You left off where he caught your arm, Raff.""Yes," resumed her husband, "and I can see his face this minute--so white and wild-looking. 'Take me down this river a way,' says he. I was working then, you'll remember, far down on the line, across from Amsterdam. I told him I was no boatman.
'It's an affair of life and death,' says he. 'Take me on a few miles. Yonder skiff is not locked, but it may be a poor man's boat and I'd be loath to rob him!' (The words might differ some, vrouw, for it's all like a dream.) Well, I took him down--it might be six or eight miles--and then he said he could run the rest of the way on shore. I was in haste to get the boat back.
Before he jumped out, he says, sobbing-like, 'I can trust you.
I've done a thing--God knows I never intended it--but the man is dead. I must fly from Holland.""What was it? Did he say, Raff? Had he been shooting at a comrade, as they do down at the University at Gottingen?""I can't recall that. Mayhap he told me, but it's all like a dream. I said it wasn't for me, a good Hollander, to cheat the laws of my country by helping him off that way, but he kept saying, 'God knows I am innocent!' And he looked at me in the starlight as fair, now, and clear-eyed as our little Hans might--and I just pulled away faster.""It must have been Jan Kamphuisen's boat," remarked Dame Brinker dryly. "None other would have left his oars out that careless.""Aye, it was Jan's boat, sure enough. The man will be coming in to see me Sunday, likely, if he's heard, and young Hoogsvliet too. Where was I?""Where were you? Why, not very far, forsooth--the lad hadn't yet given ye the watch--alack, I misgive whether he came by it honestly!""Why, vrouw," exclaimed Raff Brinker in an injured tone. "He was dressed soft and fine as the prince himself. The watch was his own, clear enough.""How came he to give it up?" asked the dame, looking uneasily at the fire, for it needed another block of peat.
"I told ye just now," he answered with a puzzled air.
"Tell me again," said Dame Brinker, wisely warding off another digression.
"Well, just before jumping from the boat, he says, handing me the watch, 'I'm flying from my country as I never thought I could.
I'll trust you because you look honest. Will you take this to my father--not today but in a week--and tell him his unhappy boy sent it, and tell him if ever the time comes that he wants me to come back to him, I'll brave everything and come. Tell him to send a letter to--to'--there, the rest is all gone from me. ICAN'T remember where the letter was to go. Poor lad, poor lad!"resumed Raff, sorrowfully, taking the watch from his vrouw's lap as he spoke. "And it's never been sent to his father to this day.""I'll take it, Raff, never fear--the moment Gretel gets back.
She will be in soon. What was the father's name, did you say?
Where were you to find him?"
"Alack!" answered Raff, speaking very slowly. "It's all slipped me. I can see the lad's face and his great eyes, just as plain--and I remember his opening the watch and snatching something from it and kissing it--but no more. All the rest whirls past me; there's a sound like rushing waters comes over me when I try to think.""Aye. That's plain to see, Raff, but I've had the same feeling after a fever. You're tired now. I must get ye straight on the bed again. Where IS the child, I wonder?"Dame Brinker opened the door, and called, "Gretel! Gretel!""Stand aside, vrouw," said Raff feebly as he leaned forward and endeavored to look out upon the bare landscape. "I've half a mind to stand beyond the door just once.""Nay, nay." She laughed. "I'll tell the meester how ye tease and fidget and bother to be let out in the air; and if he says it, I'll bundle ye warm tomorrow and give ye a turn on your feet.
But I'm freezing you with this door open. I declare if there isn't Gretel with her apron full, skating on the canal like wild.
Why, man," she continued almost in a scream as she slammed the door, "thou'rt walking to the bed without my touching thee!
Thou'lt fall!"
The dame's thee proved her mingled fear and delight, even more than the rush which she made toward her husband. Soon he was comfortably settled under the new cover, declaring, as his vrouw tucked him in snug and warm, that it was the last daylight that should see him abed.
"Aye! I can hope it myself," laughed Dame Brinker, "now you have been frisking about at that rate." As Raff closed his eyes, the dame hastened to revive her fire, or rather to dull it, for Dutch peat is like a Dutchman, slow to kindle, but very good at a blaze once started. Then, putting her neglected spinning wheel away, she drew forth her knitting from some invisible pocket and seated herself by the bedside.
"If you could remember the man's name, Raff," she began cautiously, "I might take the watch to him while you're sleeping.
Gretel can't but be in soon."
Raff tried to think but in vain.
"Could it be Boomphoffen?" suggested the dame. "I've heard how they've had two sons turn out bad--Gerard and Lambert?""It might be," said Raff. "Look if there's letters on the watch;that'll guide us some.""Bless thee, man," cried the happy dame, eagerly lifting the watch. "Why, thou'rt sharper than ever! Sure enough. Here's letters! L.J.B. That's Lambert Boomphoffen, you may depend.
What the J is for I can't say, but they used to be grand kind o'
people, high-feathered as fancy fowl. Just the kind to give their children all double names, which isn't Scripture, anyway.""I don't know about that, vrouw. Seems to me there's long mixed names in the holy Book, hard enough to make out. But you've got the right guess at a jump. It was your way always," said Raff, closing his eyes. "Take the watch to Boompkinks and try.""Not Boompkinks. I know no such name; it's Boomphoffen.""Aye, take it there.""Take it there, man! Why the whole brood of them's been gone to America these four years. But go to sleep, Raff, you look pale and out of strength. It'll al come to you, what's best to do, in the morning.
