John Burnet of Barns: A Romance

by John Buchan

  CHAPTER I

  OF MY VOYAGE TO THE LOW COUNTRIES

  We were aboard on the next morning by a little after daybreak, for thecaptain had forewarned me, the night before, that he purposed to catchthe morning tide. To one inland-bred, the harbour of Leith was a sightto whet the curiosity, There were vessels of all kinds and sizes,little fishing smacks with brown, home-made sails, from Fife or theLothian coast towns, great sea-going ships, many with strange, foreignnames on their sides, and full of a great bustle of lading and unlading.There was such a concourse of men, too, as made the place like acontinuous horse-fair. Half a dozen different tongues jabbered in myear, of which I knew not one word, save of the French, which I couldmake a fair shape to speak, having learned it from Tam Todd, along withmuch else of good and bad. There were men in red cowls like Ayrshireweavers, and men in fur hats from the North, and dark-skinned fellows,too, from the Indies, and all this motley crew would be running up anddown jabbering and shrilling like a pack of hounds. And every now andthen across the uproar would come the deep voice of a Scots skipper,swearing and hectoring as if the world and all that is in it were hispeculiar possession.

  But when we had cleared the Roads of Leith and were making fair way downthe firth, with a good north-westerly breeze behind us, then there was asight worth the seeing. For behind lay Leith, with its black masts andtall houses, and at the back again, Edinburgh, with its castle loomingup grim and solemn, and further still, the Pentlands, ridged like a saw,running far to the westward. In front I marked the low shore of Fife,with the twin Lomonds, which you can see by climbing Caerdon, or DollarLaw, or any one of the high Tweedside hills. The channel was as blue asa summer sky, with a wintry clearness and a swell which was scarce greatenough to break into billows. The Kern, for so the vessel was called,had all her sail set, and bounded gallantly on her way. It was acheerful sight, what with the sails filling to the wind, and men passinghither and thither at work with the cordage, and the running seaskeeping pace with the vessel. The morning fires were being lit in thelittle villages of Fife, and I could see the smoke curling upwards in ahaze from every bay and neuk.

  But soon the firth was behind us, and we passed between the Bass rockand the May, out into the open sea. This I scarcely found so much to myliking. I was inland-bred, and somewhat delicate in my senses, so, soonI came to loathe the odour of fish and cookery and sea-water, which waseverywhere in the vessel. Then the breeze increased to a stiff wind,and the Kern leaped and rocked among great rolling billows. At firstthe movement was almost pleasing, being like the motion of a horse'sgallop in a smooth field. And this leads me to think that if a boatwere but small enough, so as to be more proportionate to the body ofman, the rocking of it would be as pleasing as the rise and fall of ahorse's stride. But in a great, cumbrous ship, where man is but alittle creature, it soon grows wearisome. We stood well out to sea, soI could but mark the bolder features of the land. Even these I soonlost sight of, for the whole earth and air began to dance wofully beforemy eyes. I felt a dreadful sinking, and a cold sweat began to break onmy brow. I had heard of the sea-sickness, but I could not believe thatit was this. This was something ten times worse, some deadly plaguewhich Heaven had sent to stay me on my wanderings.

  I leaned over the side of the ship in a very disconsolate frame of mind.If this was all I was to get on my journey, I had better have stayed athome. I was landward-bred, and knew naught of boats, save one which TamTodd had made as a ferry across the Tweed, and which was indeed morelike a meal-chest than aught else. In it we were wont to paddle acrosswhen we were fearful of wetting our shoon. But this rolling, boisterousship and turgid seas were strange to me, and I fear I fell monstroussick.

  Nicol Plenderleith had disappeared almost as soon as he came aboard, andI saw him deep in converse with the sailors. When we had cleared theForth he came back to me, as I leaned disconsolately against thebulwarks, and asked me how I did. His lean, brown face was not a whitchanged by the rocking of the ship; indeed, if he had been astraddle theSaddleback in a gale he would not have been perturbed. When he saw myplight he ran below and brought brandy.

  "Here, sir, tak some o' this. It's tasty at a' times, but it's mairthan tasty the noo, it's halesome."

  "Nicol," I groaned, "if I never gee home again, I look to you to tellthe folk in Tweeddale. It's terrible to die here of this villainoussickness, for I shall certainly die if it continues. Will it nevercease?"

