Читать книгу The Humour of Holland - Various - Страница 5

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“It is a very serious matter,” said Gerrit Rond, the burgomaster, to Kobus.

“Very serious, indeed,” replied Kobus, the veldwachter.^[4]

“It is a disgrace to the whole parish!” continued the burgomaster.

“An everlasting disgrace!” repeated the veldwachter.

Then followed an ominous silence, in the course of which the burgomaster, with gloomy countenance and wildly rolling eye, attentively followed the movements of a fly which was leisurely walking about the stately expanse of his waistcoat; while the veldwachter kept a watchful eye on his superior’s features, that he might not fail to mould his own accordingly. In the meantime, he knit his brows, and provided himself with a half-expectant, half-threatening expression.

“IT IS A DISGRACE TO THE WHOLE PARISH!”

At length the reverend head of Gerrit, the burgomaster, solemnly rose upright, and his reflection opposite did the same.

“Kobus,” said Gerrit, “it must be seen to.”

And Kobus replied: “It shall be seen to, if your worship pleases.”

“Very good, Kobus; and I do please—of that I assure you....”

“I think I’ve got something,” said Gerrit, with an astute smile, and rubbed his nose with a civic forefinger, in a satisfied way.

“Ha!” cried Kobus, triumphantly.

“Yes, surely,... surely,...” said Gerrit, as though thinking aloud,—still, astute, smiling, and rubbing his nose,... “But let us at least go over the whole thing once more—at least the main point.”

“Shall I tell your worship once more, exactly?” asked Kobus, with a self-satisfied laugh.

“Well, yes, it will be just as well. I can then weigh the importance of the whole matter so much better. Just go on,” said the burgomaster, with the lofty attitude of one who is quite sure of himself, and can afford to wait for anything, seeing that his resolution is already taken.

“I will therefore tell your worship, once more,” began Kobus, “that on Saturday week—a fortnight ago to-morrow—Jan o’ the Wood came running into my house with a face—with a face....”

“Like Balthasar Gerard’s,”^[5] the burgomaster helped him out, with a certain gloomy majesty befitting the dignity of his position and his historical knowledge.

“That would be just about it,” said Kobus, with deep respect, and then went on. “He rushed into my house with a face like—h’m, h’m—it’s sinful to think of—what a face the man had! And first he dropped down on a chair, and couldn’t speak a word—not a letter—your worship! My wife gave him a glass of water, and she said, says she, ‘Come, Jan, just drink a little, and then you’ll come to yourself again, and then you can tell us what’s the matter.’ That’s what she said, your worship,—for them women-folk are always so curious, and she was just on fire, I tell you. Jan soon got his breath, and then it came out—how, that night—last Saturday week, a fortnight ago to-morrow—two baskets full of pears had been taken away from his trees—two whole baskets, your worship!”

Gerrit Rond, the burgomaster, the principal resident, and the respected head of his parish, stroked his plump chin complacently, and looked at his factotum, quietly smiling.

“Well; and what more, Kobus?”

Such imperturbable calm must surely conceal a great plan, thought the veldwachter; and he was several seconds recovering from his consternation. Then he stammered,—

“And... and... nothing more, your worship. I reported the matter to you at once; I drew up the procès-verbal. But though I have done my best to find out....”

The honest veldwachter completed his sentence by shrugging his shoulders, extending his arms, and dropping them again,—illustrating the whole pantomime by a face expressive of the utmost helplessness.

But now Gerrit Rond, burgomaster, the principal resident, and respected head of the community, arose from his municipal arm-chair, and spake,—

“Kobus, I know it!”

Kobus listened in breathless excitement.

“Kobus,” the burgomaster went on, looking round him with vigilant eyes, as though he suspected that pear-thieves might be hidden in the corners of his sitting-room,—“Kobus, did he steal all the pears?”

The veldwachter was silent, and looked questioningly at the burgomaster. He could not make out what the latter was driving at.

“I mean,” explained the father of the citizens, “whether Jan o’ the Wood has not got a single pear left on his trees?”

“Well; no, sir. Two baskets the rascal made off with; but how many baskets there were to be had in that orchard, I don’t know. It’s quite terrible the way Jan’s trees bear, and everything prime quality, large-sized, and juicy. I think Jan’s father had them before him, and he must have brought them....”

“That will do, Kobus,” the burgomaster interrupted his subordinate; “but that’s not the point.... So the pears have not all been removed? I mean, by this, that the thief has not unlawfully possessed himself of the whole?”

“Why, no, your worship.”

“Now, Kobus, look here.”

Kobus listened respectfully, understanding that the critical moment had now arrived.

“My father, Kobus, was a man of sense, and when he had enjoyed anything, he always used to say, ‘This peach tastes of more.’”

“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Kobus, as though suddenly enlightened,—whereas, in truth, he was more puzzled than ever.

