I must tell you about that great walk we took from Leyden to Haarlem. That was just after Terence came back from Germany, wearied with waiting till his learned Dad would cease pottering about the museums in Bonn.

He wrote to van Leeuwen in Arnhem; and urged that youth use his influence with the University Librarian to let Dr. MacNamara see the Irish manuscripts he was so keen upon. Then, if you please, my brave Terence thought his duties were over, as far as helping his father was concerned. Taking the next train for the Hague he turned up unexpectedly at my lodgings.

That was at six in the morning, and he banged at my bedroom door till I was awake.

“I’m back,” he said: “And I’m going to carry you off on that famous bicycle tour of yours. Hurry up with all those papers and preparations and things,—and I’ll be round with my bike in no time!”

“Well!” I shouted through the closed door, “you may come as soon as ever you like; but there’ll be no bicycle tour to-day. I’m not nearly ready yet. I’ve all the nouns from T to Z to learn yet; and it’ll take me another week. Catch me leaving this neighbourhood without those nouns! No, my boy. But I’ll take a tramp with you to the seaside, if you like.”

He didn’t wait for my explanations but pranced off grumbling, and I didn’t see him till noon. He was then quite willing to fall in with my project of a long walk—first by the strand to Noordwijk, then inland through the dunes, and so on to Haarlem.

We only got as far as Noordwijk that evening. After a heavy miserable trudge by the shore, and mostly through loose sand, we were glad enough to put up at Huis-ter-Duin for the night. The sunset, magnificent though it was, could hardly banish the deep sleepiness that seized us. Terence, who was in better training than I, sat up smoking a while, but I heard him go off to his room before I fell over. All the music, laughter, and talk about the place, never in the slightest degree disturbed our slumber.

I slept like a log, and awoke early, with the sound of the sea in my ears. It was a softly modulated, gentle murmur that seemed to call me; and when I looked out, the view was superb. Deep blue, almost indigo in hue, and calm as oil, the waves stood high on the sands. Every now and then a long, knife-like billow would slowly rise up for half-a-mile or so, poise itself for an instant, and then fall with a mighty flap, like a wall of slate. Away out towards the horizon the ocean gleamed a fairy-like blue and opal; but close at hand it had a deep, menacing tint that took your breath away. And all the time those slatey ledges of water kept languidly lifting themselves and suddenly dropping, as if they were alive.

When I opened the window, a cool wind softly stole in—like some subtle elixir. I looked at my watch. It was half past four. Fired with the idea of having a tramp by that mysterious light, I went off and roused Terence—happily without terrifying the other inmates of the hotel. He was willing to make an early start if I could secure him enough breakfast.

This required some diplomacy. Suddenly encountering a knecht prowling about and collecting boots, I tried to communicate our plans to him, and gain his sympathy. No idiom, however, that I was acquainted with was equal to this strain: so I had recourse to the language of gesture and the display of coin. This at last induced him to bring us part of his own modest breakfast—a chunk of black bread and a hard-boiled egg—and to let us out by the front door.

He kept our bags, however, and a bankbiljet, to settle the rekening provisionally, and as an evidence of good faith. It was a fussy business getting him to agree even to this, and in consequence I quite forgot about my dictionary and “walking-tour notes”—which were strapped up in the bag.

Indeed, I didn’t notice the neglect till we were far away from the hotel. But there was no Dutch needed for a long time.

It was an exhilarating experience to go careering along by that weird, threatening sea in the fresh morning air. The scent of herbs and wild-flowers on the dunes greeted us when we took a turn inland: and the colours of everything around us kept changing with incredible swiftness.

At first we couldn’t keep our eyes off the mirror-like expanse of water. Its slate became steel-blue—the steel-blue deepened into purple shading off into amethyst, while the sky and the air all about us grew rosy, then saffron, then silver.

Over and across the rolling hills we trudged, our spirits rising every instant. Why shouldn’t we keep on till we got opposite Haarlem, then strike off east, do that city, and return by rail? Why not indeed? Huis-ter-Duin and its slippered knecht could settle the matter of the rekening and the change, by post; and we should make a day of it!

