“Well, my boy, give the book to the one who has earned it.”
Without stopping to think for one moment, the boy went up to Anton van Duijn, and put the book into his hand.
It needs a good deal to excite an East Indian audience, but when Heer Hendriks, with a pale face, and a suspicious look of moisture about his eyes, made his way forward, wrung Anton’s hand, and cried aloud, “Hurrah! three cheers for the Governor,” the universal enthusiasm found vent in long and loud cheering. Heer Ochtenraat immediately rose to go; he looked at the head-master coldly and sternly, and passed him without a word.
Annie Foore.
HOW MATHIS KNOUPS TURNED “LIBERAL” AND THEN “CATHOLIC” AGAIN.
Every one in Limburg who is not “Catholic” is “liberal”—that is an established fact. There may be a few Protestants here and there; but these are gueux, interlopers, mostly from the direction of Hertogenbosch, and therefore Hollanders,[[23]] who have accidentally come into the country at one time or another. Gueux means one who has fallen away from the Roman Catholic faith, and therefore from Christianity. Also, among other rarities, one finds here and there a few Jews; but they, of course, do not count. A “liberal” is one who is not always and altogether of the same opinion as the parish priest and his Kapelaan (curate)—outside church matters, that is to say, for if he were to differ from their reverences on any point of doctrine, he would be no liberal, but a heretic. Also that person is a liberal who, for instance, may, on occasion, give his opinion of a sermon thus,—“Oh! yes, they”—i.e., the clergy—“must find something to talk about, I suppose.” Or likewise he who, instead of going regularly to high mass, contents himself, on Sundays and festivals, with a “snap-mass,”—a little, short service; or he who dares to declare, with a smile, that he cannot think how all the fast-days came into existence. There are indeed even a few, but only a few, and those only to be found in towns, who recognise no fast-days at all, entirely godless and irreligious people, who never go to church, and do not even attend confession at Easter. Such people as those are worse than any liberals or heretics,—they are, in one word, bad.
Thus, whoever is not a liberal is a Catholic; but there are Catholics, and good Catholics. A Catholic is any man who faithfully performs his religious duties; who would not, for any money, presume to differ in opinion from the parish priest, and never asks whence that gentleman gets the text of his sermons, or how the church fasts originated. But any one who, in addition to all this, also walks in procession with a lighted torch or leads the prayers as master of the confraternity of St Joseph or St Rochus, who duly informs the villagers whom the priest would like elected into the parish council, who comes to the Holy Communion at least once a month, and, in the tavern, of an evening, can describe all liberals, gueux, freemasons, and all such like rabble, in their true colours, that man is a good Catholic.
Mathis Knoups, master-carpenter, and landlord of the “Sun” at Haffert, did not belong to this category; he was a Catholic tout court. He went to high mass on Sundays, and four times in the year to confession. This, he said, was doing no more than his duty; and, for the rest, he had no time to take any further trouble about the church or religion,—every man must know what he is about, and he had to think of his children.... There were plenty of other men to carry torches in the procession,—fast-days had always existed, and did not seem to have made people leaner or less healthy,—and he was willing to take for granted that what M. le Curé said in his sermons was true, provided he were not obliged to listen to them. Also, he was quite ready to vote for Jan, Piet, or Klaas, just as M. le Curé pleased,—he had no quarrel with any of the three, and so it was all the same to him.
This was Knoups’ way of reasoning, when the question was discussed by the guests who came to take their evening glass of beer at the “Sun.” On such occasions, the surveyor Hommels, well known in the town for a “great liberal,” would usually answer, “Yes, yes, you village people let yourselves be finely humbugged and led by the nose!”
“Oh! Lord!” Knoups would then retort, “you have been bitten by that dog too!” And then, with a smile of complete assurance and self-satisfaction, he would add, “One has to keep one’s soul clean, you see!” Whereupon the ex-burgomaster Kormann would signify his approval in the words,—