge, but I realized now what was the matter. The morning was fresh, with a gusty wind blowing up the Maas, against the tide running strongly out; and consequently little "Lorelei" and sturdy "Waterspin" strained at their moorings like chained dogs who spy a bone just beyond their reach.
I didn't stop to answer, but bolted off the barge and onto the motor-boat.
Toon and Hendrik cast off the moorings, the chauffeur flew below to set his engine going; I took the wheel, pushed over the starting lever, the little propeller began to turn, and we were away on the first of the watery miles which stretch before us, for joy or sorrow.
Starr had followed Hendrik below, and just as the motor was getting well to work, revolving under my feet at the rate of six hundred revolutions a minute, I heard his voice shouting——
"Hullo, hullo! catch the dog!—you up there."
At the same instant arose a babel of cries, "Oh, my angel! Don't let him drown! Save him!" and the Emperor Tiberius shot up the companion as if launched from a catapult. Unused to engines and a life on the wave, frightened by the teuf-teuf of the motor, his next bound would have carried him overboard into the river; but hanging on to the wheel with one hand, with the other I seized the dog by the collar—a new, resplendent collar—just as somebody else, rushing to the rescue from below, caught him by the tail.
It was Miss Van Buren.
For a second—I bending down, she stretching up—our faces were neighbors, and I had time to see her expression undergo several lightning changes—surprise, incredulity, and a few others not as easy to read—before she retired, leaving Tibe to me. Instead of coming up on deck as she had evidently intended to do, she vanished, and a head exquisitely hatted and blue-veiled appeared in place of hers.
A moment later the tiny lady of the arbor, transformed into Parisian elegance by an effective white yachting costume, with a coquettish blue yachting-cap on her gray hair, the goggling effect of the glasses softened by the floating folds of azure chiffon, arrived to succor her beloved. She started slightly, staring at me through veil and spectacles, and I deduced that whatever Starr had told his "aunt" about the skipper, it had not prepared her to meet the man of the arbor. Those hidden eyes recognized me, and took in the situation.
Under their fire I realized that the success of my adventure might largely depend upon the chaperon; and if, suspecting something more than met her gaze, she should strike an attitude of disapproval, she could prejudice the girls against the skipper, and so manoeuver that he had his trouble for his pains.
With this danger ahead, I redoubled my attentions to Tiberius; but it was fortunate for me that the doubts he entertained of the man in the arbor were chased away by gratitude for the man on the boat. If it had not been so, such is the primitive sincerity of dog kind—especially bulldog kind—no bribe in my power to offer could have induced him to dissimulate. I knew this, and trembled; but Tibe, being an animal of parts, was not long in comprehending that the hand on his collar meant well by him. He deigned to fawn, and meeting his glance at close quarters, I read his dog-soul through the brook-brown depths of the clear eyes. After that moment, in which we came to a full understanding one of the other, once and for all, I knew that Tibe's wrinkled mask, his terrible mouth, and the ferocious tusks standing up like two stalagmites in the black, protruding under jaw, disguised a nature almost too amiable and confiding for a world of hypocrites. Tragic fate, to seem in the shallow eyes of strangers a monster of evil from whom to flee, while your warm heart, bursting with love and kindness, sends you chasing those who avoid you, eager to demonstrate affection! Such a fate is destined to be Tibe's, so long as he may live; but in this first instant of our real acquaintance he felt that I at least saw through his disguise; and under the nose and spectacles of his mistress he sealed our friendship with a wet kiss on my sleeve.
"Good boy!" said I, and meant it. He had given me a character, and had placed me upon a sound footing with one who would be, I foresaw, a Power on "Lorelei."
"Thank yousomuch!" said she, with the promised burr-r so pronounced in her accent that she must, I thought, have spent the night in practising it. She then carefully selected the best chair, and took from another a blue silk cushion which matched her yachting-cap and veil.
As she sat down, making a footstool of Tibe, and displaying two exquisitely shod feet in brand new suède shoes, Miss Rivers appeared, pale and interesting.
"Idohope you're better, my poor child," purred the Chaperon.
"Oh, thank you, dear Lady MacNairne, I shall be quite right now we've started."
This interchange of civilities told that the Mariner's "Aunt Fay" had already contrived to ingratiate herself with her charges.
Miss Rivers sank into the nearest chair, closing her eyes, while I stood aloof and turned the wheel; but presently the languid lashes lifted, and she became conscious of me. Then her eyes grew big. She remembered me from the day at the Prinzenhof, or the Horse Show, perhaps. Evidently Starr had not named me yet, nor had Miss Van Buren, in descending after our brief encounter, put any questions. Whether this boded ill or well, I could not decide, but longed to get suspense over; and I was not kept waiting.
I heard Starr's voice below urging Miss Van Buren on deck. "Don't bother about putting everything away," he said. "Do it later. You must say good-by to Rotterdam. Who knows what will have happened to us before we get back?"
It would not be my fault if two of the party were not engaged, I was thinking hopefully, as Miss Van Buren's eyes—rising from below like stars above a dark horizon—met mine. There was no recognition in them. To all appearance oblivious of ever having seen my insignificant features on land or sea, she came smiling up, on the friendliest terms with Starr.
