"Mother, it's nearly five; we shall be late!"

Mother, drunk with sleep, kept on looking at the window and yawning:

"Yes, child, I'll come at once."

She got up and came out in her short blue petticoat stretched round her fat hips, with an open slit behind, and her loose jacket and wooden shoes on. She lit the stove. Horieneke read her morning prayers. Mother's heavy shoes clattered over the floor outside and in again; she put on and took off the iron pots with the goats' food, drew fresh water and made the coffee.

Mam'selle Julie was coming along the rough road.

"You're in good time!" cried mother from the doorway.

"Good-morning, Frazie. Up already, Horieneke? It'll be a fine day to-day."

She took off her hooded cloak, put on a clean apron and turned up her sleeves. Horieneke was washed all over again while mother poured out the coffee. Then they sat down. Horieneke kept her lips tight-closed so as not to forget that she must remain fasting. She slowly pulled on her new stockings and stretched out her hand to the bench on which the white slippers lay. She took off her sleeping-jacket and her little skirt and stood waiting in her shift. When the tongs were well warmed, Mam'selle Julie seized the little paper twists in the hot iron and opened them out. From each fold a curled tress came rolling down; and at last, combed out and bound up with blue-silk ribbon, it all stood about her head in a light mist of pale-gold silk, like a wreath of light around her bright, fresh face. Her dirty shift was dragged off downwards and mother fetched the new scapular and laid it over the child's bare shoulders. The first-communion chemise was of fine white linen and trimmed with crochet lace. Julie took out the folds and drew it over Horieneke's head. Then came white petticoats, bodices and skirts. The child stood passively, in the middle of the floor, with her arms wide apart to give free room to Julie, who crept round on her knees, sticking in a pin here, smoothing a crease there. Mother fetched the things as they were wanted. There was a constant discussing, approving, asking if it wouldn't meet or if it hung too wide, all in a whisper, so as not to wake the boys.

There came a scrabbling overhead and down the stairs; and, before any one suspected it, Bertje stood dancing round Horieneke in his shirt.

"Jesu-Maria! Oo, you rascal!"

And the corset which mother held in her hand was sent flying up the stairs after the boy, who in three jumps was gone and up above. The others lay laughing in bed when Bertje told them that he had seen Horieneke all in white, with a bunch of red-gold curls round her head, and that mother had thrown something at him.

The corset was laced up and Mam'selle Julie told the child to hold her breath to let them get her body tighter. Now for the white frock: the skirt was slipped down over her head until it stood out in light, stiff pleats; the white bodice encased her body firmly and stuck out above the shoulders, its puffed sleeves trimmed with little white-satin bows and ribbons at every seam and fold. Over it hung the veil, which shrouded her as in a white cloud. The wreath was put on, looked at from a distance and put on again until it was right at last, with the glittering beads in front, shining among the auburn curls, and the long streamer of threaded lilies of the valley behind, nestling in the tresses on her back. The white gloves, her prayer-book and candle-cloth, a few pennies in her bead purse; and 'twas done.

The child was constantly twisted and turned and examined from every side. She did not know herself in all her splendour: the Horieneke of yesterday, in her blue bird's-eye bib and black frock was a poor thing compared with the present Horieneke, something far removed from this white apparition, something quite forgotten. She stood stiff as a post in the middle of the kitchen, without daring to look round or stir; she felt so light and airy in those rustling folds and pleats and all that muslin that she seemed not to touch the ground. She did not know what to do with her arms, how to tread with her feet; and her thoughts were straying: the part she had to play was all gone out of her head; she would be as fine as this all day long, but oh, so uncomfortable!

Mother put on stockings and shoes, donned her cap, turned her apron, threw her cloak over her shoulders; she called her husband; then:

"There, boys, we're off; don't forget your drop of holy water, all of you!"

The door fell back into the latch with a bang; and the three of them were on the road. A gust of wind laden with white blossoms out of the orchard greeted them. Horieneke held the tips of her veil closed against the wind and stepped out like a little maid in a procession. The two women came behind and had no eyes for anything but Horieneke: the fall of those white folds, the whirling of the veil and the dancing of the lilies of the valley in the auburn locks. They said nothing.

The sky still hung grey with its yawning cleft widening in the east; and out of it there beamed a sober, uncertain light, which fell upon everything with a dead gleam: it was like noonday in winter. Over the fields and in the trees drifted thin wisps of mist, like floating blue veils blown on by the wind. Below in the meadow the cock had started crowing amid his flock of peacefully pecking pullets. It was very fresh, rather cold indeed, out on the high road.

All the little paths led to the church; and in every direction, along the flat fields, came people in their very best, with little white maids. The wind played in their white veils and set them waving and flapping like wet flags.

"The children'll have good weather," said Mam'selle Julie; and, a little later, to Horieneke, "What are you going to ask of Our Lord now, dear?"

"Oh, so much, so much, Mam'selle Julie! I myself hardly know.... For father and mother and all the family and that I may always be a good girl and stay at home with them and not fall among wicked people and that we may all live a long time and go to Heaven...."

"And that the harvest may succeed and we be able to pay the rent ... and for the farmer ... and that father may keep in health and be fit to work," mother ordered.

They reached the village. Mother remained waiting among the folk in the street; Horieneke, with the other youngsters, went through the school-gates where their wax tapers stood burning above the bunches of gold flowers and leaves shining in the warm light. The children looked at one another's clothes, whispered in one another's ears what theirs had cost and wrangled as to which looked the prettiest. The boys vied with one another in showing their bright pennies and their steel watch-chains.

The procession filed out: first the acolytes, in scarlet, with gleaming crucifix, brass candle-sticks and censer, followed by boys and girls symbolically dressed, a lilting dance of flags and banners in brilliant colours. Next came the priest, in a gorgeous vestment stiff with silk and silver thread and gold tracery; and, in two rows, on either side of the street, preceded by four little angels with gold wings, the first-communicants, really such on this occasion, in their proper clothes, with the great wax tapers in their white-gloved hands and a glow in their faces and laughter in their eyes. All the people crowded after them, through the street to the church. The bells rang out, the priest sang with the sacristan and the whole procession triumphantly entered the wide church-doors. There was a mighty stamping and pushing to get near and to see the children sitting in straight rows on the front benches of the nave. The girls settled in their clothes and the boys looked down at their stiff, wide cloth breeches and their new shoes, or shoved their fingers up their noses or into their tight collar-bands. The organ droned out a mighty prelude; the priest, all in gold, stood at the altar; the ceremony began; the people were silent and prayed over their prayer-books.

The sun appeared! And green and red and yellow shafts of light slanted through the stained-glass panes and mingled with the blue incense-wreaths. They made the corners of the brasswork shine and brought smiles to the faces of the saints in their niches. A splash of gold fell on the curly heads of the children, dark and fair; and tiny rays flashed upon the gilt edges of their prayer-books. The congregation prayed diligently and the full voices sang the joyful Gloria in excelsis with the organ.

After the Gospel, the priest hung up his chasuble on the stand and mounted the pulpit. After a noisy shifting of chairs and dragging of feet and coughing, the people sat still, with their faces turned to the priest. He began by reading out the notices in a snuffling tone: the intentions of the masses for the ensuing week; the names of those about to be married or lately deceased. Then he waited, cast his eyes over that level multitude of raised heads, pulled up his white sleeves and turned his face towards the children. His drawling voice wished them proficiat.

It was the first time in their lives that the youngsters saw that face turned expressly towards them from a pulpit and also the first time that they listened to the sermon with attention. They kept their eyes fixed on the priest so as not to lose a word. The great day had arrived; a few moments more and they would be completing the solemn task, they, small children, the task that was denied to the pure angels in heaven.

"And that work must be the foundation on which all your future life is based. Your souls are now so clean, so pure, they are shining like clear water and are quite spotless. For years we have taught and instructed and prepared you in order to teach your virgin hearts, this day, now, in this beautiful chapel, to receive that strengthening food, that miracle of God's love. Remember it always: this is the happiest day of your lives! You are still innocent and about to receive the Bread that raises the dead, cleanses sinners and purifies the fallen. You are still in your first youth, without experience of life, and are already allowed to approach the Holy Table and share the strengthening food that supports men and women in the trials of life. This also is the propitious moment, the mighty hour in which Our Lord can refuse you nothing that you ask Him. So make use of it, ask Him much, ask Him everything: for your parents and your masters, who have done so much for you, for your pastors, your village and especially for yourselves, that He may keep you from sin and continue to dwell in your hearts and allow you to grow up into stout champions of the faith and of your religion. It is the happiest day of your lives. You are here now, to-day, with your bright, clear eyes, young and beautiful as angels; we have watched over you, sheltered you against all that could have harmed or offended your innocence, far from the corrupt world of whose existence you have not even known. But to-morrow you will enter the wide world, with only your weak flesh to fight against life's dangers: depravity, falsehood, lies and sin. Now life will begin for you, now for the first time will you be called upon to fight, to show courage and to stand firm. How many of those who once sat where you are now sitting and who were pure and innocent as yourselves have now, alas, become lost sinners, Judases who have rejected their God, devils as roaring lions going about seeking whom they may devour! Be strong, listen to your good parents: it is to them alone that you will have to listen henceforth...."

