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Page 59
Van Baerle was sufficiently versed in the history of his
country to know that the celebrated Grotius was confined in
that castle after the death of Barneveldt; and that the
States, in their generosity to the illustrious publicist,
jurist, historian, poet, and divine, had granted to him for
his daily maintenance the sum of twenty-four stivers.
"I," said Van Baerle to himself, "I am worth much less than
Grotius. They will hardly give me twelve stivers, and I
shall live miserably; but never mind, at all events I shall
live."
Then suddenly a terrible thought struck him.
"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
the window the face of Rosa, brightening up again.
But the coach was drawn by good horses, who soon carried Van
Baerle away from among the shouts which the rabble roared in
honour of the most magnanimous Stadtholder, mixing with it a
spice of abuse against the brothers De Witt and the godson
of Cornelius, who had just now been saved from death.
This reprieve suggested to the worthy spectators remarks
such as the following: --
"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 might have snatched
them from us, just as he has done this fellow."
Among all the spectators whom Van Baerle's execution had
attracted to the Buytenhof, and whom the sudden turn of
affairs had disagreeably surprised, undoubtedly the one most
disappointed was a certain respectably dressed burgher, who
from early morning had made such a good 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 themselves eager to see the perfidious blood
of the guilty 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 them, had
passed the night at the threshold of the prison, from
whence, as we have already said, he had advanced to the very
foremost rank, unguibus et rostro, -- that is to say,
coaxing some, and kicking 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, made to the executioner
a sign which meant, --
"It's a bargain, isn't it?"
The executioner answered by another sign, which was meant to
say, --
"Be quiet, it's all right."
This burgher was no other than Mynheer Isaac Boxtel, who
since the arrest of Cornelius had come to the Hague to try
if he could not get hold of the three bulbs of the black
tulip.
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