Society?

It was money lent at a thousand per cent., which, as nobody
will deny, was a very handsome investment.

The headsman, on the other hand, had scarcely anything to do
to earn his hundred guilders. He needed only, as soon as the

execution was over, to allow Mynheer Boxtel to ascend the
scaffold with his servants, to remove the inanimate remains

of his friend.
The thing was, moreover, quite customary among the "faithful

brethren," when one of their masters died a public death in
the yard of the Buytenhof.

A fanatic like Cornelius might very easily have found
another fanatic who would give a hundred guilders for his

remains.
The executioner also readily acquiesced in the proposal,

making only one condition, -- that of being paid in advance.
Boxtel, like the people who enter a show at a fair, might be

disappointed, and refuse to pay on going out.
Boxtel paid in advance, and waited.

After this, the reader may imagine how excited Boxtel was;
with what anxiety he watched the guards, the Recorder, and

the executioner; and with what intense interest he surveyed
the movements of Van Baerle. How would he place himself on

the block? how would he fall? and would he not, in falling,
crush those inestimable bulbs? had not he at least taken

care to enclose them in a golden box, -- as gold is the
hardest of all metals?

Every trifling delay irritated him. Why did that stupid
executioner thus lose time in brandishing his sword over the

head of Cornelius, instead of cutting that head off?
But when he saw the Recorder take the hand of the condemned,

and raise him, whilstdrawing forth the parchment from his
pocket, -- when he heard the pardon of the Stadtholder

publicly read out, -- then Boxtel was no more like a human
being; the rage and malice of the tiger, of the hyena, and

of the serpent glistened in his eyes, and vented itself in
his yell and his movements. Had he been able to get at Van

Baerle, he would have pounced upon him and strangled him.
And so, then, Cornelius was to live, and was to go with him

to Loewestein, and thither to his prison he would take with
him his bulbs; and perhaps he would even find a garden where

the black tulip would flower for him.
Boxtel, quite overcome by his frenzy, fell from the stone

upon some Orangemen, who, like him, were sorely vexed at the
turn which affairs had taken. They, mistaking the frantic

cries of Mynheer Isaac for demonstrations of joy, began to
belabour him with kicks and cuffs, such as could not have

been administered in better style by any prize-fighter on
the other side of the Channel.

Blows were, however, nothing to him. He wanted to run after
the coach which was carrying away Cornelius with his bulbs.

But in his hurry he overlooked a paving-stone in his way,
stumbled, lost his centre of gravity, rolled over to a

distance of some yards, and only rose again, bruised and
begrimed, after the whole rabble of the Hague, with their

muddy feet, had passed over him.
One would think that this was enough for one day, but

Mynheer Boxtel did not seem to think so, as, in addition to
having his clothes torn, his back bruised, and his hands

scratched, he inflicted upon himself the further punishment
of tearing out his hair by handfuls, as an offering to that

goddess of envy who, as mythology teaches us, wears a
head-dress of serpents.

Chapter 14
The Pigeons of Dort

It was indeed in itself a great honour for Cornelius van
Baerle to be confined in the same prison which had once

received the learned master Grotius.
But on arriving at the prison he met with an honour even

greater. As chance would have it, the cell formerly
inhabited by the illustrious Barneveldt happened to be

vacant, when the clemency of the Prince of Orange sent the
tulip-fancier Van Baerle there.

The cell had a very bad character at the castle since the
time when Grotius, by means of the device of his wife, made

escape from it in that famous book-chest which the jailers
forgot to examine.

On the other hand, it seemed to Van Baerle an auspicious
omen that this very cell was assigned to him, for according

to his ideas, a jailer ought never to have given to a second
pigeon the cage from which the first had so easily flown.

The cell had an historicalcharacter. We will only state
here that, with the exception of an alcove which was

contrived there for the use of Madame Grotius, it differed
in no respect from the other cells of the prison; only,

perhaps, it was a little higher, and had a splendid view
from the grated window.

Cornelius felt himself perfectlyindifferent as to the place
where he had to lead an existence which was little more than

vegetation. There were only two things now for which he
cared, and the possession of which was a happiness enjoyed

only in imagination.
A flower, and a woman; both of them, as he conceived, lost

to him for ever.
Fortunately the good doctor was mistaken. In his prison cell

the most adventurous life which ever fell to the lot of any
tulip-fancier was reserved for him.

One morning, whilst at his window inhaling the fresh air
which came from the river, and casting a longing look to the

windmills of his dear old city Dort, which were looming in
the distance behind a forest of chimneys, he saw flocks of

pigeons coming from that quarter to perch fluttering on the
pointed gables of Loewestein.

These pigeons, Van Baerle said to himself, are coming from
Dort, and consequently may return there. By fastening a

little note to the wing of one of these pigeons, one might
have a chance to send a message there. Then, after a few

moments' consideration, he exclaimed, --
"I will do it."

A man grows very patient who is twenty-eight years of age,
and condemned to a prison for life, -- that is to say, to

something like twenty-two or twenty-three thousand days of
captivity.

Van Baerle, from whose thoughts the three bulbs were never
absent, made a snare for catching the pigeons, baiting the

birds with all the resources of his kitchen, such as it was
for eight slivers (sixpence English) a day; and, after a

month of unsuccessful attempts, he at last caught a female
bird.

It cost him two more months to catch a male bird; he then
shut them up together, and having about the beginning of the

year 1673 obtained some eggs from them, he released the
female, which, leaving the male behind to hatch the eggs in

her stead, flew joyously to Dort, with the note under her
wing.