"And, Brinker," continued the doctor, "my son Laurens will need a trusty, ready man like you, when he opens his warehouse in Amsterdam, someone to oversee matters, and see that the lazy clowns round about the place do their duty. Someone to--Why don't you tell him yourself, you rascal!"
This last was addressed to the son and did not sound half as fierce as it looks in print. The rascal and Raff soon understood each other perfectly.
"I'm loath to leave the dikes," said the latter, after they had talked together awhile, "but it is such a good offer, mynheer, I'd be robbing my family if I let it go past me."
Take a long look at Hans as he sits there staring gratefully at the meester, for you shall not see him again for many years.
And Gretel--ah, what a vista of puzzling work suddenly opens before her! Yes, for dear Hans's sake she will study now. If he really is to be a meester, his sister must not shame his greatness.
How faithfully those glancing eyes shall yet seek for the jewels that lie hidden in rocky schoolbooks! And how they shall yet brighten and droop at the coming of one whom she knows of now only as the boy who wore a red cap on that wonderful day when she found the silver skates in her apron!
But the doctor and Laurens are going. Dame Brinker is making her best curtsy. Raff stands beside her, looking every inch a man as he grasps the meester's hand. Through the open cottage door we can look out upon the level Dutch landscape, all alive with the falling snow.
Our story is nearly told. Time passes in Holland just as surely and steadily as here. In that respect no country is odd.
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