  "I've been speirin' at the captain and by a' accounts we're no at thewarst o't. He says it's juist like the backs o' Leith. If ye win bythe Fisherraw ye'll meet your death i' the Kettle Wynd, and, if by anychance ye're no killed there, ye'll be dune for i' the Walk. He wasspeaking o' the stinks o' the place and no the folk, for they'repeaceable eneuch, puir bodies. 'Weel,' says he, 'it's the same here.It's ill for some folk to win by the Forth, but it's waur i' the opensea, and when it comes to the Dutch waters, it's fair awfu'.' I wis,Laird, ye maunna dee."

  This was poor consolation, and had I not formed some guess of myservant's manners, I should have been downhearted enough; but there wasa roguish twinkle in his eye, and, even as he spoke, his mouth broadenedto a grin. I heard him humming the lines of an old ditty which Isupposed to have some reference to my state:

  Tam o' the Linn and a' his bairns Fell into the fire in ilk ither's airms. "Eh," quoth the binmost, "I have a het skin." "It's hetter below," quo' Tam o' the Linn.

  But, sure enough, the captain's prophecy did not come true. For in alittle the waves grew calmer, and my sickness left me. 'Tis true thatsoon we entered troubled waters once more, but I was fortified withexperience, and some measure of brandy, and so could laugh defiance atthe powers of the sea.

  The wind throughout our course was fair in our favour, so we made thejourney in shorter time than I had dared to hope for. On the morning ofthe third day a dense mist shut us in so that the captain was muchconfused and angered. But on the wind's rising, the fog rolled back,and we went on our way once more. Early in the afternoon we sighted themouth of the Maas, and the tall lines of shipping which told of theentrance to Rotterdam. You may imagine that all this was very strangeto me, I who had lived only among hills and rough woods, and had seenthe sea but once, and that afar off. 'Twas a perpetual wonder to me tosee the great sails moved up and down according to the airt of the wind,and the little helm guiding the great ship. As I have said, I soon gotover all sickness, and was as hale as ever, so that on the last two daysof the voyage I ever look back as upon a time of great pleasure.

  But if my wonder was great in the open seas, 'twas still greater once wehad entered the Dutch river. It was all so unlike my own land that thehome-sickness which travellers tell of had almost taken hold of me.There were all manner of ships--some little coasting vessels, others,huge merchantmen which brought home the wares of the Indies and theAmericas. There was such a jabbering, too, in Dutch, of which tongue Iknew naught, that I longed to hear one good, intelligible word of Scots,for which cause I kept my servant near me. By and by we neared thequay, and saw the merchants' great red storehouses standing in longline, and the streets of the city running back from the river. Here wecame to an anchor. Our journey was over, and I had to bid farewell tocaptain and vessel and go ashore.

  It is not to be expected that I should seek to describe what is known tonigh everyone in these days when a man thinks nothing of crossing toFrance or Holland on any pretext or in any weather. From such,therefore, by word of mouth let he who desires it seek information; formyself, I have enough to do to write down the main acts of my life.

  One thing I noted--that the air was somewhat soft and damp, lacking, tomy mind, the acrid strength of the air of Tweeddale, or even of theLothians. But all the streets were clean swept and orderly; the folkwell-groomed and well-looking; and the trees by the riverside gave apleasant surprise to one accustomed to the grim, grey, narrow streets ofthe North. I made my way by the help of an i
nquisitive Scots tongue andthe French language to a decent hostelry in the Grooce Markt justopposite the statue (but lately erected) of the great Erasmus. Thispleased me much, for to be near even the poor bronze figure of so greata man seemed to lend to the place an air of learning. I employed myselfprofitably in reading the Latin inscriptions; the others I could make nomore of than the rudest ploughboy in Scotland.

  Both Nicol and I were up betimes in the morning, that we might get thecoach for Leyden, which started almost from the door of our inn. Isolemnly set down my testimony that the ale in that same house is themost villainous in the world, for it made us both dismal and oppressed,a trouble which did not leave us till we had taken our seats in thediligence and the horses were starting.

  Of the events of that day's journey how shall I tell? Leyden is a day'slength from Rotterdam to the north, through a land flat as agirdle-cake. The horses were lumbering, sleepy brutes, and the driverscarce any better, for every now and again he would let them come to thewalk for long distances, and then, suddenly awaking to the fact that hemust get to his destination before night, get up and shout wildly, andfeebly flick their backs with his whip. I had much ado to keep Nicolfrom trying to take the reins from his hands, and, certainly, if thatfirebrand had once taken them, we should have awakened the quietcountryside, and, God helping us, might even have awakened the driver.I knew nothing of the country, and heard but vaguely the names shoutedout by the guard of the coach; yet, somehow or other, the name ofRyswick clung to my memory, and I remembered it well when, long after,at that place the treaty was signed which closed the war. But at thattime the great duke was plain Master Churchill, and there was no thoughtof war between our land and France. The place was so new to my eyesthat I rebelled against its persistent flatness and dull, deadwater-courses; but soon I came to acknowledge a kind of prettiness init, though 'twas of a kind far removed from the wild loveliness ofTweedside. The well-ordered strips of trees, the poplars like sentinelsaround the homesteads, the red-roofed homesteads themselves, with theirricks and stables, had a homely and habitable look, and such of the folkas we saw by the roadside were as sleek and stolid as their land. Icould not think of the place as a nursery of high and heroical virtues,but rather of the minor moralities of good-sense and good-nature.

