Chương Chương 16 · Haarlem--The Boys Hear Voices

. Haarlem--The Boys Hear Voices

Refreshed and rested, our boys came forth from the coffeehouse just

as the big clock in the square, after the manner of certain Holland

timekeepers, was striking two with its half-hour bell for half-past two.

The captain was absorbed in thought, at first, for Hans Brinker’s sad

story still echoed in his ears. Not until Ludwig rebuked him with a

laughing “Wake up, grandfather!” did he reassume his position as gallant

boy-leader of his band.

“Ahem! this way, young gentlemen!”

They were walking through the city, not on a curbed sidewalk, for such

a thing is rarely to be found in Holland, but on the brick pavement that

lay on the borders of the cobblestone carriage-way without breaking its

level expanse.

Haarlem, like Amsterdam, was gayer than usual, in honor of Saint

Nicholas.

A strange figure was approaching them. It was a small man dressed in

black, with a short cloak. He wore a wig and a cocked hat from which a

long crepe streamer was flying.

“Who comes here?” cried Ben. “What a queer-looking object.”

“That’s the aanspreeker,” said Lambert. “Someone is dead.”

“Is that the way men dress in mourning in this country?”

“Oh, no! The aanspreeker attends funerals, and it is his business, when

anyone dies, to notify all the friends and relatives.”

“What a strange custom.”

“Well,” said Lambert, “we needn’t feel very badly about this particular

death, for I see another man has lately been born to the world to fill

up the vacant place.”

Ben stared. “How do you know that?”

“Don’t you see that pretty red pincushion hanging on yonder door?” asked

Lambert in return.

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s a boy.”

“A boy! What do you mean?”

“I mean that here in Haarlem, whenever a boy is born, the parents have a

red pincushion put out at the door. If our young friend had been a girl

instead of a boy, the cushion would have been white. In some places they

have much more fanciful affairs, all trimmed with lace, and even among

the very poorest houses you will see a bit of ribbon or even a string

tied on the door latch--”

“Look!” screamed Ben. “There IS a white cushion at the door of that

double-joined house with the funny roof.”

“I don’t see any house with a funny roof.”

“Oh, of course not,” said Ben. “I forgot you’re a native, but all the

roofs are queer to me, for that matter. I mean the house next to that

green building.”

“True enough, there’s a girl! I tell you what, captain,” called out

Lambert, slipping easily into Dutch, “we must get out of this street

as soon as possible. It’s full of babies! They’ll set up a squall in a

moment.”

The captain laughed. “I shall take you to hear better music than that,”

he said. “We are just in time to hear the organ of Saint Bavon. The

church is open today.”

“What, the great Haarlem organ?” asked Ben. “That will be a treat

indeed. I have often read of it, with its tremendous pipes, and its vox

humana *{An organ stop which produces an effect resembling the human

voice.} that sounds like a giant singing.”

“The same,” answered Lambert van Mounen.

Peter was right. The church was open, though not for religious services.

Someone was playing upon the organ. As the boys entered, a swell of

sound rushed forth to meet them. It seemed to bear them, one by one,

into the shadows of the building.

Louder and louder it grew until it became like the din and roar of some

mighty tempest, or like the ocean surging upon the shore. In the midst

of the tumult a tinkling bell was heard; another answered, then another,

and the storm paused as if to listen. The bells grew bolder; they rang

out loud and clear. Other deep-toned bells joined in; they were tolling

in solemn concert--ding, dong! ding, dong! The storm broke forth with

redoubled fury, gathering its distant thunder. The boys looked at each

other but did not speak. It was growing serious. What was that? WHO

screamed? WHAT screamed--that terrible, musical scream? Was it man or

demon? Or was it some monster shut up behind that carved brass frame,

behind those great silver columns--some despairing monster begging,

screaming for freedom! it was the vox humana!

At last an answer came--soft, tender, loving, like a mother’s song. The

storm grew silent; hidden birds sprang forth filling the air with glad,

ecstatic music, rising higher and higher until the last faint note was

lost in the distance.

