Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates / Серебряные коньки. Книга для чтения на английском языке

“It is not right for me to peep into another’s house in this way,” she said to herself. Then, softly calling to Gretel, she added in a whisper, “You may look – perhaps he is only sleeping.”

Gretel tried to walk briskly toward the spot, but her limbs were trembling. Hilda hastened to her support.

“You are sick, yourself, I fear,” she said kindly.

“No, not sick, jufvrouw, but my heart cries all the time now, even when my eyes are as dry as yours. Why, jufvrouw, your eyes are not dry! Are you crying for US? Oh, jufvrouw, if God sees you! Oh! I know father will get better now.” And the little creature, even while reaching to look through the tiny window, kissed Hilda’s hand again and again.

The sash was sadly patched and broken; a torn piece of paper hung halfway down across it. Gretel’s face was pressed to the window.

“Can you see anything?” whispered Hilda at last.

“Yes – the father lies very still, his head is bandaged, and all their eyes are fastened upon him. Oh, jufvrouw!” almost screamed Gretel, as she started back and, by a quick, dexterous movement shook off her heavy wooden shoes. “I MUST go in to my mother! Will you come with me?”

“Not now, the bell is ringing. I shall come again soon. Good-bye!”

Gretel scarcely heard the words. She remembered for many a day afterward the bright, pitying smile on Hilda’s face as she turned away.

The Awakening

An angel could not have entered the cottage more noiselessly. Gretel, not daring to look at anyone, slid softly to her mother’s side.

The room was very still. She could hear the old doctor breathe. She could almost hear the sparks as they fell into the ashes on the hearth. The mother’s hand was very cold, but a burning spot glowed on her cheek, and her eyes were like a deer’s – so bright, so sad, so eager.

At last there was a movement upon the bed, very slight, but enough to cause them all to start. Dr. Boekman leaned eagerly forward.

Another movement. The large hands, so white and soft for a poor man’s hand, twitched, then raised itself steadily toward the forehead.

It felt the bandage, not in a restless, crazy way but with a questioning movement that caused even Dr. Boekman to hold his breath.

“Steady! Steady!” said a voice that sounded very strange to Gretel. “Shift that mat higher, boys! Now throw on the clay. The waters are rising fast; no time to – ”

Dame Brinker sprang forward like a young panther.

She seized his hands and, leaning over him, cried, “Raff! Raff, boy, speak to me!”

“Is it you, Meitje?” he asked faintly. “I have been asleep, hurt, I think. Where is little Hans?”

“Here I am, Father!” shouted Hans, half-mad with joy. But the doctor held him back.

“He knows us![330]” screamed Dame Brinker. “Great God! He knows us! Gretel! Gretel! Come, see your father!”

In vain Dr. Boekman commanded “Silence!” and tried to force them from the bedside. He could not keep them off.

Hans and the mother laughed and cried together as they hung over the newly awakened man. Gretel made no sound but gazed at them all with glad, startled eyes. Her father was speaking in a faint voice.

“Is the baby asleep, Meitje?”

“The baby!” echoed Dame Brinker. “Oh, Gretel, that is you! And he calls Hans ‘little Hans.’ Ten years asleep! Oh, mynheer, you have saved us all. He has known nothing for ten years[331]! Children, why don’t you thank the meester?”

The good woman was beside herself with joy[332]. Dr. Boekman said nothing, but as his eye met hers, he pointed upward. She understood. So did Hans and Gretel.

With one accord they knelt by the cot, side by side.

Dame Brinker felt for her husband’s hand even while she was praying. Dr. Boekman’s head was bowed; the assistant stood by the hearth with his back toward them.

“Why do you pray?” murmured the father, looking feebly from the bed as they rose. “Is it God’s day[333]?”

It was not Sunday; but his vrouw bowed her head – she could not speak.

“Then we should have a chapter,” said Raff Brinker, speaking slowly and with dififculty. “I do not know how it is. I am very, very weak. Mayhap the minister will read it to us.”

Gretel lifted the big Dutch Bible from its carved shelf. Dr. Boekman, rather dismayed at being called a minister, coughed and handed the volume to his assistant.

“Read,” he murmured. “These people must be kept quiet or the man will die yet.”

When the chapter was finished, Dame Brinker motioned mysteriously to the rest by way of telling them that her husband was asleep.

“Now, jufvrouw,” said the doctor in a subdued tone as he drew on his thick woolen mittens, “there must be perfect quiet. You understand. This is truly a most remarkable case. I shall come again tomorrow. Give the patient no food today,” and, bowing hastily, he left the cottage, followed by his assistant.

His grand coach was not far away; the driver had kept the horses moving slowly up and down by the canal nearly all the time the doctor had been in the cottage.

Hans went out also.