After a storm comes a calm. Who was it that enshrined that remark in the sanctity of a proverb? This is like saying that day comes after night—a truism that most of us will believe without the aid of any proverbial philosophy. If the calm comes not after the storm, a person disposed to be critical might ask, When does it come? We will leave the solution of this problem to interpreters as profound as the proverb-maker, and follow the fortunes of Floog and The Ferret.
Calm had succeeded storm as they turned their backs to the hostelry of Mijnheer Pilzer and bade adieu to its professional hospitalities. Not the listless calm of summer skies, of dreamy fields and waters. Clear and cutting, the icy air of morning quickened the nerves and caused the blood in livelier currents to tingle in the veins, so that even the sluggish Ferret, wincing, heightened his pace to a sturdy trot to keep abreast of Floog. The sun was up, burnishing the chimney-pots and sharp gables of the tall, bistre-colored houses, and converting into rare jewelry the fantastic frost-wreaths that adorned their eaves. Early as it was, the Nieu Strasse was astir with pedestrians. The shop-windows, already unshuttered, were decorated gaily with ivy and palm. Unusual bustle and activity were everywhere discernible; and why not? Was it not Christmas Eve and fête-day at Van der Meer Castle?
It was a beautiful and time-honored custom at Van der Meer Castle on every Christmas Eve to give a party to all the children of the neighborhood. Rich and poor, lofty and lowly, all were welcome. But although all were welcome, all did not come. The children of the rich, and those who had the means of indulging in the season’s festivities at home, mostly kept aloof, or were made to keep aloof, lest they should incur by implication a suspicion of that fearful malady, poverty; for the light of nineteenth-century civilization had penetrated the by-ways of the world, and even Steenwykerwold had caught some of its oblique rays—those that distort instead of illuminating, by which poverty is made to appear as the sum of all social crime. Well, then, the poor children for many years had had the party and banquet all to themselves, and such, in fact, was the desire of their present entertainer.
The proprietor of the place and inheritor of its wealth and traditions was Leopoldine Van der Meer, who had been left an orphan in early childhood. I saw her once, and can never forget that sweet, serene face; for it is ineffaceably stamped on my memory. Although time had then added another score of years to her term of life, and sprinkled with silver the bands of dark-brown hair smoothed on either side of her placid forehead, still it dealt gently with that gentle lady, as if the old reaper had thrown down his reluctant sickle, unwilling to mark his passage by any tell-tale furrow, but softly breathed on her in passing, lulling her into a more perfect repose. At the time when the incidents I am relating took place, however, she was young and fresh and fair beyond expression. Her features, clear and well defined, possessed the delicate tracery and perfection of outline that sculptors dream of. Her air and carriage, her every gesture, from the movement of her shapely head to the light footfall, all queenly yet unaffected, might have inspired the genius of Buonarotti when he painted his wonderful Sibyls, while the gentle, half-shy, liquid gray eyes, tenderly glancing from behind their silken-fringed lids, would have graced the canvas of Murillo.
These external graces were but tokens of a kindly heart and true soul—a nature that imparted a breath of its own sweet essence to all who came within the charmed sphere of its influence. The festival looked forward to with such ardent longings by the young ones was now near at hand. It was Christmas Eve.
The festival was held in the spacious banqueting-hall of the castle—an oblong apartment, across the upper end of which extended a gallery for musicians, reached by a balustraded stairway on either side. The walls were gracefully festooned with wreaths of bright evergreens gemmed with haws and scarlet berries. In the centre stood a large table, upon which was placed a gigantic Christmas tree, sparkling with a thousand colored crystals and loaded with every variety of toy.
Floog, who was acquainted with the annual custom, desirous of recompensing his youthful friend, made haste to conduct him thither. The Ferret needed neither introduction nor credential, his age and appearance being sufficient passports. He was kindly welcomed and ushered in. The grand hall, beaming with lustrous lamps and adorned with varied decorations, dazzled his eyes. The splendor, the music, and the toys nearly overpowered him, and he stood as if fixed in a trance, so like a brilliant dream did it all seem, which a stir, a breath might dispel. Gradually recovering his dazed faculties, he began to revel in the thrilling sense of its reality—yes, real for himself as well as for the rest.
When the children were all assembled they were marshalled into ranks two deep, the girls first, and marched twice round the room, singing. It was a simple Christmas carol, the refrain familiar to most of them; for it had been sung on similar occasions by similar choirs from time immemorial, and is, I hope, sung there yet:
“Christmas time at Van der Meer,
Love, and mirth, and pleasant cheer;