May Crommelin

“ Lindenroede (Lime Lawn) is a good specimen of an ordinary Dutch country house. Square and white, with its green shutters, and raised terrace in front, it stands close to the highroad, as do all its neighbors, behind its gravel sweep. What is almost as universal, too, it is bright and fresh with paint, shaded by fine trees. Even before coming in sight of the house itself I greeted its stork's nest, standing as of old in the meadow across the road, in full view of the windows. Most country houses around have one just so placed ”

“ Come outside the house and you shall see Dutch pleasure-grounds. The lawn is perfectly flat, of course, but — what some English who imagine Holland a vast plain studded with a few pollards, do not understand — the trees are so fine and so many, they bound the view and keep one's thoughts from much noticing the level ground. A brown piece of water, shaded by weeping willows, winds through the trees till bounded by a little rise topped by a small temple. Every country house around is sure to have such a piece of water, larger or smaller ”

“ This handsome armoire for the housekeeper's treasures is a pride and prime necessity in all the Dutch houses I have seen. And nearly all of them possess also, as downstairs in the servants' room at Lindenroede, handsome carved mangles, and screw-presses for keeping table linen always flat and tidy, these being sometimes so ornamental as to stand in the dining-room. But the antique room, has some rarer curios, such as a carved board and roller-pin, date 1650, for mangling small fine things I was told, and hanging near it from the wainscot a very ancient deep-cut yard measure. ”

“ When Sunday morning comes, we drive into the French church at Haarlem; disregarding the glorious sounds of the cathedral organ reaching us even outside as we pass through the old market-place. No the Dutch service and sermon in there is too prosily long. Our church is small, whitewashed, and bare to ugliness. The few ladies sit on chairs in the middle, the fewer men in pent-house pews around. ”

“ Lonely and sheltered, with fresh sea-air and sweet copse scents, the downs are pleasant to ramble in through a summer's day, taking one's lunch in a basket, as the Lindenroede household do. Near the coast, sandy tracts are carefully and anxiously planted with coarse grass-tufts, each only a foot apart, for this grass binding the loose sand against cruel winds forms the bulwark of the land. ”

“ Or again, we perhaps cross the road to a pleasant wood belonging to Hugo's brother-in-law and sister, whose demesne ranges with Lindenroede, so closely indeed, that, but for a rustic bridge over a water trench green with duckweed and shaded by willows, the sandy shrubbery paths would seem to intermingle. The wood rises agreeably in little ups and downs, once, no doubt, sand-hills ages ago. ”

“ Church over, we get warmed driving back in the cheery sunlight to lunch. In the afternoon the large carriage and pair of horses takes us all for an hour's drive through the woods of pretty Bloemendaal or Overween, full of charming villas inhabited by rich Amsterdam merchants or retired Java planters. Then about four we turn — like all the carriages of the neighborhood — towards Haarlem Wood. "Sunday afternoon in the wood" is a Haarlem sight. In one of the open spaces of the old wood, which is one of the chief beauties of the town, a band plays opposite the club or societeit. ”

“ We recognize from afar various gentlemen from the country round, and some lady friends, then we turn homewards towards five o'clock.
Life, on the whole, goes comfortably and cheerily in the Haarlem neighborhood, if quietly. There were a good many country-house dinners going on during my visit, and a few tennis parties; though tennis is not made the rage and accomplishment it is in England. Most people were straying home from various German watering-places; and many of those who had country-seats would nevertheless go into town, the Hague, or Amsterdam, for some winter months. ”

“ Many men whose business is in Amsterdam, but who have houses in Haarlem for economy and quiet, will go to their offices and work till 1 or 2 P.M. without food.
The womankind left behind do odds and ends of work and writing, then lure out the master of the house from his Oriental study to find ripe figs in the beautiful big kitchen garden, and try the grapes sunning on the south wall. ”

“ The second breakfast, corresponding more to a French déjeuner than our lunch, was just ready, it being half past twelve o'clock. So, after washing off the dust of the journey — and the very Sahara cannot be worse than the sand which drove in at the train windows along from the Hague, threatening to silt me up alive, — down I came. The very dining-room has an old friend's air from pleasant memories. There is the thick Deventer carpet — how handsome those carpets are, and how well they wear! it is a pity we do not know them better. ”

“ Old-fashioned Dutch people go further, I am told, washing up themselves knives, forks, and plates — no matter how many their servants —looking over all the linen from the wash, and pulling out any lace edges themselves. ”