The vox humana was stilled, but in the glorious hymn of thanksgiving

that now arose, one could almost hear the throbbing of a human heart.

What did it mean? That man’s imploring cry should in time be met with a

deep content? That gratitude would give us freedom? To Peter and Ben

it seemed that the angels were singing. Their eyes grew dim, and their

souls dizzy with a strange joy. At last, as if borne upward by invisible

hands, they were floating away on the music, all fatigue forgotten, and

with no wish but to hear forever those beautiful sounds, when suddenly

Van Holp’s sleeve was pulled impatiently and a gruff voice beside him

asked, “How long are you going to stay here, captain, blinking at the

ceiling like a sick rabbit? It’s high time we started.”

“Hush!” whispered Peter, only half aroused.

“Come, man! Let’s go,” said Carl, giving the sleeve a second pull.

Peter turned reluctantly. He would not detain the boys against their

will. All but Ben were casting rather reproachful glances upon him.

“Well, boys,” he whispered, “we will go. Softly now.”

“That’s the greatest thing I’ve seen or heard since I’ve bee in

Holland!” cried Ben enthusiastically, as soon as they reached the open

air. “It’s glorious!”

Ludwig and Carl laughed slyly at the English boy’s wartaal, or

gibberish. Jacob yawned, and Peter gave Ben a look that made him

instantly feel that he and Peter were not so very different after all,

though one hailed from Holland and the other from England. And Lambert,

the interpreter, responded with a brisk “You may well say so. I believe

there are one or two organs nowadays that are said to be as fine; but

for years and years this organ of Saint Bavon was the grandest in the

world.”

“Do you know how large it is?” asked Ben. “I noticed that the church

itself was prodigiously high and that the organ filled the end of the

great aisle almost from floor to roof.”

“That’s true,” said Lambert, “and how superb the pipes looked--just like

grand columns of silver. They’re only for show, you know. The REAL pipes

are behind them, some big enough for a man to crawl through, and some

smaller than a baby’s whistle. Well, sir, for size, the church is higher

than Westminster Abbey, to begin with, and, as you say, the organ makes

a tremendous show even then. Father told me last night that it is one

hundred and eight feet high, fifty feet wide, and has over five thousand

pipes. It has sixty-four stops--if you know what they are, I don’t--and

three keyboards.”

“Good for you!” said Ben. “You have a fine memory. MY head is a perfect

colander for figures. They slip through as fast as they’re poured

in. But other facts and historical events stay behind--that’s some

consolation.”

“There we differ,” returned Van Mounen. “I’m great on names and figures,

but history, take it altogether, seems to me to be the most hopeless

kind of jumble.”

Meantime Carl and Ludwig were having a discussion concerning some square

wooden monuments they had observed in the interior of the church. Ludwig

declared that each bore the name of the person buried beneath, and

Carl insisted that they had no names but only the heraldic arms of the

deceased painted on a black ground, with the date of the death in gilt

letters.

“I ought to know,” said Carl, “for I walked across to the east side, to

look for the cannonball Mother told me was embedded there. It was fired

into the church, in the year fifteen hundred and something, by those

rascally Spaniards, while the services were going on. There it was

in the wall, sure enough, and while I was walking back, I noticed the

monuments. I tell you, they haven’t the sign of a name on them.”

“Ask Peter,” said Ludwig, only half convinced.

“Carl is right,” replied Peter, who, though conversing with Jacob, had

overheard their dispute. “Well, Jacob, as I was saying, Handel, the

great composer, chanced to visit Haarlem and, of course, he at once

hunted up this famous organ. He gained admittance and was playing upon

it with all his might when the regular organist chanced to enter the

building. The man stood awestruck. He was a good player himself, but he

had never heard such music before. ‘Who is there?’ he cried. ‘If it is

not an angel or the devil, it must be Handel!’ When he discovered that

it WAS the great musician, he was still more mystified! ‘But how is

this?’ he said. ‘You have done impossible things--no ten fingers on

earth can play the passages you have given. Human fingers couldn’t

control all the keys and stops!’ ‘I know it,’ said Handel coolly, ‘and

for that reason, I was forced to strike some notes with the end of my

nose.’ Donder! just think how the old organist must have stared!”

