Chapter 8

Twenty boys and twenty girls. The latter by this time are standing in front, braced for the start; for they are to have the first "run." Hilda, Rychie, and Katrinka are among them. Two or three bend hastily to give a last pull at their skate-straps. It is pretty to see them stamp, to be sure that all is firm. Hilda is speaking pleasantly to a graceful little creature in a red jacket and a new brown petticoat. Why, it is Gretel! What a difference those pretty shoes make; and the skirt and the new cap! Annie Bouman is there too. Even Janzoon Kolp's sister has been admitted; but Janzoon himself has been voted out by the directors because he killed the stork, and only last summer was caught in the act of robbing a bird's nest,--a legal offense in Holland.

This Janzoon Kolp, you see, was--There, I cannot tell the story just now. The race is about to commence.

Twenty girls are formed in a line. The music has ceased.

A man whom we shall call the crier stands between the columns and the first judges' stand. He reads the rules in a loud voice:--

"_The girls and boys are to race in turn, until one girl and one boy have beaten twice. They are to start in a line from the united columns, skate to the flagstaff line, turn, and then come back to the starting-point; thus making a mile at each run._"

A flag is waved from the judges' stand. Madame Van Gleck rises in her pavilion. She leans forward with a white handkerchief in her hand. When she drops it, a bugler is to give the signal for them to start.

The handkerchief is fluttering to the ground. Hark!

They are off!

No. Back again. Their line was not true in passing the judges' stand.

The signal is repeated.

Off again. No mistake this time. Whew! how fast they go!

The multitude is quiet for an instant, absorbed in eager, breathless watching.

Cheers spring up along the line of spectators. Huzza! five girls are ahead. Who comes flying back from the boundary mark? We cannot tell. Something red, that is all. There is a blue spot flitting near it, and a dash of yellow nearer still. Spectators at this end of the line strain their eyes, and wish they had taken their post nearer the flagstaff.

The wave of cheers is coming back again. Now we can see. Katrinka is ahead!

She passes the Van Holp pavilion. The next is Madame Van Gleck's. That leaning figure gazing from it is a magnet. Hilda shoots past Katrinka, waving her hand to her mother as she passes. Two others are close now, whizzing on like arrows. What is that flash of red and gray? Hurrah, it is Gretel! She too waves her hand, but toward no gay pavilion. The crowd is cheering; but she hears only her father's voice, "Well done, little Gretel!" Soon Katrinka, with a quick merry laugh, shoots past Hilda. The girl in yellow is gaining now. She passes them all,--all except Gretel. The judges lean forward without seeming to lift their eyes from their watches. Cheer after cheer fills the air; the very columns seem rocking. Gretel has passed them. She has won.

"GRETEL BRINKER, ONE MILE!" shouts the crier.

The judges nod. They write something upon a tablet which each holds in his hand.

While the girls are resting,--some crowding eagerly around our frightened little Gretel, some standing aside in high disdain,--the boys form in a line.

Mynheer Van Gleck drops the handkerchief this time. The buglers give a vigorous blast. Off start the boys!

Half-way already. Did ever you see the like!

Three hundred legs flashing by in an instant. But there are only twenty boys. No matter; there were hundreds of legs, I am sure. Where are they now? There is such a noise one gets bewildered. What are the people laughing at? Oh! at that fat boy in the rear. See him go! See him! He'll be down in an instant; no, he won't. I wonder if he knows he is all alone: the other boys are nearly at the boundary line. Yes, he knows it. He stops. He wipes his hot face. He takes off his cap, and looks about him. Better to give up with a good grace. He has made a hundred friends by that hearty, astonished laugh. Good Jacob Poot!

The fine fellow is already among the spectators, gazing as eagerly as the rest.

A cloud of feathery ice flies from the heels of the skaters as they "bring to," and turn at the flagstaffs.

Something black is coming now,--one of the boys: it is all we know. He has touched the _vox humana_ stop of the crowd; it fairly roars. Now they come nearer; we can see the red cap. There's Ben, there's Peter, there's Hans!

Hans is ahead. Young Madame Van Gend almost crushes the flowers in her hand: she had been quite sure that Peter would be first. Carl Schummel is next, then Ben, and the youth with the red cap. The others are pressing close. A tall figure darts from among them. He passes the red cap, he passes Ben, then Carl. Now it is an even race between him and Hans. Madame Van Gend catches her breath.

