Before the Court

You may believe that the landlord’s daughter bestirred herself to prepare a good meal for the boys next morning. Mynheer had a Chinese gong that could make more noise than a dozen breakfast bells. Its hideous reveille, clanging through the house, generally startled the drowsiest lodgers into activity, but the maiden would not allow it to be sounded this morning.

“Let the brave young gentlemen sleep,” she said to the greasy kitchen boy. “They shall be warmly fed when they awaken.”

It was ten o’clock when Captain Peter and his band came straggling down one by one.

“A pretty hour,” said mine host, gruffly. “It is high time we were before the court. Fine business, this, for a respectable inn. You will testify truly, young masters, that you found most excellent fare and lodging at the Red Lion?”

“Of course we will,” answered Carl saucily, “and pleasant company, too, though they visit at rather unseasonable hours.”

A stare and a “humph!” was all the answer mynheer made to this, but the daughter was more communicative. Shaking her earrings at Carl, she said sharply, “Not so very pleasant, either, master traveler, if you could judge by the way YOU ran away from it!”

“Impertinent creature!” hissed Carl under his breath as he began busily to examine his skate straps. Meantime the kitchen boy, listening outside at the crack of the door, doubled himself with silent laughter.

After breakfast the boys went to the police court, accompanied by Huygens Kleef and his daughter. Mynheer’s testimony was principally to the effect that such a thing as a robber at the Red Lion had been unheard of until last night, and as for the Red Lion, it was a most respectable inn, as respectable as any house in Leyden. Each boy, in turn, told all that he knew of the affair and identified the prisoner in the box as the same man who entered their room in the dead of night. Ludwig was surprised to find that the prisoner in the box was a man of ordinary size – especially after he had described him, under oath, to the court as a tremendous fellow with great, square shoulders and legs of prodigious weight. Jacob swore that he was awakened by the robber kicking and thrashing upon the floor, and immediately afterward, Peter and the rest (feeling sorry that they had not explained the matter to their sleepy comrade) testified that the man had not moved a muscle from the moment the point of the dagger touched his throat, until, bound from head to foot, he was rolled over for inspection. The landlord’s daughter made one boy blush, and all the court smile, by declaring, “If it hadn’t been for that handsome young gentleman there” – pointing to Peter – “they might have all been murdered in their beds; for the dreadful man had a great, shining knife most as long as Your Honor’s arm,” and SHE believed, “the handsome young gentleman had struggled hard enough to get it away from him, but he was too modest, bless him! to say so.”

Finally, after a little questioning, and cross-questioning from the public prosecutor, the witnesses were dismissed, and the robber was handed over to the consideration of the criminal court.

“The scoundrel!” said Carl savagely when the boys reached the street. “He ought to be sent to jail at once. If I had been in your place, Peter, I certainly should have killed him outright!”

“He was fortunate, then, in falling into gentler hands,” was Peter’s quiet reply. “It appears he has been arrested before under a charge of housebreaking. He did not succeed in robbing this time, but he broke the door-fastenings, and that I believe constitutes a burglary in the eyes of the law. He was armed with a knife, too, and that makes it worse for him, poor fellow!”

“Poor fellow!” mimicked Carl. “One would think he was your brother!”

“So he is my brother, and yours too, Carl Schummel, for that matter,” answered Peter, looking into Carl’s eye. “We cannot say what we might have become under other circumstances. WE have been bolstered up from evil, since the hour we were born. A happy home and good parents might have made that man a fine fellow instead of what he is. God grant that the law may cure and not crush him!”

“Amen to that!” said Lambert heartily while Ludwig van Holp looked at his brother in such a bright, proud way that Jacob Poot, who was an only son, wished from his heart that the little form buried in the old church at home had lived to grow up beside him.

“Humph!” said Carl. “It’s all very well to be saintly and forgiving, and all that sort of thing, but I’m naturally hard. All these fine ideas seem to rattle off me like hailstones – and it’s nobody’s business, either, if they do.”

Peter recognized a touch of good feeling in this clumsy concession. Holding out his hand, he said in a frank, hearty tone, “Come, lad, shake hands, and let us be good friends, even if we don’t exactly agree on all questions.”

“We do agree better than you think,” sulked Carl as he returned Peter’s grasp.