The vacant chair, most conveniently placed for her, was close to the wheel, and I hoped that she would take it. But rather than be thus trapped, she stepped over Tibe and pushed past her stepsister with an "I beg your pardon, dear."
The Mariner gave no glance at me, but there was a catch in his voice which betokened a twinkle of the eye, as he said——
"Aunt Fay, Miss Van Buren and Miss Rivers, I must introduce the friend I told you about: our skipper, Jonkheer Brederode."
Miss Rivers smiled delightfully, with just such a flush of ingenuous surprise as I should have liked to see on another face.
"Why, how curious," she exclaimed, "that you should be a friend of Mr. Starr's! I think we havealmostmet Jonkheer Brederode before, haven't we, Nell?"
"Havewe?" sweetly inquired Miss Van Buren. "I'm a little near-sighted, and I've such a wretched memory for faces. Unless I notice people particularly, I have to be introduced at least twice before it occurs to me to bow."
"Oh, but,Nell," protested Miss Rivers. "Surely you know we saw Mr.—no,JonkheerBrederode—with your cousin at the Museum in Delft, and then afterwards you——"
"People'sclothesmake so much difference," remarked Miss Van Buren.
"Oh, but I wasn't thinking of your sea adventure, so much as when Jonkheer Brederode rode in the contest——"
"I'm afraid I was looking at the horses," cut in her stepsister.
If Robert had been on board at this juncture he would probably have wished to box his cousin's ears, but I had no such desire, though mine were tingling. In fact, I should have enjoyed boxing Robert's; for I saw that, with the best intentions in the world (and intentions are dangerous weapons!), my too-loyal friend had in some way contrived to make me appear insufferable. Perhaps he'd given the impression that I had boasted an intention to meet her within a given time, and she took this for my brutal way of carrying out the boast.
"What is a Jonkheer?" thepseudoLady MacNairne demanded of Starr.
"I don't know exactly," he admitted.
"Don'tyou? But, nephew dear, how can you help knowing, when you have anoldfriend who is one?"
(Was there a spice of malice in this question?)
"You see, almost ever since I've known him, I've thought of him as Alb," Starr explained hastily. "Alb is a kind of—er—pet name."
"I suppose it means something nice in Dutch," said Miss Rivers, in the soft, pretty way she has, which would fain make every one around her happy. "But I think Mr. van Buren told us that 'Jonkheer' was like our baronet; Jonkheer instead of 'Sir,' isn't it?"
"Something of the sort," I answered.
"It sticks in the throat, if you'll excuse me for saying so, like a bit of crust," remarked Aunt Fay.
"You can all call him Alb," said Starr.
"Why not compromise with Skipper?" asked Miss Van Buren, looking at my yachting-cap (rather a nice one) with serene impertinence. "We shall probably never have the pleasure of knowing him on land, so why stumble over Dutch names or titles? He has come on board 'Lorelei' to be our skipper, hasn't he? So he would probably prefer to becalled'Skipper.'"
Starr leaned down to pat Tibe, shaking all over. "Ha, ha, ha!" he gasped. "I neversawsuch a funny tail; I do hope it isn't going to give me hysterics."
But nobody else laughed, and Miss Rivers was gazing at her stepsister in a shocked, questioning way, her violet eyes saying as plainly as if they spoke——
"My darling girl, what possesses you to be so rude to an inoffensive foreigner?"
I should have liked to ask the same question, in the same words; but I said nothing, did nothing except turn the wheel with the air of that Miller who grinds slowly but exceedingly small, and smile a hard, confident smile which warned the enemy——
"Oh yes, youaregoing to know me on land, and love me on land, so you might as well make up your mind to what has to come."
She caught the look, which forcibly dragged hers down from my hat-brim, and I am convinced that she read its meaning. It made her hate me a degree worse, of course; but what is an extra stone rolled behind the doors of the resisting citadel, or a gallon more or less of boiling oil to dash on the heads of the besiegers? If they are determined, it comes to the same thing in the end.
Fortunately for the spirits of the other players who were "on" in this scene (in a subordinate capacity), the fair Enemy was not of the nature to sulk. True, of free will she did not address me; but having shown her opinion of and intentions toward the person deserving punishment, she did not weary her arm with continued castigation. Instead, she gave herself up heart and soul to delight in her first taste of "botoring." She basked in it, she reveled in it; had she been a kitten, I think she would have purred in sheer physical enjoyment of it.
"Myboat! Myboat!" she repeated, lingering over the words as if they had been cream and sugar. "Oh, I wonder if itknowsit's My Boat? I wish it could. I should like it to get fond of me. Iknowit's alive. Feel its heart beat. What Tibe is to Lady MacNairne, 'Lorelei' is going to be to me. We never lived before, did we, Phil? And aren't you glad we came? Who knows what will become of us after this, for we certainly never can go home again and take up life where we left it off."
