“You see,” explained Lambert to his companions, “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 dikes and sluice gates, or there would be wet work at once. The sluice arrangements 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[128]
. 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[129]
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 dike matters. The castle was once the residence of the celebrated Christian 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 intrusted with the care of the dikes and other defences against the sea. There’s no counting the improvements he made in dikes 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 so 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.”
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 of 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 passersby had smiled as they listened.
“Come, boys! It’s nearly tififn hour[130]
,” he said as they neared a coffeehouse 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!”“Halloo!” 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[131]
. Look in your other pocket.”“I did. It isn’t there.”
“Open your underjacket.”
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 tififn 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. Doesn’t one of you know anyone here who would lend us a few guilders?”