“And, look you, Kobus, the apple can never fall far from the tree. My father was a sensible man; and I, too, say, ‘This peach tastes of more,’ and....”

Here the burgomaster looked through his half-closed eyelids with an air of infinite sagacity, and added, slowly dragging out his words, one by one,—

“... And—that—I suspect—the thief—will—say—too.”

“O-o-oh!” bellowed the veldwachter; “I understand—the thief will want more pears. He will come back, and then we’ll catch him?”

The burgomaster looked at his factotum with a paternal air of approbation.

“Kobus!” said he, “something may be made of you yet!”

“Does your worship think that?” cried Kobus, in an ecstasy,—and a rosy prospect instantly appeared before his mind’s eye—chief agent in a large town, commissioner of police, nay, perhaps,—but that he would not have dared to say out loud for any money in the world,—perhaps, one day, even burgomaster!

“But now to business, Kobus! This very night we will try to catch the thief; and my name is not Gerrit Rond if we don’t succeed. We’ll hide in Jan’s orchard, and when he comes we’ll collar him, and then....”

Here the burgomaster-detective pointed downwards. Under the tower of the court-house there was a vault or cellar of masonry, which usually served as a receptacle for old iron and thieves; the latter destination, however, was unknown, save by tradition, for only the very oldest inhabitants of the village dimly remembered an evil-doer being imprisoned there.

Kobus then suggested that it might be as well to take his son Hannes with him on their expedition, a suggestion which might have been unkindly interpreted by outsiders, for there were unpleasant reports current about the brave garde-champêtre’s reluctance to pursue criminals alone. The suggestion, however, found favour in the eyes of the magistrate, as it would enable them to take forty winks while the boy watched for the appearance of the thief. This being settled, Kobus withdrew, to reappear at the appointed time that evening. But he had not been gone long when a loud knocking startled the burgomaster out of an incipient reverie.

“Come in!” he cried, somewhat ungraciously, and the opening door revealed Kobus’s bearded face; but this time with so scared an expression, and such wildly rolling eyes, that Gerrit turned rigid with terror and, pale as death, held on to the back of his chair for support, as he stammered,

“Wh—wh—what is it, Kobus?”

“Burrgemeesterr,” rolled out Kobus, hoarsely, making as much as possible of the r’s, and putting his head round the door without coming into the room, “the thief of the apples that were stolen from Piet Stein a year and a half ago, and this thief of the pears....”

“The same,” sighed the burgomaster, struck with consternation.

“Your worship,” said Kobus, “it is a conspiracy! Shall we—should we—go and ask the Dominie?”

But scarcely had Kobus uttered this fatal word than he darted out of the door and up the street, and it was long before his mind’s eye had lost sight of that frightful picture: the burgomaster, purple in the face, and boiling over with indignation; and the voice of his superior thundered in his ears with all the annihilating force of contempt.

“The Dominie!” was all he had said.

The village schoolmaster was an old man of sixty-three, who, ever since his twentieth year, had stood, day after day, Sundays excepted, behind the same desk, leading the peasants’ children from the spelling of s, p, a—spa, to the four elementary rules of arithmetic. Every year a few left him, being found ripe for forgetting at the plough-tail what they had learnt in the schoolroom, and every year fresh aspirants for s, p, a—spa, appeared on the scenes. So he had grown old at his work, and his work with him. For he belonged to the pre-examination days—he was a “schoolmeester,” not an “onderwijzer.” The new generation looked on him rather as a curiosity, a touchstone of progress, a souvenir of old times, than a living being, a wheel in the world-machine of the nineteenth century. Other men of his age had gone with the stream, and followed its capricious windings; he had landed on the bank, and followed his own old path; his mind had rusted into the old groove, and he could not extricate it.

He had already received hints that he ought to retire, to ask for his pension, so as to make way for modern forces; but the idea of ceasing to stand before his class and behind his desk was too strange to the old man—too new!

So he remained on for the present, till his resignation should no longer be a matter of choice.

The elder children were busy doing sums; the younger ones were being attended to by the Dominie himself.

But how strange he was to-day! It sometimes seemed as if he heard nothing of the lesson the children were droning over,—saw nothing of the tricks the older ones were up to in the background,—as if, in fact, he were thinking of something entirely different. He had such fits, sometimes. How funny it was, now, when he dipped his pencil into the inkstand, instead of a penholder, and, shortly afterwards, abstractedly put it into his mouth! What a face he made when he found it out! The whole school had simply yelled at the joke, and the Dominie had got very angry, and put the whole lot of them in detention. Later, however, he almost laughed at the matter himself, and allowed them all to go home. Such foolish and absurd things he used to do every now and then; and the reason for this was, as the burgomaster said, because the Dominie was “an obstructive fellow,” and “not practical.”