"You shan't. I'll see to that," I said to myself; but this time she was not looking even at the brim of my cap. Her eyes, luminous with childlike happiness, searched and photographed each new feature of river-life that skimmed swiftly past us.
"We might become motor-boat pirates," she went on. "There'd be no anti-climax about that; and I dare say we could make a living. We'd hoist the black flag whenever we came to a nice lonely stretch of water, with a rich-looking barge or two, or a fine country house on shore, and the work would begin. Tibe would terrorize our victims. But, speaking of the black flag, I see the star-spangled banner floats o'er the deck of the free and the cabins of the brave. How charming of you to think of putting it there, Mr. Starr! It would never have occurred to me."
"It would have been charming, if ithadoccurred to me," said the Mariner; "but it didn't."
"Perhaps our skipper can explain the mystery," remarked the Chaperon, graciously.
I smiled. "I happened to have the little silk flag," said I, "and as the owner of the boat is an American, I took the liberty of flying her colors from the mast to-day; they went up early this morning. But we have another flag with us for emergencies—that of my Sailing and Rowing Club,—which, when we show it, will give us the right to enter sluices—or locks, as you call them—ahead of anything else."
"Alb, you have your uses," observed the Mariner. "Why can't we keep your flag up all the time—under the Stars and Stripes?"
"It wouldn't be fair to make use of it except in extreme cases," I said. "All these lighter and bargemen whom we see have their living to get. Time's money to them, while it's pleasure to us. It's right that they should get through ahead, when they're first comers; but there may be occasions when we shall need our advantage; and till then I'll keep the flag up my sleeve, with your permission."
"I never thought to feel sosafeon a motor-boat," exclaimed Miss Rivers. "Since we made up our minds to come—or rather Nell made up hers—I've added another prayer to those I've been accustomed to say for years—that we shouldn't blow up, or, if wehadto blow up, that we shouldn't realize long enough beforehand to be frightened; and that we should blow into quite little pieces which couldn't know anything about it afterwards. But now I've such a peaceful feeling, I have to make myself remember that any instant may be my last."
"I wouldn't try," said Miss Van Buren. "I suppose, when one thinks of it, worse things could happen to one on a motor-boat than in a motor-car, because there's water all round; but it seems so heavenly restful, rather like motoring in heaven might be, and no frightened horses, or barking dogs, or street children to worry you."
"I pity people on steamboats, just as the other day, when we motored, I pitied people in stuffy black trains," said Miss Rivers. "But I don't pity the people on lighters and barges. Don't they look delightful? I should love to live on that one with the curly-tailed red lion on the prow, and the green house with white embroidered curtains and flower-pots, and sweet little china animals in the windows. It's called 'Anna Maria,' and oh, it's worked by amotor!"
"Lots of them are, nowadays," I said. "They're easy to rig up, and save work. I happen to know 'Anna Maria,' and the lady she's named after, who lives on board and thinks herself the happiest woman on earth—or water. There she goes, on her way to the kitchen, with her baby in her arms. Pretty creatures both, aren't they?"
"Pictures!" cried Miss Rivers; and her stepsister, who at the moment was being particularly nice to the Mariner (I fancy by way of showing the Outcast how nice she can be—to others), glanced up from a map of Holland, which Starr had opened, across his knees. "It's like a very young Madonna and Child, painted by a Dutch master. I wish you could introduce us."
"Perhaps I will, when we come back this way," said I. "You shall go on board and have tea with Anna Maria and her baby, and the husband too, who's as good-looking as the rest of the family. They would be delighted, and proud to show off their floating home, which saved Anna Maria's life."
"How? It sounds like a story."
"So it is—a humble romance. Anna Maria's the daughter of a bargeman, and was born and brought up on a barge. When she was seventeen and keeping house-boat for her father (the mother died when she was a child) the poor man had an accident, and was drowned. There wasn't much money saved up for Anna Maria, so the barge was sold, and she had to live on dry land, and learn how to be a dressmaker. She was as miserable as a goldfish would be if you took it out of its bowl and laid it on the table. In a few months she'd fallen into a decline, and though, just at that time, she met a dashing young chauffeur, who took a fancy to her pretty, pale face, even love wasn't strong enough to save her. The chauffeur, poor fellow, thought there was no flower in the garden of girls as sweet as his white snowdrop. He felt, if he could only afford to buy a lighter for himself, they might marry, and the bride's life might be saved. But it was out of the question, and perhaps the idyl would have ended in tragedy, had he not confided his troubles to his master. That master, as it happened, had a lighter which he'd fitted up with a motor. He'd used it all summer, and got his money's worth of fun out of it; so when he heard the story, he told the chauffeur he would give him the thing as it stood, for a wedding present, and it must be rechristened 'Anna Maria.'
"What a lamb of a master! I quite love him!" exclaimed Miss Van Buren, before she remembered that she was talking to One beyond the Pale.
"There wasn't much merit; he was tired of his toy," I answered carelessly; but I felt my face grow red.
"I don't believe it a bit. He just said that," cried Miss Rivers. "I should love him too. Is he a Dutchman?"
"I shouldn't be surprised if he was half English, half Dutch," remarked Starr, good-naturedly.
