Who knew, indeed! Only, a few weeks ago I heard that in their contest for liberty with the cruel Spaniards, the Hollanders had cut these same dykes, and let in the salt sea on their grand farms and beautiful towns. Any one who has ever lived in Holland will understand what must have been their zeal for liberty to make them willing to let so much dirt into their houses. I hope with all my heart they may succeed, for if any people on earth have the right to their own country it is the Dutch.
"When shall we be at Rotterdam?" asked my uncle.
"Why, that is more than I can tell," was the answer, "but if all goes well, I hope we shall find ourselves at the Boomtzees to-morrow morning. You know, my friend, this is not a channel to be walked over blindfold."
I could not help seeing that for myself as I observed how carefully our good captain watched the course of the vessel and how often he heaved the lead. I understood that the gale by disturbing the shifting sand and sandbanks had made the navigation more troublesome than usual. In fact, we were aground once, but our commander's seamanship and the rising tide soon took us off. At every possible interval, the men were busy cleaning and scraping, varnishing and painting, so that the ship began to assume quite a holiday appearance.
I went to bed at last, but not to sleep, except by fits and snatches, awakened every moment by the welcome sounds of cocks crowing, cattle lowing, and the lovely music of church bells playing tunes before they struck the hour. At last, weariness conquered and I fell into a deep sleep, from which I was waked by my uncle's voice.
"Come, my maid. Here we are at home. Hasten your preparations that we may go ashore."
It did not seem much like home to me as I followed my uncle along the quay, having a line of ships on one side and a row of fine painted warehouses, and dwellings on the other. I felt more like somebody in a fantastic dream. Here was a warehouse where great foreign looking bales were being carried in, while in the window stood pots of flowers behind the clear glass. There, we met a group of what were evidently country women, who yet wore bands and headdresses of gold and silver, with great gold earrings dangling over their cheeks and bosoms. And again, two maid-servants in the same odd attire were cleaning the outside of a house, yea, scrubbing the very bricks, with as much zeal and apparent pleasure as my Lady Frances would have shown at her music.
And then the language! I could not understand it, and yet it sounded as if I ought to know every word. Presently we turned off the quay, the Boomtzees as they call it, and went through two or three narrow streets, and over more bridges than I ever counted afterward. At last we came into a kind of little place or square where grass was growing, and flowers blooming in little parterres like the figures in a Persian rug. This square was surrounded by neat houses, as fantastically decorated as those we had seen before, and looking as if no dust or smoke had ever dared to come near them. At the largest and handsomest of these, my uncle stopped.
"This is our house," said he. "Pray God we find all well."
He knocked as he spoke, but had hardly withdrawn his hand from the knocker, when a light foot was heard on the stairs, and Avice, looking not at all like a heart-broken widow, threw herself into her father's arms, and drew him into the house. I followed, feeling somehow inexpressibly forlorn and lonely.