Even, however, a Bevill continued his way, while thinking that, at last, he would have to ask some honest burgher to direct him to where the Weiss Haus might be, he passed a group of men, one or two of whom were clad in the garb of a priest, while the others were undistinguishable by their attire.
One of the latter, a young man of almost his own age, had fixed his eyes on Bevill as he drew near--as, indeed, many other eyes had been fixed on his erect figure and comely face before--while, as the group passed him, this young man not only stared hard at him, but, as Bevill could observe by a side glance, turned round to look again as he went by.
"I' fags!" Bevill said to himself, walking on slowly, "the man seems to know me, though never have I consorted with any of his seeming friends to my knowledge or recollection. And yet--and yet--those dark eyes that glinted at me under the trees do not appear strange, any more than did his other features. Where have I seen him before, or have I ever seen him? Tush! if 'twas ever, it must have been when I was in the last campaign. We were much given to running against these gentry."
He had reached the end of the most frequented part of the quay by now, and had, indeed, come to a part of it where the high houses, built in many cases of dark blue marble, no longer presented an unbroken array. Instead, they were detached from one another, and stood in large gardens having walls round them; while on the front, towards the quay, were openings in which were enormous iron gates. In many cases great warehouses close by lifted their heads high into the air, so that here they alternated with the residences and spoilt the latter (whose appearance was handsome) by their own unlovely though businesslike aspect. But, farther away still, there stood another mansion deeply embowered in trees and, at some considerable distance beyond it, an enormous warehouse, yet one that was such a distance off that, since the house itself was surrounded by the trees, it would in no way disturb the peace of the latter or the views from it. And the mansion itself now gleamed out white in the evening sun.
"It may well be her abode," Bevill thought to himself. "Very well it may; and if it is not, then must I ask the whereabouts of the Weiss Haus; or, maybe, it is across the river. Yet that matters not. I passed a ferry but now."
When, however, he stood in front of that great white mansion he learnt that he had found the house of her whom he had come from England to seek.
Through the bars of the great iron gate which this mansion possessed in common with the others hard by, Bevill could see the gardens laid out in the stiff Dutch fashion he had so often seen before, though still, it seemed to him as if some attempt had been made to give to them an English appearance. Beyond the straight beds of tulips, the flowers of which were now almost all gone, there was a lawn, or grass plot, green as any lawn in England, smooth and well kept, and having at its edges beds of roses placed in front of formal statues and summer-houses.
"There is some touch of our land here," Bevill said to himself. "In good truth, I do believe that I have found the lady."
Seeing through the bars an old man weeding 'twixt the rows of tulip plants, though he seemed to do his work in a half-hearted way as though indifferent to what success his efforts might produce, Bevill, addressing him in the best Dutch he could summon up, asked, "Is this the house of Mistress Thorne?"
"Ja; Ja wohl," the old man said, looking up from his work. "What do you desire?"