“All right,” responded Peter briskly. “Now, Van Mounen, we await Benjamin’s wishes. Where would he like to go?”

“To the Egyptian Museum?” answered Lambert after holding a brief consultation with Ben.

“That is on the Breedstraat. To the museum let it be. Come, boys!”

The Beleaguered Cities

“This open square before us,” said Lambert, as he and Ben walked on together, “is pretty in summer, with its shady trees. They call it the Ruine. Years ago it was covered with houses, and the Rapenburg Canal, here, ran through the street. Well, one day a barge loaded with forty thousand pounds of gunpowder, bound for Delft, was lying alongside, and the bargemen took a notion to cook their dinner on the deck, and before anyone knew it, sir, the whole thing blew up, killing lots of persons and scattering about three hundred houses to the winds.”

“What!” exclaimed Ben. “Did the explosion destroy three hundred houses!”

“Yes, sir, my father was in Leyden at the time. He says it was terrible. The explosion occurred just at noon and it was like a volcano. All this part of the town was on fire in an instant, buildings tumbling down and men, women, and children groaning under the ruins. The king himself came to the city and acted nobly, Father says, staying out in the streets all night, encouraging the survivors in their efforts to arrest the fire and rescue as many as possible from under the heaps of stone and rubbish. Through his means a collection for the benefit of the sufferers was raised throughout the kingdom, besides a hundred thousand guilders paid out of the treasury. Father was only nineteen years old then. It was in 1807, I believe, but he remembers it perfectly. A friend of his, Professor Luzac, was among the killed. They have a tablet erected to his memory, in Saint Peter’s Church, farther on – the queerest thing you ever saw, with an image of the professor carved upon it, representing him just as he looked when he was found after the explosion.”

“What a strange idea! Isn’t Boerhaave’s monument in Saint Peter’s also?”

“I cannot remember. Perhaps Peter knows.”

The captain delighted Ben by saying that the monument was there and that he thought they might be able to see it during the day.

“Lambert,” continued Peter, “ask Ben if he saw Van der Werf ’s portrait at the town hall last night?”

“No,” said Lambert, “I can answer for him. It was too late to go in. I say, boys, it is really wonderful how much Ben knows. Why, he has told me a volume of Dutch history already. I’ll wager he has the siege of Leyden at his tongue’s end.”

“His tongue must burn, then,” interposed Ludwig, “for if Bilderdyk’s account is true, it was a pretty hot affair.”

Ben was looking at them with an inquiring smile.

“We are speaking of the siege of Leyden,” explained Lambert.

“Oh, yes,” said Ben, eagerly, “I had forgotten all about it. This was the very place. Let’s give old Van der Werf three cheers. Hur – ”

Van Mounen uttered a hasty “Hush!” and explained that, patriotic as the Dutch were, the police would soon have something to say if a party of boys cheered in the street at midday.

“What? Not cheer Van der Werf?” cried Ben, indignantly. “One of the greatest chaps in history? Only think! Didn’t he hold out against those murderous Spaniards for months and months? There was the town, surrounded on all sides by the enemy; great black forts sending fire and death into the very heart of the city – but no surrender! Every man a hero – women and children, too, brave and fierce as lions, provisions giving out, the very grass from between the paving stones gone – till people were glad to eat horses and cats and dogs and rats. Then came the plague – hundreds dying in the streets – but no surrender! Then when they could bear no more, when the people, brave as they were, crowded about Van der Werf in the public square begging him to give up, what did the noble old burgomaster say? ‘I have sworn to defend this city, and with God’s help, I MEAN TO DO IT! If my body can satisfy your hunger, take it, and divide it among you, but expect no surrender so long as I am alive.’ Hurrah! hur – ”

Ben was getting uproarious; Lambert playfully clapped his hand over his friend’s mouth. The result was one of those quick India-rubber scuffles fearful to behold but delightful to human nature in its polliwog state.

“Vat wash te matter, Pen?” asked Jacob, hurrying forward.

“Oh! nothing at all,” panted Ben, “except that Van Mounen was afraid of starting an English riot in this orderly town. He stopped my cheering for old Van der – ”

“Ya! ya – it ish no goot to sheer – to make te noise for dat. You vill shee old Van der Does’s likeness mit te Stadhuis.”

“See old Van der Does? I thought it was Van der Werf ’s picture they had there.”

