Stories by English Authors: Germany (Selected by Scribners) | Page 9

he would be the last to dream of throwing any obstacle
in her way. He had come to be an old man himself; he lived all alone,
save for his servants, in a great, rambling house, whose huge
apartments were all set out with horrible anatomical preparations and
grisly skeletons; and, though the stately passages were paved with
white marble, and led into rooms which would easily have
accommodated crowds of guests, he went into no society save that of
savants as old and fossil-like as himself; in other words, he was an old
bachelor who lived entirely for his profession and the study of the great
masters by the interpretation of a genuine old Stradivari. Yet the old
professor had a memory; he recalled the time when he had been young
who now was old--the time when his heart was a good deal more tender,
his blood a great deal warmer, and his fancy very much more easily

stirred than nowadays. There was a dead-and-gone romance which had
broken his heart, sentimentally speaking--a romance long since
crumbled into dust, which had sent him for comfort into the study of
osteology and the music of the Stradivari; yet the memory thereof made
him considerably more lenient to Koosje's weakness than Koosje
herself had ever expected to find him.
Not that she had intended to tell him at first; she was only three and
twenty, and, though Jan van der Welde was as fine a fellow as could be
seen in Utrecht, and had good wages and something put by, Koosje was
by no means inclined to rush headlong into matrimony with undue
hurry. It was more pleasant to live in the professor's good house, to
have delightful walks arm in arm with Jan under the trees in the Baan
or round the Singels, parting under the stars with many a lingering
word and promise to meet again. It was during one of those very
partings that the professor suddenly became aware, as he walked
placidly home, of the change that had come into Koosje's life.
However, Koosje told him blushingly that she did not wish to leave
him just at present; so he did not trouble himself about the matter. He
was a wise man, this old authority on osteology, and quoted oftentimes,
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
So the courtship sped smoothly on, seeming for once to contradict the
truth of the old saying, "The course of true love never did run smooth."
The course of their love did, of a truth, run marvellously smooth indeed.
Koosje, if a trifle coy, was pleasant and sweet; Jan as fine a fellow as
ever waited round a corner on a cold winter night. So brightly the
happy days slipped by, when suddenly a change was effected in the
professor's household which made, as a matter of course, somewhat of
a change in Koosje's life. It came about in this wise.
Koosje had been on an errand for the professor,--one that had kept her
out of doors some time,--and it happened that the night was bitterly
cold; the cold, indeed, was fearful. The air had that damp rawness so
noticeable in Dutch climate, a thick mist overhung the city, and a
drizzling rain came down with a steady persistence such as quickly
soaked through the stoutest and thickest garments. The streets were

well-nigh empty. The great thoroughfare, the Oude Gracht, was almost
deserted, and as Koosje hurried along the Meinerbroederstraat--for she
had a second commission there--she drew her great shawl more tightly
round her, muttering crossly, "What weather! yesterday so warm,
to-day so cold. 'Tis enough to give one the fever."
She delivered her message, and ran on through Oude Kerkhoff as fast
as her feet could carry her, when, just as she turned the corner into the
Domplein, a fierce gust of wind, accompanied by a blinding shower of
rain, assailed her; her foot caught against something soft and heavy,
and she fell.
"Bless us!" she ejaculated, blankly. "What fool has left a bundle out on
the path on such a night? Pitch dark, with half the lamps out, and rain
and mist enough to blind one."
She gathered herself up, rubbing elbows and knees vigorously, casting
the while dark glances at the obnoxious bundle which had caused the
disaster. Just then the wind was lulled, the lamp close at hand gave out
a steady light, which shed its rays through the fog upon Koosje and the
bundle, from which, to the girl's horror and dismay, came a faint moan.
Quickly she drew nearer, when she perceived that what she had
believed to be a bundle was indeed a woman, apparently in the last
stage of exhaustion.
Koosje tried to lift her; but the dead-weight was beyond her, young and