And when the burgomaster said so, every one believed him, for the burgomaster was considered a very clever man.

But, after all, the Dominie was cleverer still.

For, indeed, there were sometimes things that the Dominie himself did not know,—of course, for no man can know everything. But, in those cases, he always said, “I’ll just look it up.” And then he looked in his books, and kept on looking till he found it; and he always did find it, because he had such piles of books! For, after all, that was where things were to be found—in books! For this reason the burgomaster was not so clever as the schoolmaster; he had scarcely any books at all. This was one cause of the burgomaster’s dislike. He was Gerrit Rond, the burgomaster, the first man in the village; and the Dominie was just the schoolmaster. And, naturally, the former could not endure being looked on as less clever than the latter. But he did not utter this opinion aloud; he sometimes needed the Dominie’s help in “just looking up something,” and swallowed his dislike as best he could; but people could see it all the same.

Yes, indeed! the Dominie was particularly clever!

Once it befell that Piet Stein’s son came home from the city, where he had “studied” with a view to becoming assistant-teacher; and on that occasion he had said, in the presence of his father, “All the Dominie’s cleverness is worth nothing; he is antiquated, and doesn’t know French.” Piet Stein, junior, was well acquainted with the French language; he had just learnt it. But Piet Stein, senior, seized his promising son by the collar, and dealt him a well-intentioned thrashing, “to knock these new-fangled notions out of him once for all.”

For the schoolmaster was a knowledgeable man. He lived with his books, and—which was less obvious to the eyes of the world—with his instruments and his medicine-chest. For years past he had been practising on his own account, and had acquired a certain medical reputation among the peasants of the neighbourhood as well as within the village. He had, in truth, treated several cases within the last few years with great success; but it might be better not to inquire how many earlier trials had failed. Then came the new ideas—the laws against unlicensed doctoring were strictly enforced, and he received warnings from various quarters, of which, however, he took no notice. He could not understand why he might not try to lessen people’s sufferings, as well as other men, who usually did not succeed any better than he. It had become to him a passion, an aim in life, a vocation.

So he obstinately went his own way, in spite of warnings, till the doctors, whom he injured in their practice, at last lost patience, and prosecuted him. He was convicted and fined, and from that time his medical career was over,—at least so it was universally reported. It seemed strange, however, that now and then a sick person made a wonderful recovery, without having been treated by the doctor.

Now, one evening it happened that old Klaas, the shepherd, was seriously ill, and had asked for the schoolmaster. The Dominie had said “No,” but he had meant “Yes”; for though no longer allowed to do any doctoring, he could not keep from it. So he meant to wait till it was dark, and then slip out unnoticed to Klaas’ cottage.

In Jan o’ the Wood’s orchard three figures were crouching down behind three low dwarf pear-trees, and each of the three had his head full of thoughts that were not those of his neighbour. The burgomaster was chiefly tortured by the idea that on the good or ill success of the evening’s undertaking depended the preservation of his official dignity; for, seeing that he had enjoined the strictest secrecy on the veldwachter, and his promising son and heir, the only question was which of the two would most speedily spread abroad the whole story through the village. But, over and above this, the respected head of the community was trembling like an aspen-leaf, for before his mental eye there arose a vision of a robber—yes, truly and literally, a robber,—a man with a long beard, bristling hair, and bloodshot eyes,—a man who goes about with jemmies and murderous weapons on his person, and—and—who might kill you if you came in his way, you see!

The veldwachter was, before all things, eager to behold the heroic feats of the burgomaster, for he was firmly convinced that the mere presence of the great man was sufficient to compel the miscreant to run into the snare. For terror there was now no room in his martial spirit,—for, after all, he had Hannes with him!

Hannes was a big sturdy chap, who at fifteen might well have been taken for eighteen,—a fellow with fists like engine-buffers, and a face which, for shrewd intelligence of expression, was about equal to that of a sheep. Hannes was burning with impatience to hammer away at the malefactor; hitherto he had only tried his strength on mere vagabonds, but now he was to have the opportunity of measuring himself with a real thief. That would be something to boast of!

Thus the three would-be thief-catchers sat in the greatest excitement behind three of the smallest dwarf pear-trees that any one can imagine.

A considerable time elapsed, during which even the strained senses of the triumvirate could perceive nothing which, in the remotest degree, resembled even a fraction of a thief. At last Hannes’ patience was exhausted, and with it his capacity for silence. “Dad,” he began in a whisper, “if he comes, am I to take him by the throat and choke him, or shall I punch his head till he falls down dead?”

“I don’t know,” replied the veldwachter, in an equally cautious whisper, at least as low as his love for gutturals and sibilants would allow, “I’ll just ask his worship.” Thus did Kobus, and repeated the gruesome question to the burgomaster, thereby sending a shudder through the latter’s limbs.