It is Peter! He is ahead! Hans shoots past him. Hilda's eyes fill with tears: Peter _must_ beat. Annie's eyes flash proudly. Gretel gazes with clasped hands: four strokes more will take her brother to the columns.

He is there! Yes; but so was young Schummel just a second before. At the last instant, Carl, gathering his powers, had whizzed between them, and passed the goal.

"CARL SCHUMMEL, ONE MILE!" shouts the crier.

Soon Madame Van Gleck rises again. The falling handkerchief starts the bugle, and the bugle, using its voice as a bowstring, shoots off twenty girls like so many arrows.

It is a beautiful sight; but one has not long to look: before we can fairly distinguish them they are far in the distance. This time they are close upon one another. It is hard to say, as they come speeding back from the flagstaff, which will reach the columns first. There are new faces among the foremost,--eager glowing faces, unnoticed before. Katrinka is there, and Hilda; but Gretel and Rychie are in the rear. Gretel is wavering, but when Rychie passes her she starts forward afresh. Now they are nearly beside Katrinka. Hilda is still in advance: she is almost "home." She has not faltered since that bugle note sent her flying: like an arrow, still she is speeding toward the goal. Cheer after cheer rises in the air. Peter is silent, but his eyes shine like stars. "Huzza! Huzza!"

The crier's voice is heard again.

"HILDA VAN GLECK, ONE MILE!"

A loud murmur of approval runs through the crowd, catching the music in its course, till all seems one sound, with a glad rhythmic throbbing in its depths. When the flag waves all is still.

Once more the bugle blows a terrific blast. It sends off the boys like chaff before the wind,--dark chaff, I admit, and in big pieces.

It is whisked around at the flagstaff, driven faster yet by the cheers and shouts along the line. We begin to see what is coming. There are three boys in advance this time, and all abreast,--Hans, Peter, and Lambert. Carl soon breaks the ranks, rushing through with a whiff. Fly, Hans; fly, Peter; don't let Carl beat again!--Carl the bitter, Carl the insolent. Van Mounen is flagging, but you are as strong as ever. Hans and Peter, Peter and Hans; which is foremost? We love them both. We scarcely care which is the fleeter.

Hilda, Annie, and Gretel, seated upon the long crimson bench, can remain quiet no longer. They spring to their feet, so different! and yet one in eagerness. Hilda instantly reseats herself: none shall know how interested she is; none shall know how anxious, how filled with one hope. Shut your eyes then, Hilda, hide your face rippling with joy. Peter has beaten.

"PETER VAN HOLP, ONE MILE!" calls the crier.

The same buzz of excitement as before, while the judges take notes, the same throbbing of music through the din; but something is different. A little crowd presses close about some object near the column. Carl has fallen. He is not hurt, though somewhat stunned. If he were less sullen, he would find more sympathy in these warm young hearts. As it is, they forget him as soon as he is fairly on his feet again.

The girls are to skate their third mile.

How resolute the little maidens look, as they stand in a line! Some are solemn with a sense of responsibility; some wear a smile, half bashful, half provoked; but one air of determination pervades them all.

This third mile may decide the race. Still, if neither Gretel nor Hilda win, there is yet a chance among the rest for the silver skates.

Each girl feels sure that this time she will accomplish the distance in one-half the time. How they stamp to try their runners! How nervously they examine each strap! How erect they stand at last, every eye upon Madame Van Gleck!

The bugle thrills through them again. With quivering eagerness they spring forward, bending, but in perfect balance. Each flashing stroke seems longer than the last.

Now they are skimming off in the distance.

Again the eager straining of eyes; again the shouts and cheering; again the thrill of excitement, as after a few moments, four or five in advance of the rest come speeding back, nearer, nearer to the white columns.

Who is first? Not Rychie, Katrinka, Annie, nor Hilda, nor the girl in yellow, but Gretel,--Gretel, the fleetest sprite of a girl that ever skated. She was but playing in the earlier race: _now_ she is in earnest, or rather, something within her has determined to win. That blithe little form makes no effort; but it cannot stop,--not until the goal is passed!