“Ya,” responded Jacob, “Van der Werf – vell, vot of it! Both ish just ash goot – ”

“Yes, Van der Does was a noble old Dutchman, but he was not Van der Werf. I know he defended the city like a brick, and – ”

“Now vot for you shay dat, Penchamin? He no defend te city mit breek, he fight like goot soltyer mit his guns. You like make te fun mit effrysinks Tutch.”

“No! No! No! I said he defended the city LIKE a brick. That is very high praise, I would have you understand. We English call even the Duke of Wellington a brick.”

Jacob looked puzzled, but his indignation was already on the ebb.

“Vell, it ish no matter. I no tink, before, soltyer mean breek, but it ish no matter.”

Ben laughed good-naturedly, and seeing that his cousin was tired of talking in English, he turned to his friend of the two languages.

“Van Mounen, they say the very carrier pigeons that brought news of relief to the besieged city are somewhere here in Leyden. I really should like to see them. Just think of it! At the very height of the trouble, if the wind didn’t turn and blow in the waters, and drown hundreds of Spaniards and enable the Dutch boats to sail in right over the land with men and provisions to the very gates of the city. The pigeons, you know, did great service, in bearing letters to and fro. I have read somewhere that they were reverently cared for from that day, and when they died, they were stuffed and placed for safekeeping in the town hall. We must be sure to have a look at them.”

Van Mounen laughed. “On that principle, Ben, I suppose when you go to Rome you’ll expect to see the identical goose who saved the capitol. But it will be easy enough to see the pigeons. They are in the same building with Van der Werf ’s portrait. Which was the greater defense, Ben, the siege of Leyden or the siege of Haarlem?”

“Well,” replied Ben thoughtfully, “Van der Werf is one of my heroes. We all have our historical pets, you know, but I really think the siege of Haarlem brought out a braver, more heroic resistance even, than the Leyden one; besides, they set the Leyden sufferers an example of courage and fortitude, for their turn came first.”

“I don’t know much about the Haarlem siege,” said Lambert, “except that it was in 1573. Who beat?”

“The Spaniards,” said Ben. “The Dutch had stood out for months. Not a man would yield nor a woman, either, for that matter. They shouldered arms and fought gallantly beside their husbands and fathers. Three hundred of them did duty under Kanau Hesselaer, a great woman, and brave as Joan of Arc. All this time the city was surrounded by the Spaniards under Frederic of Toledo, son of that beauty, the Duke of Alva. Cut off from all possible help from without, there seemed to be no hope for the inhabitants, but they shouted defiance over the city walls. They even threw bread into the enemy’s camps to show that they were not afraid of starvation. Up to the last they held out bravely, waiting for the help that never could come – growing bolder and bolder until their provisions were exhausted. Then it was terrible. In time, hundreds of famished creatures fell dead in the streets, and the living had scarcely strength to bury them. At last they made the desperate resolution that, rather than perish by lingering torture, the strongest would form a square, placing the weakest in the center, and rush in a body to their death, with the faint chance of being able to fight their way through the enemy. The Spaniards received a hint of this, and believing that there was nothing the Dutch would not dare to do, they concluded to offer terms.”

“High time, I should think.”

“Yes, with falsehood and treachery they soon obtained an entrance into the city, promising protection and forgiveness to all except those whom the citizens themselves would acknowledge as deserving of death.”

“You don’t say so!” said Lambert, quite interested. “That ended the business, I suppose.”

“Not a bit of it,” returned en, “for the Duke of Alva had already given his son orders to show mercy to none.”

“Ah! That was where the great Haarlem massacre came in. I remember now. You can’t wonder that the Hollanders dislike Spain when you read of the way they were butchered by Alva and his hosts, though I admit that our side sometimes retaliated terribly. But as I have told you before, I have a very indistinct idea of historical matters. Everything is confusion – from the flood to the battle of Waterloo. One thing is plain, however, the Duke of Alva was about the worst specimen of a man that ever lived.”

“That gives only a faint idea of him,” said Ben, “but I hate to think of such a wretch. What if he HAD brains and military skill, and all that sort of thing! Give me such men as Van der Werf, and – What now?”

“Why,” said Van Mounen, who was looking up and down the street in a bewildered way. “We’ve walked right past the museum, and I don’t see the boys. Let us go back.”