“Tell him,” said the heroic man to his heroic subordinate, who was squatting between his superior and his son, “that he must seize him by the legs, so as not to come within reach of his hands; the thief is sure to have daggers and pistols to defend himself with if he is attacked.” Thus spake the wise man; but the real reason for his caution was that he felt there might be disagreeable consequences for himself if Hannes received the thief in too heavy-handed a manner.

The veldwachter passed on the message in a whisper to his son:

“Hold him by the legs, Hannes!”

“All right, dad,” replied Hannes, though he did not understand why he was to treat the criminal so gently. But the burgomaster had said so,—in other words, the oracle had spoken, and so——

It was very quiet, in the dark, behind Jan’s pear-tree. The burgomaster dropped his venerated head, and slept. When Kobus heard the low sound of snoring beside him, he turned to his son, and said:

“Hannes, his worship is off; I think I’ll have a nap too; keep a good look-out, and give me a push if you see anything wrong.”

“All right, dad,” said Hannes, and he sat bolt upright, and opened his eyes still wider than before. But the duet at his side, the darkness all round him, and the weariness in his eyelids, made him close them now and then. He struggled bravely against sleep, but there was no one to help him. And he was only fifteen, and it was so late and so dark, and Hannes fell into a doze.

Now and then he was awakened for a moment or so by the uneasy thought that he was the one who had to watch. On one of these occasions, he thought he saw a dim figure pass right before him in this dark, and to hear steps—hurried footsteps. He rubbed his eyes, and—yes—there was some one carefully opening the gate and leaving the orchard.

Hastily Hannes awakened his parent, in the gentle manner prescribed and told him, in a whisper, what he knew. The awful tidings were then reported to the burgomaster, and a moment later the trio were on their way to seek the thief, who surely, as the veldwachter supposed, was just carrying away his booty. Hannes went first, the burgomaster followed, and Kobus formed the rearguard. This order had been determined by the burgomaster. “For,” said he, “as head of the community, I ought to have the most protection.”

In this way the police force wandered aimlessly about for some time. Hannes did not know for certain what direction the thief had taken after leaving the orchard; and, besides, there was scarcely any light. It really seemed as though the moon were taking upon herself to play at bo-peep with the most worshipful the burgomaster, for she chose not to show up at all. Yes, perhaps, indeed—oh! scandalous thought!—she was making faces at the great man behind her thick curtain of clouds! Who knows?—there are such queer stories told about the moon.

The expedition, then, returned to the orchard unsuccessful, and once more took up its position behind the dwarf pear-trees. That the miscreant might yet return seemed probable, as Hannes assured them that he had indeed seen him carrying something under his arm, but not a large sack or anything of that sort. He could not, therefore, have taken much with him. And they waited—waited—waited....

Meanwhile the schoolmaster had quietly gone on his way. The better to escape observation, he did not take the nearest way, along the main street, but went out into his back garden, opened a little gate which led into Jan o’ the Wood’s orchard, struck right across the orchard, and so reached a lane leading round to the other side of the village. Here he turned into a wood, and, following a small winding footpath, came at length to a lonely cottage, seemingly forsaken, hidden away among the tall trees. Here he seemed a habitual visitor. At least he lifted the latch without first knocking, opened the door, and found himself in an apartment serving at the same time as bedroom and kitchen.

A close, heavy air, and an ominous stillness, seemed to oppress him as he entered. But the Dominie was not easily daunted. He felt about till he found a lamp standing on the table, and lit it. With the light, life seemed to come into the dead silence of the room; at least a low moaning was heard from a corner where there was a bedstead, and a broken voice asked, “Who’s there?”

“It’s I, Klaas, the schoolmaster,” announced the visitor; and, bending over the sick man, he went on, “How is it with you?”

“It’s all up, Dominie, it’s all up,” gasped the voice. “Oh, Klaas is no great loss—not much; oh no!”

There seemed to be reason enough for such an estimate; at least the man who lay there dying did not give the idea of one whose loss society would feel very keenly. The flickering lamp-light showed the bed-place, let into the wall like a ship’s berth, in an indefinite half-darkness, except the head, on which a dull yellow gleam was cast. There lay, on an unsightly grey, greasy bolster, a head that at first sight seemed more animal than human. The thin face was made still more angular and hollow by the strongly projecting cheek-bones, and the pointed chin with its bristly beard. The upper-lip, and indeed the whole mouth, was almost covered with stiff hair; the nose was broad, flat, and turned up; while a quantity of lank, tangled hair fell over the projecting forehead and deep-set eyes. But these eyes glittered fiercely, every now and then, in their dark sockets, and then again looked anxiously, almost entreatingly, at the schoolmaster.

The Dominie tried to answer him cheerfully. “Come, come, Klaas! What foolish talk is this? You may not have been a king or a great man, but you have been of use for all that. Shepherds are wanted just as much as kings.”

