able--so different
in their stylish coats, square hats and canes, from the blue-chinned
kindly slovens that one meets in the Latin countries. (In the train
near Nymwegen, however, where the priests wear beavers, I travelled
with a humorous old voluptuary who took snuff at every station and was
as threadbare as one likes a priest to be.) Looking into the new Roman
Catholic church at Groningen I found a little company of restless boys,
all eyes, from whom at regular intervals were detached a reluctant
and perfunctory couple to do the Stations of the Cross. I came as
something like a godsend to those that remained, who had no one to
supervise them; and feeling it as a mission I stayed resolutely
in the church long after I was tired of it, writing a little and
examining the pictures by Hendriex, a modern painter too much after
the manner of the Christmas supplement--studied the while by this
band of scrutinising penitents. I hope I was as interesting and
beguiling as I tried to be. And all the time, exactly opposite the
Roman Catholic church, was reposing in the library of the University
no less a treasure than the New Testament of Erasmus, with marginal
notes by Martin Luther. There it lay, that afternoon, within call,
while the weary boys pattered from one Station of the Cross to another,
little recking the part played by their country in sapping the power
of the faith they themselves were fostering, and knowing nothing of
the ironical contiguity of Luther's comments.

By leaving Groningen very early in the morning I gained another proof
of the impossibility of rising before the Dutch. In England one can
easily be the first down in any hotel--save for a sleepy boots or
waiter. Not so in Holland. It was so early that I am able to say
nothing of the country between Groningen and Meppel, the capital of
the peat trade, save that it was peaty: heather and fir trees, shallow
lakes and men cutting peat, as far as eye could reach on either side.

Here in the peat country I might quote a very pretty Dutch proverb:
"There is no fuel more entertaining than wet wood and frozen peat:
the wood sings and the peat listens". The Dutch have no lack of folk
lore, but the casual visitor has not the opportunity of collecting very
much. When there is too much salt in the dish they say that the cook is
in love. When a three-cornered piece of peat is observed in the fire,
a visitor is coming. When bread has large holes in it, the baker is
said