So we climbed up and down along the edge of the grassy slopes, till the tide retired from the sands a little. There we had a delightful hour, along the firm damp shore. It grew sultry after a while; yet it was only a quarter to eight. There would be more heat yet! Alternately we tried the dunes and the beach—the beach and the dunes—but there was no shelter from the sun; and the pleasant wind had died down. After an other couple of hours’ toil through the hot, loose sand we decided we had enough of the coast for the day, and followed a kind of winding path inland. This was a regular cart-track at first, and promised to lead us to some thriving village where we could have a rest. But it didn’t. It twined round a score of scattered potatoe plots, and then came to an abrupt and ignominious end against a wire fence, on the top of a hill. No doubt we ought to have gone back and kept along the shore. But we were too hungry to think of returning to the desolation we had left. What we wanted was to see houses as soon as possible—houses containing eatables and cool rooms and chairs. Besides, we were as yet pretty confident of our geographical whereabouts; accordingly we pushed on for Haarlem—as we thought.

Well, it was a great mistake! The map makes the dunes only a few miles broad at most, yet we climbed up and down for hours, and couldn’t get clear of them.

Once we saw a fisherman at a distance and we yelled to him. He answered “terug” very faintly, and waved both arms. We hurried to meet him, but not a trace of him was to be found. Though the heat was intense, after a while shimmery haze began to spread over the sky, and there came a sudden change. It got dark and cold; and the storm that had been threatening all day burst on us with fury. In two or three minutes we were drenched. There was a marvellous display of sheet lightning so curious and varied that for a while it diverted our attention from our miserable plight, as we stumbled on over soaked hillocks and sand. We had a good hour of this.

In a dismal grove of non-descript-shrubs, we at last stumbled upon a trifling shelter, just as the rain was ceasing; and there we shivered like aspens, till the truth dawned upon us that there was a faint sound of human voices over the slope. “Hurrah!” we shouted. “Relief at last—and a chance of something to eat!”

Stiff and dripping though we were, we positively bounded over the sand hill.

Two or three small one-storied cottages came soon into view. Rushing into the first—it looked like a shop, and had the words garen en band over the window—we demanded pointedly if we could get food. The youngish woman who ambled slowly to and fro behind the counter, said she had no coffee or bread for us, but we could get these things in Haarlem. There was a good restaurant there.

“Geen ei?” I asked.

No; not even an egg for sale.

Very disappointed we retired, still dripping, and gloomier than ever; but as we left the winkel I espied a group of schoolchildren, with capes round their heads, dancing along merrily hand in hand. They were evidently coming from school. Such bright blue eyes, such plump and rosy cheeks suggested that food was plentiful wherever they lived. There must be a butcher and a baker near, I concluded; and by a happy inspiration I turned back to the depressing garen en band shop, and enquired where the local baker was to be found.

“Is er een baker hier?” I enquired politely of the lethargic juffrouw.

She woke up immediately. “Ja, zeker!” was the prompt reply. “Net gisteren thuis gekomen!”

This was all right, of course. Why does he come home and go away, I wondered. But, after all, that was a small matter. He was at home now. A peripatetic baker, perhaps, might be some very special and clever artist in pies and tarts and rich cake—and it was the humble, ordinary baker that we were in search of. I stated this. “Geen banket baker is noodig, juffrouw!” I explained. “Een gewonen baker bedoel ik—een gewonen alledaagschen baker. Bestaat er een hier?”

She had meantime summoned two young men from a sort of den behind the shop, and now communicated my wishes to them with an interest and an animation that I hadn’t expected. They led us rapidly half a mile across fields, and then up a little lane. The last few yards were done in good record time, I should say.

This sympathetic promptitude we highly appreciated, as we felt now more and more famished, the nearer we approached provisions. We reached the baker’s house breathless, and were ushered panting into a kind of waiting room. At least you couldn’t call it a shop exactly.

