Chapter 15

My passengers broke into admiration of the medieval fortress with its paraphernalia of moats, bastions, and drawbridges, which give an air of historic romance to the country round; but their emotion would have been of a different kind had they guessed the risk we must take in running through the winding fortifications. It was not so great a risk that it was foolish to take it, and thirty or forty cars must do the same thing every day; but the fact was, that we had to run through these tunnels on tram-lines, with no room to turn out in case of meeting a steam monster from Hilversum. I had chosen my time, knowing the hours for trams; still, had there been a delay, there was a chance of a crash, for our horn could not be heard by the tram driver, nor could he see us in time to put on his brakes and prevent a collision.

With the girl I love beside me, and three other passengers, not to mention the chauffeur, it was with a tenseness of the nerves that I drove through the labyrinth, and I was glad to clear Muiden. Next came Naarden--that tragic Naarden whose capture and sack by the Spaniards encouraged Alva to attack Haarlem; and then, without one of the party having dreamed of danger, we swung out on the road to Laren, a road set in pineland and heather, which would have reminded the real Lady MacNairne of her Scottish home. There was actually something like a hill here and there, which the strangers were astonished to find in Holland, and would hardly believe when I said that, on reaching Gelderland, I would be able to show them a Dutch mountain two hundred feet high, among a colony of smaller eminences to which half the Netherlands rush in summer.

Meanwhile they were satisfied with what they saw; and it is a pretty enough road, this way between Amsterdam and Laren. At first we had had the canal, with its sleepy barges, peopled with large families, and towed by children harnessed in tandem at the end of long ropes; its little shady, red-and-green wayside houses, with "Melk Salon" printed attractively over their doors. We had had avenues of trees, knotted here and there into groves; we had passed pretty farmhouses with bright milk-cans and pans hanging on the red walls, like placks in a drawing-room; we had seen gardens flooded with roses, and long stretches of water carpeted with lilies white and yellow; then we had come to pine forests and heather, and always we had had the good klinker which, though not as velvety for motoring as asphalt, is free from dust even in dry weather. We had run almost continuously on our fourth speed; and even in Laren I came down to the second only long enough to let them all see the beauty of the Mauve country.

Starr knows Anton Mauve's pictures, and his history; but the ladies had seen only a few delicious landscapes in the Ryks Museum. Still, they liked to hear that at Laren Corot's great disciple had found inspiration. Nowhere in the Netherlands are there such beautiful barns, each one of which is a background for a Nativity picture; and it was Laren peasants, Laren cows, and the sunlit and cloud-shadowed meadows of Laren which kept Mauve's brush busy for years.

After the charm of Haarlem's suburbs, Hilversum, where merchants of Amsterdam play at being in the country, was disappointing; but having lunched in open air, and spun on toward Amersfoort, we ran into a district which holds some delightful houses, set among plane trees, varied with flowering acacias and plantations of oak. Everywhere our eyes followed long avenues cut in the forest, avenues stretching out like the rays of a star, and full of a tremulous green light, shot with gold.

In the midst of this forest we came upon Soestdyk, where the Queen-Mother lives, that pleasant palace with its romance of a mysterious, secret room; then by-and-by we ran into Amersfoort, ringed by its park, and Nell was so entranced with the Gothic church tower, that she rejoiced to hear it was the finest in the northern Netherlands.

I had chosen market-day in Amersfoort for our drive, and as we sailed into the spacious square of the town, my passengers saw in one moment more Dutch costumes than in all their previous days in Hollow Land.

It was too late for the best of the picture; still, the market-place glittered with gold and silver helmets, and delicate spiral head-ornaments. Ear-rings flashed in the sun, and massive gold brooches and buckles. There was a moving rainbow of color and a clatter of sabots, as the market women packed up their wares; but there was no time to linger, if we were to reach Spaakenberg before the shadows grew long. We sped on, until the next toll-gate (we had come to so many that Nell said our progress was made by tolling, rather than tooling along the roads) where a nice apple-cheeked old lady shook her white cap at the motor, while accepting my pennies. It was her opinion, though she was not sure, that the road--oh, a very bad road!--to Spaakenberg, was now forbidden to automobiles.