He turned round to the other side and, continuing with the same rise and fall in his voice, the same gestures of his thin right arm, with the flowing white sleeve, and the same movement of his sharp profile high up above the congregation, he began once more:

"To you, fathers and mothers, I also wish a cordial proficiat; for you also this is a glad and memorable day. How long is it not since you were kneeling there! And yet that day always lingers in your memory. Since that time you have been plunged into the world, have had to struggle and have perhaps fallen and more than once have known your courage fail you. Now your children are sitting there! For years you have left them to our care and to-day we give them back to you, instructed, enriched and supplied with all that they can need to pass onward. You receive them this day from our hands pure and innocent as on the day of their baptism. It is for you henceforth to preserve and to maintain that virtue and purity in them; it is for you to bring up these children so that later they may be exemplary Christians. See to it that your own conduct edifies them: it is according to you and all your actions that they will order their lives and take example. Admonish them in good season and chastise them when necessary: 'He that spareth the rod hateth his son,' says the Holy Ghost. And keep your eyes open, for God will ask an account of your stewardship and will reward or punish you according as you have brought them up well or ill. A good son, a virtuous daughter are the joy and the comfort of their parents."

The congregation were greatly impressed. The mothers wept: the priest was such a good, worthy old man, whom they had known all their lives; and they liked hearing him say all those beautiful things: that reference to their own childhood and to their youngsters, whom they now saw sitting there so good and saintlike, waiting to receive Our Lord, brought the tears to their eyes; and it did them good to feel their hearts throb, to feel that lump in their throats; and they let the tears flow: after all, it was from gladness.

The organ played softly and the changing tones mingled with the blue wreaths that ascended from the sanctuary in a fragrant cloud, lingering over the congregation. The celebrant offered the bread and wine to Our Father in Heaven. And all this took time; the children were tired by their tense concentration; their prayers had all been said two and three times over; and they were now vacantly waiting and longing, looking at their clothes, at the stained-glass windows in the choir or St. Anne in her crimson cloak, or counting the stars that were painted high up on the stone ceiling.

The altar-bell tinkled twice and thrice in succession; the Sanctus was sung; and after that the organ was silenced. A hush fell over the congregation and all heads dropped, as though mown down, in deep reverence: not one dared look up. The priest genuflected, the bell sounded repeatedly and, amid that great hush, thrice three notes of the great church-bell droned through the church and rang out over the distant fields. Outside, it was all blue and sunshine and silence; everything was bowed in anxious expectation; it was as though there were nothing erect and alive in the world except that little church and that bell. In the farthest houses in the village the mothers were now kneeling and beating their breasts, with their thoughts on Our Lord. The God of Heaven and Earth had descended and was filling all things with His awful presence. Carefully, slowly, almost timidly came the Adoro te; and the people little by little raised their heads and sighed, as though relieved and still quite awed by what had happened or was going to happen.

And now the ceremony began. After the Agnus Dei and the three tinkles of the bell at the Domine, non sum dignus, the four little angels came with hands folded and heads bowed, with their gold-paper wings carefully furled behind them, and walked reverently to the front of the church. Horieneke stood up, took her great sheet of paper and, in her clear voice, read out her piece so that all the congregation could hear, though she stopped to find her words at times and faltered here and there because her heart was beating so violently and she had such a catch in her throat:

"Then Thou wilt come to us, Almighty God! To us poor little sheep who, hardly knowing what we did, have so often offended Thee. We are not worthy to receive Thee, unless Thou say but the word that our souls may be healed. And, as Thou hast ordained, we will, in fear and confidence, approach Thee as poor little children approaching their kind Father. We have nothing wherewith to repay the great love which Thou bearest us; we are needy in all things; and all things must come from Thee. We are still very young and have already gone astray, but we repent and are heartily sorry to have caused Thee any grief. And, now that Thou art so unspeakably good to us, we wish to be wholly loyal to Thee and to belong to Thee with heart and soul; dispose of us henceforth as Thy servants and we shall be filled with joy. Come then, O Jesus; our hearts pant with longing, our souls are now prepared; we have begged Mary, our dear Mother, our guardian angels and our blessed patron saints to make us worthy habitations for Thy majesty."

The silence was so great that one could hear a leaf fall. The congregation wriggled where they knelt to see and held their breaths, full of expectation. The nun struck her key on the back of her chair. Two little angels went, step by step, to the communion-bench and the first row of boys and girls followed. The little ones now looked very serious. They held their heads bowed and their hands clasped; and their faces shone with heavenly light and silent inner happiness. Horieneke was now like a white flower; her transparent little waxen face, her delicately chiselled nose and closed pink lips looked so angelic under her sunny curls and the white of her veil. The children approached the choir silently and slowly: 'twas as though they were floating. At the second tap of the key, they knelt; one more ... and their hands were under the lace communion-cloth. From the organ-loft the Magnificat resounded. The priest took the ciborium, gave the benediction and with stately tread descended the altar-steps. In his slender fingers he held the Sacred Host, that small white disk which stood out sharply above the silver vessel against the rich violet of his chasuble. The children's heads by turn dropped backwards and fell upon their breasts, in ecstacy. The bells rang out; the choristers shouted their hymn of praise; the priest murmured:

"Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christ ..."

The key tapped; and the angels kept leading new rows to the Holy Table and bringing the others away again. And the great work went on in solemn silence amid all that jubilant music. The congregation were lifted up, their hearts throbbed and their tears welled with happiness and contentment.

The last row had come back; and they were all now kneeling in adoration when the head boy read out:

"What shall we return Thee, O Lord, for what Thou hast done for us! But now we were mute, prostrate in adoration, amazed and awed by Thy mighty presence in our hearts, bowed down in the dust of our humility; now at last we dare raise our heads and thank Thee. We beseech Thee that Thou wilt continue to dwell in our hearts, to reign there and to pour forth Thy mercies there abundantly. We are frail creatures; and, were it not that Thou, in Thy compassion, dost uphold us, we should continually and at every moment fall and succumb in the rude gusts of life. We put our trust in Thee and we know that Thou wilt succour us and that we shall enter the life everlasting. Amen."

It was over; and the congregation looked round impatiently to see how they could get out of church quickest. Their tears were dried and their thoughts were once more fixed on clothes, home, coffee and cakebread. After the last sign of the cross, the men crowded outside; the mothers sought their youngsters, kept them out of the crush for fear of accidents and marched triumphantly through the two rows of sightseers that stood on either side of the church-door. Now was the moment for showing-off, for congratulation and admiration on every side, till the children did not know which way to turn or what to say; and they were very hungry. All now went with their friends to the tavern for a drop of Hollands; and from there mother went home with two or three wives of the neighbourhood.

Horieneke walked behind. She was all by herself and wrapped in contemplation: that great miracle was now over, all of a sudden, and she could hardly believe it. Instead of enjoying all the happiness for which she had waited so long, her heart was full of distress and she felt inclined to cry. She had been so uneasy in church, so shy and frightened: there was the reading of that paper before all those people; and directly after, amid all the confusion, Our Lord had come. Hastily and very distractedly she had said her prayers, had spoken, asked and prayed and then waited for the miracle, waiting for Our Lord, Who now, living in her, would speak. And nothing had happened, nothing: she had done her very best to listen amidst the bustle outside and around her ... and yet nothing, nothing! Meanwhile she had raised her head to breathe ... and the people were leaving and she had to go with them: it was finished! It had all been so matter-of-fact, just like the communion-practice of yesterday, when she had merely swallowed a morsel of bread. Her heart beat in perplexity and she feared that she had made an unworthy communion.

The wind blew under her veil, which flew up in the air behind her. She was so pure, so unspotted in all that white; and, cudgel her brains as she would, she could not remember any fault or sin which she had omitted to confess. Though Our Lord had not spoken to her, He had been there all the same and she had not heard Him because of all that was happening around her. She ought to have been alone there, in a silent church. Even here, outside, by the trees, would have been better.

