"For heaven's sake let's drown our sorrows in cheese, or something else supporting, and soon, or we perish," said the Mariner. "Our blood will then be upon your head, and as it's blue, and you're brown, it won't be at all becoming."
At this, I hurried them on, and presently arrived at a red-brick house set in a little garden. The glass of the white-curtained windows, and the varnished woodwork of the door at which I knocked, glittered so intolerably that they hurt the eyes, and made one envy the Chaperon her blue glasses. It was a relief when the dazzling door flew back to disclose a dim interior, and a delightful old lady in a lace-covered gold helmet, a black dress, and an elaborate apron.
"Something to eat?" she echoed my demand. "But, mynheer, we have nothing which these ladies would fancy. For you two we could do well enough, for you are men, and young. What does it matter what you eat, if it is enough? These ladies will laugh at our fare."
"They'll laugh with pleasure," said I. "You can give us eggs, cheese, bread and butter, and coffee, can't you, and strawberries and cream, perhaps?"
"Yes, mynheer, and some fresh cake."
"Food for kings and queens, as you'll serve it, y'vrouw," I assured her; and we flocked into the hall.
"Would you like to show your friends how we make our cheese, while I get ready the food?" asked the dame. "If you would, I will send for my son to guide you, though you know it so well yourself, mynheer, you need no explanations."
Her son being one of the principal objects of interest at Wilhelminaberg, however, the visit would not be complete without his society, and his presence was commanded. Promptly he appeared, bringing with him a smell of clover, and milk, and new-made cheese; a young man with the long, clever nose, narrow blue eyes, and length of upper lip, which you can see on any canvas of an old Dutch master.
Wilhelminaberg is not a show place; few tourists find their way there, and it is never flooded by a wave of strangers; but if some of the stage effects are lacking, it is more interesting for that reason.
Starr was captivated with the cows' part of the house, divided from their human companions only by a door. He whipped out the sketch-block and small box of colors which he always carries, and began jotting down impressions. A dash of red for the painted brick walls, and of green for the mangers; a yellow blur for the mote-filled rays of sunshine streaming through the cows' white-curtained windows, and on the flower-pots adorning their window-sills; a trifle more elaboration for the carpet of sawdust stamped with an ornamental pattern, and the quaint design of the cupboard-beds for the stablemen in the wall opposite; a streak here and there for the cords which loop the cows' tails to nails in the ceiling; gorgeous spots of crimson and yellow for the piled cheeses. And in the adjoining room, the while our guide described in creditable English the process of cheese-making, Starr sketched him standing before his big blue press, printing out his molds with an odd, yellow reflection from the cheese cannonballs heaped on trays, shining up into the shrewd Dutch face. Then in came the young wife, with a child or two (pretty dark creatures like their mother, with the innocent brown eyes of calves), followed by grandmama in her gold helmet, to say that our meal was ready; and Starr induced them to stand for him, though they were reluctant and self-conscious, and it was by sheer fascination that he prevailed.