If, perchance, for those fourteen stivers Grandisson—weary remembrance—had fallen into his hands, his Wednesday’s poem would have been quite different. No doubt he would have sought a reconciliation with the butcher’s Keesje, forgiving him completely all his liberties with “Holland nobility” and even presenting him a few slate pencils.
For that is the striking characteristic of spirits such as Walter’s. Whatever they are, they are that with all their might, always going further in any direction than they would seem to be warranted in doing by the mere external circumstances.
From such characters we could hope much, if through some chance—i. e., a natural cause, which we call chance, because we do not understand it and are ashamed to admit our ignorance—if through some chance they were not born among people who do not understand them, and, therefore, mistreat them.
It is one of our peculiarities that we like to mistreat anyone whose soul is differently organized from ours. How does the watch move? asks the child, and cannot rest until he has torn apart the wheels he could not understand. There the watch lies in pieces, and the little miscreant excuses himself with the remark that he just wanted to see how it was made.
Chapter XII
Walter sat with his elbows on the table, his chin resting in his hands. He seemed to be deeply interested in Leentje’s sewing, but we shall see in a moment that his thoughts were elsewhere, and, too, far away from III. 7, c.
They had forbidden her to speak to the shameless rascal, and only occasionally, when Juffrouw Pieterse left the room, did she have an opportunity to whisper to him a few words of comfort. To be sure, she noticed that Walter was not so sad as we should expect one to be who was caught in between the thrashing of yesterday and the priest of to-morrow. This gentleman was to come to-morrow to settle the matter.
“But, Walter, how could you speak of burning cloisters!”
“Ah, I meant—sh!”