"Or if he was making our wheel go round now," finished Aunt Fay, pulling Tibe's ear.
"Oh!" said Miss Van Buren, and buried her nose in the map.
She and Starr were tracing, or pretending to trace, our route to Gouda, whither we were going, and where we expected to lunch. Hurriedly she threw herself into a discussion with him as to whether we were now in the Lek or the Maas. Reason said Maas, but the map said Lek, though it was a thing, thought the lady, about which there could be no two opinions; it must be one or the other.
As a matter of fact, there are many opinions, and as I knew the history of the dispute, after all she had to turn to me, and listen. I talked to Starr, and at her, explaining how only experts could tell one river from another here, and even experts differed.
"Our waters are split up into so many channels that they're as difficult to separate one from the other as the twisted strands in a plait of hair," said I. "It was like Napoleon's colossal cheek, wasn't it, to claim the Netherlands for France, because they were formed from the alluvium of French rivers?"
Instantly the Chaperon ceased to admire Tibe's new and expensive collar, and opened a silver chain bag, also glittering with newness, which she had in her lap. From this she brought forth a note-book of Russia leather, and began to write with a stylographic pen, which had dangled in a gold case on a richly furnished chatelaine. This little lady had "done" herself well since yesterday.
"I shall take notes of everything," she announced. "That bit about Napoleon goes down first."
"Surely you knew, Aunt Fay," said the Mariner, with a warning in his lifted eyebrows.
"I don't know anything about Holland, except that it's flat and wet," she replied, defying him, as she can afford to do, now that, once an aunt, she must be always an aunt, as far as this tour is concerned. "It's not the fashion inmypart of Scotland for ladies of position to know things about foreign countries they've not visited. It's considered frumpish, and though I may not be as young as I once was, I amnotfrumpish."
She certainly is not. The real Lady MacNairne does not dress as smartly, or have such an air of Parisian elegance as this mysterious little upstart has put on since assuming her part. Save for the gray hair and the hideous glasses, there could scarcely be a daintier figure than that of the Mariner's false Aunt Fay.
"However," she went on, "my doctor has recommended a tonic, and I shouldn't wonder if a spice of information might be a mental stimulant. Anyhow, I intend to try it, and ask questions of everybody about everything."
All this she said with a quaint, bird-like air, and I began to be impressed with the curious fascination which emanates from this strange, small person. I am in her secret. I know she is a fraud, though of all else concerning her I am in ignorance—perhaps blissful ignorance. I have none too much respect for the little wretch, despite her gray hairs; yet, somehow, I felt at this moment that I wason her side. I was afraid that, if she asked any favor of me, I should run to do it; and I could imagine myself being ass enough to quail before the mite's Liliputian displeasure. As for Starr, I could see that he dared not say his soul was his own, if she laid claim to it. He might raise his eyebrows, or telegraph with his eyelids, but a certain note in that crisp, youthful-sounding voice, would reduce him to complete subjection, in what our German cousins call anaugenblick. No wonder that Tiberius—who looks as if he could play lion to her martyr without a single rehearsal—fawns, crawls, and wriggles like the merest puppy at the lifting of her tiny finger, when she wills—as is seldom—to be obeyed by him. All must feel the same queer power in the woman, be we dogs or men.
"Well, I'm glad you got your country back from Napoleon," said Miss Rivers. "Nobody, except the Dutch, could have made it so cozy, so radiantly clean and comfortable.Dearlittle Holland!"
I laughed. "Dear little Holland! Yes, that's the way you all pet and patronize our Hollow Land, and chuck it under the chin, so to speak. You think of it as a nice little toy country, to come and play with, and laugh at for its quaintness. And why shouldn't you? But it strikes us Netherlanders as funny, that point of view of yours, if we have a sense of humor—and we have, sometimes! You see, we've a good memory for our past. We know what we're built upon.
"Think of the making of Holland, though I grant you it's difficult, when you look at this peaceful landscape; but try to call up something as different as darkness is to light. Forget the river, and the houses, and the pretty branching canals, and see nothing but marshes, wild and terrible, with sluggish rivers crawling through mud-banks to the sea, beaten back by fierce tides, to overflow into oozy meers and stagnant pools. Think of raging winds, never still, the howling of seas, and the driving of pitiless rains. No other views but those, and no definite forms rising out of the water save great forest trees, growing so densely that no daylight shines through the black roof of branches. Imagine the life of our forefathers, who fled here from an existence so much more dreadful that they clung to the mud-banks and fought for them, a never-ending battle with the sea. That was the beginning of the Netherlands, as it was of Venice, and the fugitives built as the Venetians built, on piles, with wattles. If you've seen Venice, you'll often be reminded of it here. And what rest have we had since those beginnings? If not fighting the sea, we had to fight Spain and England, and even now our battles aren't over. They never will be, while we keep our heads above water. Every hour of every day and night some one is fighting to save the Netherlands from the fate of Atlantis. While her men fight she's safe; but if they rested, this 'peaceful, comfortable little country' would be blotted out under the waters, as so many provinces vanished under the Zuider Zee in the thirteenth century, and others, at other times, have been swept away."