“Hey! What?” exclaimed Jacob, startled when Peter’s animated voice

suddenly became silent.

“Haven’t you heard me, you rascal?” was the indignant rejoinder.

“Oh, yes--no. The fact is, I heard you at first. I’m awake now, but I do

believe I’ve been walking beside you half asleep,” stammered Jacob, with

such a doleful, bewildered look on his face that Peter could not help

laughing.

The Man With Four Heads

After leaving the church, the boys stopped nearby in the open

marketplace, to look at the bronze statue of Laurens Janszoon Coster,

who is believed by the Dutch to have been the inventor of printing. This

is disputed by those who award the same honor to Johannes Gutenberg of

Mayence; while many maintain that Faustus, a servant of Coster, stole

his master’s wooden types on a Christmas eve, when the latter was at

church, and fled with his booty and his secret, to Mayence. Coster was

a native of Haarlem, and the Hollanders are naturally anxious to secure

the credit of the invention for their illustrious townsman. Certain it

is that the first book he printed is kept by the city in a silver case

wrapped in silk and is shown with great caution as a precious relic. It

is said that he first conceived the idea of printing from cutting his

name upon the bark of a tree and afterward pressing a piece of paper

upon the characters.

Of course, Lambert and his English friend fully discussed this subject.

They also had a rather warm argument concerning another invention.

Lambert declared that the honor of giving both the telescope and the

microscope to the world lay between Metius and Jansen, both Hollanders,

while Ben as stoutly insisted that Roger Bacon, an English monk of

the thirteenth century, “wrote out the whole thing, sir, perfect

descriptions of microscopes and telescopes, too, long before either of

those other fellows was born.”

On one subject, however, they both agreed: that the art of curing and

pickling herrings was discovered by William Beukles of Holland, and

that the country did perfectly right in honoring him as a national

benefactor, for its wealth and importance had been in a great measure

due to its herring trade.

“It is astonishing,” said Ben, “in what prodigious quantities those fish

are found. I don’t know how it is here, but on the coast of England, off

Yarmouth, the herring shoals have been known to be six and seven feet

deep with fish.”

“That is prodigious, indeed,” said Lambert, “but you know your herring

is derived from the German heer, an army, on account of a way the fish

have of coming in large numbers.”

Soon afterward, while passing a cobbler’s shop, Ben exclaimed, “Halloo!

Lambert, here is the name of one of your greatest men over a cobbler’s

stall! Boerhaave. If it were only Herman Boerhaave instead of Hendrick,

it would be complete.”

Lambert knit his brows reflectively, as he replied, “Boerhaave,

Boerhaave! The name is perfectly familiar; I remember, too, that he was

born in 1668, but the rest is all gone, as usual. There have been so

many famous Hollanders, you see, that it is impossible for a fellow to

know them all. What was he? Did he have two heads? Or was he one of your

great, natural swimmers like Marco Polo?”

“He had FOUR heads,” answered Ben, laughing, “for he was a great

physician, naturalist, botanist, and chemist. I am full of him just now,

for I read his life a few weeks ago.”

“Pour out a little, then,” said Lambert, “only walk faster or we shall

lose sight of the other boys.”

“Well,” resumed Ben, quickening his pace and looking with great interest

at everything going on in the crowded street, “this Dr. Boerhaave was a

great anspewker.”

“A great WHAT?” roared Lambert.

“Oh, I beg pardon. I was thinking of that man over there with the cocked

hat. He’s an anspewker, isn’t he?”

“Yes. He’s an aanspreeker, if that is what you mean to say. But what

about your friend with the four heads?”

“Well, as I was going to say, the doctor was left a penniless orphan at

sixteen without education or friends--”

“Jolly beginning!” interposed Lambert.