The wives were asked in to coffee and they stood and waited for Horieneke at the garden-gate. Indoors everything was anyhow: Fonske was going about in his shirt, Bertje had one leg in his breeches and Dolfke sat on the floor, playing with Trientje. Father had made coffee and stood with the bottles and glasses ready, looking dumbfounded at his child, now that he saw her for the first time in her white clothes. The boys crowded round shyly; they no longer knew their sister in this great lady; they kept hold of one another shyly, with their fingers in their mouths; they were unable to speak a word. Mother threw off her cloak and began cutting currant-bread and butter. Horieneke was made to take off her veil and gloves and a towel was fastened under her chin. The wives and youngsters sat down. First a drop to each; all drank to the health of the little first-communicant; they touched glasses. Father poured out and Horieneke had to drink too: she put the stuff to her lips, pulled a wry face and pushed the glass away. The boys dipped and soaked the bread in their coffee; and the wives started talking about their young days and about clothes and the old ways and the fine weather and the fruit-crop. Mother did nothing but cut fresh slices of bread-and-butter, which were snatched away and gobbled up on every side.

"Eat away!" said father.

The hostess of "The Four Winds" had been unable to take her eyes off Horieneke all through mass.

"Damned pretty, like a little angel!" said Stiene Sagaer.

"And a curly head of hair like a ball of gold! It made one's mouth water! And that wreath!" squealed the farmer's wife from the Rent Farm.

"Mam'selle Julie had a hand in it."

"And such pretty manners! Well, dear, Our Lord will be mighty pleased with you."

"And how nicely she read that piece!" said Stiene. "My blood crept when I heard it. Look here, Wanne Vandoorn was sitting beside me; and, you can take my word, the good soul couldn't control herself and we both cried till we sobbed."

"I felt it too," said mother. "Such things are cruel hearing. And the priest...."

"Ah, he knows how to talk, that holy man! He's a pure soul."

"You'll regret it all your days, Ivo, that you weren't there to see it."

Father nodded and took another slice of bread-and-butter.

"It'll take me all the week to tell about it at home," said the farmer's wife.

The boys sat making fun among themselves of Stiene Sagaer's crooked nose and the squeaky voice of the farmer's wife. When the wives had done eating, they stood up and went.

When they had gone some little way, they turned round again and cried against the wind:

"It's going to be fine to-day, Ivo!"

"And warm!" piped the farmer's wife. "Beautiful weather!"

They went down the sand-path, each wending her own way home.

The boys were now dressed and father, stripped to the waist, went out to wash his face under the trees at the pump. His freshly-ironed white shirt was brought out and his shiny boots and his blue smock-frock and black-silk cap. After much fuss and turning and seeking, he got ready and the boys too. Mother was busy with the baby in the cradle; Horieneke was showing her new holy pictures to Trientje; and Bertje and the other boys had gone out to play in the road. The bells rang again, this time for high mass. Many small things had still to be rummaged out, clothes to be pinned and buttoned; and the boys, with their Sunday penny in their pocket, marched up the wide road to high mass.

The wind had dropped and the sun blazed in the clear blue of the sky, which hung full of unravelled white cloud-threads, showing gold at the edges. A gay light lay over all the young green; the huge fields were full of waving corn, which swayed and bowed and straightened again, shining in streaks as under clear, transparent water. The trees stood turned to the sun, as though painted, so bright that from a distance one saw all the leaves, finely drawn, gleaming against the shadows that lay below. Here they stood in close hedges on either side of the road, trunk after trunk, making a dark wall with a dense roof of leafage, which presently opened out in a rift at the turn of the road, where four tree-trunks stood out against the sky; and then the trees turned away to the left and were drawn up in two new rows, which stretched out beside the road right across the plain. Here and there a few other trees stood lonely in the fields, gathered in small clumps, with the light playing between them; and far away at the edge of the bright expanse, in a wealth of mingled green, amid the tufted foliage with its changing hues and shadows, the little pointed church showed above the uneven, red-tiled roofs. It was all like a restful dream, made up of Sunday peace. Above and around, all the air was sounding with the gay tripping music of the three bells as they rang together: a laughing song in the glad sunshine, summoning from afar the people who came from every side, clad in their best. The boys, in their new red-brown, fustian breeches, standing stiff with the tailor's crease in them, and their thick, wide jackets and shiny hats, held father's hand or skipped round Horieneke, whom they could not admire enough. In the village square they hid themselves and went to the booth to see how they could best spend their pennies.

The people stayed in the street, looking about, and did not go into the church until the little bell tolled out its tinkling summons and the last little maid had been looked at and had disappeared. Then the men knocked out their pipes against the tips of their shoes and sauntered in through the wide church-door.

The incense still hung about the aisles and the sun sifted its golden dust through the stained-glass windows right across the church. The congregation stood crowded and crammed together behind their chairs, looking at the gilt of the flowers and at the great mountain of votive candles that were burning before the altar. The organ had all its pipes wide open; and music streamed forth in great gusts that resounded in the street outside. The priest sang and rough men's voices chanted the responses with the full power of their throats. And the high mass proceeded slowly with its pomp of movement and song. The congregation prayed from their books or, overcome by the heat, sat yawning or gazing at the incense-wreaths or started nodding on their chairs. The saints stood stock-still, smiling from their pedestals and proud in their high day finery. When the singing ceased, one heard through the dreamy murmur of the organ the spluttering of the burning candles and the clatter on the brass dish of the sacristan making the collection. The priest once more mounted the pulpit and, with the same gestures and action, delivered the same admonitions as earlier in the morning. Again the people sat listening and weeping; others slept. More organ-music and singing and praying and the mass came to an end and the priest turned to the congregation and gave the blessing. They streamed out of church in a thick crowd and stood in the road again to see the youngsters pass. Then all of them made their several ways to the taverns. The first-communicants had to call on aunts and cousins and friends; and the poorer children went to show their clothes and asked for pennies.

Horieneke and father and the brothers went straight home to await the visitors. Before they reached the door, they smelt the butter burning in the pan, the roast and the vegetables. The stove roared softly; and on the flat pipe stood earthen and iron pots and pans simmering and fretting and sending up clouds of steam to the rafters. Amidst it all, mother hurried to and fro in her heavy wooden shoes. Her body still waggled in her wide jacket and blue petticoat. Her face shone with grease and perspiration. She puffed and sighed in the intolerable heat. The blue chequered cloth lay spread on the table; and all around were the plates with the freshly tinned spoons and forks and little beer-glasses.[8] Outside, the boys sat in the top of the walnut-tree, waiting and peering for any one coming. Father had taken off his blue smock and turned up his shirt-sleeves and now went to see to his birds. That was his great hobby and his work on Sunday every week. All the walls were hung with cages: in that big one were two canaries, pairing; in the next, a hen-canary sitting on her eggs; and in a little wire castle lived a linnet and a cock-canary and three speckled youngsters. The finches were in a long row of darkened cages and moulting-boxes. When he put out his hands, the whole pack started singing and whistling; they sprang and fluttered against the bars and pecked at his fingers. He took the cages down one by one, put them on the table and whistled and talked to his birds, cleaned the trays and filled the troughs with fresh water and seed. The canary-bird got a lump of white sugar and the linnet half an egg, because of her young ones. Then he stood and watched them washing their beaks and wings and splashing in the water, pecking at their troughs now full of seed and at their sugar and cheerfully hopping on and off their perches. Then, when they were all hung up again in their places on the wall, they all started whistling together till the kitchen rang with it. The baby screamed in its cradle. Trientje cried and mother stamped across the floor in her heavy wooden shoes.

[8] The West-Flemings brew a beer so extremely strong that it is served in quite small glasses, not more than half the size of an ordinary tumbler.

"Hi, mates, I see something!" Fonske called from the walnut-tree.

The boys stretched their necks and so did father: it was jogging along in the distance, coming nearer and nearer.

"Uncle Petrus and Aunt Stanse in the dog-cart!"

They slithered out of the tree like cats and ran down the road as fast as they could. The others now plainly heard the wheels rattling and saw the great dogs tugging and leaping along as if possessed. High up in the car sat uncle, with his tall hat on his round head, bolt upright in his glossy black-broadcloth coat; and beside him broad-bodied Aunt Stanse, with coloured ribbons fluttering round her cap and a glitter of beads upon her breast. In between them sat Cousin Isidoor, half-hidden, waving his handkerchief. They came nearer still, jolting up and down through the streaks of shade and sunlight between the trees. Uncle Petrus flourished his hand, pushed his hat back and urged the dogs on; aunt sat with her face aflame and the drops of sweat on her chubby cheeks, laughing, with her hands on her hips, because of the shaking of her fat stomach. The dogs barked and leapt right and left at the boys. Petrus jumped nimbly out of the cart, ran along the shafts and led the team with a stylish turn out of the road, through the gate, into the little garden, where it pulled up in front of the door. The dogs stood still, panting and lolling out their tongues. Mother was there too and cried, "Welcome," and took Doorke under the armpits and lifted him out of the cart. Aunt began by handing out baskets, parcels and bundles. Then, sticking out her fat legs, in their white stockings, she climbed out of the cart and looked round at the youngsters, who already stood hankering to know what was in the basket.

