'Father," said Jaap, tilting the cutglass carafe of beet-juice, which, except when there were visitors, kept up the appearance of claret, "is this a gentleman's drink?" With this easy victory he resumed his wooing, but had no more kindness as Boer than as burgomaster's son. But he was heard to swear that he would tramp the dike until he wore it out-and indeed it had to be repaired in the sixth year of his wooing-before he would give up Pietje Klein. All this pother made some stir in the two villages, and from time to time there was gossip. Certain young farmers even had annual bets out, in gold and in silver, for and against Jaap's chances. The old women, peering unseen into their little mirrors that reflect the whole street, and the old men smoking by the fire as immovable as wooden dolls, wagged their tongues a good deal during exchanges of visits. Said Klompenkerk: "Find me another young blade to match Jaap." Vrouwe'polder was unimpressed. "Look at Pietje-just look at her, I say, going to church with her stove in her hand. Look at her corkscrews, her trefoils, her brooches, her rings, her strings of coral, her silver buckles, her silver-bound prayerbook!" ceedingly short with him, and finally went out to her cows long before the usual hour. His spirit swung so high in the full tide of summer that he rose and followed her, regardless of family opinion. "Now," said he, folding his arms, "I'm coming to be out of temper." "You 've been slow about it," she answered, and then added to the cow: "When a man 's a noodle-" 66 Seven years," he interrupted. “But these are past. The question now is, When shall the banns be read?" "Men," she said, disregarding him, "are uncertain. I can trust my cows, and I won't leave them except for—" "But," said he, "my father-" She laughed up into his face. "Butyou? What of you?" He stared at her blankly. Chance favored him. As she jerked away to move her stool to the next cow, she forgot what her apron had concealed, and the "Adventures of Junker Bal" fell to the ground. Now, Jaap perceived at once that this was a chap-book of the sort carried about by hawkers and sold slyly to farmers' daughters when their mothers' backs were turned; and he divined that Pietje had been poring over it when she should have been embroidering her dowry linen. And Klompenkerk shrugged. "The boy he also perceived, by this new light in his comes from nobility." "Decayed as an old tooth," snapped Vrouwe polder. "Baas Klein has sixtyseven cows, and Pietje can milk them." "But," said Klompenkerk, "Jaap has more brains in his head than all Vrouwe'polder put together." 'Certainly, however," said Vrouwe' polder, "if you come to a question of good looks-" brain, that undoubtedly such reading would have put notions into her head. Some things," said he quietly, "I have done for you. What is it more that you want?" She would not answer directly, but pouted: "I like a man who makes a stir in the world." He flipped a contemptuous thumb toward the book. "Like him? What did "But-" urged Klompenkerk, anxious he do to get talked about?" to change this subject. "And-" insisted Vrouwe'polder. It seemed as if this state of things might go on forever. But all the while Jaap's brain was maturing in its own way, until one Sunday, early in July of the seventh year, he suddenly discovered that it was ripe. In the first place, he observed that his sweetheart, sitting among her family in the room, for a time concealed something beneath her great, blue apron, became ex Knowing that Junker Bal had suffered imprisonment and torture for love of his lady, I can well understand that Pietje was loath to tell. "Potdoorie!" said Jaap, with an oath that loses all flavor in English, "it is difficult to make a stir in Klompenkerk, but a man can only try." He left her with scarcely a jerk of the head. She nearly upset her pail in gaping after him, and maidenlike began to wonder whether he was such a milksop, after of calling out the fire department upon a false alarm; but the quarterly drill, attended by the entire town, took away the spice of this. To set a house afire involved an awkward choice, as there were none to spare, and no builders nearer than Dummburg. Upon his arrival home, he hunted out a copy of the statute-book of which his father was, as chief legislator, justly proud, and read up the things a man may or may not do without breaking a law in Klompenkerk. Now, in Klompenkerk the wonder is that any law is intact. Jaap, who never before had troubled to acquaint himself with the matter, found a bewildering choice of things he might not do. He might not sit on a neighbor's gate or cellar-door; he might not let grass grow in front of his house (if he had one), or even trust the weeding-process to the teeth of his cow or goat grazing thereon; he might not sing in the open air, or tie two carts together for any purpose whatever; he might not so much as lean against a wall (for fear of gradual wear and tear of the bricks): but