To tell the truth, I had never motored to Spaakenberg, but I had bicycled, and thought there ought to be room on the narrow road for two vehicles, even if one were a motor and the other a hay-cart.

I was not surprised that the old lady had no certainty with which to back up her opinion. It was more surprising that she should know of the existence of Spaakenberg, of which many Dutch bicyclists who pride themselves on their knowledge, have never heard.

Naturally we determined to persevere, more than ever eager for a sight of the strange fishing-village, and a glimpse of the Zuider Zee.

"But what shall we do if we find the road forbidden, and we're too far off to walk?" Nell asked. "It would be dreadful to turn back."

"We shan't turn back," said I. "We'll hire a wagon and go on, or--we'll pass the sign which forbids us to proceed, too quickly to see it. Such things happen; and the road's too narrow to turn or even to reverse."

"I am glad you're a Dutchman," said she.

"Why? Because I know the ropes?"

"No. Because you'd die rather than give up anything you've set out to do."

It was now as if the apple-cheeked old prophetess had bewitched the country. The monarchs of the forest fled away and left us in the open, with a narrow strip of road between a canal loaded with water-lilies and low-lying meadows of yellow grain.

The landscape was charming, and the air balmy with summer; but with the first horse we met all peace was over.

Here were no longer the _blase_ beasts of a sophisticated world. Animals of this region had never seen a town larger than Amersfoort. A motor-car was to them as horrifying an object as a lion escaping from his cage at a circus.

Horses reared, hay-carts swayed, peasants shrieked maledictions or shook fists; but always, crawling at snail's pace, we managed to scrape past without accident. Sometimes we frightened cows; and a couple of great yellow dogs, drawing a cart which contained two peasant girls in costume, swore canine oaths against the car.

"Oh, mercy, we've just passed a sign in Dutch, 'Motors forbidden'!" cried Nell.

"Well, we've passed it," said I. "Perhaps it meant that side road; it's narrower than ours. Let's think it did."

So we gave it the benefit of the doubt and fled on, until in less than an hour we flashed into a fishing-village. They all cried, "Spaakenberg and the Zuider Zee!" But as it was not Spaakenberg, I gave them only a flashing glimpse of masts and dark blue water.

Half a mile's drive along a canal, and we came to our destination. And of Spaakenberg the first thing we saw was a forest of masts, with nets like sails, brown, yet transparent as spider-webs. Fifty sturdy fishing-boats were grouped together in a basin of quiet water within sight of the Zuider Zee, which calls to men on every clear night, "the fish are waiting."

I stopped; and as we counted the boats, the whole able-bodied population of Spaakenberg issued from small, peak-roofed houses to see what monster made so odd a noise. By twenties and by thirties they came, wonderful figures, and the air rang with the music of sabots on klinker.

There were young women carrying tiny round babies; there were old women who had all they could do to carry themselves; there were little girls gravely knitting their brothers' stockings; and toddling creatures so infinitesimal that one could not guess whether they would grow up male or female. There were men, too, but not many young ones; and there were plenty of chubby-faced boys.

As for the women and girls, they wore Heaven knows how many petticoats--seven or eight at the minimum--and their figures went out at the places where they should have gone in, and went in at the places where they should have gone out. They were like the old-fashioned ladies with panniers on each side; and those who could not afford enough petticoats had padded out their own and their children's hips to supply the right effect.

Some had black hoods with furry rolls round their rose-and-snow faces; some heightened the brilliancy of their complexion by close-fitting caps of white lace, according to their religion--whether they were of the Catholic or Protestant faith; and the babies, in black hoods, neck-handkerchiefs, and balloon-like black skirts reaching to their feet, were the quaintest figures of all. The men and boys, in their indigo blouses, were not living pictures like their female relatives, save when, with bright blue yokes over their shoulders (from which swung green, scarlet-lined pails, foaming with yellow cream), they returned from milking blue-coated, black and white cows.

