XLI
THE FAIRY GODMOTHER
The sun had gone down quite out of sight when our hero – with a happy heart but with something like a sneer on his countenance, as he jerked off the wooden "runners" – trudged hopefully toward the tiny hut-like building, known of old as the Idiot's cottage.
Duller eyes than his would have discerned two slight figures moving near the doorway.
That gray, well-patched jacket and the dull blue skirt covered with an apron of still duller blue, that faded, close-fitting cap, and those quick little feet in their great boat-like shoes, they were Gretel's of course. He would have known them anywhere.
That bright coquettish red jacket, with its pretty skirt, bordered with black, that graceful cap bobbing over the gold earrings, that dainty apron, and those snug leather shoes that seemed to have grown with the feet – Why if the Pope of Rome had sent them to him by express, Hans could have sworn they were Annie's.
The two girls were slowly pacing up and down in front of the cottage. Their arms were entwined, of course, and their heads were nodding and shaking as emphatically as if all the affairs of the kingdom were under discussion.
With a joyous shout, Hans hastened toward them.
"Huzza, girls, I've found work!"
This brought his mother to the cottage door.
She, too, had pleasant tidings. The father was still improving. He had been sitting up nearly all day, and was now sleeping as Dame Brinker declared, "just as quiet as a lamb."
"It is my turn now, Hans," said Annie, drawing him aside after he had told his mother the good word from Mynheer van Holp. "Your skates are sold and here's the money."
"Seven guilders!" cried Hans counting the pieces in astonishment; "why, that is three times as much as I paid for them."
"I cannot help that," said Annie. "If the buyer knew no better, it is not our fault."
Hans looked up quickly.
"Oh, Annie!"
"Oh, Hans!" she mimicked, pursing her lips, and trying to look desperately wicked and unprincipled.
"Now, Annie, I know you would never mean that! You must return some of this money."
"But I'll not do any such thing," insisted Annie; "they're sold, and that's an end of it," then seeing that he looked really pained she added in a lower tone:
"Will you believe me, Hans, when I say that there has been no mistake – that the person who bought your skates insisted upon paying seven guilders for them?"
"I will," he answered – and the light from his clear blue eyes seemed to settle and sparkle under Annie's lashes.
Dame Brinker was delighted at the sight of so much silver, but when she learned that Hans had parted with his treasures to obtain it, she sighed, as she exclaimed:
"Bless thee, child! That will be a sore loss for thee!"
"Here, mother," said the boy, plunging his hands far into his pockets, "here is more – we shall be rich if we keep on!"
"Aye, indeed," she answered, eagerly reaching forth her hand. Then, lowering her voice, added, "we would be rich but for that Jan Kamphuisen. He was at the willow tree years ago, Hans – depend upon it!"
"Indeed, it seems likely," sighed Hans. "Well, mother, we must give up the money bravely. It is certainly gone; the father has told us all he knows. Let us think no more about it."
"That's easy saying, Hans. I shall try, but it's hard, and my poor man wanting so many comforts. Bless me! How girls fly about. They were here but this instant. Where did they run to?"
"They slipped behind the cottage," said Hans, "like enough to hide from us. Hist! I'll catch them for you! They both can move quicker and softer than yonder rabbit, but I'll give them a good start first."
"Why, there is a rabbit, sure enough. Hold, Hans, the poor thing must have been in sore need to venture from its burrow this bitter weather. I'll get a few crumbs for it within."
So saying, the good woman bustled into the cottage. She soon came out again, but Hans had forgotten to wait, and the rabbit after taking a cool survey of the premises had scampered off to unknown quarters. Turning the corner of the cottage, Dame Brinker came upon the children. Hans and Gretel were standing before Annie who was seated carelessly upon a stump.
"That is as good as a picture!" cried Dame Brinker halting in admiration of the group. "Many a painting have I seen at the grand house at Heidelberg not a whit prettier. My two are rough chubs, Annie, but you look like a fairy."
"Do I?" laughed Annie, sparkling with animation. "Well then, Gretel and Hans, imagine I'm your godmother just paying you a visit. Now I'll grant you each a wish. What will you have, Master Hans?"
A shade of earnestness passed over Annie's face as she looked up at him – perhaps it was because she wished from the depths of her heart that for once she could have a fairy's power.
Something whispered to Hans that, for the moment, she was more than mortal.
"I wish," said he, solemnly, "I could find something I was searching for last night."
Gretel laughed merrily. Dame Brinker moaned, "Shame on you, Hans!" and passed wearily into the cottage.
The fairy godmother sprang up and stamped her foot three times.