"Do you think our motor-boat could ride on the flood, and drag 'Waterspin,' if any of the most important dykes or dams happened to burst?" inquired the Chaperon. "I hope so, for what you've been saying makes one feel exactly like a female member of the Ark party."
Everybody laughed; but her joke pricked me to shame of my harangue.
"Nothing will 'happen to burst,'" I assured her. "We Dutch don't lose our sleep over such 'ifs.' Every country has something to dread, hasn't it? Drought in India, earthquakes in Italy, cyclones and blizzards in America, and so on. Our menace is water; but then, it's our friend as well as foe, and we've subdued it to our daily uses, as every canal we pass can prove. Besides, there's something else we're able to do with it. The popular belief is that, at Amsterdam, one key is kept in the central arsenal which can instantly throw open sluices to inundate the whole country in case we should be in danger of invasion."
"But you'd drown your land and yourselves, as well as the enemy," exclaimed Aunt Fay.
"Better drown than lose the liberty we've paid for with so much blood. The old spirit's in us still, I hope, though we may seem slow-going, comfort-loving fellows in everyday life. When we make up our minds to do a thing, we're prepared to suffer for the sake of carrying it through."
Again I met Miss Van Buren's eyes, and I think she realized that I am typically Dutch.
Rotterdam lay far behind us now. We'd passed the busy, crowded water-thoroughfares, as thickly lined with barges and lighters as streets with houses, and were nearing the point where the river, disguised as the Issel, turns with many curves toward Gouda. We had a few whiffs from brickfields and other ugly industries that scar the banks, but the windings of the Issel bore us swiftly to regions of grassy meadows, and waving reeds, threatening sometimes to lose us in strange no-thoroughfares of water more like separate lakes and round ponds, than the flowing reaches of a river.
Here the despised Albatross was worth his weight in gold. In charge of a skipper not familiar with every foot of the water-road, "Lorelei" and "Waterspin" would have been aground more than once. Even that irresponsible head-among-the-stars Mariner guessed at the snares we avoided, and flung me a word of appreciation.
"You're earning your salt," said he, "and you shall have a little at Gouda."
But as to Gouda, a struggle was going on between my inclination and my conscience. It was my duty as skipper to take "Lorelei" through the town that she might be ready to start from the other side after luncheon. There would be delays at swing-bridges, and time would be lost if the party remained on board, and tried to see the place afterwards. If I trusted Hendrik to act as captain and chauffeur in one, something would go wrong, and I should be blamed. Nevertheless, I did not relish the thought of seeing Starr march off in triumph with the ladies while I remained behind to work, and lunch on a cheese sandwich. I was tempted to shift responsibility upon Hendrik's shoulders to-day, and on other days to come; but as we slowed up for the sluice, or lock, something inside me would have no self-indulgence. To be sure, I am playing my part for a purpose, but while I play it, I must play well; and it was the conscientious captain who advised his passengers to get out, told them how to find the best inn, and what they were to see when they had lunched.
"The hotel is in the Markt Platz," I said, "and you must have a good look at the old Weigh House while you're on the spot. It will be your first Weigh House, and it's really a good one, with a splendid relief by Eggers, and a delightful outside staircase. Then there's the Stadhuis, too, and if you care for old stained glass, the work of the brothers Crabeth in the Groote Kerk——"
"But aren't you going with us?" asked Miss Rivers.
I explained why I could not.
"Oh dear, and we can't speak Dutch!" she sighed. "Fancy a procession straggling through a strange town, wanting to know everything, and not able to utter a word."
"Nonsense, Phil, we can get on perfectly well," said Miss Van Buren, mutinous-eyed. "I've learned things out of the phrase-book. You can't expect a skipper to be a guide as well."
This was a stab, and I think it pleased her; but I laughed.
"I shall often be able to go with you, I hope, Miss Rivers," I said. "In many places the boat will start from the same spot where she gets in; then I shall be free and at your service."
I had to see them off without me, Miss Van Buren walking with Starr; and the only one who threw me a backward glance was Tibe. But the task I had before me was easier than I expected. There were fewer barges in waiting than on most days. Here and there a tip to a bridge-master (a gulden stuck conspicuously in my eye, like a silver monocle, just long enough to suggest a different destination) worked wonders, and in an hour I had piloted "Lorelei" through the water-streets of Gouda, ready to take her passengers again on the Leiden side. Standing at the wheel, I had eaten a sandwich and drunk a glass of beer brought by Hendrik, so there was no need to seek food in the town. The others, having finished lunch, would have begun sight-seeing, and if I strolled to the Groote Kerk, it was just possible I might find something even more desirable than the exquisite glass.
"They'll have saved the church for the last," I said to myself. "I should like to see her face while she looks at the Haarlem window."
I could not have calculated more exactly, had we made an appointment. As I arrived within sight of the verger's door, I saw the party going in. There was a moment's pause, and then all save one disappeared. That figure was Starr's, and he was left in charge of the dog.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed, "you're just in time."
"Yes," said I. "Clever, wasn't I?"