"Well, bless me, Frazie, I needn't ask you how it goes with the chickens! There's a whole band of them and all sound and well: just look at them! Oh, you fatty!" And she pinched Bertje's red cheeks. "And you too, Frazie."

"Look at the state I'm in!" said mother, sticking her hands under the apron stretched tight across her fat stomach and looking down at her bare legs. "Such a heap to do, no time to dress yet."

"You're all right as you are, Frazie; you've no need to hide your legs nor t'other either: you've a handsome allowance of both," said Uncle Petrus, chaffingly. "I'd like a drop of water for the dogs, though."

Father sent the bucket toppling down the well and turned the handle till it rose filled. The dogs stuck their heads into the bucket and lapped and gulped greedily. Cousin stood staring bashfully amid all those peasant-lads and all that jollity, while Bertje, Fonske and the others too did not come near, but stood looking at the little gentleman with his fine clothes and his thin, peaky face; they trotted and turned, whispered to one another, went outside and came back again, laughed and said nothing.

"But the first-communicant! Where's Horieneke?" asked Stanse, suddenly.

From the little green arbour, in between the trees, a golden curly-head came peeping, followed by a little white body and little Trientje too, holding a great bunch of yellow daffodils in her hand. Stanse stuck out her arms in the air:

"Oh, you little butterfly! Come along here, you're as lovely as an angel!"

And she lifted Horieneke from among the flowers, right up to her beaded breast, and pressed her thick lips to the child's forehead with a resounding smack.

"Godmother, godmother," whimpered Trientje.

"Yes, you too, my duck!"

And the child forthwith received two fat kisses on its little cheeks.

The dogs were now unharnessed and father and Petrus had gone for a stroll in the orchard. The boys stood crowding against the table, looking at aunt undoing her parcels. In one were sweet biscuits, in another brandy-balls, peppermints, pear-drops and toffy. All this was carefully divided into little stacks and each child was given his share, with the strict injunction not to eat any before noon. Fonske hid his in the drawer, next to the canary-seed, Dolfke his in the cupboard and Bertje shoved his portion into his pockets. It was not long before three or four of them were fighting like thieves and robbers, while Stanse and Frazie went to look at the baby, which lay sleeping quietly in the cradle.

First one more drop of cherry-gin apiece and then to dinner. The soup stood ready ladled out, steaming in the plates. Horieneke sat demurely in the middle, next to Doorke, with uncle and aunt on either side and, lower down, father and all the children: mother had to keep moving to and fro, waiting on them, snatching a mouthful now and again betweenwhiles. When every one was served and Trientje had stammered out her Our Father aloud, father once more stood up, as the master of the house, and said:

"You are all of you welcome and I wish you a good appetite."

The spoons began to clatter and the tongues to wag: uncle praised the delicious leek-soup, so did aunt; and then came endless questions from every side about the news of the district and all that had happened during the last ten or twelve years, ever since Frazie had married and left her home.

The children sat staring with wide-open eyes, now at their plates, now at aunt with her fat cheeks and her diamond cross that hung glittering at the end of a gold chain on her enormous breast; they counted the rings that were spitted on her fingers right up to the knuckles; they gazed at her earrings.... As the soup went down, the faces began to shine and mother pulled at her jacket and complained of the dreadful heat. Father pushed up the window and opened the back-door. The wind and the scented air, with pollen from the cherry-trees, now blew across the table and played refreshingly in their necks and ears. Mother kept on running about and serving: it was hot carrots now and boiled beef. Father took the flowered milk-jug and filled the little tumblers with beer. Slices of meat and fat were cut off with the big carving-knife and distributed; each received his plateful of glistening carrots; and the forks went bravely to work. After that, the great iron pot was set on the table, with the rabbits, which, roasted brown, lay outstretched in the appetizing, simmering gravy that smelt so good; and beside it a dish of steaming potatoes. The little tumblers were emptied and filled again; in between the loud talking you could hear the crunching of the teeth and the cracking of the bones; the children sat smeared to their eyes and picked the food in their plates with their hands. Uncle's eyes began to twinkle and he started making jokes, so much so that aunt had every moment to stop eating for laughing; then her broad head would fall backwards and her cheeks, which bloomed like ripe peaches, creased up and displayed two rows of gleaming ivory teeth. It all turned to a noisy giggling; and the general merriment could be heard far away in the other houses.

Uncle Petrus enjoyed teasing his sister and made her cry out each time he declared that, for all her waiting at table and running about, she had eaten more than he and Brother Ivo put together and that it was no wonder she had grown such a body and bred such fine youngsters. The mighty din woke the baby and started it crying loudly in its cradle. Fonske took it out and put it in mother's lap. It was as fresh and pink as a rose-bud; it kicked its little legs about and shoved its fists into its eyes.

"Yes, darling, you're hungry too, I expect."

And she unbuttoned her jacket and from behind her shift produced her great right breast. The baby stuck its hands into that wealth of whiteness, seized the proffered nipple in its mouth and started greedily sucking. After the first eager gulps it gradually quieted, closed its eyes and lay softly drinking, rocked on mother's heaving lap. Isidoorke kept looking at this as at something very strange that alarmed him. Horieneke, noticing it, held up a rabbit-leg to him and told him of those pretty white rabbits which she had seen slaughtered yesterday. The other youngsters had now eaten their fill and began to feel terribly bored at table. Bertje gave Fonske a kick on the shin and they went outside together, whispering like boys with some roguery in view. Wartje, Dolfke and the others followed them outside. When it was all well planned, they beckoned behind the door to Doorke; and, when the little man came out at last:

"Is it true, Doorke? Do you dare go among the dogs?"

And they led him on gently by his velvet jacket, behind the house to the bake-house, where the dogs lay blinking in the shade, with their heads stretched on their paws.

Doorke nodded; and, to show how well-behaved they were, he went close up to them and stroked their backs.

"And is it also true," asked Bertje, with mischievous innocence, "that you know how to harness them?"

Doorke looked surprised and again nodded yes.

"Let's see if you dare!"

"Hoo, hoo, Baron!" said Doorke.

And he took the dog by the collar, put the girths on him and fastened the traces while Fonske held up the cart.

"And that other one too?"

Doorke did the same with the other dog and with the third; and they were now all three harnessed. Bertje took the cart by the shafts and drew it very softly, without a sound, under the windows and through the little gate into the road. The other boys bit their fingers, held their breaths and followed on tip-toe. Then they all crept into the cart; and, when they were comfortably seated, Bertje took the reins and:

"Gee up!"

Wartje struck the dogs with the handle of the whip and they leapt forward lustily and the cart rolled along through the clouds of dust rising from the sandy road.

Horieneke had come up too and watched this silent sport; and she now stood alone with Doorke, looking along the trees, where the cart was disappearing towards the edge of the wood. When there was nothing more to see, they both went indoors.

Uncle and aunt and father were now talking quietly and earnestly, over three cups of coffee. Mother still sat with the baby on her lap, where it had fallen asleep while sucking. Aunt was constantly wiping the glistening perspiration from her forehead; and she unbuttoned her silk dress because she had eaten too much and her heart was beginning to swell.

"Shouldn't we be better out of doors?" she asked.

Mother tucked in her breast, buttoned her jacket and laid the child carefully in the cradle, near Trientje, who sat sleeping in her little baby-chair. They left everything as it was: table and plates and pots and glasses. Father and uncle filled their pipes and went outside under the elder-tree, in the shade. The wives tucked their clothes between their legs and lay down in the grass. Aunt had carefully rolled up her silk skirt and was in her white petticoat.

They now went on talking: an incessant tattle about getting children and bringing them up, about housekeeping and about land and sand and parish news, until, overcome by the heat and the weight of their bodies, they let their heads fall and closed their eyes and seemed to sleep. Uncle and father stood looking at them a little longer and then, in their white shirt-sleeves, with their thumbs in their tight trouser-bands, went up the narrow little path, in the blazing sun, to look at the wheat and the flax, which were already high.

Horieneke and Doorke were now left looking at each other. Horieneke began to tire of this; and she took the boy by the hand and led him into the house and up to her room. There she showed him her holy pictures on the wall and her little statues; they sat down side by side on the bed; and Horieneke told him the whole of her life and the doings of the last few days, all that she had longed for and to-day's happiness. The boy listened to her gladly; he looked at her with his big, brown eyes and sat still closer to her on the bed. He had now to see her pretty clothes; and they went together to the best bedroom where the veil lay and the wreath and her prayer-book and earrings. She must next really show him what she had looked like that morning in church; and he helped her put on the veil, placed the wreath on her curls and then took a few steps backwards to see. He thought her very pretty; and they smiled happily. Then everything was taken off again; and they went hand in hand, like a brother and sister who had not seen each other for some time, to walk in the little flower-garden. Here they looked at every leaf and named every flower that was about to open. When everything had been thoroughly inspected, they sat and chatted in the box arbour, very seriously, like grown-up people. Then they also became tired and Horieneke put her arm over Doorke's shoulder, allowed her golden curls to play in his eyes and in this way they walked out, down the road, towards the wood. Here they were all alone with the birds twittering in the trees and the crickets chirping in the grass beside the ditch.