to his intellect, newly awakened by love and Junker Bal, all these things seemed dull and tame. He went early to the Kermis, his brain seething and boiling over in lavish expenditure of good florins. To his father's disgust, he wore all his bosses and brooches, and spent the day out in low coffee-houses, with such companions as happened along. By nightfall, if he was none the worse for drink, certainly he was none the better for ideas. With a crowd of Boers and fishermen he made his way into the theater tent, where the touching play of "Genevieve of Brabant" was about to be performed. Doubtless it was the sight of Pietje sitting demurely between two brothers, like a strawberry between two slugs, that completed the illumination of his brain. He was inspired. Here was his audienceall Klompenkerk and Arnemui'e' and Vrouwe'polder, Pietje included. There was the policeman, a harmless citizen innocently vain of his uniform, leaning idly against a tent-pole; close at hand stood an empty chair. Break the laws? Sjouges was here law in person; why not break him? It was all too easy. As for creating a stir-in two seconds excitement was at fever-point. "Genevieve of Brabant" was killed before she was born. The players followed with the crowd to the town-hall, hugging fat purses, for nobody had remembered to ask his money back. The innocent policeman had been bowled over like a ninepin; so also had been four stout farmers who rushed to the rescue. But in course of time the proud and happy Jaap was overborne and conveyed in the clutch of six citizens, attended by the entire population, and as many visitors from adjacent villages as could squeeze into the market-place. The secretary was very cross at having to unlock the stadhuis at that time of night. It was not only because the Kermis had already spoiled his digestion, but also because for a long time he could not remember where he had put the key. However, after some delay, the burgomaster and council were seated properly on the ancient carved oak benches, and the assistant chief of the fire department was appointed deputy policeman, with a reserve force of six able citizens. The doors were closed against the hammering public, the accused was removed to an anteroom, while the question whether the prison was safe was debated. Now, the importance of the problem. lay in the fact that this structure lacked a roof. It was begun at the time of the second republic in France by a burgomaster who anticipated similar disturbances at Klompenkerk; but as nothing hap pened, it progressed slowly until it was about ten feet square by fifteen feet high, and there stopped for lack of public funds. It had not been used within the memory of the present generation. Hither, then, the burgomaster, spectacled, judicial, for the time being soulless, despatched a committee of two with a lantern. Another delay followed, with inquiry for the prison key. It appeared that the prisoner had it in his pocket all the while, he having used the place recently for the confinement-in fish-baskets -of certain pet rats tabooed at home. The crowd hung breathless upon the solemn movements of the committee, who bore themselves as men used to responsibility. Word passed that the prisoner in the anteroom was chewing licorice-root. Presently the committee returned and announced that the prison was in fair condition, considering; but that they also advised the placing of a sentry. To this office was appointed the assistant chief of the fire department, who, being informed. of the second honor thrust upon him that night, drew his knees as near together as they would go, and indulged widely in military salutes. Fortunately, the secretary kept minutes of this extraordinary occasion. I have read them. Prisoner, questioned as to the motive of act, smiled; informed as to state of policeman's nose and skull, chuckled; asked whether he bore this official a grudge, laughed aloud; asked whether he regretted his deed of violence, shook his head; informed that he would be punished with the full rigor of the law, behaved in a most unseemly manner. Here the scribe's pen granted no further detail. In conclusion, the council could make nothing of the accused, so marched him away with the deputy policeman, closely attended by the valiant six, and as near as might be by the crowd that thronged the market-place. Long after the booths of the Kermis and the coffee-houses were dark, Jaap and the sentry were still making a night of it. Jaap began by shouting ribald songs through the keyhole into the shocked ears of the assistant chief, who could not stop him or move away, or even, by the law of the town, to which the prisoner was now indifferent, join in the chorus. A heavy shower came on, and Jaap politely in vited the sentry to step in for shelter. The sting of the irony lay not so much in the fact that the prison was roofless as that the door had been locked, and the key given in charge to the battered policeman's wife, who stored