"I mean in time to play with this brute, while I go in. He'll be pleased with the exchange; besides, you've seen the church and I haven't."
"I've never seen it in such companionship."
"Callous-hearted Albatross! You'll unconsecrate the church for Miss Van Buren. Can't you see she'll have none of you?"
"I shall need the more time to make her change her mind. Every minute counts. Au revoir. Don't let Tibe escape, or I pity you with youraunt."
"I wish he'd jump into the nearest canal. Look here, Gouda's a fraud. We've had a loathsome lunch—cold ham and pappy bread—with paper napkins, and the whole meal served on one plate, by a female even my aunt was afraid of. There isn't a cow within miles, much less a cow with a coat——"
"Perhaps one may pass while you wait. Ta, ta. Your turn will come soon." And I left him glaring at Tibe and muttering threats of revenge against me.
All the windows of the Gouda church are beautiful, but the Haarlem window would warm the coldest heart, and I was not surprised to find Miss Van Buren already gazing at it, a lovely light streaming through the old glass upon her uplifted face. She is a girl to find out the best things at once, by instinct.
There she stood, lost in delight, and when I, assuming more boldness than I felt, walked quietly across the church and stopped close behind her, she threw just enough of a look at the new-comer to see that it was a tallish man in gray.
"Is that you, Mr. Starr?" she asked; but sure that no stranger would approach so near, and believing me at a safe distance, she took the answer for granted. "What a fairyland in glass there is in this church!" she went on, joyously. "What skies, and backgrounds of medieval castles and towers, and what luminous colors. I'd love to be one of those little red and yellow men looking out of the tower at the battle going on below, among the queer ships wallowing in the crisp waves, and live always in that fantastic glass country. I want to know what's inside the tower, don't you? Which man will you choose to be?"
"The one on your right side," said I, quietly.
Then she whisked round, and blushed with vexation.
"That you couldneverbe," she flung at me, and walked away; but I followed.
"Won't you tell me why?" I asked. "What have I done to offend you?"
"If you don't know, I couldn't make you understand."
"Perhaps it's you who don't understand. But you will, some day."
"Oh, I've no curiosity."
"Am I spoiling your trip?"
"I'm not going to let you."
"Thanks. Then you'd better let me help to make it pleasanter. I can, in many ways."
"I don't need help in enjoying Holland. I intend to enjoy it every instant, in—in——"
"Won't you finish?"
"In spite of you."
"I vow it shall be partly because of me."
"You're very fond of vowing."
Then, at last, I knew where I stood. I knew that Roberthadsaid something.
Into the midst of this crisis dropped Miss Rivers. No doubt she had seen the expression on our faces, and intervened in pure good-heartedness to snatch me as a brand from the burning; for she threw herself into talk about the church, crying out against the hideous havoc we Protestants had wrought with whitewash and crude woodwork.
"I'm not Catholic, not a bit Catholic, though I may be a little high church; but Icouldn'thave spoiled everything just for the sake of getting a place to worship in, cheap, without having to put up a new building. Why, it's likemurder!"
Then my lady flashed out at her unexpectedly, and saved me an answer.
"Where's your imagination, Phil? It must have gone wool-gathering, or you could put yourself into the place of these people and see why they tore away the pictures and statues, and hid every bit of color with whitewash. I love beauty, but I would have done as they did. Color in churches was to them the life-blood of their nearest and dearest, splashed upon the walls. Those statues, those pictured saints they pulled down or covered up, had smiled on persecution. They had to have a kind of frenzied house-cleaning to get out the smell of incense. Oh, I know how they felt when they did it, as if I'd been here myself with a broom full of whitewash."
"Perhaps some ancestress of yours was here, and did some sweeping," said I. But it was a mistake for me to speak. She froze in an instant, and suggested that if everybody had seen enough, we should go out and give "poor Mr. Starr a chance."
"I'll stop and show him the Haarlem window," said she. And I hated Starr. Perhaps that was the state of mind she wished to create; at all events her eyes retained the exaltation of the whitewashing. Nor should I wonder if those two enjoyed the thought that I was kept waiting outside, as much as they enjoyed roaming together in "glass country."
In any case, they stayed so long that we were able to visit a shop near by, and come back, before they reappeared. It was a nice shop, where sweets and cakes were sold, especially the rich treacle "cookies," for which Gouda is celebrated. There was much gold-bright brass; there were jars and boxes painted curiously; and we were served by an apple-cheeked old lady in a white cap, whom Miss Rivers and the Chaperon thought adorable. We boughthopjesas well as cookies, because they wanted to make acquaintance with the national sweets of Holland; and afterwards, when Miss Van Buren was given some, she pronounced them nothing but "the caramellest caramels" she had ever tasted.
She and Starr had developed a pleasant private understanding, which comprised jokes too subtle to be understood by outsiders; and as the Mariner and I were shoulder to shoulder for a moment on our way back to the boat, he gave me a look charged with meaning.
"Who laughs last, laughs best," he quoted; and inwardly I could not but agree, though I shrugged my shoulders.