“No, sir,” said Klaas, moving his head restlessly. “Every day so many finer lights are blown out, and Klaas is only a rushlight. Oh, Lord, yes!”

The old schoolmaster tried to comfort him, but Klaas still seemed to have something on his mind.

He had stolen Jan’s pears a fortnight ago, he told the schoolmaster at last.

The old man remained with him till a late hour, and then started homewards by the same way as he had come.

“Father, father!”

“What is it, Hannes?”

“I hear the gate creak.”

“So it does.... Your worship, here he comes back again.”

“Really? Yes, I see him.... Kobus, stand firm, my man. Let Hannes hold him fast by the legs. No, not yet—wait till he passes! Oh, do be careful! Look out for his weapons!”

“Hannes, be ready!”

“I’m quite ready, dad.”

“Not before I speak, and then by the legs—do you hear?”

“Yes, dad. Hush now!”

—The shuffling of approaching footsteps in the grass of the orchard... suddenly a figure disengages itself from the darkness.—

“Now, Hannes, now!”

Hannes creeps forward along the ground, seizes the figure, according to instructions, firmly by the ankles—a good pull—and the thief falls forward at full length. Hannes seizes his wrists, and lets himself fall flat on the top of his prey.

The veldwachter, for greater security, incontinently throws himself upon his two predecessors; and the burgomaster crowns the human pyramid, and the successful thief-hunt, by sitting down, with all his burgomasterly weight and a heavy bump, upon the three others, triumphantly shouting the while, “I’ve got him,”—which is answered by, “Oh my ribs, your worship!” from the uppermost stratum, “What in thunder!” from the midmost, and a smothered groan from the lowest.

“Hannes, have you got a hold of his hands—tight now?”

“Yes, your worship, but I can’t do anything myself like this.”

“Well, I’ll get up, but keep a good hold of him—do you hear?”

“All right, sir.”

The burgomaster arose. “Kobus, put the handcuffs on him at once. In heaven’s name make haste about it then.”

The veldwachter bustled up from the ground, and set about securing the prisoner as closely as possible. While he was thus occupied, and Hannes was holding the persistently silent criminal, the burgomaster kept walking round and round his captive in order to see what sort of a fish he had got in his net. In this he would probably have been unsuccessful, had not the moon, in a sudden caprice, shone out brightly once more. When the triumvirate saw the pale face, paler than ever with the fright and the cold moonlight, and perceived it to be the face so well known to them, all their astonishment uttered itself in the simultaneous cry—

“The Dominie!”

The school was empty, and the children had a holiday, for the Dominie... was sitting in the vault under the tower.

Under the tower sat the Dominie, amidst pieces of old iron and other rubbish. Light and air stole in shyly, in small quantities, through the little, square, grated window, in which a single scrap of glass, dusty and weather-stained, remained in one corner, to show there had once been a pane. As the court-house was surrounded by a paddock, which again was enclosed by a low wall, the sounds from outside only penetrated indistinctly, as a vague murmur, into this chamber. Sometimes it was quiet,—deadly still, there, especially of an evening, and then life came into the place, for the rats and mice began their games. The Master was an old man, and nervous, and he could not sleep much. He thought over the whole matter in his wakeful hours, and it gradually became clear to him that he had been arrested by mistake.... Klaas had stolen Jan van ’t Hout’s pears, and he, the Dominie, had been taken for the thief returning for a second load. But it would not be difficult to prove his innocence. Only it was lasting a long time; he ought surely to have been tried before now. Four days had passed without his hearing anything. Even the veldwachter, who, as a rule, could not be with him two minutes without wanting to relate some story or other, was now silence itself, when he brought the Dominie his daily rations. What was the meaning of this delay?

“SITTING IN THE VAULT UNDER THE TOWER.”

Yes, the delay had well-founded reasons! The burgomaster had indeed caught the fish, but he did not exactly know what he was to do with him. It was a ticklish business. Was he to hand over the prisoner immediately, without the form of a trial, to the authorities in town? or was he first to hold an inquiry, and send up the procès-verbal along with the prisoner? Supposing the latter to be the case, how was he to set about it? It was a most unfortunate circumstance that there had never been any thieves in the parish, for now the burgomaster was most certainly at his wits’ end. The secretary—a poor, infirm old man, almost in his dotage—was consulted in vain. The same result attended a conference with the “law-holders.”^[6] Finally the burgomaster called Kobus to his assistance. He reflected for some time, and said at last:

“Doesn’t it say in the communal bye-laws?”