Unspoiled by the influx of strangers, the simple people thronged round us, not for what they might get, but for what they could see. We were quainter to them than they to us, and Tibe was as rare as a dragon. His mistress was of opinion that they believed the noise of the motor (now stilled) to have issued from his black velvet muzzle; and when we all, including the tragic-faced, happy-hearted bulldog, got out to wander past the rows of tiny houses in the village, they swarmed round him, buzzed round him, whirled round him, to his confusion.

Escape seemed hopeless, when Nell and Phyllis had an inspiration. They rushed in at the door of a miniature shop, with a few picture postcards and sweets in glass jars displayed in a dark window. Three minutes later they fought their way out through the crowd of strange dolls "come alive," and, like a farmer sowing seed, strewed pink and white lozenges over the heads of girls and boys.

Instantly the "clang of the wooden shoon" ceased. Down squatted the children with the suddenness of collapsed umbrellas. There was a scramble, and we seized the opportunity for flight. We had seen the Zuider Zee; we had seen the cows in blue coats; we had seen Spaakenberg; and Spaakenberg had seen us.

XVIII

Returning by way of wooded Baarn, we spun back to Amsterdam when violet shadows lengthened over golden meadows, and gauzy mist-clouds floated above the canal, burnished to silver by the sunset.

It was too late to do anything but dine and plan for to-morrow, which I had mapped out in my mind, subject to approval. But I let them all talk, as I often do, without saying anything until they turn to me with a question.

"There's an island which people say is wonderful, and you mustn't miss it," remarked the Chaperon. "But I've forgotten the name."

"Why is it wonderful?" asked Miss Rivers.

"I can't remember. But there was something different about it from what you can see anywhere else."

"Dear me, how awkward. How _are_ you to find it?" sighed Phyllis.

"Ask Alb to rapidly mention all islands in Holland, and perhaps it will come back to you," suggested the Mariner. "Begin with A, Alb."

"Not worth while wasting the letters of the alphabet," said I. "Lady MacNairne (the name invariably sticks in my throat) means Marken."

"_That's_ it!" exclaimed the Chaperon. "How could you guess?"

"There's only one island that people talk about like that," I replied. "It's the great show place; and it's like going to the theater. The curtain rings up when the audience arrives, and rings down when it departs. You'll see to-morrow."

"To-morrow?"

"My idea was to take you there to-morrow, unless you prefer another place."

I looked at the mistress of the boat, and no hardness came into her eyes. The contrast between her manner yesterday and her manner since this morning was so marked that, instead of being wholly pleased, I was half alarmed. It seemed too good to be true that her feelings should have changed, and that the sun should continue to shine.

"Why, certainly, let's go to Marken," she said. "I was thinking of Broek-in-Waterland, as I read it was near, and the sweetest place in Holland; however, we can go by-and-by, if----"

"But my plan includes Broek-in-Waterland, gives you a glimpse of Monnikendam, takes you to Marken, and winds up at Volendam, beloved of artists," said I. "I don't believe we'll find it easy to tear Starr from Volendam."

So it was settled, and every one agreed to be ready at ten o'clock next morning. But ten o'clock came, and no Nell, no Phyllis, no Chaperon.

My car was at the door, as I intended to save time by motoring to the Club harbor, where the yacht was lying; and when Starr and I had waited in the hall for some minutes, Aunt Fay appeared.

"Haven't the girls come in yet with Tibe?" she asked. There was a note of anxiety in her voice, though, owing to the fact that the blue spectacles are very large, the wings of gray hair droop very low, a perky bow of white gauzy stuff worn under the chin comes up very high, and the face is very small, it is difficult to tell by the lady's expression what she may be feeling; indeed, there is remarkably little room for an expression to be revealed; which adds to the mystery of the Chaperon's personality.

"Are they out?" asked Starr.

"Yes. But they promised to be back at a quarter to ten, without fail, or I shouldn't have let them go. Tibe's had no breakfast, and he _must_ have his teeth brushed before we start. Oh dear, I'm afraid something's happened."

"For goodness' sake, don't be excited. You get such an American accent when you're excited," whispered the Mariner, fiercely. "Be brave. Remember you're a Scotswoman."