“ We seat ourselves above on a bench shaded by a coppice, burning red with dying maple-leaves here and there, while surely that flash of living blue over the water down there was a kingfisher; and close by a rabbit pops out on the turf and sits unheeding our talk. Even putting aside chat about old acquaintances made in past visits on both sides across the water, my Dutch friends had plenty to talk about. Jacqueline and her husband had lately been in London ”

“ After the heat of the afternoon, refreshment was grateful, and five o'clock tea is as yet new-fashioned in Holland. The young men drove off presently in a fly to the club in town, for an hour before six o'clock dinner; which I mention only because England, being club-land essentially, is apt to imagine that other people have few or no clubs, and so wonder what men do with themselves. People generally ask as to another country, "What sort of food did you have?" ”

“ Concerning the latter, there are very few things I don't like in Holland; but, without a shadow of doubt, I detest rye bread. Eggs are boiled, if some one cares for them, in the kettle. The old-fashioned way was by means of a small sort of landing-net in which they were first popped; the newer one is to have wire or silver draining-spoons to lift them out. But the young men of the family going off to business in Haarlem do not even trouble the tea and bread and butter, much less the eggs. ”

“ Smaller carved ones are used by the people to keep the teapot brewing, and in the nurseries of rich people are useful for hot milk and other infantile wants. "We always use one for our children, with a spiritus lampas inside," explained the Princess to me, speaking of her small brothers and sister. Not to take an inventory of all Lindenroede house, I will only add that the kitchen is a pleasant sight, its walls glistening with tiles and bright with coppers and brass ”

“ Nevertheless, though wherever human nature is — being as it is! — some scandals and heart-burnings will arise, yet the Dutch affirm that social life among them is far more moral, purer, and happier than in France firstly, or secondly in England, of late years. ”

“ But here, near Haarlem, the country-seats are so many, that woods constantly break in closely on the uniformity of the level, whilst bright white villas, seldom far apart, greet us along the road from behind their short green lawns. Here and there, very often indeed, we come on canals by the roadside, these being just broader water ditches. Sometimes, when there has been a strong wind, and the sluices have been opened, they are cleanly brown enough ”

“ Driving home in time to dress for dinner, most likely some neighbors pay an evening visit afterwards, and stay chatting till nine or ten o'clock. In summer this is the favorite hour for callers, and the terrace is gay with laughter and voices in the warm evenings. But it was getting dark now to stroll out from Haarlem, or the environs. One day we saw a peasants' wedding passing the gate, a procession bound on the gala drive that follows the civil and religious ceremony. ”

“ A green land, with pollards on its leas; long beds of river grass waving tall plumed heads by the canals for miles, or mowed down and stacked for thatching; bright little cottages, and small children in tight nightcaps and sabots. ”

“ Silver and gold skull-caps covered with lace, from Friesland; other caps with pinned-up lappets and all manner of queer pins of gold-twisted wire and diamond sparks; forehead ornaments, coral beads; enormous winged muslin caps from down beyond Leyden. And prettiest of all, the orphan girls of Haarlem, who wear black skirts, snowy kerchiefs, with coquettishly modest muslin caps, long white mittens, and short sleeves, one crimson, the other dark blue. (The Amsterdam orphan girls wear a similar dress, but one side of their skirts is crimson, the other black.) Even in winter they go bonnetless ”

“ Through the wood come likewise all manner of little peasant gigs, and larger farmers' hooded chaises from the fen-lands of the dried lake. Here and there are women with curious head-gear, among many — too many, of late years — without costume. ”

“ Hugo took up one in fine brass, delicately opened-worked. "This was my grandmother's stove; she used to carry it to church with the handle over her arm." These "stoves," as they are called, are universally used in Holland. The churches are full of coarse ones for footstools; you see the same in the peasants' houses, in the bathing-boxes at Zaandvoort, with some old bathing-woman's savory stew keeping hot over them in the especial house upon wheels that is her home by day, and that of her progeny ”

“ Each man drives on the left side with his right arm round his maiden's waist, taking "toll" at all bridges, and throwing sugarplums at the gazers in the villages. The old folk follow four together in larger covered yellow chaises shaped like poke bonnets with glass sides. ”

“ Jacqueline remarks to me, "but these are only for married people! No unmarried peasant girl or boy ventures to drive in such." The peasants end their drive with a dinner somewhere, and diversions. But as the latter are the same as at a servant's wedding, I can describe them for both. At Lindenroede, the last servant's wedding was minus the peasants' drive ”

“ Then a great grassy plain for miles, intersected regularly by brimming little water-trenches and covered with herds of black-and-white cattle. My eyes desire a red cow and are seldom if ever gratified. ”