  It was late in the afternoon when we came to Leyden, and rattled downthe rough street to the market-place, which was the stopping-place ofthe coach. This was a town more comely and conformable to my eye thanthe greater city of Rotterdam. For here the streets were not so even,the houses not so trim, and the whole showing a greater semblance ofage. There were many streams and canals crossed by broad, low bridges.It was a time of great mildness, for the season of the year. The placehad all that air of battered age and historic worth which I haveobserved in our own city of Edinburgh. Even as I looked on it my mindwas full of memories of that terrible siege, when the folk of Leydenheld out so stoutly against the black Spaniards, till their kingoverthrew the dykes and saved the town by flooding the land.

  It was my first concern to secure lodgings, since I purposed to spend nolittle portion of my time here for the next two years; and, as I hadbeen directed by my kinsman, Dr. Gilbert Burnet, I sought the house ofone Cornelius Vanderdecker, who abode in a little alley off theBreedestraat. Arrived there, I found that the said Cornelius had beenin a better world for some fifteen months, but that his widow, atranquil Dutchwoman, with a temper as long as a Dutch canal, was mostwilling to lodge me and treat me to the best which the house couldafford. We speedily made a bargain in bad French, and Nicol and I wereinstalled in rooms in the back part of the house, overlooking a longgarden, which ended in one of the streams of water which I have spokenof. It was somewhat desolate at that time, but I could see that insummer, when the straight trees were in leaf, the trim flower-beds andthe close-cropped lawn would make the place exceeding pretty. I wasglad of it, for I am country-bred and dearly do I love greenery and thesight of flowers.

  I delayed till the next morning, when I had got the soil of travel frommy clothes and myself once more into some semblance of sprightliness,ere I went to the college to present my letters and begin my schooling.So after the morning meal, I attired myself in befitting dress and putNicol into raiment suiting his rank and company; and set out with alight heart to that great and imposing institution, which has been thestar of Europe in philosophy and all other matters of learning. I ownthat it was with feelings of some trepidation that I approached theplace. Here had dwelt Grotius and Salmasius and the incomparableScaliger. Here they had studied and written their immortal books; thevery place was still redolent of their memories. Here, too, unless mymemory deceived me, had dwelt the Frenchman, Renatus Descartes, who hadfirst opened a way for me from the chaos of the schoolmen to therectitude of true philosophy. I scarcely dared to enroll my unworthyname in the halls of such illustrious spirits. But I thought on my nameand race, and plucked up heart thereupon to knock stoutly at the gates.A short, stout man opened to me, clad in a porter's gown, not unlike thebedellus in the far-away college of Glasgow, but carrying in his hand ablack staff, and at his belt a large bunch of keys. It came upon me toaddress him in French, but remembering that this was a place oflearning, I concluded that Latin was the more fitting tongue, so inLatin I spoke.

  "I am a stranger," I said, "from Scotland, bearing letters for MasterSandvoort and Master Quellinus of this place. I pray you to see if theycan grant me an audience."

  He faced round sharply, as if this were the most ordinary errand in hislife, and went limping across the inner courtyard till he disappearedfrom view behind a massive column. He returned shortly and deliveredhis message in a very tolerable imitation of the language of Caesar.

  "Their worships, Master Sandvoort and Master Quellinus, are free frombusiness for the present, and will see you in their chambers." Sobidding Nicol stay in the courtyard, lest he should shame me beforethese grave seniors (though 'twas unlikely enough, seeing they knew noScots), I followed the hobbling porter through the broad quadrangle, upa long staircase adorned with many statues set in niches in the wall, toa landing whence opened many doors. At one of them my guide knockedsoftly, and a harsh voice bade us enter. "This is Master Sandvoort," hewhispered in my ear, "and I trust he be not in one of his tantrums. Seeye speak him fair, sir."