"If I lose Tibe, I shall be a madwoman," she retorted.

"You won't lose him. Alb and I care at least as much for the girls as you do for your dog, and we're not worrying----"

"That's different. The girls don't belong to you," almost wept the tiny creature. "You haven't fed them, and brushed them, and washed their feet every day of their lives since they were a few months old, as I have with Tibe, and if you're not _very_ nice to me, you never will."

"We never dared hope for quite as much as that," said Starr, "but we _are_ being nice to you. What do you want us to do? They're half an hour behind time. Shall we give an order for the Town Crier? I dare say there's one in use still, as this is Holland."

"If you're sarcastic, Ronald, I'll _leave_ you the moment I have my darling Tibe again," replied the Chaperon, and the threat reduced Ronald to crushed silence.

"What took them out so early in the morning?" I asked.

"Oh, Tibe escaped from my room for a minute, and was eating a boot which he found at somebody's door--a horrid, elastic-sided boot: I'm sure it couldn't have been good for him--and the two girls brought him back. They were going out for one last glimpse of that quaint, hidden square you call 'the village,' which they longed to see again, and they asked if they should take Tibe, so I said yes, as he's fond of driving.

"Oh, they were driving?" said I.

"Yes. They could easily have been in long ago. There _must_ have been an accident. Miss Rivers is always so depressingly prompt. Such a strange girl! She considers it quite a sin to break a promise, even to a man, and she seems actually to _like_ telling the truth."

We soothed the Chaperon's fears as well as we could; but when half-past ten came, and there were still no signs of the missing ones, we both began to be troubled.

"If they don't appear in ten minutes, I'll drive slowly in the direction by which they should return," I said; but the words had hardly left my lips when the girls walked into the hall, with Tibe. Both charming faces were flushed, and it was evident that something exciting had happened. But whatever it was, nobody was the worse for it. Tibe flew to his mistress, knocking down a child, and almost upsetting an old gentleman by darting unexpectedly between his legs, while the girls rushed into explanations.

"We're so sorry to have kept you waiting, but we've had _such_ an adventure!" cried Nell. "We were driving back from the 'village,' when Tibe gave a leap and jumped out of the cab before we could hold him."

"We were _terrified_," broke in Phyllis.

"And he disappeared in the most horribly mysterious way," finished Nell.

"We thought some one in the crowd must have stolen him, so we stopped the cab----"

"And began tearing about looking for him, asking every human being in every known language _except_ Dutch, if they'd seen a dog, or a _chien_, or a _hund_----"

"But nobody understood, so we went into a lot of shops, and he wasn't in any of them----"

"And we were in _despair_. We shouldn't have _dared_ come back without him----"

"I should think not!" cut in the Chaperon.

"And we were on the way to the nearest police-station, with a dear old gentleman who could speak English, and a whole procession of extraneous creatures who couldn't, when we saw Tibe, calmly driving in a carriage with----"

"A strange man, and----"

"He never so much as looked at us, but we were _sure_ we couldn't be mistaken, at least Nell was; so we deserted our old gentleman, and began running after Tibe's carriage, shrieking for it to stop."

"Naturally, every one thought we were mad; but we didn't care, and at last the man in the carriage realized we were after him. If he _hadn't_ stopped, we should have known that he'd deliberately stolen Tibe; but he did stop, and we said, both together, it was our dog."

"The man took off his hat, and answered in English, such a nice man, and quite good-looking, with a big mustache, and quick-tempered blue eyes. He said that the first thing he knew, Tibe had jumped into his cab, and he had no idea where he came from, as he'd been reading in a guide-book; but the strangest thing was, he felt certain Tibe had belonged to _him_ when a puppy; only his dog wasn't named Tibe, but John Bull--Bully for short, and he sold him to an American, because it turned out his wife didn't like bulldogs in the house, she thought them too ugly."

"What a _cat_!" interpolated the Chaperon.