In vain the crier lifts his voice: he cannot be heard. He has no news to tell: it is already ringing through the crowd,--_Gretel has won the silver skates!_

Like a bird she has flown over the ice; like a bird she looks about her in a timid, startled way. She longs to dart to the sheltered nook where her father and mother stand. But Hans is beside her; the girls are crowding round. Hilda's kind, joyous voice breathes in her ear. From that hour none will despise her. Goose-girl or not, Gretel stands acknowledged Queen of the Skaters.

With natural pride, Hans turns to see if Peter Van Holp is witnessing his sister's triumph. Peter is not looking toward them at all. He is kneeling, bending his troubled face low, and working hastily at his skate-strap. Hans is beside him at once.

"Are you in trouble, mynheer?"

"Ah, Hans! that you? Yes; my fun is over. I tried to tighten my strap to make a new hole, and this botheration of a knife has cut it nearly in two."

"Mynheer," said Hans, at the same time pulling off a skate, "you must use my strap!"

"Not I, indeed, Hans Brinker!" cried Peter, looking up; "though I thank you warmly. Go to your post, my friend: the bugle will sound in a minute."

"Mynheer," pleaded Hans in a husky voice, "you have called me your friend. Take this strap--quick! There is not an instant to lose. I shall not skate this time: indeed, I am out of practice. Mynheer, you _must_ take it;" and Hans, blind and deaf to any remonstrance, slipped his strap into Peter's skate, and implored him to put it on.

"Come, Peter!" cried Lambert from the line: "we are waiting for you."

"For Madame's sake," pleaded Hans, "be quick! She is motioning to you to join the racers. There, the skate is almost on: quick, mynheer, fasten it. I could not possibly win. The race lies between Master Schummel and yourself."

"You are a noble fellow, Hans!" cried Peter, yielding at last. He sprang to his post just as the handkerchief fell to the ground. The bugle sends forth its blast, loud, clear, and ringing.

Off go the boys!

"Mein Gott!" cries a tough old fellow from Delft. "They beat everything, these Amsterdam youngsters. See them!"

See them, indeed! They are winged Mercuries, every one of them. What mad errand are they on? Ah, I know; they are hunting Peter Van Holp. He is some fleet-footed runaway from Olympus. Mercury and his troop of winged cousins are in full chase. They will catch him! Now Carl is the runaway. The pursuit grows furious. Ben is foremost!

The chase turns in a cloud of mist. It is coming this way. Who is hunted now? Mercury himself. It is Peter, Peter Van Holp! Fly, Peter! Hans is watching you. He is sending all his fleetness, all his strength, into your feet. Your mother and sister are pale with eagerness. Hilda is trembling, and dare not look up, Fly, Peter! The crowd has not gone deranged; it is only cheering. The pursuers are close upon you. Touch the white column! It beckons; it is reeling before you--it--

"Huzza! Huzza! Peter has won the silver skates!"

"PETER VAN HOLP!" shouted the crier. But who heard him? "Peter Van Holp!" shouted a hundred voices; for he was the favorite boy of the place. "Huzza! Huzza!"

Now the music was resolved to be heard. It struck up a lively air, then a tremendous march. The spectators, thinking something new was about to happen, deigned to listen and to look.

The racers formed in single file. Peter, being tallest, stood first. Gretel, the smallest of all, took her place at the end. Hans, who had borrowed a strap from the cake-boy, was near the head.

Three gayly twined arches were placed at intervals upon the river, facing the Van Gleck pavilion.

Skating slowly, and in perfect time to the music, the boys and girls moved forward, led on by Peter, It was beautiful to see the bright procession glide along like a living creature. It curved and doubled, and drew its graceful length in and out among the arches; whichever way Peter, the head, went, the body was sure to follow. Sometimes it steered direct for the centre arch; then, as if seized with a new impulse, turned away and curled itself about the first one; then unwound slowly, and bending low, with quick snake-like curvings, crossed the river, passing at length through the farthest arch.

When the music was slow, the procession seemed to crawl like a thing afraid; it grew livelier, and the creature darted forward with a spring, gliding rapidly among the arches, in and out, curling, twisting, turning, never losing form, until at the shrill call of the bugle rising above the music it suddenly resolved itself into boys and girls, standing in double semicircle before Madame Van Gleck's pavilion.