"Thou shalt have thy wish," said she, "let them say what they will." Then with playful solemnity, she put her hand in her apron pocket and drew forth a large glass bead. "Bury this," said she, giving it to Hans, "where I have stamped, and ere moonrise thy wish shall be granted."
Gretel laughed more merrily than ever.
The godmother pretended great displeasure.
"Naughty child," said she, scowling terribly. "In punishment for laughing at a fairy, thy wish shall not be granted."
"Ha!" cried Gretel in high glee, "better wait till you're asked, godmother. I haven't made any wish!"
Annie acted her part well. Never smiling, through all their merry laughter, she stalked away, the embodiment of offended dignity.
"Good-night, fairy!" they cried again and again.
"Good-night, mortals!" she called out at last as she sprang over a frozen ditch, and ran quickly homeward.
"Oh, isn't she – just like flowers – so sweet and lovely!" cried Gretel, looking after her in great admiration, "and to think how many days she stays in that dark room with her grandmother – Why, brother Hans! What is the matter? What are you going to do?"
"Wait and see!" answered Hans as he plunged into the cottage and came out again, all in an instant, bearing the spade and ysbrekker in his hands – "I'm going to bury my magic bead!"
Raff Brinker still slept soundly; his wife took a small block of peat from her nearly exhausted store, and put it upon the embers. Then opening the door, she called gently:
"Come in, children."
"Mother! mother! See here!" shouted Hans.
"Holy St. Bavon!" exclaimed the dame, springing over the door-step. "What ails the boy!"
"Come quick, mother," he cried, in great excitement, working with all his might, and driving in the ysbrekker at each word. "Don't you see? This is the spot – right here on the south side of the stump. Why didn't we think of it last night? The stump is the old willow-tree – the one you cut down last spring because it shaded the potatoes. That little tree wasn't here when father – Huzzah!"
Dame Brinker could not speak. She dropped on her knees beside Hans just in time to see him drag forth —the old stone pot!
He thrust in his hand and took out – a piece of brick – then another – then another – then, the stocking and the pouch, black and mouldy, but filled with the long lost treasure!
Such a time! Such laughing! Such crying! Such counting, after they went into the cottage! It was a wonder that Raff did not waken. His dreams were pleasant, however, for he smiled in his sleep.
Dame Brinker and her children had a fine supper, I can assure you. No need of saving the delicacies now.
"We'll get father some nice fresh things, to-morrow," said the dame, as she brought forth cold meat, wine, bread and jelly, and placed them on the clean pine table. "Sit by, children, sit by."
That night, Annie fell asleep wondering whether it was a knife Hans had lost, and thinking how funny it would be if he should find it, after all.
Hans had scarce closed his eyes, before he found himself trudging through a thicket; pots of gold were lying all around, and watches, and skates, and glittering beads were swinging from every branch.
Strange to say, each tree, as he approached it, changed into a stump, and on the stump sat the prettiest fairy imaginable, clad in a scarlet jacket, and blue petticoat.
XLII
THE MYSTERIOUS WATCH
Something else than the missing guilders was brought to light on the day of the fairy godmother's visit. This was the story of the watch that for ten long years had been so jealously guarded by Raff's faithful vrouw. Through many an hour of sore temptation she had dreaded almost to look upon it, lest she might be tempted to disobey her husband's request. It had been hard to see her children hungry and to know that the watch, if sold, would enable the roses to bloom in their cheeks again – "but nay," she would exclaim, "Meitje Brinker is not one to forget her man's last bidding, come what may."
"Take good care of this, mine vrouw," he had said, as he handed it to her – that was all. No explanation followed, for the words were scarcely spoken, when one of his fellow workmen rushed into the cottage, crying, "Come, man! the waters are rising! you're wanted on the dykes."
Raff had started at once, and that, as Dame Brinker has already told you, was the last she saw of him in his right mind.
On the day when Hans was in Amsterdam looking for work, and Gretel, after performing her household labors, was wandering about in search of chips, twigs – anything that could be burned, Dame Brinker with suppressed excitement had laid the watch in her husband's hand.
"It wasn't in reason," as she afterward said to Hans, "to wait any longer, when a word from the father would settle all; no woman living but would want to know how he came by that watch." Raff Brinker turned the bright, polished thing over and over in his hand – then he examined the bit of smoothly ironed black ribbon fastened to it; he seemed hardly to recognize it. At last he said, "Ah, I remember this! Why, you've been rubbing it, vrouw, till it shines like a new guilder."
"Aye," said Dame Brinker nodding her head complacently.
Raff looked at it again. "Poor boy!" he murmured, then fell into a brown study.
This was too much for the dame. "Poor boy!" she echoed, somewhat tartly. "What do you think I'm standing here for, Raff Brinker, and my spinning a-waiting, if not to hear more than that?"
