XXVI
THE PALACE AND THE WOOD
As the boys skated onward, they saw a number of fine country seats, alldecorated and surrounded according to the Dutchest of Dutch taste, butimpressive to look upon, with their great, formal houses, elaborategardens, square hedges, and wide ditches--some crossed by a bridge,having a gate in the middle to be carefully locked at night. Theseditches, everywhere traversing the landscape, had long ago lost theirsummer film, and now shone under the sunlight, like trailing ribbons ofglass.
The boys traveled bravely, all the while performing the surprising featof producing gingerbread from their pockets and causing it to vanishinstantly.
Twelve miles were passed. A few more long strokes would take them to theHague, when Van Mounen proposed that they should vary their course, bywalking into the city through The Bosch.
"Agreed!" cried one and all--and their skates were off in a twinkling.
The Bosch is a grand park or wood, nearly two miles long, containing thecelebrated House in the Wood--_Huis in't Bosch_--sometimes used as aroyal residence.
This building, though plain outside for a palace, is elegantly furnishedwithin, and finely frescoed--that is, the walls and ceiling are coveredwith groups and designs painted directly upon them while the plaster wasfresh. Some of the rooms are tapestried with Chinese silk, beautifullyembroidered. One contains a number of family portraits, among them agroup of royal children who in time were orphaned by a certain axe whichfigures very frequently in European history. These children were paintedmany times by the Dutch artist Van Dyck, who was court-painter to theirfather, Charles the First of England. Beautiful children they were--whata deal of trouble the English nation would have been spared, had theybeen as perfect in heart and soul, as they were in form!
The park surrounding the palace is charming, especially in summer, forflowers and birds make it bright as fairyland. Long rows of magnificentoaks rear their proud heads, conscious that no profaning hand will everbring them low. In fact the Wood has for ages been held as an almostsacred spot. Children are never allowed to meddle with its smallesttwig; the axe of the Woodman has never resounded there. Even war andriot have passed it reverently, pausing for a moment in theirdevastating way. Philip of Spain, while he ordered Dutchmen to be moweddown by hundreds, issued a mandate that not a bough of the beautifulWood should be touched--and once when in a time of great necessity theState was about to sacrifice it to assist in filling a nearly exhaustedtreasury, the people rushed to the rescue, and nobly contributed therequired amount rather than that the Bosch should fall.
What wonder then that the oaks have a grand, fearless air? Birds fromall Holland have told them how, elsewhere, trees are cropped and bobbedinto shape--but _they_ are untouched. Year after year, they expand inunclipped luxuriance and beauty; their wide-spreading foliage, alivewith song, casts a cool shade over lawn and pathway, or bows to itsimage in the sunny ponds.
Meanwhile, as if to reward the citizens for allowing her to have her wayfor once, Nature departs from the invariable level, wearing gracefullythe ornaments that have been reverently bestowed upon her--So the lawnslopes in a velvety green; the paths wind in and out; flower-beds glowand send forth perfume; and ponds and sky look at each other in mutualadmiration.
Even on that winter day the Bosch was beautiful. Its trees were bare,but beneath them still lay the ponds, every ripple smoothed into glass.The blue sky was bright overhead, and as it looked down through thethicket of boughs, it saw another blue sky, not nearly so bright,looking up from the dim thicket under the ice.
Never had the sunset appeared more beautiful to Peter than when he sawit exchanging farewell glances with the windows and shining roofs of thecity before him. Never had the Hague itself seemed more inviting. He wasno longer Peter van Holp, going to visit a great city, nor a fine younggentleman bent on sightseeing; he was a knight, an adventurer,travel-soiled and weary, a Hop-o'-my-Thumb grown large, a Fortunatusapproaching the enchanted castle where luxury and ease awaited him--forhis own sister's house was not half a mile away.
"At last, boys," he cried, in high glee, "we may hope for a royalresting-place--good beds, warm rooms and something fit to eat. I neverrealized before what a luxury such things are. Our lodgings at the RedLion have made us appreciate our own homes."
Hans Brinker; Or, The Silver Skates Page 29