Deeper in the wood with the trunks like | blue, and that day all ruffled with the slim pillars round us, a carpet of russet breeze, in which seamews were fluttering leaves thick under foot, and green leaves and bobbing joyously up and down, "Why more thick overhead, we came on a pretty are they so far inland? there will be a group of neighbors' infants, and of course storm!" cried the Princess. At which I there was a stoppage to play with and inwardly quaked, thinking of my return caress them. by Flushing; but for once our weather Then on to the open space where the prophetess was wrong. There were men band was playing; and the club-lawn fishing along the edge, almost hidden by crowded. Further on, outside the humbler the tall, waving grass with its heavy flowercafés, shop-keeping and peasant groups spikes. And two little pictures stand out seemed enjoying themselves equally round again in my memory, as seen on the oppotheir tables. Their drinking-glasses con- site bank. One, a windmill all freshly tained mostly custards, milk, or a stronger painted in black, with white stripes lengthliquid of gin in which black currants had wise down it, and a broad red band on the been steeped. We passed by the car- base, while the saw-yard thereto attached riages of country neighbors, and went to had its little buildings made of brown drink four-o'clock tea with some friends varnished planks and tiled roofs, the close by. Sitting in the verandah after- whole, with the broad sails turning against wards, as the band ceased we watched the cloudless background of the sky, being the crowd of townspeople stream quietly as bright a combination of color as one homeward for a five-o'clock meal. They would wish. And next a brown farmtake their pleasure heartily but deco- house, thatched and shaded, with its comrously as if used to it. We discussed the fortable stacks and out-houses crowding Sunday's amusement question, and all round it like chickens round their mother, were for the opening of museums and pic-all picturesquely seeming almost sliding ture-galleries to the people in England and into the broad river which washed their shuddered at the memories of Sundays in walls. We crossed by a bridge at SpaarnLondon. Still, even with the pleasantly dam village, where the little Telescope animated little scene before us and the inn was familiarly recognized. In propdispersing throng, we were not unanimous erly frosty winters when all the Haarlem as to having music — because "the bands- world turns out on the ice, my companions were not resting.' I met several had skated up here on the Spaarn since evangelistic-minded people here, who take their childhood; and stopped here, as is much interest in the religious movements the custom, to rest before returning, and in England. Some inquired about the drink aniseed, or boeren-jongens (boerSalvation Army-but with no wish for a boys), i.e., raisin brandy, presumably made nearer knowledge thereof. as is cherry brandy. men Near Spaarndam, new forts are being busily built. Great mud-boats were being poled along, and their sandy contents, after dredging the river's bed, went to defend its banks. The navvies at work stopped to stare at the carriage. "They are the wildest men in the country! remarked Jacqueline. Their looks certainly bore out this impeachment, but the vivid coloring of their crimson cotton shirts and blue trousers excused their evil ways in my eyes much. Then, too, they had built themselves some delightful huts Much as I liked driving through the storm-tossed sea of little sandhills of the downs, or the thick woods and gay villas of Bloemendaal, our last drive was on the opposite side of Haarlem. "We must take you along the Spaarndam, for that is now something truly Dutch," said Hugo. "Yes; certainly! No strangers go there, and even few people from Haarlem, but it is so pretty," echoed Jacqueline. And afterwards I thoroughly agreed in their choice, though experience had already ingrained my conviction that no other two people in the world had happier notions of - to look at! These were sloping wigtheir guests' likings, or pleasanter ways wams, thatched to the ground with sheaves of fulfilling them. We started in the of the tall river grass, that waved its landau next afternoon therefore, passing plumes around the cabins. Funny little through the Haarlem outskirts, on what chimneys poked themselves up, while was once the famous moated rampart, now small windows were set in anyhow. Our a shady drive with water on either side. road went along a raised dyke, which overNext we came out by the Spaarn, and looked part of the drained Y on one hand, drove for a mile or two along the water's and fat fen-farms on the other. This was edge. The Spaarn is really a river. Flat characteristic, but uninteresting, till we though its banks be, itself is broad, dark-soon