Everywhere, as far as they could see, was corn and green fields and sunshine and stillness. They strolled down the long, cheerful road. Doorke held his arm round Horieneke's tight-laced little waist and listened to all the new things which his cousin described so prettily; and she too felt a great delight in having this boy, with his brown eyes and his lean shoulder-blades, beside her, listening to her and looking at her and understanding her ever so much better than her rough little brothers did. She would have liked to walk on all her life like this, in that golden sunshine, telling him how she had read that beautiful prayer in church this morning ... and about the priest's sermon ... and those pretty angels with their gold wings, who had walked up and down so calmly and placidly; about her dread during the communion-mass and her fear and sorrow because Our Lord had not spoken in her little heart. And so, talking and listening, they came to the wood. It looked so pleasant under those pollard alders in the shade and farther on in the dark, among the spruces, where the light filtered through in meagre rays, after that long walk in the blinding sun.

"Let's go in!" said Doorke and was on the point of going down the little path that ran beside the ditch, in among the trees.

"We mustn't!" said Horieneke; and she clutched him by the arm.

Her face grew very serious and she wrinkled her forehead:

"Look there!"

And she pointed through a gap between the trees down to the valley where, above the tall trunks, they could see the whole expanse of a big homestead, with the long thatched roofs of stable and barn and the tiles and slates of the house and turrets. She put her mouth to his ear and whispered:

"That's where the rent-farmer lives ... and he's a bad, bad man. He does wicked things to the little girls who go into the wood; and mother says that then they fall ill and die and then they go to Hell!"

Doorke did not understand very well, but he saw from Horieneke's wide-open eyes that it was serious. They sat down together on the edge of the ditch, with their legs in the grass, played with the daisies and listened to the thrushes gurgling deep down in the wood. They sat there for a long time. The sun sank to the top of the oak; the sky was flecked with white clouds which shot through the heavens in long diverging shafts, like a huge peacock's tail upon an orange field.

The children mused:

"I should like to fall down dead, here and now," said Horieneke.

Doorke looked up in surprise:

"Why, Horieneke?"

"Then I should be in Heaven at once."

They again sat thinking a little:

"Playing with the angels!... Have you ever seen angels, Doorke?"

"Yes, in the procession, Horieneke."

"Ah, but I mean live ones! I saw some last night, live ones; and they were in white, Doorke, with long trains and golden hair and diamond crowns, and they were singing in a beautiful garden!..."

With raised eyebrows and earnest gestures of her little forefinger, she told him all her dream of the angels and the swings and the singing and the music ... and of father with his sickle.

Doorke hung upon her words.

The thrush started anew and they sat listening.

"What will you do when you grow up, Doorke?"

And she put her arm round the boy's neck again and looked fondly into his eyes:

"Will you get married, Doorke?"

Doorke shook his head.

"Not even to me?"

And she looked at him with such a roguish smile that the boy felt ashamed. Then, to comfort him, she said:

"Nor I either, Doorke. Do you know what I'm going to do?"

"No, Horieneke."

"Listen, Doorke, I'll tell you all about it, but promise on your soul not to tell anybody: Bertje, Fonske and all the rest mustn't know."

Doorke nodded.

"Father wanted me to go into service down there, with all those wicked people. Then I cried for days and days and prayed to Our Lord; and mother told father that I was dying; and then she said that I might ... Try and guess, Doorke!"

Doorke made no attempt to guess. Then she drew him closer to her and whispered:

"Mother said I might stay at home and help her ... and afterwards, when I am grown up ... I shall become a nun, Doorke, in a convent; but first mother must get another baby, a new Horieneke.... And you?"

The boy didn't know.

"And you, Doorke, must learn to be a priest; then you and I will both go to Heaven."

Behind them, on the road, came a noise and a rush and an outcry so great that the children started up in fright. Look! It was Bertje and all the little brothers in the dog-cart, which was coming back home through the sand. When they saw cousin and Horieneke, they raised a mighty shout of joy and stopped. Bertje stood erect and issued his commands: all the boys must get out; he would remain sitting on the front seat, with Horieneke and Doorke side by side behind him, between two leafy branches, like a bride and bridegroom! Fonske cut two branches from an alder-tree and fastened them to either side of the cart. Then they set out, amid the shouting and cheering of the boys running in front and behind:

"Ready?"

"Ye-e-es!"

The dogs gave an angry jerk forward and the cart went terribly fast and Doorke clutched Horieneke with one hand and with the other warded off the hanging willow-twigs that lashed their faces.

The sun had gone down and a red light was glowing in the west, high up in the tender blue. The air had turned cooler and a cold, clammy damp was falling over the fields, which now lay steaming deadly still in the rising mist that already shrouded the trees in blue and darkened the distances.

At the turn of the road, the children stepped out of the cart and put it away carefully behind the bake-house, tied up the panting dogs and sauntered into the house.

"Father, we've been out with cousin," said Bertje.

They had to take their coffee and their cakebread-and-butter in a hurry: it was time to put the dogs in, said uncle.

Doorke said they were put in.

Frazie helped her sister on with her things:

"You'll find the looking-glass hanging in the window, Stanse. I must go and put on another skirt too and come a bit of the way with you."

The boys were to stay at home; they got the rest of the sweets and were ordered to bed at once. Horieneke was told to take off her best clothes; it was evening and the goats had still to be fed. She went to her little room reluctantly and could have cried because it was all over now and because it was so melancholy in the dark. She felt ashamed when she came down again and glanced askance at Doorke, who would think her so plain in her week-day clothes. The boy looked at her and said nothing; then he jumped into the cart and drove off slowly. Mother with Stanse and father with uncle came walking behind.

It was still light; the evening was falling slowly, slowly, as though the daylight would never end. In the west the sky was hung with white and gold tapestry against an orange background. On the other side, the moon, very wan still, floated in the pale-blue all around it. Beside the bluey trees long purple stripes of shadow now lay, with fallen clusters of branches, on the plain. You could hardly tell if day or night were at hand.

Uncle and aunt were extremely pleased with their visit; uncle looked contentedly into the distance and boasted that he had never seen such an evening nor such fine weather so early in the year, while Frazie at each step flung her arms into the air and stopped to say things to Stanse, whose good-natured laugh rang out over the plain and along the road. In front of them, Doorke, like a little black shadow, danced up and down in his cart to the jolting of the wheels as he jogged quietly along. The crickets chirped in the ditch; and from high up in the trees came the dying twitter of birds about to go to sleep.

Father wanted to drink a parting glass of beer in the Swan; Doorke could drive along slowly.

"Just five minutes then," said Petrus.

There were many people in the inn and much loud merriment. The new arrivals were soon sitting among the others, staying on and listening to all the jolly songs; and, when this had gone on for some time, they forgot the hour and the parting. Aunt Stanse held her stomach with laughing; she was not behindhand when the glasses had to be emptied or when her turn came to sing a song. Amid the turmoil, the rent-farmer came up to Frazie, took her impudently by the arm, laughingly wished her proficiat with her pretty daughter and, after slyly looking about him for confirmation, said, half in earnest:

"We're planting potatoes to-morrow at the Rent Farm, we shall want lots of hands; missie may as well come too."

And with that he went back to his game of cards.

This time, the leave-taking was genuine. Petrus got up; and it was good-bye till next year, when Doorke would make his first communion.

The cart was waiting outside the door; they stepped in, uncle took the reins.

"A safe ride home!"

"Thanks for the pleasant visit! And to our next merry meeting!"

"God speed!... Good-night!"

"Gee up!"

The dogs sprang forward, the cart rumbled along and soon the whole thing had become a shapeless black patch among the black trees. In the still night they could just hear the wheels rattling over the cobbles; and then Ivo and Frazie went home again.

A breeze came playing through the garden, sighing now and again with a sound as soft as silk; the moon shone upon the dark trees and its light played like golden snow-flakes dancing and fluttering down upon the gleaming crests of the green bushes and the milk-white plain. The air was heavy and stifling, full of warm damp; and strong-scented gusts of fresh, rain-laden perfumes blew across the road.

They stepped hurriedly on the legs of their long shadows and did not speak. There came a new rustling in the trees and a few big, cool drops of rain pattered on the sand, one here, one there and gradually quicker.