  I found myself in a high-panelled room, filled with books, and with atable in front of a fireplace, whereat a man sat writing. He wore askullcap of purple velvet, and the ordinary black gown of the doctor.His face was thin and hard, with lines across the brow and the heavinessbelow the eye which all have who study overmuch. His hair was turningto grey, but his short, pointed beard was still black. He had veryshaggy eyebrows, under which his sharp eyes shone like the points of aneedle. Such was Master Herman Sandvoort, professor of the Latinlanguage in the ancient college of Leyden.

  His first question to me was in the Latin.

  "What tongue do you speak?"

  I answered that I was conversant with the English, the French, and theLatin.

  "Your letters, pray," he asked in French, and I took them from my pocketand gave them to him.

  "Ah," he cried, reading aloud, "you desire to study in this university,and improve your acquaintance with certain branches of letters andphilosophy. So be it. My fee is five crowns for attendance at mylectures. I will not abate one tittle of it. I will have no more poorstudents come cringing and begging to be let off with two. Sounderstand my terms, Master Burnette."

  I was both angry and surprised. Who was this man to address me thus?

  "I pray you to finish the letter," I said curtly.

  He read on for a little while, then he lifted his head and looked at mewith so comical an expression that I had almost laughed. Before, hisface had been greedy and cold; now it was worse, for the greed was stillthere, but the coldness had vanished and left in its place a sickly lookof servility.

  "Pardon me, pardon me, good Master Burnette; I was in a great mistake.I had thought t
hat you were some commoner from the North, and, Godknows, we have plenty of them. I pray you forget my words. The collegeis most honoured by your presence, the nephew, or is it the son, of thefamous Doctor Burnette. Ah, where were my eyes--the lord of much land,so says the letter, in the valley of the Tweed. Be sure, sir, that youcan command all the poor learning that I have at my disposal. And ifyou have not already found lodging, why if you will come to my house, mywife and daughters will welcome you."

  I thanked him coldly for his invitation, but refused it on the groundthat I had already found an abode. Indeed, I had no wish to form theacquaintance of Vrow Sandvoort and her estimable daughters. He gave memuch information about the hours of the lectures, the subjects which heproposed to treat of, and the method of treatment; nor would he let medepart before I had promised to dine at his house.

  Outside the door I found the porter waiting for me. He led me acrossthe hall to another door, the room of Master Quellinus, the professor ofGreek.

  Here I found a different reception. A rosy-cheeked little man, with apaunch as great as a well-fed ox, was sitting on a high chair, so thathis feet barely touched the ground. He was whistling some ditty, andbusily mending his finger-nails with a little knife.

  "Why, whom have we here?" he cries out, when he saw me; "anotherscholar, and a great one. Why, man, what do you at the trade, when youmight be carrying a musket or leading a troop of pikemen?"

  I was tempted to answer him in his own way.

  "And what do you," I asked, "at the trade, when you might be the chiefcook to the French king, with power to poison the whole nobility?"

  He laughed long and loudly. "Ah, you have me there, more's the pity.But what though I love my dinner? Did not Jacob the patriarch, andEsau, the mighty Esau, though I have little credit by the ensample? Butcome, tell me your name, for I begin to love thee. You have a shrewdwit, and a pleasing presence. You may go far."

  I gave him my letters, and when he had read them, he came down from hisperch and shook me by the hand.

  "You are a Scot," he said. "I never knew any Scot but one, and he washanged on a tree for robbing the Burgomaster's coach. I was a lad atschool, and I mind me 'twas rare sport. So I have a kindly feeling foryour nation, though may God send you a better fate than that one. Butwhat do you seek to learn? Greek? Faugh, there is no Greek worth astraw, save Anacreon, and he is not a patch upon our moderns, onFrancois Villon of Paris, whose soul God rest, and our brave Desportes.Philosophy? Bah! 'Tis all a monstrous fraud. I have sounded all thedepths of it, and found them but shallows. Theology? Tush! You willlearn more theology in an inn in the Morschstraat than in all theschools. Such are my beliefs. But God has compelled me for my sins toteach the Hellenic tongue to a perverse generation at the small sum offive crowns. We study the Republic of Plato, and I trust you may findsome profit. You will dine with me. Nay, I will take no denial.To-night, in my house, I will show you how a quail should be dressed. Ihave the very devil of a cook, a man who could dress a dry goatskin toyour taste. And wine! I have the best that ever came from theRhineside and escaped the maw of a swinish Teuton. You will come?"

  I could only escape by promising, which I did with a good grace, for ifthere was little profit in Master Quellinus's company, there was muchpleasure.