again came in view of the one land mark one seldom fails to see-the cathe- | Jacqueline's wedding four years ago; but dral, rising like a large lumpish mass over that had been a great success, the time of the roof of its charge, the town. We en-year and the guests all suiting. (The lat tered Haarlem again by the Amsterdam ter a prime necessity, as will be seen.) gate, the only one of the old gates re- During the betrothal fortnight of wedding maining. More's the pity! as with its festivities, some sprightly neighbor gives mellowed red-brick square tower and port- the party, and assembles an equal numcullised archway, its round side turrets ber of young men and maidens early at pointing upwards with a still-defiant air, it her house. Ten or twelve little gigs are is one of the Haarlem sights I like best. in waiting on the gravel; some like the We drove back through old narrow streets, peasants' ones, but others — kept as heirwhose gabled brick houses are all "corbie- looms in families of the right old-fashstepped" in white stone to the "crow-ioned kind, the body carved, gilded, and stone "atop. Here again flows the Spaarn, painted with curious scenes, the wheels with its clipped trees on either side, the very high, seat very narrow. The hostess sunlit water - now thick and brown-pairs off her party, and woe to the luckhaving caught beautifully red reflections less couple who do not like the arrangefrom the tiled roofs. River craft, often ments; for each driver forthwith seats painted green and red striped, were being himself on the left side of his gig, passing laden and unladen in a busy scene, giving a quaint air of being a port to this inland town. This confusion of ideas is the charm to me of Holland's water-ways, apart from their usefulness and picturesque effect. We had a merry party at dinner that night. We always had; but with the bride elect and bridegroom, and the bustle of seeing the many presents that had arrived, and the Princess's jokes being particularly salt, we were merrier. After all adjourning for coffee and liqueurs, some of the warm-blooded ones, who always cried, "J'étouffe!" when shivering wretches began only to feel a gentle glow, must needs fly out to the terrace for air. "It is really warm! Why, there is the mist, as in summer. Come out and see." So I was whirled out to behold; and lo! over the Lindenroede meads a ghostly white pall was spread low and thick, above which rose the trees, darkly defiant, while overhead the stars were merry and the young moon bright. The summer warmth generally draws out this night fog, which brings the well-known fever and ague of the Low Countries, the same our troops suffered from so severely in bygone wars. Having had both on a previous visit, this is one of the things in Holland I do not like. Back we were called to the cheerful lamplight of the antique room where the tea tray, the peatbucket, and hissing kettle had quickly succeeded coffee. And now some fun began in discussing the approaching wedding, and the pros and cons as to a Sgeese party (chaise party). This is verily a thorough old Dutch custom, though somewhat in dis use. There had not been one among the clan of neighbors and cousins since 66 his right arm round his fair companion's waist. This is the old rule, and there is no gainsaying it. The hostess packs all the older neighbors into a kind of char-dbanc made for such occasions, called a Fan-plaisir; it is big enough to hold an army of chaperons, and is covered at top, with open sides, and blinds to roll up or down. These follow the gay procession of little chaises which last file off, with fast-trotting horses, at a spanking pace. All the people in the villages rush out to see them pass, and catch showers of sugarplums thrown to them in largesse. And at every bridge which in Holland are many and at sight of a black sheep, each Jehu is "permitted" to kiss his companion. "Well; but do they?" inquired the practical English mind, ruthlessly bent on extracting exactest details, and allowing no slurring. Ach, yes! of course -we think nothing of that! It does not happen so much during the first part of the day, for then every one is more quiet. And often a cavalier is shy - then it is very stupid. Or else the girl may not like him, and some won't allow it at all." "And where do they drive to?" "Oh, they go to some place about an hour and a half away, where they can have breakfast. At my wedding," said Jacque"the chaise party went to Z- where we had one-o'clock breakfast at the hotel, and there was a wood where we lost our. selves till dinner at five. Then we all started back, many of us with different companions, just as we liked and that was wild, but, oh! so wild! Everybody was so gay after dinner, and they drove so furiously, though it was dark; quite at a gallop. The chaises were swinging round the corners as if we