Ivo and Frazie hastened their pace; but, when the great drops began to fall on them thick as hail and around them in the sand, till the rain streaked through the air and rattled tremendously over their heads, mother held her body with both hands to prevent its shaking, Ivo tied his red handkerchief over his silk cap and they started running.

"It was main hot for the time of year."

"And the flowers smelt too strong and the thrush sang so loud."

It went on raining: a wholesome, cleansing downpour, a slow descent in slanting lines that glittered in the moonlight, bringing health to the earth. The air was fragrant with the wet grass and the white flowers: it was like a rich garden. At home, everything was put away, the table cleared and wiped; the lamp was alight and all the doors open. The boys were in bed. Horieneke had read evening prayers to them and then hurried to her little room, to be alone; and there she had lain thinking of all that had happened during that long day: her jaws ached from the constant smiling; and she felt dead-tired and sad.

Father took off his wet blouse and mother stirred up the fire: they would have one more cup of coffee, with a drop of something, and then go to bed. Ivo lit his pipe and stretched out his legs to dry beside the stove.

They drank their coffee and listened to the steady breathing of the boys and the dripping of the gutters on the cobbles outside. Father made a remark or two about uncle and aunt and about their village, but got only half-answers from his wife. Then, all of a sudden, he asked:

"What did the farmer come and say to you?"

Frazie sighed:

"They're planting potatoes to-morrow and we were to go and work; and Horieneke was to come too."

"Ay."

"But she'll stay here!"

"What do you mean, stay here?"

"Yes, she's got her work to do at home."

"All right; but if she has to go?"

"Don't care."

And mother stood with her arms akimbo, looking at her husband, waiting for his answer.

"And if he turns us out and leaves us without work!"

"And suppose our child comes home with a present ... from that beast of a farmer!"

Ivo knocked out his pipe:

"Pooh, that could happen to her anywhere; and, after all, she won't be tied to her mother's apron-strings all her life long!... When you live in a man's house and eat his bread, you've got to work for it and do his will: the master is the master. Come, let's go to bed; we've a lot to do tomorrow."

Suppressed sobs came from the little bedroom. Mother looked in. Horieneke lay with her hands before her eyes, crying convulsively.

"Well, what's the matter?"

The child pressed her head to the wall and wept harder than ever.

"Come along, wife, damn it! It's time that all this foolery was over, or she'll lose her senses altogether."

Mother grew impatient, bit her teeth:

"Oh, you blessed cry-baby!"

And angrily she thumped the child on the hip with her clenched fist and left her lying there.

"A nice thing, getting children: one'd rather bring up puppies any day!"

She turned out the light and it was now dark and still; outside, the thin rain dripped and the white blossoms blew from the trees and the whole air smelt wonderfully good. In the distance, the nightingale hidden in the wood jugged and gurgled without stopping; and it was like the pealing of a church-organ all night long.

* * * * *

The weather had broken up and the day dawned with a melancholy drizzle and a cold wind. The sky remained grey, discharging misty raindrops which soaked into everything and hung trembling like strung pearls on the leaves of the beech-hedge and on the grass and on the cornstalks in the fields. It was suddenly winter again. On the hilly field the people stood black, wrapped up, with their caps drawn over their ears and their red handkerchiefs round their necks. The hoes went up in the air one after the other and struck the moist earth, which opened into straight furrows from one end to the other of the field. Here wives walked barefoot, bent, with baskets on their arm from which they kept taking potatoes and laying them, at a foot's distance, in the open trench. In a corner of the field stood the farmer, his big body leaning on a stick; and his dark eyes watched his labourers.

There, in the midst of them, was Horieneke, bent also like the others, in her coarse workaday clothes, with a basket of seed-potatoes on her arm; and her red-gold curls now hung, like long corkscrews, wet against her face; and every now and then she would draw herself up, tossing her head back to keep them out of her eyes.

* * * * *

IN THE SQUALL

* * * * *

VI

IN THE SQUALL

At noon, under the blazing sun, all three started for the wood, after blackberries.

Trientje was in her cotton pinafore, with a straw hat on her head and a wicker basket on her arm. Lowietje stood in his worn breeches and his torn shirt; in his pocket he had a new climbing-cord. Each dragged Poentje by one hand, Poentje who still went about in his little shirt and, with his wide-straddling little bare legs, trotted on between brother and sister.

They went along narrow, winding foot-paths, between the cornfields, high as a man, through the flax-meadows and the yellow blinking mustard-flower. The sun bit into Lowietje's bare head and sent the sweat trickling down his cheeks.

They went always on, with their eyes fixed upon that thick crowd of blue trees full of blithe green and of dark depths behind the farthermost trunks.

Poentje became tired and let himself be dragged along by his hands. When he began to cry, they sat down in the ditch beside the corn to rest. Trientje opened her basket and they ate up all their bread-and-butter. Near them, in the grass, ants crept in and out of a little hole. Lowietje poked with a stick and the whole nest came crawling out. The children sat looking to see all those beasties swarm about and run away with their eggs.

All three stood up and went past the old mill, then through the meadow and so, at last, they came to the wood and into the cool shade. On the banks of the deep, hollowed path, it all stood thick as hail and black with the brambleberries. Lowietje picked, never stopped picking, and put them one by one in his mouth; and his nose and cheeks were smeared with red, like blood. Trientje steadily picked her whole basket full and Poentje sat playing on the way-side grass with a bunch of cornflowers.

In the wood, everything was still: the trees stood firmly in the blaze of the sun and the young leaves hung gleaming, without stirring. A bird sat very deep down whistling and its song rang out as in a great church. Turtle-doves cooed far away. Round the children's ears hummed big fat bees, buzzing from flower to flower. When the bank was stripped, they went deeper into the wood, Lowietje going ahead to show the way. They crept through the trees where it twilighted and where the sun played so prettily with little golden arrows in the leafage; from there they came into the high pine-wood. Look, look! There were other boys ... and they knew where birds lived!

"Listen, Trientje," said Lowietje. "You stay here with Poentje: I'll come back at once and bring your pinafore full of birds' eggs ... and young ones."

He fetched out his climbing-cord and, in a flash, all the boys were gone, behind the trees. Trientje heard them shout and yell and, a little later, she saw her little brother sitting high up on the slippery trunk of a beech. She put her hands to her mouth and screamed:

"Lo—wie!..."

It echoed three or four times over the low shoots and against the tall trees, but Lowietje did not hear.

A man now came striding down the path; he carried a gun on his shoulder. The boys had only just seen him and, on every side, they came scrambling out of the tree-tops, slid down the trunks and darted into the underwood. Breathless, bewildered and scared to death, Lowietje came to his sister and, with his two hands, held the rents of his trousers together:

"There were eight eggs there, Trientje, but the keeper came and, in the sliding, my trousers...."

And he let a strip fall. They were torn from end to end, from top to bottom, in each leg.

"Mother will be angry," said Trientje, very earnestly.

She took some pins from her frock and fastened the tears, so that the skin did not show.

Suddenly fell a rumbling thunder-clap that droned through all the wood and died away in a long chain of rough sounds. The children looked at one another and then at the trees and the sky. All stood black now, the sun was gone and a warm wind came working through the boughs, by gusts. It grew dark as night and at times most terribly silent.

And now—they all crossed themselves—a ball of fire flew through the sky and it cracked and broke and it tore all that was in the wood. The wind came up, the branches rocked and writhed and the leaves fluttered and tugged and heavy drops beat into the sand.

"Quick, quick!" said Trientje. "It's going to lighten!"

Lowietje said nothing and Poentje cried. Each took the child by one hand and they ran as fast as they could to get from under the trees.

"Ooh! Ooh!"

They dashed their hands before their eyes and stood still: a golden snake twisted round a tree and all the wood was bright with fire and there came a droning and a rumbling and a banging as of stones together and a hundred thousand branches burst asunder. Shivering, not daring to look up, they crossed themselves again and all three crept under the branches, deep down in a ditch. Trientje tied her pinafore over the little one's face and they sat there huddled together, shuddering and peeping through their fingers and saying loud Our Fathers.

"You must not look, Lowietje: the lightning would strike you blind."

The trees wrung their heavy boughs and everything squeaked and rustled terribly. The water rained and poured from the leafy vault on Trientje's straw hat, on Lowietje's bare head and right through his little torn shirt. And clap and clap of thunder fell; the sky opened and belched fire like a hot oven. The children sat nestling into each other's arms—Poentje down under the other two—and only when it had kept still for long did they all, trembling and terrified, dare to put out their heads.

"I wish we were home now!" sighed Lowietje.

Once more the sky was all on fire and rumbling and breaking and crackling till the earth quaked and shook.

"O God, O God, help us get out of the wood and home to mother!" whined Trientje.