“This case is one for which no provision is made in the Gemeentewet” said the burgomaster, with admirable composure,—the truth being that the greater part of the Gemeentewet was Greek to him, and that he had gradually picked up, by practical experience, what knowledge he possessed of his official duties. Kobus, however, was very far from suspecting any such subtleties, and believed his superior implicitly. His invention being now exhausted, he confined himself to remarking, with a sigh, “If it hadn’t been the Dominie himself, now, we might have asked him—he could surely have looked it up somewhere.”

Yes, that would have been too absurd. They could not have brought the Dominie all his books in a wheelbarrow, and requested him to “look up” information as to what was to be done with himself! No—that would not do. But all at once an expedient occurred to Kobus. There was an old, old man in the village—a grey-beard of ninety or more. Perhaps in his young days there might have been such a thing as a malefactor in this rural region. Yes, the idea was not such a bad one, and Kobus was sent as a delegate from the government to this oracle of antiquity. In fact, the old man had a suggestion ready. He remembered that some sixty years ago an analogous case had occurred, and then the burgomaster had first examined the culprit himself, and then sent him to town for trial. He added, however, that the burgomaster on that occasion had not been quite certain of what he ought to do. That, however, did not matter so much—the precedent was there in any case. The schoolmaster then must be examined; and, as Mulders had once been present at a trial in court, the forms of justice presented no such great difficulty after all.

On the fifth day after his arrest, the schoolmaster was haled forth from the dungeon under the tower, and—of course, heavily handcuffed—taken to the council-chamber. That was an event. The whole village formed a long procession, which accompanied the prisoner; and when he was taken inside, his train remained hanging about the doors. Then followed a buzz and clatter among the crowd, as though it were a swarm of bees, or a duck-yard.

“THAT WAS AN EVENT.”

“It’s too bad,” said a little old woman; “an old white-haired man like that. What may not a man come to? Only yesterday he was teaching my daughter’s children their lessons, and to-day the poor lambs are running after their master, because he’s been in jail just like some nasty vagabond. And I can’t believe it of him, do you know—anything but that. He has always been much too kind to every one. I’m not the only one here whom he has helped for nothing—nothing at all—without your having to pay a cent for it.”

“Yes, but, mother,” began a rich farmer,—with a face and attitude in which the most condescending amiability could not altogether hide the lowest greed, and a stupid arrogant conceit,—“you must understand that there are well-founded reasons—I say, well-founded reasons—for the man to have been taken up—eh? That’s surely self-evident—eh? No one is put into handcuffs without important reasons; there must be a ground for such a motive—I say, for such a motive.” And then the mighty orator looked round him with a “What do you think of me now?” expression, and enjoyed his victory over the old woman. But the latter was not to be driven from the field so easily.

“You go along with your French talk. I know nothing about that,—and yet I think I know quite as much as you do yourself. But this I know, that it doesn’t look well for you, of all people, to abuse the schoolmaster anyway. Even though it were as clear as a post above the water that the Dominie had stolen, you ought to stand up for him! Do you understand me—eh?”

The rich farmer understood quite well. When his youngest boy had been lying ill some months ago, he had been too mean to send for a doctor, though he could well afford it, and had called the schoolmaster to his assistance. Then, as at other times, the Dominie had said “No,” to keep up appearances, as he was not supposed to practise any more; but he had thought “Yes,” and acted on his thought. And the rich farmer had paid him nothing. This was why he now hurriedly turned away from this covert attack, muttering something about “old creatures getting quite childish,” but abstained from further contradiction.

But the old woman could not be everywhere at once to take the Dominie’s part, and the conclusion of most conversations was this: “Yes, you see, folks don’t call a cow piebald, when there’s not a spot about her.”

Suddenly, however, all voices were hushed before the reverently-uttered magic formula, “The Burgomaster!”

The crowd parted to let him pass, and he went up to the council-chamber, where the faithful Kobus, in his Sunday suit, was awaiting him. He was already going to meet the burgomaster, in order to tell him that “they” were all there; but the great man was looking straight in front of him, as stiff as a poker, and making, in a direct line, for his official chair, like a guest who, on being ushered in, looks neither to right nor left, but makes straight for the lady of the house.

This was “the proper form.” Kobus was so impressed by this ceremonial that he stared with open mouth and eyes, and remained immovable, like a masculine counterpart of Lot’s wife. The burgomaster had elegant manners, that he had.

“Are all present?” asked the burgomaster, suddenly.

Kobus awakened with a start from his ecstatic trance. “Yes, your worship,” he answered, regaining his composure.

“Then the trial may begin,” said the President of the Court. “And you, Veldwachter, do you caligraph it!”

“I—I don’t altogether understand, your worship.”

“Caligraph, Veldwachter!”

“Oh!—ah!—hm—yes, I don’t understand——.”

“Write it down, Veldwachter. Caligraphy—that is the art of writing, you know.”