would all have been pitched out. I drove with him "-nod - there are several others near. We admired the cosy hut, and Monsieur van L-brought out champagne to drink to my safe journey home and the season's sport. With all thanks for their kindness, I could not echo the last wish. ding at her husband. "And nobody was | finches were caught in this finchery alone shy at the bridges, I can tell you," burst in the Irrepressible, "for though I was far down the line, I could hear them all the way. And I remember who you were with, and you, and you!" But in spite of his chaff, his victims still enjoyed the memory of their last chaise party as a huge joke. "Now the English would be very shocked at that, I suppose," said Jacqueline. "Ach! it is merely that customs are a little different- we think far worse of a lady allowing a gentleman to have her photograph. That is quite indiscreet; but in London the shop-windows are full of ladies' likenesses." "The first of October! The finch season has begun to-day. We will take you over to Uncle van L- 's shootings on the downs, and you shall see the finchery," said Jacqueline. Finch-catching during October and November is a favorite amusement all day long of Dutch sportsmen who have 'finch - houses.' Jacqueline drove us, therefore, early, through green tree-tunnels, whence sandy copse paths diverged, into the heart of the downs, where the air was fresh and stillness great. Putting up the coureuse at one of the picturesque little farms scattered here and there mostly of bright painted brick, with a broad black stripe along the base and then a white one we walked through sandy potato clearings and coppice till we came to a level lawn before a wooden hut. A dozen green hutches on stands contained the cages of as many finches, singing trillingly-all the better it was supposed that these poor little prisoners were blinded! There was a turfed bank behind the cages, hiding a grass alley beyond, with nets laid on either side, while down the middle hopped decoy finches, tied by the leg to bent wires. We now inspected the hut close by, most hospitably welcomed by its owners, who had come to see all was prepared for the season's sport. The hut was cunningly constructed half open for air, yet screened by a breastwork. Midmost was the fowler's chair, before glazed peep-holes in the wall facing the grass alley, and with net-ropes attached on either hand. As the great migratory flocks of finches land on these dunes in October and rest in the copses, they are lured by the singing decoys into the alley where their kind are hopping. They settle down to chat hu-sh! quick! the nets are drawn over them and their necks promptly wrung. On the walls, a score was painted of many years' sport. Last season, 1883, 4,425 That evening I left Lindenroede, all accompanying me to Haarlem station with warmest good-byes and mutual plans for meeting again. A glorious sunset over the wide meadows changed soon to a strange, twilight, fog effect. The land appeared all flooded with whitish misty waters, through which the cattle herds loomed like unknown animals, and trees and windmills rose dark; while the moon, reflected now and again in wide canals, shone softly on the scene that seemed neither land nor water. My happy visit had come to an end. MAY CROMMELIN. From Longman's Magazine. MY OLD VILLAGE. "JOHN BROWN is dead," said an aged friend and visitor in answer to my inquiry for the strong laborer. "Is he really dead?" I asked, for it seemed impossible. "He is. He came home from his work in the evening as usual, and seemed to catch his foot in the threshold and fell forward on the floor. When they picked him up he was dead." I remember the doorway; a raised piece of wood ran across it, as is commonly the case in country cottages, such as one might easily catch one's foot against if one did not notice it; but he knew that bit of wood well. The floor was of brick, hard to fall on and die. He must have come down over the crown of the hill, with his long, slouching stride, as if his legs had been half pulled away from his body by his heavy boots in the furrows when a ploughboy. He must have turned up the steps in the bank to his cottage, and so, touching the threshold, ended. He is gone through the great doorway, and one pencil-mark is rubbed out. There used to be a large hearth in that room, a larger room than in most cottages, and when the fire was lit, and the light shone on the yellowish-red brick beneath and the large rafters overhead, it was homely and pleasant. In summer the door was always wide open. Close by on the high bank there was a spot where the first wild violets came. You might look along miles | past two in the morning, and continue till of hedgerow, but there were never any until they had shown by John Brown's. If a man's work that he has done all the days of his life could