"I told ye all, long since," said Raff, positively, as he looked up in surprise.
"Indeed, and you never did!" retorted the vrouw.
"Well, if not – since it's no affair of ours – we'll say no more about it," said Raff, shaking his head sadly; "like enough while I've been dead on the earth, all this time, the poor boy's died and been in Heaven. He looked near enough to it, poor lad!"
"Raff Brinker! If you're going to treat me this way, and I nursing you and bearing with you since I was twenty-two years old, it's a shame! aye, and a disgrace," cried the vrouw growing quite red, and scant of breath.
Raff's voice was feeble yet. "Treat you what way, Meitje?"
"What way," said Dame Brinker, mimicking his voice and manner, "what way? why just as every woman in the world is treated after she's stood by a man through the worst, like a – "
"Meitje!"
Raff was leaning forward, with outstretched arms. His eyes were full of tears.
In an instant Dame Brinker was at his feet, clasping his hands in hers.
"Oh! what have I done! Made my good man cry, and he not back with me four days! Look up, Raff! nay, Raff, my own boy, I'm sorry I hurt thee. It's hard not to be told about the watch after waiting ten years to know – but I'll ask thee no more, Raff. Here, we'll put the thing away that's made the first trouble between us, after God just giving thee back to me."
"I was a fool to cry, Meitje," he said, kissing her, "and it's no more than right ye should know the truth. But it seemed like it might be telling the secrets of the dead to talk about the matter."
"Is the man – the lad – thou wert talking of dead, think thee?" asked the vrouw, hiding the watch in her hand, but seating herself expectantly on the end of his long foot-bench.
"It's hard telling," he answered.
"Was he so sick, Raff?"
"No, not sick, I may say; but troubled, vrouw, very troubled."
"Had he done any wrong, think ye?" she asked lowering her voice.
Raff nodded.
"Murder?" whispered the wife, not daring to look up.
"He said it was like to that, indeed."
"Oh! Raff, you frighten me – tell me more – you speak so strange – and you tremble. I must know all."
"If I tremble, mine vrouw, it must be from the fever. There is no guilt on my soul, thank God!"
"Take a sip of this wine, Raff. There, now you are better. It was like to a crime you were saying."
"Aye, Meitje, like to murder; that he told me himself. But I'll never believe it. A likely lad, fresh and honest looking as our own youngster, but with something not so bold and straight about him."
"Aye, I know," said the dame, gently, fearing to interrupt the story.
"He came upon me quite sudden," continued Raff. "I had never seen his face before, the palest, frightenedest face that ever was. He caught me by the arm. 'You look like an honest man,' says he."
"Aye, he was right in that," interrupted the dame, emphatically.
Raff looked somewhat bewildered.
"Where was I, mine vrouw?"
"The lad took hold of your arm, Raff," she said, gazing at him anxiously.
"Aye, so. The words come awkward to me, and everything is half like a dream, ye see."
"S-stut! What wonder, poor man," sighed the dame, stroking his hand. "If ye had not head enough for a dozen, the wit would never have come to ye again. Well, the lad caught ye by the arm, and said ye looked honest (well he might!). What then? Was it noon-time?"
"Nay; before daylight – long before early chimes."
"It was the same day you were hurt," said the dame. "I know it seemed you went to your work in the middle of the night. You left off, where he caught your arm, Raff."
"Yes," resumed her husband – "and I can see his face this minute – so white and wild looking. 'Take me down the river a way,' says he. I was working then, you'll remember, far down on the line, across from Amsterdam. I told him I was no boatman. 'It's an affair of life and death,' says he; 'take me on a few miles – yonder skiff is not locked, but it may be a poor man's boat and I'd be loath to rob him!' (The words might differ some, vrouw, for it's all like a dream.) Well, I took him down; it might be six or eight miles, and then he said he could run the rest of the way on shore. I was in haste to get the boat back. Before he jumped out, he says, sobbing-like, 'I can trust you. I've done a thing – God knows I never intended it – but the man is dead. I must fly from Holland.'"
"What was it, did he say, Raff? Had he been shooting at a comrade, like they do down at the University at Gottingen?"
"I can't recall that. Mayhap he told me; but it's all like a dream. I said it wasn't for me, a good Hollander, to cheat the laws of my country by helping him off that way; but he kept saying, 'God knows I am innocent!' and looked at me in the starlight as fair, now, and clear-eyed as our little Hans might – and I just pulled away faster."
"It must have been Jan Kamphuisen's boat," remarked Dame Brinker, dryly; "none other would have left his oars out that careless."
"Aye – it was Jan's boat sure enough. The man will be coming in to see me Sunday, likely, if he's heard; and young Hoogsvliet too. Where was I?"