When the baker came into this apartment (by the way it was a woman, that turned up—a portly and middle-aged woman) we noticed that she was rather dishevelled, as if just awakened from a much needed siesta. I was sorry, but not surprised. Bakers are often that way, you know. They bake during the night, and sleep during the day. Thus they are rather drowsy and cross, if you wake them up. She looked both. There was a portentous frown upon her brow; and really, she seemed somewhat of the virago type. That made me doubly polite.

“Duizendmaal vergiffenis, banketbaker!” I apologised with my best bow. “Het spijt mij geweldig.—Maar zult gij zoo goed willen zijn—?”

“Ja ja!” she interrupted impatiently; “Waar? Heb je een rijtuig?”

“Een rijtuig?” I exclaimed in bewilderment. “Nee. Ik heb geen rijtuig. Maar mag ik u beleefd verzoeken of U zoo goed—.”

“Ja, ja! Is er haast bij?” She broke in again.

“Wel zeker!” I replied courteously, “Veel haast. Wij zijn verbazend hongerig.”

But she was gone, and hadn’t heard the last remark. In a moment or two she reappeared, fully dressed, tying the strings of her bonnet.

As I waited a second before repeating my request, she grew most unreasonably irritable, and actually stamped her foot, exclaiming disrespectfully: “Gaauw nouw! gaauw een beetje.”

“Ja baker!” I answered. “Wilt gij zoo goed zijn, twee boterhammetjes en twee glaasjes melk te brengen?”

She stopped titivating herself at the mirror, and turning round groaned in a voice of horror: “Wou je eten?”

“Ja,” I contrived to put in, as politely as I could; “als U zoo goed wilt zijn.”

“Maar schaam jullie niet? bent jullie kinderen dat je nouw om een boterham moet vragen?”

It was plain she was a good deal ruffled. Accordingly to appease and conciliate her I smiled again, and said deferentially: “Het heeft niets te beduiden. Wij moeten een heel klein boterhammetje gebruiken. Een sneedje brood zonder iets—dat is ook goed.”

She seemed stunned by this harmless announcement; and I deemed it prudent to offer her a bribe of some kind. The simplest plan was to promise to pay her well for any trifle we took.

“Het is een kleinigheid,” I told her—“niets dan een kleinigheid. Maar ik zal het je betaald zetten.”

That loosened her tongue. Her natural fluency asserted itself and appeared to fine advantage. But she was so needlessly excited that I knew there must be a misunderstanding somewhere. Accordingly to remove all haziness I just indicated that she had failed to grasp my meaning. The idiom for this I fortunately recollected. You don’t quite follow was one of those choice specimens of local colour that, by frequent repetition, I had thoroughly imprinted on my memory.

“Duizendmaal verschooning,” I said heartily, “bent U soms niet goed snik?”

The effect of this well meant apology was electrical. The woman really became very rude. She got pale and grabbed at a chair. As we withdrew unostentatiously, we noticed her springing in our direction and talking. It was the most fluent talk I had yet heard in Dutch. She did not hesitate one instant for gender, number, or case. It rained, hailed and stormed terrible words—werkwoorden, voorzetsels, and especially tusschenwerpsels.

Terence and I ran.

On reaching safety outside Terence asked me: “What was she angry about?”

“Oh,” I answered, “as likely as not it’s something out of the grammar. I believe I didn’t use the right idiom. You have to be very particular about these things, you see.

I said vragen voor een boterham, I think; and it should be vragen om. Still she made far too big a fuss over it: and I’d tell her so, if I could.”

When we got outside of her garden plot and had latched the gate behind us, I turned to wave our grammarian a graceful adieu.

“Baker!” I said. “Banket baker! Wees niet zoo kleinzeerig. Niet zoo kwaalijknemend hoor! Wij zijn niet tegen je opgewassen. Maar”,—and here I sank my voice to a confidential whisper, to make the irrelevancy sound as like wit as possible,—“maar, U weet nooit hoe een koe een haas vangt!”

I still flatter myself that the exit was worthy of the occasion.