"Could it be possible that Tibe ever _was_ his?" asked Nell. "He sold his dog just a year ago, when he was six months old----"

"I bought Tibe ten months ago, poor lamb, for a song, because he was ill--he'd been seasick on a long voyage, so I nursed him up, and _see_ what he is now," said Tibe's mistress. "It may be he'd belonged to this man, for it's always the strangest things that are true. Tibe has a wonderful memory for faces; but I'm sure if I'd been with him, he wouldn't have run away from me for twenty old masters."

"The _second_ queerest thing in the adventure is, that this 'old master' must be some relation of yours, Lady MacNairne," said Nell. "He gave us his card. See, here it is." She handed it to the Chaperon, who gazed at it through her blue spectacles for a moment without speaking; then passed it to Starr. "Merely--a relation by marriage," said she. "Quite a distant relation. I never saw this gentleman myself; but I believe you've met him, haven't you, dear Ronny?"

There is plenty of room on the Mariner's face for expression. He grew red, and his eyebrows were eloquent as he looked at the card. "Oh--er--yes, I've seen him, I think," he mumbled, "when I was in Scotland last. Odd he happens to be here."

"He only arrived this morning, on important business," Nell explained. "If it weren't for that, he would have asked to bring us back to our hotel, but it was something that had to be attended to without a moment's delay, so he was obliged to leave us at once. He was on the way to the Hotel de l'Europe, where he hoped to find the people he'd come to seek."

No need for me to see that card. I knew well who was the hero of the girls' adventure, and would have guessed without the aid of Starr's expression. He saw that I guessed, and turned to me with a look of appeal.

"Well, at all events, Tibe is safe," I said, "and we ought to start, if we're to get through our program to-day. Ladies, is your luggage ready? I'll see that Tibe has a nice bone instead of breakfast. He can eat it in the car, going to the boat; and as it's dusty, you had better put on your motor-veils when you leave the hotel. Starr and I are going to wear goggles."

"Alb," said Starr, as the ladies moved away, "you may have a bad heart, but you have a good head. Disguise and flight are our only hope. If Sir Alec should recognize me----"

("If he should recognize me," I echoed inwardly.)

"The game would be up."

"Speed, veils, and goggles may do the trick," said I.

"But afterwards? By Jove, what we're let in for!"

"We must set our wits to work. Change 'Lorelei's' name and disappear into space."

Five minutes later we were off, unrecognizable by our best friends, and Tibe well hidden, deeply interested in his bone at the bottom of the _tonneau_. But hardly were we away when Miss Rivers cried out----

"Oh, look, Nell; there's Sir Alec MacNairne. Oughtn't we to stop a minute, so that Lady MacNairne----"

"I'm afraid we haven't time," I said hastily, and put on speed, as much as I dared in traffic. We whizzed by a cab, and might have passed the gloomy-faced man who sat in it with his traveling-bag (hastily packed, I'll warrant) had not the two girls bowed.

Their faces were not to be recognized behind the small, triangular tale windows of the silk and lace motor-veils they bought in Haarlem; but their bow attracted Sir Alec MacNairne's attention, and those "quick-tempered blue eyes" of his looked the whole party over as he lifted his hat from his crisply curling auburn hair. He probably divined that the two veiled figures must be the girls of his late adventure; and as he was now acquainted with them and with Tibe, there would be one less chance of our boat slipping away from under his nose, in case he got upon our track.

I realized that Sir Alec could not have been in Scotland when the fatal paragraph appeared, which reached our eyes only yesterday. If he had been, he could not have arrived in Amsterdam to-day. My idea now is that he must have come abroad in search of his wife, have seen the Paris _Herald_ at some Continental resort, and have rushed off post-haste to Holland, expecting to find her.

Exactly why he should have chosen Amsterdam to begin his quest, is not so clear; but he must have had reason to hope that he might get news of Lady MacNairne and my (supposed) motor-boat here. Doubtless he will sooner or later come upon a clue. If he turns up at the Amstel to prosecute his inquiries, he may hear of Tibe, and of the two beautiful young ladies. Then he will put two and two together, and will be after us--as Starr's favorite expression is--"before we can say knife."

At present I have all the sensations of being a villain, with none of the advantages.

XIX