“All right, your worship.” Kobus sat down at a table, took up a pen, and bent over a sheet of paper. But the paper was destined to remain unsoiled. For, all of a sudden, the burgomaster looked round him, and, probably struck by the emptiness of the room, inquired, “Veldwachter, are all the witnesses present?”

“All the witnesses are present, your worship,” answered Kobus, indicating, with a majestic wave of the hand, his solitary son Hannes, who sat so forlorn, that, looking at him and the schoolmaster, it would have been hard to say which was witness and which defendant; for the Dominie had his handcuffed hands on his knees under the table, and you would not have guessed from his calm features—pale and worn with the fatigues of the last few days—that he was accused of any crime.

“But,” pursued Kobus, “your worship has just said something that gives me an idea. Ought there not to be some other witnesses?”

“Other witnesses?”

“Yes, I mean witnesses to witness for him, do you see? I mean to say, Hannes sits here, for instance, to speak against—I mean against the Dominie,—but ought there not to be some witnesses to speak for him as well?”

The burgomaster began to think. This was a difficult question, one of those ticklish and delicate problems, the solution of which forms the principal raison d’être of a burgomaster’s career. If only this miserable trial had never begun! He cast a furtive glance at the defendant. If only he could consult the Dominie, and ask him to look up his books about the matter! But away with such humiliating thoughts! No; better, if it must be, to manifest his ignorance in a more becoming way: “Veldwachter, is that what they do in town? It was different in my time.”

“They do it that way now, your worship.”

“Then we had better move with the times, and adapt ourselves to the new usages. But where are the—the for-witnesses to come from?”

“Oh! there’s a whole crowd outside the door, your worship—perhaps you might find one among them. And if there’s no one to be had—well, at any rate, we’ve done our best to find one.”

“Go outside, then, and proclaim a summons, on my behalf.”

Kobus went and did so, wording the “proclamation” as clearly as he knew how. But a deathly stillness was all the answer he received. For though many a simple soul was honestly convinced of the defendant’s innocence, and though here and there a solitary voice had been raised in his favour,—to go in there, into the council-chamber,—to stand before the tribunal,—that was more than those timid folk could undertake.

Suddenly, however, a shrill voice cried, “Well, if no one else will do it, I will.” And the little old woman who had already taken up the cudgels for the Dominie, forced her way hastily to the front of the crowd.

“Look’ee there; Auntie’s going to speak,” cried various voices. Every one repeated, laughing, “Auntie’s going to speak!” for under this name the old lady was known to all the village.

Auntie cared neither for laughter nor tears, but went straight forward, climbed the court-house steps, and then suddenly turned round, waved her thin old arms, and cried as loud as she could, “You’re a pack of cowards, the lot of you,—do you hear, you great loobies?” Then she disappeared inside. And though she was a funny figure enough as she stood there, no one thought of laughing,—they all felt the truth of Auntie’s words too deeply.

“YOU’RE A PACK OF COWARDS.”

Auntie was conducted inside by the veldwachter, and her eye immediately fell on her client. The Dominie remained seated in the same attitude, discouraged and dejected—deeply humiliated by the thought that, at his age, with his aspirations and such a past behind him, he should have to bow his head beneath the weight of a criminal accusation! The trouble dimmed his thinking powers, and drove the blood through his veins at lightning speed. What a hammering in his pulses—what a thumping in his temples—what a rushing in his ears! He felt like a swimmer who has been long under water, and finds it press more and more crushingly on him, and hears its noise in his ears. That was the fever—the fever that was rising higher and higher in his blood, and brought that unnatural flush to his usually pale cheeks.

Auntie looked at the sad spectacle he presented, and her indignation rose, and craved for immediate utterance.

“Burgomaster!” she began, “don’t you call it a shame that the Dominie——”

But her flow of words was immediately interrupted by the burgomaster: “Silence! witness, this is not as it should be. You have come here to give your evidence voluntarily, and to do this effectually all the forms must be observed. Witness, what is your name?”

“Well, I never—my name! Just as though the whole village didn’t know me? Come, come, Burgomaster, every one knew my name long before yours was ever thought of; and do you want to pretend that you don’t know me? No, man, that won’t do. All those grand manners won’t go down with old Auntie. All the same, I can tell you plainly why the poor fellow could not have stolen the pears; and so you are quite out of it, with all your fine forms and speeches, do you see? Now just let me ask you, if he took the pears, where did he leave them,—say?”

And Auntie placed her arms akimbo, and assumed an attitude which seemed to say, “Your turn now—come on!”

But the opposite party remained passive. The burgomaster, as it happened, was seized with a violent fit of coughing, which seemed as though it could not come to an end. It was a pity, for, but for that, surely, the wise man would have answered the conundrum with Solomonic perspicuity. The veldwachter-clerk said, “Hm, hm—yes, yes,” and covered his beard with his hand. The witness for the prosecution yawned with ennui and hunger. The defendant sat still, and looked at the old woman with rigid eyes.