Peter and Gretel stand in the centre, in advance of the others. Madame Van Gleck rises majestically. Gretel trembles, but feels that she must look at the beautiful lady. She cannot hear what is said, there is such a buzzing all around her. She is thinking that she ought to try and make a courtesy, such as her mother makes to the _meester_, when suddenly something so dazzling is placed in her hand that she gives a cry of joy.

Then she ventures to look about her. Peter too has something in his hands. "Oh, oh! how splendid!" she cries; and "Oh! how splendid!" is echoed as far as people can see.

Meantime the silver skates flash in the sunshine, throwing dashes of light upon those two happy faces.

"Mevrouw Van Gend sends a little messenger with her bouquets,--one for Hilda, one for Carl, and others for Peter and Gretel."

At sight of the flowers, the Queen of the Skaters becomes uncontrollable. With a bright stare of gratitude, she gathers skates and bouquet in her apron, hugs them to her bosom, and darts off to search for her father and mother in the scattering crowd.

JOHN DONNE

(1573-1631)

"The memory of Dr. Donne must not, cannot die, as long as men speak English," wrote Izaak Walton, "whilst his conversation made him and others happy. His life ought to be the example of more than that age in which he died."

Born in 1573, all the influences of the age in which Donne lived nourished his large nature and genius. Shakespeare and Marlowe were nine years older than he; Chapman fourteen; Spenser, Lyly, and Richard Hooker each twenty; while Sir Philip Sidney counted one year less. Lodge and Puttenham were grown men, and Greene and Nash riotous boys. In the following year Ben Jonson "came forth to warm our ears," and soon after we have his future co-worker Inigo Jones. It was the time of a multitude of poets,--Drayton, the Fletchers, Beaumont, Wither, Herrick, Carew, Suckling, and others. Imagination was foremost, and was stimulated by vast discoveries. Debates upon ecclesiastical reform, led by Wyclif, Tyndal, Knox, Foxe, Sternhold, Hopkins, and others, had prepared the way; and the luminous literatures of Greece and Italy, but recently brought into England, had made men's spirits receptive and creative. It was a period of vast conceptions, when men discovered themselves and the world afresh.

Under such outward conditions Donne was born, in London, "of good and virtuous parents," says Walton, being descended on his mother's side from no less distinguished a personage than Sir Thomas More. In 1584, when he was eleven years old, with a good command both of French and Latin, he passed from the hands of tutors at home to Hare Hall, a much frequented college at Oxford. Here he formed a friendship with Henry Wotton, who, after the poet's death, collected the material from which Walton wrote his tender and sincere 'Life of Donne.'

After leaving Oxford he traveled for three years on the Continent, and on his return in 1592 became a member of Lincoln's Inn, with intent to study law; but his law never, says Walton, "served him for other use than an ornament and self-satisfaction." While a member of Lincoln's Inn he became one of the coterie of the poets of his youth. To this time are to be referred those of his 'Divine Poems' which show him a sincere Catholic. Stirred by the increasing differences between the Romanist and the Anglican denominations, Donne turned toward theological questions, and finally cast his lot with the new doctrines. His large nature, impetuously reacting from the asceticism to which he had been bred, turned to excess and overboldness in action, and an occasional coarseness of phrasing in his poems.

The first of his famous 'Satires' are dated 1593, and all were probably written before 1601. During this time also he squandered his father's legacy of £3000. In 1596, when the Earl of Essex defeated the Spanish navy and pillaged Cadiz, Donne, now one of the first poets of the time, was among his followers. "Not long after his return into England ... the Lord Ellesmere, the Keeper of the Great Seal,... taking notice of his learning, languages, and other abilities, and much affecting his person and behavior, took him to be his chief secretary, supposing and intending it to be an introduction to some weighty employment in the State;... and did always use him with much courtesy, appointing him a place at his own table." Here he met the niece of Lady Ellesmere,--the daughter of Sir George More, Lord Lieutenant of the Tower,--whom at Christmas, 1600, he married, despite the opposition of her father. Sir George, transported with wrath, obtained Donne's imprisonment; but the poet finally regained his liberty and his wife, Sir George in the end forgiving the young couple. "Mr. Donne's estate was the greatest part spent in many chargeable travels, books, and dear-bought experience, he [being] out of all employment that might yield a support for himself and wife." The depth and intensity of Donne's feeling for this beautiful and accomplished woman are manifested, says Mr. Norton, in all the poems known to be addressed to her, such as 'The Anniversary' and 'The Token.'