When they opened their eyes again, they saw below them, in the bottom, a huge beech with a bough struck off and the white splinters bare, with leaves awkwardly twisted right round: it stood there like a fellow with one arm off.

The rain now fell steadily in straight stripes; the noise grew fainter and the sky broke open.

Soaked through with the wet, the children came creeping out of the ditch and now, holding their breaths, stood looking at that tree which was so awesomely cleft and at that crippled bough which hung swinging over space. The thunder still rumbled, but it was very far away, like heavy waggons rattling over hard stones. Lowietje caught his little brother up on his back and they made straight for the opening of the drove, where they saw a clear sky. They must get out of the wood, away from those trees where such fearful things happened and where it cracked so and where it was so dark.

Outside, the heaven hung full of gold-edged clouds and the sun drove its bright darts through the sky. The rain fell in lovely gleaming drops and all looked so new, so fresh and so strangely glad as after a fit of weeping, when the glistening tears hang in laughing eyes. 'Twas all so peaceful here and 'twas far behind them that the trees were twisted and bent. Here and there flew birds; and the cuckoo sat calling in a cornfield. Lowietje's shirt was glued to his skin; his trousers hung heavily from his limbs and his hair fell in dripping tresses, sticking along his cheeks. The white spots on Trientje's pinafore were run through with the black; and wet cornstalks whipped her little thin skirt. Poentje splashed with his naked little feet in the puddles and asked for mother.

"We're almost home, child," said Trientje, to soothe him.

They went through the wet grass and fragrant cornfields along the slippery footpaths to a big road.

Look, there, behind the turning, came mother: she had a sack-cloth over her head and two umbrellas under her arm; she looked angry and ugly.

"We shall get a beating," sighed Lowietje.

* * * * *

A PIPE OR NO PIPE

* * * * *

VII

A PIPE OR NO PIPE

He dropped his wheel-barrow, strode from between the shafts and went and looked into the great window of the tobacco-shop. His eyes were all full, as far as they could carry: an abundance and a splendour to dream about. He came a step nearer and rested his two elbows on the stone window-sill, to see more comfortably.

Two stacks of motley cigar-boxes stood on either side and ran together at the top into a rounded arch, from which hung long, long pipes, cinnamon-wood pipes, as thick as your arm, with green strings to them and huge, big bowls, artfully carved into the heads of the King, of hideous niggers, or of pretty girls with beads for eyes.

On thick, transparent glass slips lay whole files of meerschaum pipes, furnished with clear curved-amber mouthpieces: fishes' heads, lobster-claws holding an eggshell, horses' heads, cows' hoofs; rich cigar-holders of meerschaum, all over silver stars and gold bands. Heaps and heaps and lots and lots of every kind, as far as he could see; and all this was multiplied in two enormous mirrors, in which, yonder, far back among all this smoking-gear, he saw his own face staring at him out of his great, astonished eyes.

He sighed. It was all so beautiful, so rich! And now if mother had only got work!

He went over it once more. Down below, in little plush-lined trays, lay the small pipes, the boys' stuff. They lay scattered higgledy-piggledy, whole handfuls of them, crooked and straight, brown and black. His eyes thieved round voluptuously in those trays and they read with eager curiosity the neatly-written figures which informed the world how much each pipe cost.

Here, they were crooked, comical little things of black cocus-wood; there, they were motley, speckled round bowls, like birds' eggs, with white stems; but they cost too much. And yet they were so charitably beautiful! Now his eyes remained hankering after a splendid varnished bowl. It was almost tucked out of sight, but it glittered so temptingly and had a lovely brown ring at the edge, shading downwards to a pale gold-yellow: there was a little cup for the oil to sweat into and a fat cinnamon stem, with a horn mouthpiece. He examined it on every side and would have liked to turn it over with his eyes. Inside the bowl stood, in black figures:

"1 fr. 50."

"Mother!..."

That was the one he wanted, that was his. She had promised him a pipe if she got work to-day. If only she had brought work with her!

After one last look and one more ... he went on.

He caught up his barrow and pushed it, over the wide road, straight to the station.

There he had to wait.

He loitered round the dreary, deserted yard. The noon sun bit the naked stones; and everything, hiding and shrinking from that glowing sun-fire, seemed dead. The drivers sat slumbering on the boxes of their cabs; the horses stood on three legs, their heads down, crookedwise between the shafts, and now and then they gave a short stamp, to keep off the flies, which were terribly active. A group of loafers lay sleeping on their stomachs in the shade. A slow-moving vehicle drove past and disappeared round the corner. A dog came stepping up lazily and went and lay under the sunflowers near the signal-box, blinking his eyes.

There was nothing more that moved.

At last the train came gliding in very gently, without noise, and it sent a gulp or two of white smoke into the quivering blue sky.

Now the boy stood stretching his neck through the railings, on the look-out for his mother, whom he already saw in his thoughts, coming bent, with a heavily-laden bag of weaving-stuff; and the pipe was in his pocket ... or else nothing, nothing at all!

'Twas a fat gentleman that got out first; then a tall, thin one; then a woman; then another woman; always others; and now, now it was mother. She stuck out her thin leg, groping from the high foot-board to find the ground, and ... she had an empty blue-and-white canvas bag on her shoulder. His lower lip dropped sadly and he turned slowly to his barrow:

"No work yet. God better it!"

The mother threw her bag on the wheel-barrow and they went on, without speaking.

Straight opposite the tobacco-shop, the boy gave a sidelong glance at the great window, with all those rich things displayed behind it, and he whistled a little tune.

They had still far, very far to go, before they two were at home, in their village. And the sun was burning.

* * * * *

ON SUNDAYS

* * * * *

VIII

ON SUNDAYS

In his Sunday best! A red-and-yellow flowered scarf was tied round his sun-burnt neck and the two ends blew over his shoulders; a small brown-felt hat with a curly brim was drawn down upon his head and, from under it, came here and there a wisp of flaxen hair. He wore a small, open jacket, with a short waistcoat, from under which a clean blue shirt bulged out; and his long, much too long trousers fell in wide folds over his big cossack shoes.[9] Under his arm he carried a bundle knotted into a red handkerchief, while with the other hand he twirled a switch.

[9] Hob-nailed shoes fastened with straps.

He was a growing youngster, a well-set-up cowherd, with a brown, freckled face, small, pale-grey eyes, under milk-white eyebrows, and bony knees and elbows: a sturdy fellow in the making.

'Twas heavenly, grand Sunday weather: it shone with light and life and it was all green, pale, splendid green, against a clear blue sky in the middle of the afternoon.

He stepped on bravely, along the wide drove of elms, twisting his switch, and looked into the free sky with his young, grey-blue eyes. He thought ... of what? Of nothing! Truly, of nothing: what does a cowherd think of? Wait a bit, though; he was thinking: 'twas Sunday! It was Sunday once more, the glad Sunday! And there were so few Sundays in those long, long weeks. And he was going home for a few hours: yes, home; and from there to Stafke's and to Stafke's pigeons.

He was hard-worked at the farm: twenty-nine cow-beasts, which were always hungry and always wanted fattening; furthermore, a whole herd of calves and hogs: 'twas a drudging without end or bottom, from early morning to late at night, until his limbs hung lame.

The farmer was good but strict and could not abide sluggards; he looked for work, hard work; and this the lad was glad to give, but only while looking forward to the everlasting Sunday, in which lay all his happiness and cheer.

He quickened his steps; and the elms pushed by, one by one, and at last, ahead, very far down that dark hedge of stems and leafage, came a tiny opening where the trees seemed to touch one another.

Look! There, beside the little village church, stood Farmer Willems' homestead, with its little slate turret and the great poplars and, beside it, close together and quite hidden in the green, two little cottages. 'Twas there that he was brought up and had grown up; there, in one of those cottages. In the other lived Stafke's father and mother. The children had led the half-wild life of the country there: two little boys together. They had clambered up those mighty trees, weltered in the sand of the drove and coursed like foals in the meadow. The farm was a free domain to them; they were at home in it; they went daily to the little door of the wash-house to fetch their slice of rye-bread-and-butter and, in the morning, an apple or a pear. They had lain and rolled in the hay-loft, like fish in the water; but all that had passed so quickly, so very quickly. The parish-priest came; and, for six months, six long months, they had had to go to school and church. Then, on a certain Monday morning, father said:

"Lad, you're coming along to the farm to-day, to bind corn."

Play was over, the free play of the country! They were pressed into labour, were saddled with the labourer's heavy burden. Since then, it had been an endless roving after work, from one farm to another, with his bundle under his arm.

Stafke had remained serving at Willems', with father, and he, on Sunday afternoons, had not so far to go, under the burning sun, in order to get home.