[It was lucky the dame restrained herself. To have spoken at all of Jan after the last night's cruel disappointment would have been to have let out more sorrow and suspicion than Raff could bear.]
"Where were you? Why not very far, forsooth – the lad hadn't yet given ye the watch – alack I misgive whether he came by it honestly!"
"Why, vrouw," exclaimed Raff in an injured tone, "he was dressed soft and fine as the prince himself. The watch was his own, clear enough."
"How came he to give it up?" asked the dame, looking uneasily at the fire, for it needed another block of peat.
"I told ye just now," he answered with a puzzled air.
"Tell me again," said Dame Brinker, wisely warding off another digression.
"Well, just before jumping from the boat, he says, handing me the watch, 'I'm flying from my country as I never thought I could. I'll trust you because you look honest. Will you take this to my father – not to-day but in a week, and tell him his unhappy boy sent it; and tell him if ever the time comes that he wants me to come back to him, I'll brave everything and come. Tell him to send a letter to – to' – there, the rest is all gone from me. I can't remember where the letter was to go. Poor lad! poor lad," resumed Raff, sorrowfully taking the watch from his vrouw's lap, as he spoke – "and it's never been sent to his father to this day."
"I'll take it, Raff, never fear – the moment Gretel gets back. She will be in soon. What was the father's name did you say? Where were you to find him?"
"Alack!" answered Raff, speaking very slowly, "it's all slipped me. I can see the lad's face, and his great eyes, just as plain – and I remember his opening the watch, and snatching something from it and kissing it – but no more. All the rest whirls past me; there's a kind of sound like rushing waters comes over me when I try to think."
"Aye. That's plain to see, Raff; but I've had the same feeling after a fever. You're tired now – I must get ye straight on the bed again. Where is the child, I wonder?"
Dame Brinker opened the door, and called, "Gretel! Gretel!"
"Stand aside, vrouw," said Raff, feebly, as he leaned forward, and endeavored to look out upon the bare landscape; "I've half a mind to stand beyond the door just once."
"Nay, nay," she laughed, "I'll tell the meester how ye tease, and fidget and bother, to be let out in the air; and, if he says it, I'll bundle ye warm to-morrow, and give ye a turn on your feet. But I'm freezing you with this door open. I declare if there isn't Gretel with her apron full, skating on the canal, like wild. Why, man," she continued almost in a scream, as she slammed the door, "thou'rt walking to the bed without my touching thee! Thou'lt fall!"
The dame's "thee" proved her mingled fear and delight, even more than the rush which she made toward her husband. Soon he was comfortably settled under the new cover, declaring as his vrouw tucked him in snug and warm, that it was the last daylight that should see him abed.
"Aye! I can hope it myself," laughed Dame Brinker, "now you have been frisking about at that rate." As Raff closed his eyes, the dame hastened to revive her fire, or rather to dull it, for Dutch peat is like a Dutchman, slow to kindle, but very good at a blaze when once started. Then putting her neglected spinning-wheel away, she drew forth her knitting from some invisible pocket and seated herself by the bedside.
"If you could remember that man's name, Raff," she began cautiously, "I might take the watch to him, while you're sleeping; Gretel can't but be in soon."
Raff tried to think; but in vain.
"Could it be Boomphoffen," suggested the dame. "I've heard how they've had two sons turn out bad – Gerard and Lambert?"
"It might be," said Raff. "Look if there's letters on the watch; that'll guide us some."
"Bless thee, man," cried the happy dame, eagerly lifting the watch, "why thou'rt sharper than ever! Sure enough. Here's letters! L. J. B. That's Lambert Boomphoffen you may depend; what the J is for I can't say; but they used to be grand kind o' people, high feathered as fancy fowl. Just the kind to give their children all double names, which isn't scripture anyway."
"I don't know about that, vrouw. Seems to me there's long mixed names in the Holy Book, hard enough to make out. But you've got the right guess at a jump. It was your way always," said Raff, closing his eyes; "take the watch to Boompkinks and try."
"Not Boompkinks; I know no such name; it's Boomphoffen."
"Aye, take it there."
"Take it there, man! why the whole brood of 'em's been gone to America these four years. But go to sleep, Raff; you look pale and out of strength. It'll all come to you, what's best to do, in the morning.
"So, Mistress Gretel! Here you are at last!"
Before Raff awoke that evening, the fairy godmother, as we know, had been at the cottage, the guilders were once more safely locked in the big chest, and Dame Brinker and the children were faring sumptuously on meat and white bread and wine.
So the mother, in the joy of her heart, told them the story of the watch as far as she deemed it prudent to divulge it. It was no more than fair, she thought, that the poor things should know, after keeping the secret so safe, ever since they had been old enough to know anything.