e world, was all I could muster; and
when I had made it, the sound of my own voice terrified me so much, that
I finished the can at a draught, to reanimate my courage.

"Ja! Ja!" said Van Hoogendorp, in a cadence as solemn as the bell of
the cathedral; "I have seen many strange things; I remember what few men
living can remember: I mind well the time when the 'Hollandische Vrow'
made her first voyage from Batavia, and brought back a paroquet for the
burgomaster's wife; the great trees upon the Boomjes were but saplings
when I was a boy; they were not thicker than my waist;" here he looked
down upon himself with as much complacency as though he were a sylph.
"Ach Gott! they were brave times, schiedam cost only half a guilder the
krug."

I waited in hopes he would continue, but the glorious retrospect he had
evoked, seemed to occupy all his thoughts, and he smoked away without
ceasing.

"You remember the Austrians, then?" said I, by way of drawing him on.

"They were dogs!" said he, spitting out.

"Ah!" said I, "the French were better then?"

"Wolves!" ejaculated he, after glowing on me fearfully.

There was a long pause after this; I perceived that I had taken a wrong
path to lead him into conversation, and he was too deeply overcome
with indignation to speak. During this time, however, his anger took a
thirsty form, and he swigged away at the schiedam most manfully.

The effect of his libations became at last evident, his great green
stagnant eyes flashed and flared, his wide nostrils swelled and
contracted, and his breathing became short and thick, like the
convulsive sobs of a steam-engine when they open and shut the valves
alternately; I watched these indications for some time, wondering what
they might portend, when at length he withdrew his pipe from his mouth,
and with such a tone of voice as he might have used, if confessing a
bloody and atrocious murder, he said--

"I will tell you a story."

Had the great stone figure of Erasmus beckoned to me across the
marketplace, and asked me the news "on change," I could not have been
more amazed; and not venturing on the slightest interruption, I refilled
my pipe, and nodded sententiously across the table, while he thus began.

CHAPTER III. VAN HOOGENDORP'S TALE.

It was in the winter of the year 1806, the first week of December, the
frost was setting in, and I resolved to pay a visit to my brother, whom
I hadn't seen for forty years; he was burgomaste