be collected and piled up around him in visible shape, what a vast mound there would be beside some ! If each act or stroke was represented, say, by a brick, John Brown would, have stood the day before his ending by the side of a monument as high as a pyramid. Then, if in front of him could be placed the sum and product of his labor, the profit to himself, he could have held it in his clenched hand like a nut, and no one would have seen it. Our modern people think they train their sons to strength by football and rowing and jumping, and what are called athletic exercises; all of which it is the fashion now to preach as very noble, and likely to lead to the goodness of the race. Certainly, feats are accomplished and records are beaten, but there is no real strength gained, no hardihood built up. Without hardihood it is of little avail to be able to jump an inch farther than somebody else. Hardihood is the true test, hardihood is the ideal, and not these caperings or ten minutes' spurts. Now, the way they made the boy John Brown hardy was to let him roll about on the ground with naked legs and bare head from morn till night, from June till December, from January till June. The rain fell on his head, and he played in wet grass to his knees. Dry bread and a little lard was his chief food. He went to work while he was still a child. At half past three in the morning he was on his way to the farm stables, there to help feed the cart horses, which used to be done with great care very early in the morning. The carter's whip used to sting his legs, and sometimes he felt the butt. At fifteen he was no taller than the sons of well-todo people at eleven; he scarcely seemed to grow at all till he was eighteen or twenty, and even then very slowly, but at last became a tall, big man. That slouching walk, with knees always bent, diminished his height to appearance; he really was the full size, and every inch of his frame had been slowly welded together by this ceaseless work, continual life in the open air, and coarse, hard food. This is what makes a man hardy. This is what makes a man able to stand almost anything, and gives a power of endurance that can never be obtained by any amount of gymnastic training. I used to watch him mowing with amazement. Sometimes he would begin at half night. About eleven o'clock, which used to be the mowers' noon, he took a rest on a couch of half-dried-grass in the shade of the hedge. For the rest, it was mow, mow, mow for the long summer day. John Brown was dead; died in an instant at his cottage door. I could hardly credit it, so vivid was the memory of his strength. The gap of time since I had seen him last had made no impression on me; to me he was still in my mind the John Brown of the hayfield; there was nothing between then and his death. He used to catch us boys the bats in the stable, and tell us fearful tales of the ghosts he had seen; and bring the bread from the town in an old-fashioned wallet, half in front and half behind, long before the bakers' carts began to come round in country places. One evening he came into the dairy carrying a yoke of milk, staggering, with tipsy gravity; he was quite sure he did not want any assistance, he could pour the milk into the pans. He tried, and fell at full length and bathed himself from head to foot. Of later days they say he worked in the town a good deal, and did not look so well or so happy as on the farm. In this cottage opposite the violet bank they had small-pox once, the only case I recollect in the hamletthe old men used to say everybody had it when they were young; this was the only case in my time, and they recovered quickly without any loss, nor did the disease spread. A roomy, well-built cottage like that, on dry ground, isolated, is the only hospital worthy of the name. ple have a chance to get well in such places; they have very great difficulty in the huge buildings that are put up expressly for them. I have a Convalescent Home in my mind at the moment, a vast building. In these great blocks what they call ventilation is a steady draught, and there is no "home" about it. It is all wards and regulations and draughts, and altogether miserable. I would infinitely rather see any friend of mine in John Brown's cottage. That terrible disease, however, seemed quite to spoil the violet bank opposite, and I never picked one there afterwards. There is something in disease so destructive, as it were, to flowers. Peo The hundreds of times I saw the tall chimney of that cottage rise out of the hillside as I came home at all hours of the day and night! the first chimney after a long journey, always comfortable to see, especially so in earlier days, when we had was a kind of halting belief in John Brown's | Also he worked as a laborer, chiefly pieceghosts, several of which were dotted along work; also Mrs. Job