it for safe-keeping, I am told, in an empty pickle-pot. Now the insulted and weary deputy policeman avoided leaning against the wall as long as nature permitted; but when the rain became unendurable, he sought shelter by lifting a neighbor's cellar-door, whence he was dragged ignominiously the next morning, fast asleep, and informed that his prisoner had escaped. It fell out presently that Jaap, being familiar with the place, had made his way homeward, over tiles and garden walls; and in due course was arrested again, snoring in his own bed. At this point, any one but a Klompenkerker-I will go further; any one but a Jaap-might have considered that he had made sensation enough; but Jaap was bent on seeing the thing through with style and ceremony. The interval before his trial in Dummburg he passed very proudly, not once treading the dike toward Pietje Klein, although the word came from Vrouwe'polder folk that her eyes were near shut from constant weeping. Upon the day of the assizes he drove to Dummburg in the one cab that Klompenkerk possessed. It was bruited about that the man took him free of charge in order to have a share in his glory. Certain it is that they attracted quite as much attention as if the equipage of royalty had passed. Half-way along the straight, bricked road under the elms, they encountered the plaintiff trudging along, very hot under his bandages, and assuming interest in the landscape when he heard wheels and knew them by instinct for those of his adversary. He was therefore unprepared to be pounced upon and installed unceremoniously at Jaap's right hand. What they said to each other on the way will never be known; but many witnesses can testify that they drove into town with their arms round each other, singing different stanzas of "Wilhelmns van Nassau"; and the cabman said that the horses had been refreshed at Jaap's expense, at every coffee-house along the way. Called upon to bring his charge, the policeman, his bandage rakishly aslant over one ear, broke down and wept bitterly, for, as he said, giving so much trouble. The case was therefore terminated in confusion, the magistrate assigning three-days' imprisonment only as a warning to the town and the world at large. Knowing that his brief incarceration was likely to be his last experience of such a mode of life, Jaap made the most of it, hoping that the echoes of his deeds might reach the ears of his Pietje. I must confess that, in comparison with Klompenkerk, Dummburg was a wicked town. The prison to which Jaap was consigned held already no fewer than five criminals; down-stairs were four men of evil name-two drunkards, a reputed thief, and a fellow who declared himself innocent of arson; up-stairs was a gipsy woman accused of witchcraft. Now, these unfortunates Jaap proceeded to enliven. Among the various reports which spread about the villages afterward was one that he obtained constant supplies of sweet things by bribing the warden with half; also, that he managed to communicate with the woman above, by means of impromptu ropes, so exchanged sweets for some of her contraband tobacco, smoking being against the prison rules. Another tale says that he conducted mock trials, himself the judge, of every case there; and, further, that having convicted the incendiary beyond a doubt, he gave him valuable points, which contributed to his subsequent acquittal. The jailer told all the world that his hair went gray during those seventy-two hours; and the fact is well known that he sent for each of the five governors of the prison in turn, and that singly and collectively they could find no law that limited the carryings-on of Jaap, now that he was safe under lock and key. When at last he was delivered to the street again, the jailer said, with tears of joy in his eyes: "God bless you, Jaap! You have freed me from the greatest anxiety of my life." Scarcely outside, Jaap was encountered by a correspondent of the "Dummburg Daagblatt," and his fame was established. Instead of returning by the road to Klompenkerk, he went round by the fields to Little St. John, by Vrouwe'polder, where he found his Pietje with her cows. His reception was not cold. "Idiot! Ninny! Stupid! Dummy! Fool!"-so ran her vocabulary. "Did I or did I not?" he grinned. She stopped in her speech, looked at him out of the corner of her eyes, and milked hard. as "Am I talked about enough?" he asked. "Quite enough," her voice was acid as the beet-root claret at home,"I shall see to it that you are talked about no more." At this point, I take it, he kissed her. And she had waited seven years! He walked the six miles of the newly mended dike as a man who had achieved the object of his life; so came under the shadow of his own home, and confronted the paternal wrath of the burgomaster. "I should like to know," thundered Jaap the Elder, "the meaning of all this law-breaking in Klompenker-r-rek!" "It was all in the wooing of Pietje Klein," said Jaap the Younger, meekly. |