Of 'The Valediction Forbidding Mourning' Walton declares:--"I beg leave to tell that I have heard some critics, learned both in languages and poetry, say that none of the Greek or Latin poets did ever equal them;" while from Lowell's unpublished 'Lecture on Poetic Diction' Professor Norton quotes the opinion that "This poem is a truly sacred one, and fuller of the soul of poetry than a whole Alexandrian Library of common love verses."

During this period of writing for court favors, Donne wrote many of his sonnets and studied the civil and canon law. After the death of his patron Sir Francis in 1606, Donne divided his time between Mitcham, whither he had removed his family, and London, where he frequented distinguished and fashionable drawing-rooms. At this time he wrote his admirable epistles in verse, 'The Litany,' and funeral elegies on Lady Markham and Mistress Bulstrode; but those poems are merely "occasional," as he was not a poet by profession. At the request of King James he wrote the 'Pseudo-Martyr,' published in 1610. In 1611 appeared his funeral elegy 'An Anatomy of the World,' and one year later another of like texture, 'On the Progress of the Soul,' both poems being exalted and elaborate in thought and fancy.

The King, desiring Donne to enter into the ministry, denied all requests for secular preferment, and the unwilling poet deferred his decision for almost three years. All that time he studied textual divinity, Greek, and Hebrew. He was ordained about the beginning of 1615. The King made him his chaplain in ordinary, and promised other preferments. "Now," says Walton, "the English Church had gained a second St. Austin, for I think none was so like him before his conversion, none so like St. Ambrose after it; and if his youth had the infirmities of the one, his age had the excellences of the other, the learning and holiness of both."

In 1621 the King made him Dean of St. Paul's, and vicar of St. Dunstan in the West. By these and other ecclesiastical emoluments "he was enabled to become charitable to the poor and kind to his friends, and to make such provision for his children that they were not left scandalous, as relating to their or his profession or quality."

His first printed sermons appeared in 1622. The epigrammatic terseness and unexpected turns of imagination which characterize the poems, are found also in his discourses. Three years later, during a dangerous illness, he composed his 'Devotion.' He died on the 31st of March, 1631.

"Donne is full of salient verses," says Lowell in his 'Shakespeare Once More,' "that would take the rudest March winds of criticism with their beauty; of thoughts that first tease us like charades, and then delight us with the felicity of their solution." There are few in which an occasional loftiness is sustained throughout, but this occasional excellence is original, condensed, witty, showing a firm and strong mind, clear to a degree almost un-English. His poetry has somewhat of the stability of the Greeks, though it may lack their sweetness and art. His grossness was the heritage of his time. He is classed among the "metaphysical poets," of whom Dr. Johnson wrote:--"They were of very little care to clothe their notions with elegance of dress, and therefore miss the notice and the praise which are often gained by those who think less, but are more diligent to adorn their thoughts." It was in obedience to such a dictum, and to Dryden's suggestion, doubtless, that Pope and Parnell recast and re-versified the 'Satires.'

The first edition of Donne's poems appeared two years after his death. Several editions succeeded during the seventeenth century. In the more artificial eighteenth century his harsh and abrupt versification and remote theorems made him difficult to understand. The best editions are 'The Complete Poems of John Donne,' edited by Dr. Alexander Grosart (1872); and 'The Poems of John Donne,' from the text of the edition of 1633, edited by Charles Eliot Norton (1895), from whose work the citations in this volume are taken.

THE UNDERTAKING

I have done one braver thing Than all the Worthies did, And yet a braver thence doth spring, Which is, to keep that hid.

It were but madness now t' impart The skill of specular stone, When he which can have learned the art To cut it, can find none.

So, if I now should utter this, Others (because no more Such stuff to work upon there is) Would love but as before:

But he who loveliness within Hath found, all outward loathes; For he who color loves, and skin, Loves but their oldest clothes.