Tibe attracted enormous attention in Gouda. As we walked along shady streets, lit by the clear shining of canals, children ran after us as at Hamlin they ran after the Pied Piper. If for one instant the strangers paused to study a beautiful, carved door, or to peer into the window of an antiquary's at blue and white jars, or to gaze up at the ferocious head of a Turk over a chemist's shop, or to laugh at a house with window-blinds painted in red and white diamonds, a crowd of flaxen heads collected round us, little hands fluttered over the dog's wrinkled head as butterflies flit about a clover blossom, baby laughter tinkled, and tiny shrieks cut the stillness of the sleepy, summer afternoon.
It was all so dream-like to Miss Van Buren that she declared incredulity in Holland's real existence. "There is no such country," she said, "and worse than all, I have no motor-boat."
Nevertheless, a shape which closely resembled "Lorelei" was floating like a white water-lily on a green calyx of canal, in the place where I had, or dreamed that I had, left her an hour ago. And having assembled on board that white apparition, we started, or dreamed that we started for Leiden—a place where I hoped to score a point or two with my lady.
The boisterous wind of the early morning had dropped at noon, leaving the day hot and unrefreshed, with no breath of air stirring. But on the water, traveling at eight or nine miles an hour, we forgot the heavy July heat which on shore had burned our faces. They were fanned by a constant breeze of our own making which tossed us a bouquet of perfume from flowery fields as we slipped by, the only sound in our ears the cry of sea-going gulls overhead, and the delicate fluting of the water as our bows shattered its crystals among pale, shimmery sedges and tall reeds.
Tiny canals of irrigation wandered like azure veins through a maze of blossoming pink and gold in the sun-bright meadows, and as far as the most sweeping glance could reach, the horizon seemed pinned down to earth with windmills.
Suddenly the land lay far below the level of the canal, and people walking in the main streets of villages, behind the dykes, were visible for us only as far as their knees. Quaint little houses had sat themselves down close to the water's edge, as if determined to miss no detail of canal gossip; and from their bright windows, like brilliant eyes, they watched the water with a curious expression of self-satisfaction and contentment on their painted, wooden faces. On verandas, half as big as the houses themselves, the life of the family went on. Children played, young girls wrote letters to their lovers; mothers busily worked sewing-machines, but saw everything that passed on the water; fathers read newspapers, and white-haired old grandpapas nodded over long-stemmed pipes. Every garden blazed with color; and close-planted rows of trees, with their branches cut and trained (as Miss Van Buren said) "flat as trees for paper dolls," shaded the upper windows of the toy mansions.
Little things which were matters of every day for me in this country so characteristic of the Netherlands, tickled the fancy of the strangers, and kept them constantly exclaiming. The extravagantly polished wood of the house doors; the lifting cranes protruding from the gables; the dairymen in boats, with their shining pails; the bridges that pivoted round to let us pass through; the drawbridges that opened in the middle and swung up with leisured dignity; the bridgeman in sorrel-colored coats, collecting tolls in battered wooden shoes suspended from long lines; the dogs (which they call "Spitz" and are really Kees) who barked ferociously at our motor, from every barge and lighter; the yellow carts with black, bonnet-like hoods, from which peasant heads peered curiously out at us, from shore; and, above all, the old women or young children with ropes across their breasts, straining to tow enormous barges like great dark, following whales.
"What can Dutchmen be like to let them do it, while they loaf on board?" Miss Van Buren flashed at me, as if I were responsible for the faults of all my male countrymen.
"It isn't exactly loafing to steer those big barges," said I. "And the whole family take turns, anywhere between the ages of ten and a hundred. They don't know what hard work it is, because nobody has told them, and our river people are among the most contented."
Starr was interested in seeing me salute the men of passing craft, and in their grave return of the courtesy. Soon, he could imitate my motion, though he exaggerated it slightly, letting his arm float gracefully out to full length before it came back to his cap, somewhat, as he remarked, "like a lily-stem blown by the wind." When he had got the knack he was enchanted, and every yacht, sail-boat, lighter, and barge had a theatrical greeting from him as it slipped silently past, perhaps never to be seen again by our eyes.
"But are they happy?" he asked. "You never hear bursts of laughter, or chattering of voices, as you would in other countries. The youngest children's faces are grave, while as for the men, they look as if they were paid so much a day not to shed a smile, and were mighty conscientious about earning their money. Yet you say they're contented."
"We Dutch are a reserved people," I explained, under Miss Van Buren's critical gaze. "We don't make much noise when we're glad, or sad; and it takes something funny to make us laugh. We don't do it to hear the sound of our own voices, but prefer to rest our features and our minds."
"Some of these bargemen look as if they'd rested their minds so much that vegetables had grown on them," mused Starr, which made Miss Van Buren giggle; and somehow I was angry with her for finding wit in his small sallies.
"You'll discover on this trip that as you treat the Dutch, so will they treat you," I went on. "If you're impatient, they'll be rude; if you show contempt, they'll pay you back in the same coin; but if you're polite and considerate there's nothing they won't do for you in their quiet way."
"We shall never be rude to any of them, shall we, Nell?" said Miss Rivers.