But all things come to an end, and so did the presiding judge’s cough. However, he seemed to have coughed away all his judicial sagacity, for he remained silent. Not so Kobus Mulders, who awakened from his reverie after this fashion—

“Yes, yes,—where did he leave them? I only say, your worship,—where did he leave the pears, if he stole them?”

“Oh, yes, that’s what I should like to know,” said Auntie, shortly, and closed her lips with a look of firm conviction.

Another pause.

“Yes,” resumed Kobus, “he can’t have swallowed them all down at once.” This joke appeared to him so inexpressibly funny, that he burst into a loud hoarse laugh, which was echoed by no one except Hannes. But suddenly the joker’s features became rigid, and he looked at every one present with a face whose expression plainly said, “How is it possible that I did not think of it before?” and exclaimed, “I know! Your worship, the little chest that we found in Klaas’s cottage the day after he died——”

“Well, Kobus?” asked the burgomaster, in great excitement—so much so that he quite forgot to speak officially.

“It is the Dominie’s, and now I understand everything. The Dominie didn’t steal, and Auntie is quite right. It could not be, either. Just listen. The Dominie has been at his doctoring again. He went to see Klaas when he was dying, and forgot to take his medicine-chest away with him when he left. I am quite sure it is his medicine-chest, because it is the same thing I used to see in his hands in the old times, when nobody minded his doctoring folks. And the time just corresponds. On the day after we arrested the Dominie, I went to see Klaas, and found him dead. It’s as plain—as—well, it’s quite plain!”

Every one had listened with the greatest attention, and the explanation seemed to have made a deep impression on all. The Dominie, however, seemed to feel it most. He suddenly started up out of his apathy, leaned his handcuffed hands on the table, and tried to speak. Everything melted into a dull roar inside his head—the light turned to scarlet—he had fainted.

All of them hastened up to help him—Auntie foremost, in spite of her old legs. Slowly he came to himself again, and then he tried to think. He remembered what had happened, in a dim sort of way. What now? What should he answer if they asked him whether Kobus’s supposition was correct? It was—and yet, if he acknowledged that he had gone to Klaas on that particular evening to give him medical help, then he would have to expect for the future so strict a supervision of his forbidden practice, that it would thenceforth be almost impossible to carry it on. And he could not give it up—he could not, and would not. But to be looked on as a thief! Oh, if he could only think—think quietly and calmly. But this fever! this fever! No, it was his duty, his calling, and he must be true to it, though he should be crushed by the contempt of the whole world—the world he longed to do good to. And wildly, as a wave of delirium swept over him, he said, “No! no! no! I didn’t do that! The chest is not mine! I know nothing about it, and wish to know nothing—do you hear? I am no doctor; I am only a poor schoolmaster! I am much too stupid to be a doctor, and I have never done anything of the sort! I’m a thief—a wretched thief—a thief!” He cried shrilly once more, with all his strength, “A thief!” and let his burning head drop on his heaving breast.

His hearers looked at each other. Not one of them now believed in his guilt, and even in the burgomaster—who was only narrow-minded, not bad-hearted—every hostile feeling now gave place to pity.

“Come, Dominie,” he said, laying his hand on the old man’s shoulder, “come, you mustn’t make so much of it as all that. We all understand the whole business now; and as for the medicine-chest, I forbid every one here present to say one word about it!” At these words the burgomaster looked round him with such a solemn air of command, that Kobus cast down his eyes, and Hannes shuddered with sheer reverence. But the great man, mindful of his duties as presiding judge, went on—“Now, defendant, you are acquitted; you may go.”

But Auntie flew up in a storm of indignation. “What! go? My patience, me! Burgomaster, don’t you see the poor soul can hardly sit in his chair? Come, Hannes, you great lout, what are you loafing about there for, you great long booby, you? Run out, and tell them to send some menfolks to carry the Dominie home. Quick now!”

This classic oration produced a visible impression on Hannes, and, before long, he came back with several men, who carried the schoolmaster away, Auntie walking behind, and saying, from time to time, “Take care! take care!” When it became known outside that the Dominie’s innocence was established, every one set up a loud cry of joy.

Inside, however, the burgomaster and Kobus were looking at each other with serious faces. “I haven’t written down anything, with all the confusion,” said Kobus. The burgomaster considered. If the matter were reported in town, he would probably get well laughed at for his mistake. And what about the forms in which such a narrative, if reported, would have to be clothed? No; it was best to put the whole thing aside, and say no more about it.

“Veldwachter, it seems to me that this matter is not now of sufficient importance for us to communicate it to the judicial authorities of the parquet; so you may go too.”

Without understanding half of this speech, Kobus was able to catch the burgomaster’s drift,—the matter was at an end. So he went home, reflecting how frightfully learned the burgomaster was.