Part 10 (2/2)

”Ah!” he exclaimed, ”how damp and misty that part of the country is, and the soil so bad for the tulips! And then Rosa will not be at Loewestein!”

Chapter 13

What was going on all this Time in the Mind of one of the Spectators

Whilst Cornelius was engaged with his own thoughts, a coach had driven up to the scaffold This vehicle was for the prisoner He was invited to enter it, and he obeyed

His last look was towards the Buytenhof He hoped to see at thethe face of Rosa, brightening up again

But the coach was drawn by good horses, who soon carried Van Baerle away fro the shouts which the rabble roared in honour of thewith it a spice of abuse against the brothers De Witt and the Godson of Cornelius, who had just now been saved froested to the worthy spectators re: -- ”It's very fortunate that we used such speed in having justice done to that great villain John, and to that little rogue Cornelius, otherwise his Highness ht have snatched the all the spectators whom Van Baerle's execution had attracted to the Buytenhof, and whoreeably surprised, undoubtedly the one her, who froood use of his feet and elbows that he at last was separated from the scaffold only by the file of soldiers which surrounded it

Many had shown theuilty Cornelius flow, but not one had shown such a keen anxiety as the individual just alluded to

The most furious had come to the Buytenhof at daybreak, to secure a better place; but he, outdoing even theht at the threshold of the prison, from whence, as we have already said, he had advanced to the very fore so the others

And when the executioner had conducted the prisoner to the scaffold, the burgher, who had mounted on the stone of the pump the better to see and be seen, ain, isn't it?”

The executioner answered by another sign, which was her was no other than Mynheer Isaac Boxtel, who since the arrest of Cornelius had coet hold of the three bulbs of the black tulip

Boxtel had at first tried to gain over Gryphus to his interest, but the jailer had not only the snarling fierceness, but likewise the fidelity, of a dog He had therefore bristled up at Boxtel's hatred, who trifling inquiries to contrive with the more certainty some means of escape for him

Thus to the very first proposals which Boxtel made to Gryphus to filch the bulbs which Cornelius van Baerle must be supposed to conceal, if not in his breast, at least in some corner of his cell, the surly jailer had only answered by kicking Mynheer Isaac out, and setting the dog at him

The piece which the e Boxtel He cae, but this time Gryphus was in bed, feverish, and with a broken arm He therefore was not able to admit the petitioner, who then addressed hiold if she would get the bulbs for hi the value of the object of the robbery, which was to be so well remunerated, had directed the tempter to the executioner, as the heir of the prisoner

In the meanwhile the sentence had been pronounced Thus Isaac had noto the idea which Rosa had suggested: he went to the executioner

Isaac had not the least doubt that Cornelius would die with the bulbs on his heart

But there were two things which Boxtel did not calculate upon: -- Rosa, that is to say, love; Williae, that is to say, clemency

But for Rosa and Williahbour would have been correct

But for William, Cornelius would have died

But for Rosa, Cornelius would have died with his bulbs on his heart

Mynheer Boxtel went to the headsreat friend of the condeht all the clothes of the dead uilders; rather an exorbitant suold and silver to the executioner

But as the suuilders to a man as all but sure to buy with it the prize of the Haarlem Society?

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

The heads 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 re was,the ”faithful brethren,” when one of their masters died a public death in the yard of the Buytenhof

A fanatic like Cornelius ive a hundred guilders for his remains

The executioner also readily acquiesced in the proposal,paid in advance

Boxtel, like the people who enter a show at a fair,out

Boxtel paid in advance, and waited

After this, the reader ine how excited Boxtel hat anxiety he watched the guards, the Recorder, and the executioner; and hat intense interest he surveyed the movements of Van Baerle Hoould he place himself on the block? hoould he fall? and would he not, in falling, crush those inestimable bulbs? had not he at least taken care to enclose theold is the hardest of alldelay irritated him Why did that stupid executioner thus lose ti his sword over the head of Cornelius, instead of cutting that head off?

But when he saw the Recorder take the hand of the conde forth the parchment from his pocket, -- when he heard the pardon of the Stadtholder publicly read out, -- then Boxtel was no er, of the hyena, and of the serpent glistened in his eyes, and vented itself in his yell and his et at Van Baerle, he would have pounced upon hiled hio with him to Loewestein, and thither to his prison he would take with hiarden where the black tulip would flower for him

Boxtel, quite overcoemen, who, like him, were sorely vexed at the turn which affairs had taken They,the frantic cries of Mynheer Isaac for dean to belabour him with kicks and cuffs, such as could not have been adhter on the other side of the Channel

Bloere, however, nothing to hi away Cornelius with his bulbs But in his hurry he overlooked a paving-stone in his way, sturavity, rolled over to a distance of soriue, with their muddy feet, had passed over hih for one day, but Mynheer Boxtel did not see his clothes torn, his back bruised, and his hands scratched, he inflicted upon hi out his hair by handfuls, as an offering to that Goddess of envy who, as y 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 learnedat the prison he reater As chance would have it, the cell formerly inhabited by the illustrious Barneveldt happened to be vacant, when the clee 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 froot to examine

On the other hand, it seemed to Van Baerle an auspicious o 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 historical character 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 frorated