"Not unless they deserve it," came back the answer. And I knew what Dutchman in particular Miss Van Buren had in mind.
It was about two hours from Gouda when a blaze of color leaped from the distant level to our eyes, and everybody cried out in admiration for little Boskoop, which in summer is alwaysen fêteamong garlands and bowers of bloom. The rhododendrons—that last longer with us than in England, like all other flowers—were beautiful with a middle-aged clinging to the glory of their youth; and the tall, straight flame of azaleas shot up from every grass-plot against a background of roses—roses white, and red, and amber; roses pale pink, and the crimson that is purple in shadow.
Miss Rivers thought she would like to live there, and cultivate flowers; but I told her that she had better not negotiate for the purchase of a house, until she had seen the miles of blossom at Haarlem.
We had not kept up our average of speed to nine miles an hour; for, though we made ten when the way was clear, and no yards of regulation red-tape to get tangled in our steering-gear, the custom of these waterways is to slow down near villages and in farming country. Besides, we met barges loaded to the water's edge, and had we been going fast our wash would have swamped them. As it was, we flung a wave over the low dykes, and sent boats moored at the foot of garden steps knocking against their landing-stages, in fear at our approach. But after Alphen we turned into a green stream, so evidently not a canal that Aunt Fay was moved to ask questions.
Her face fell when she heard it was the Rhine.
"What,thisthe Rhine!" she echoed. "It's no wider than—than the Thames at Marlow. I was there last summer——"
"You stayed with Lady Marchant," broke in Starr, hastily. It was not the first time he had cut her short, and the little masquerader bristled under the treatment.
"Oh yes; that was when you were painting my portrait, wasn't it?"
Starr flushed, and I guessed why, remembering his Salon success, and recalling that it was his portrait of Lady MacNairne which had been exhibited this year. Of course, I had been stupid not to put the two facts together, and realize that his success and her portrait, must have been one and the same.
The girls had probably heard of it, and must be asking themselves at this moment how a portrait of this little spectacled thing could have been possible. Cruel Aunt Fay! Somehow, she must have known that the face of heralter egohad been painted and exhibited by Starr, and she was enjoying his misery, as bad boys enjoy the wrigglings of butterflies on pins.
In pity I stepped in to the rescue, and began again, before a question about the portrait could fall from the lips of Miss Rivers, on which I saw it trembling.
"It's the Rhine for no particular reason," I said. "It's quite arbitrary. Farther on it's the Oude Rhine, farther still the Krommer, or Crooked Rhine. But if you think little of it here, you'll despise it at Katwyk, where its end is so ignominious that it has to be pumped into the sea."
"I don't think that ignominious," said the Chaperon. "I suppose it doesn't choose to go into the sea. It would rather rest after its labors and lie down in a pleasant pool, to dream about where it rose on the Splugen, or about the way it poured out of Lake Constance, and went roaring over the rocks at Schaffhausen to wind on among hilly vineyards and ruined castles, past the Drachenfels and Cologne. If they choose to pump it against its will, that'stheiraffair; at least that's howIshould feel if I were the Rhine."
"How Scotch of you, Aunt Fay!" exclaimed Starr, fervently; but he looked worried; and I wondered if he had told the girls that Lady MacNairne had never been much abroad. Evidently her double has traveled, and remembered what she saw. I am not curious concerning other people's affairs, but I confess I should like to know something of Aunt Fay's past, for she seems so ignorant of some things, so well-informed upon others.
Suddenly Miss Van Buren looked up from a red book which had engaged her attention ever since, at Alphen, we turned out of the narrow water-street of the canal into the broader thoroughfare of the river.
"This book explains everything except what you want to know!" she complained. "Why can't it tell what Saint Joris is in England? He must be some saint there, and I saw his name over that nice little inn with the garden at Alphen."
"St. George," I said; though she had not asked me.
"I might have known," she sighed, "and no doubt the Dutch have put the dragon into their language too, stuck full of those "i's" and "j's", that make me feel whenever I see them in print as if my hair were done up too tight, or my teeth were sizes too large for my mouth. 'Rijn wijn,' for instance. Who would think that meant something sleek and pleasant, like Rhine wine?"
"Why not?" I asked. "We pronounce it almost the same."
"That's because you haven't got the courage of your convictions. You fling the 'i's' and 'j's' about, and then pretend they're not there."
"Why, don't you see that they're only 'y's'?" I protested, and really it does appear strange that to foreign eyes they can look, when side by side, like separate letters.
But the Chaperon stopped us. She said that we could find enough to do minding our p's and q's in life, without quarreling over "i's" and "j's"; so the argument ended, and the girls turned their attention to making tea.
They did it charmingly, juggling with the contents of a tea-basket which Starr brought on deck and placed on a little folding-table. Whether Miss Van Buren forgot me or not, in dealing out cups when tea was made, at all events she pretended to, and reminded by her stepsister, gave me tea without sugar. Then, begged for one lump, she absentmindedly dropped in three, while talking with Starr. Robert would certainly have been tempted to shake her if he had been present at that tea-party.