The way was long for an unthinking lad; and they seemed endless, those never-changing rows of tree-trunks, those uncounted yellow, blinking cornfields ... and never a creature on the road. It was something very much out of the way when a pigeon flew through the azure sky; the lad stood still and, turning round, followed the great ring which it made until it dropped far away, yonder among the houses of the village. Then he went on, pondering, as he went, that there was nothing, absolutely nothing lovelier than a milk-white pigeon in a pale-blue sky; and he whispered:

"Perhaps it's Stafke's pigeon."

On reaching home, he laid down his bundle; his baby sister came running up to him, with her little arms wide open, and held him by his legs; and he lifted her twice, three times above his head. He handed mother his earnings; and then, out of the door, to Stafke's!

"Roz'lie, is he in?"

"Oh, yes, he's up in the loft, with the pigeons."

He climbed up the ladder, in three steps and as carefully as he could, to the dovecote. Behind a swarm of half-stretched and loose-hanging clouts and canvas things, a lad sat on an overturned tub, his fair-haired curly head in his hands, his elbows on his knees, peering through a sort of lattice-work. Jaak sat down at the other side, on a bundle of maize, in just the same attitude, and looked too....

There were white, snow-white, mottled, blue, slate-blue, russet, speckled, grey, black-flecked, striped and spotted pigeons, doves, pouters—some cocks, the rest hens—a motley crowd all mixed up together. There were some that sat murmuring one to the other, softly—oh, so softly—and nodding their heads for sheer kindliness. Others cooed loudly, angrily or indifferently and tripped round one another. Others sat huddled, meditating, lonely and forlorn, blinking their bright little glittering eyes.

Through the holes, from the resting-board, new ones came walking in with shy feet and sought a little place for themselves; others passed out through the narrow opening and, flapping their wings, rose into the sky. 'Twas a humming and muttering without end, a murmuring and whispering loud and soft and a restless stir and movement: a little world full of neatly-dressed damsels, who were all so lightly, so prettily decked out and who knew how to manage their trains and their fine clothes so demurely and so comically. They carefully combed and cleaned their black velvet ruffs, smoothed their sharp-striped feathers one by one, fondled and rubbed their downy breasts till they shone like new-blown roses....

And Jaak and Stafke sat watching this, sat watching this, like two steel statues, sweating in that warm loft. They did not stir nor speak a single word.

And that lasted and went on....

It grew dusk. From every side the pigeons came flying in, whole troops of them, and sought their well-known roosts. They stood two and two, closely crowded together on the perches or huddled in the holes. They drew their heads into their feathered throats and slept. The rumour diminished to just a soft mumbling; and then nothing more. The pigeon that sat over there, squatting low on her eggs, faded from sight in her dark corner; and the whole upper row vanished in the dusk of the rafters.

The boys still sat on.

The dovecote became a pale-grey twilight thing, with drab and black patches here and there. The soft humming passed into a faint buzz that died away quite; and all was silence.

They both together stood up straight, gave a long-drawn sigh and went below.

"It's getting dark," said Jaak, wiping the sweat from his face. "The cows will be waiting."

"Yes," said Stafke. "It gets evening all at once. Well, Jaak, till Sunday."

And Jaak went away, through the now moonlit drove, with a new bundle under his arm and thinking of the farm, of his twenty-nine cow-beasts and of Sunday and of Stafke's pigeons....

* * * * *

Il y a des malheurs qui arrivent d'un pas si lent et si sur qu'ils paraissent faire partie de la vie journaliere.

MONTALEMBERT.



AN ACCIDENT

* * * * *

IX

AN ACCIDENT

He had been half awake several times already, but each time he had slipped back into an uneasy doze, a restless, wearisome sojourn in a strange, drowsy world, in which he struggled with stupid, silly dream-spectres, all jumbled together in a huddled mass of incoherent, impossible thoughts and actions; a blank world in which all his workaday doings were forgotten; an after-life of tiring sleep following on the carouse of yesterday. He lay half-suffocated in the stifling heat of that tiled garret, lay tossing on a straw mattress. And suddenly, with a jolt that jerked him sleeping like a beast of burden. And now why couldn't he take life as it came, like his mates, who just went through it anyhow, without any calculating, callously and cheerfully, something like a machine which, when the sun comes out and it is daylight, begins to move arms and legs, to twist and turn the whole day long and, when it is evening again and dark, falls down and remains lying dead, for a few hours, with all the other things?

He drew himself up, thrust his thin legs into his trousers, his arms into a dirty jacket and let his weary limbs carry him below. His mother had buttoned up the linen satchel with his two slices of bread-and-butter and had ladled out his porridge. He went out followed by a "God guard you, lad!" and the little woman looked after her boy till he had vanished out of the alley. She was so fond of him, he knew it; yes, he knew all about that tender love, which he so often rejected in a moment of churlish impatience; but still he was sorry afterwards, even though he never showed it. That prim, old-fashioned little woman, with her cramped ways, was his mother; his father had been a drunkard and had been killed at his work: that was his parentage; it was their fault that he led this poverty-stricken existence.

He walked on, without looking up at all the swarming life around him, went step by step over the slippery cobbles, straight to his work. His work: why must he work, always that everlasting toiling, while others lived and enjoyed their lives without doing anything? He too had once thought—but it was only a dream—of becoming something; he had felt something stirring just there, inside him, and that seed would have sprouted and blossomed if they had only tended it; but they had ruthlessly repelled him, had refused to take him up with them on the heights; and he had remained in the mud, alone, all alone.

There it rose before him: a mighty edifice in building, with behind it a radiant summer sun that blazed forth high above the framework of the roof in the morning sky and made that giant structure stand black in its own shadow.

That was his work. All that mass of bricks he had seen grow into the mighty whole; and there it stood now, a huge block, with heavy, massive outlines, contained—held upright, it seemed—by a jumble of dirty-white stakes and posts, crossed and criss-crossed with planks. Out of a dirty hodge-podge of crazy houses, walls black with smoke, little inner rooms which for the first time saw the white light of day, with ragged strips of wall-paper and whitewash among rotten beams and rafters straight and askew, all of which his stubborn labour had made to fall and disappear, and out of those deep-dug foundations, out of that drudging in the dirty ground, those stout walls had grown stone by stone, had risen high into the sky—oh, the hard work of it!—and, tapering by degrees, had shot up to form that mighty building. Wall by wall, wrought at and toiled at, held together by pillars running beside narrow pointed windows to those peaked gable-steps, running into a forest of masts, of slanting beams that had to bear the roof, the whole of that sprawling monster had gradually acquired a sense and a meaning and become the splendid masterpiece that now stood there, solidly fixed against the blue sky like a magic crystallized phrase.

That beginning all over again, day after day, at the same work; all that busy stir of men and stones, now high in the air, now deep below; that incessant climbing up and down those swaying ladders: all this had made such a deep impression on him, had implanted itself into him so firmly that at the first sight of it he felt smitten with impotence, with a mechanical discouragement that gripped his whole being and made him work throughout the day as though urged by an all-ruling deity set there in the symbolic shape of that giant colossus at which he toiled. It seemed to him that he was an indispensable little part of that great building, a small moving thing with but a tiny atom of intelligence—sometimes—and fatally dragged along in that whirling circle, under the behest of the masters, who knew their way through every stroke and line of the great plan, who had all that great work in their heads and on paper and who possessed the power to bring all that complicated machine into operation. And he just went to work like a dog, set going by the mournful knocking of the stone-chopper, the shrill screech of the toothless iron marble-saw and all the banging and knocking and hewing up yonder at the top of things. He took his wooden hod, filled it with bricks and slowly climbed the ladder. He was once more the dismal noodle of last week, the hypnotized bag-o'-nerves that let himself be swept along in the whirlwind of habit and vexation, dazed by that awful hugeness which he was helping to complete and driven on by the ever-pursuing pair of eyes of his strict foreman. And his head ached so; and he felt so sick; and his legs bent under the load.

On he had to go and on. His head no longer took part in the work; his legs kept on going up and down the rungs with those bricks, those everlasting bricks: he did not know how many, just hauled them up, without stopping.

It seemed to him sometimes that the whole mass of walls and scaffolding, labourers and foremen made but a single being: a sort of fearsome deity, something like an unwieldy monster with inhuman, cruel feelings, something which had to be fed with all that workmen's sweat; and all this feverish activity seemed to him the whirling along of a crowd of unfortunates who had stepped into the fatal circle marked out for them, never to leave it again. Everything seemed so unsteady to-day: those walls on which he had to walk tottered; and he took such a pleasure in looking, in looking for a long time down below, yonder where the men and women were like ants and the great blocks of freestone became little bricks. It gave him such a delicious wriggling in the bowels, a tickling in his blood; and he felt his hair tingling on his head. Was not this the way to obtain release from that hard labour, to get out of that brain-racking circle?