“Now, don’t interrupt. He was a poor friendless orphan at sixteen, but

he was so persevering and industrious, so determined to gain knowledge,

that he made his way, and in time became one of the most learned men of

Europe. All the--what is that?”

“Where? What do you mean?”

“Why, that paper on the door opposite. Don’t you see? Two or three

persons are reading it. I have noticed several of these papers since

I’ve been here.”

“Oh, that’s only a health bulletin. Somebody in the house is ill, and

to prevent a steady knocking at the door, the family write an account of

the patient’s condition on a placard and hang it outside the door, for

the benefit of inquiring friends--a very sensible custom, I’m sure.

Nothing strange about it that I can see. Go on, please. You said, ‘All

the’--and there you left me hanging.”

“I was going to say,” resumed Ben, “that all the--all the--how comically

persons do dress here, to be sure! Just look at those men and women with

their sugarloaf hats. And see this woman ahead of us with a straw bonnet

like a scoop shovel tapering to a point in the back. Did ever you see

anything so funny? And those tremendous wooden shoes, too--I declare,

she’s a beauty?”

“Oh, they are only back-country folk,” said Lambert, rather impatiently.

“You might as well let old Boerhaave drop or else shut your eyes.”

“Ha! ha! Well, I was GOING to say, all the big men of his day sought out

this great professor. Even Peter the Great, when he came over to Holland

from Russia to learn shipbuilding, attended his lectures regularly. By

that time Boerhaave was professor of medicine and chemistry and botany

in the University at Leyden. He had grown to be very wealthy as a

practicing physician, but he used to say that the poor were his best

patients because God would be their paymaster. All Europe learned

to love and honor him. In short, he became so famous that a certain

mandarin of China addressed a letter to ‘the illustrious Boerhaave,

physician in Europe,’ and the letter found its way to him without any

difficulty.”

“My goodness! That is what I call being a public character. The boys

have stopped. How now, Captain van Holp, where next?”

“We propose to move on,” said Van Holp. “There is nothing to see at this

season in the Bosch. The Bosch is a noble wood, Benjamin, a grand

park where they have most magnificent trees, protected by law. Do you

understand?”

“Ya!” nodded Ben as the captain proceeded.

“Unless you all desire to visit the Museum of Natural History, we may

go on the grand canal again. If we had more time it would be pleasant to

take Benjamin up the Blue Stairs.”

“What are the Blue Stairs, Lambert?” asked Ben.

“They are the highest point of the Dunes. You have a grand view of the

ocean from there, besides a fine chance to see how wonderful these dunes

are. One can hardly believe that the wind could ever heap up sand in so

remarkable a way. But we have to go through Bloemendal to get there, not

a very pretty village, and some distance from here. What do you say?”

“Oh, I am ready for anything. For my part, I would rather steer direct

for Leyden, but we’ll do as the captain says--hey, Jacob?”

“Ya, dat ish goot,” said Jacob, who felt decidedly more like taking a

nap than ascending the Blue Stairs.

The captain was in favor of going to Leyden.

“It’s four long miles from here. Full sixteen of your English miles,

Benjamin. We have no time to lose if you wish to reach there before

midnight. Decide quickly, boys--Blue Stairs or Leyden?”

“Leyden,” they answered, and were out of Haarlem in a twinkling,

admiring the lofty, towerlike windmills and pretty country seats as they

left the city behind them.

“If you really wish to see Haarlem,” said Lambert to Ben, after they

had skated awhile in silence, “you should visit it in summer. It is the

greatest place in the world for beautiful flowers. The walks around the

city are superb; and the ‘wood’ with its miles of noble elms, all in

full feather, is something to remember. You need not smile, old fellow,

at my saying ‘full feather.’ I was thinking of waving plumes and got

my words mixed up a little. But a Dutch elm beats everything; it is the

noblest tree on earth, Ben--if you except the English oak.”

“Aye,” said Ben solemnly, “IF you except the English oak.” And for some

moments he could scarcely see the canal because Robby and Jenny kept

bobbing in the air before his eyes.