had a shop window that road according to him. The ghosts about two feet square; snuff and tobacco, die as we grow older, they die and their bread and cheese, immense big brown places are taken by real ghosts. I wish I jumbles and sugar, kept on the floor above, had sent John Brown a pound or two and reached down by hand when wanted, when I was in good health; but one is through the opening for the ladder stairs. selfish then, and puts off things till it is The front door - Job's right hand too late- a lame excuse verily. I can always open in summer, and the flagstones scarcely believe now that he is really dead, of the floor chalked round their edges; a gone as you might casually pluck a haw clean table, clean chairs, decent crockery, thorn leaf from the hedge. an old clock about an hour slow, a large The next cottage was a very marked hearth with a minute fire to boil the ketone, for houses grow to their owners. The tle without heating the room. Tea was low thatched roof had rounded itself and usually at half past three, and it is a fact stooped down to fit itself to Job's shoul- that many. well-to-do persons, as they came ders; the walls had got short and thick to along the road hot and dusty, used to drop suit him, and they had a yellowish color, in and rest and take a cup-very little like his complexion, as if chewing tobacco milk and much gossip. Two paths met had stained his cheeks right through. just there, and people used to step in out Tobacco-juice had likewise penetrated and of a storm of rain, a sort of thatched-house tinted the wall. It was cut off as it seemed club. Job was somehow on fair terms by a party wall into one room, instead of with nearly everybody, and that is a wonwhich there were more rooms beyond derful thing in a village, where everybody which no one would have suspected. Job knows everybody's business, and petty inhad a way of shaking hands with you with terests continually cross. The strangest his right hand, while his left hand was fellow and the strangest way of life, and casually doing something else in a de- yet I do not believe a black mark was ever tached sort of way. "Yes, sir," and "No, put against him; the shiftiness was all for sir," and nodding to everything you said nothing. It arose, no doubt, out of the all so complaisant, but at the end of the constant and eager straining to gain a bargain you generally found yourself a little advantage and make an-extra penny. few shillings in some roundabout manner Had Job been a Jew, he would have been on the wrong side. Job had a lot of shut-rich. He was the exact counterpart of up rooms in his house and in his character, the London Jew dealer, set down in the which never seemed to be opened to day- midst of the country. Job should have light. The eaves hung over and beetled been rich. Such immense dark brown like his brows, and he had a forelock, a jumbles, such cheek-distenders — never regular antique forelock, which he used to any French sweetmeats or chocolate or touch with the greatest humility. There bonbons to equal these. I really think I was a long bough of an elm hanging over could eat one now. The pennies and fourone gable just like the forelock. His face penny bits there were fourpenny bits in was a blank, like the broad end wall of the those days - that went behind that twocottage, which had no window - at least foot window, goodness! there was no end. you might think so until you looked up Job used to chink them in a pint pot someand discovered one little arrow slit, one times before the company to give them an narrow pane, and woke with a start to the idea of his great hoards. He always tried idea that Job was always up there watch- to impress people with his wealth, and ing and listening. That was how he would talk of a fifty-pound contract as if it looked out of his one eye so intensely was nothing to him. Jumbles are eternal cunning, the other being a wall eye that if nothing else is. I thought then there is, the world supposed so, as he kept it was not such another shop as Job's in the half shut, always between the lights; but universe. I have found since that there whether it was really blind or not I cannot is a Job shop in every village, and in say. Job caught rats and rabbits and every street in every town that is to moles, and bought fagots or potatoes, or say, a window for jumbles and rubbish ; fruit or rabbit-skins, or rusty iron; won- and if you don't know it you may be quite derful how he seemed to have command sure your children do, and spend many a of money. It was done probably by buy-sly penny there. Be as rich as you may, ing and selling almost simultaneously, so and give them gilded sweetmeats at home, that the cash passed really from one cus- still they will slip round to the Job shop. tomer to another, and was never his at all. It was a pretty cottage, well backed |