"Could not we get on board?" asked Rollo.
"No," said Mr. George. "We cannot change our plan to-day very well. But now that we have found the way, we can come over here any morning we please, and take the Helder steamer."
"Let's come," said Rollo, eagerly. "Let's come to-morrow."
"We'll see about that," said Mr. George. "See, here comes a market boat."
"Yes," said Rollo. "The man is towing it, and his wife is steering."
"Now we will see how they pass," said Rollo.
There was no difficulty about passing, for as soon as the man who was towing the market boat found that the trekschuyt had come up to his line, he stopped suddenly, and the advance of his boat caused his line to drop into the water. The trekschuyt then sailed right over it. By this simple manoeuvre, boats and vessels could pass each other very easily, and generally the manoeuvre was executed in a prompt and very skilful manner. But once, when they were passing a boat, the woman who was steering it put the helm the wrong way, and though the captain of the trekschuyt, and also the husband of the woman, who was on the shore, shouted to her repeatedly in a loud and angry manner, she could not get it right again in time to avoid a collision. The trekschuyt gave the boat a dreadful bump as it went by. Fortunately, however, it did no harm, except to frighten the poor woman, and break their tow line.
After going on in this way for fifteen or twenty minutes along the canal, the trekschuyt arrived at its place of destination, and Mr. George and Rollo disembarked at a little village of very neat and pretty houses, built along the dike on one side of the canal.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER X. THE DAIRY VILLAGE.
Mr. George and Rollo walked ashore in a very independent manner, having the commissioner to attend to the tickets. They went up to the top of the dike, and waited for the commissioner to come to them.
"While I am getting the carriage ready," said the commissioner, when he came, "perhaps you will like to take a walk on the bridge, where there is a very fine view. But first, perhaps, you will look at the carriage, and choose the one that you will like."
So saying, James led the way into a sort of stable, where there were a great many very nice and pretty carriages, arranged very snugly together. Mr. George was surprised to see so many. He asked James how it happened.
"O, there is a great deal of travelling on the roads about here," said James. "The country is very rich and populous, and the people of Amsterdam come out a great deal."
Some of the carriages were very elegant. One of these an hostler took out, and told Mr. George that he could have it if he chose. There was another which was much less elegant, but it was more open.
"Let us take the open one," said Rollo. "We can see so much better."
So they decided upon the open one; and then, while the hostlers were harnessing the horses, Mr. George and Rollo went forward to the bridge.
The bridge led over a branch canal, which here comes into the main canal. The road to it lay along the dike, and formed the street of a little village. It was paved with bricks placed edgewise, and was as neat as a parlor floor. The houses were all on one side. They were very small; but they were so neat and pretty, and the forms of them were so strange and queer, that they looked like play houses, or like a scene in fairy land, rather than like the real habitations of men.
There were pretty gardens by them, which extended down the slope of the dike. The slopes of the dikes are always very gradual, and very nice gardens can be made on them.
Mr. George and Rollo stood on the bridge, and looked up and down the canals on either side. They saw boats, with people in them, getting ready to set out on their voyages.
"I wonder where that canal leads to?" said Rollo.
"O, it goes off into the interior of the country, some where," said Mr. George. "The country is as full of canals as Massachusetts is of roads."
"I should like, very much," said Rollo, "to get on board that boat with that man, and go with him wherever he is going."
"So should I, if I knew Dutch," said Mr. George, "so that I could talk with him as we sailed along."
"How pretty it is all about here," said Rollo. "What a queer village,-built on a bank! And what a funny road! It looks like a play road."
The road, where it led through the village, did, indeed, present a very singular appearance. It was very narrow indeed, being barely wide enough for one carriage to pass, and leaving scarcely room on the side for a child to crowd up against the house, and let it go by. On the other side was a row of trees, with green grass beneath, covering the banks of the canal.
After Mr. George and Rollo had been standing a few minutes on the bridge they saw that the carriage was nearly ready. So they went back to the place and got in. The top of the carriage was turned entirely down, so that they could see about them in every direction as they rode along. James mounted on the box outside, with the driver.
"Now," said Rollo, in a tone of great satisfaction, "we will have a very first rate ride."
The carriage drove along through the little street, which has already been described. Rollo could reach his hand out and almost touch the houses as they rode by. There were little shops kept in some of the houses, and the things that were for sale were put up at the windows. They looked exactly as if children had arranged them for play.
After leaving the village the road turned and followed the dike of a branch canal. The views on every side were extremely beautiful. The canal was carried along between its two banks, high above the rest of the country, and here and there, at moderate distances from each other, wind mills were to be seen busy at work pumping up water from the drains in the fields, and pouring it into the canal. The fields were covered with herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, and here and there were parties of men mowing the grass or loading the new-made hay into boats, that lay floating in the small canals which bordered the fields.
In looking about over the country, there were wind mills to be seen in all directions, their long arms slowly revolving in the air, and interspersed among them were the masts and sails of sloops and schooners, that were sailing to and fro along the canals. As the water of these canals was often hidden from view by the dikes which bordered them, it seemed as if the ships and steamers were sailing on the land in the midst of green fields and trees, and smiling villages.
After going on in this way for an hour or more, the carriage approached the village which Mr. George and Rollo were going to see. The village lay on the borders of a canal, which was here quite broad, and as the road approached it on the other side of the canal, it was in full view for Mr. George and Rollo as the party approached it. The houses were close to the margin of the water. They were very neat and pretty, and were, most of them, painted green. Many of them had little canals by the side of them, like lanes of water leading into the rear of the houses, and the prettiest little porticoes, and trellises, and piazzas, and pavilions, and summer houses were seen in every part. The road went winding round a wide basin, and then, after crossing a bridge, the carriage stopped at an inn.
The inn was entirely outside of the village. The commissioner said that they must walk through the village, for there was no carriage road through it at all.
So Mr. George and Rollo dismounted, and the hostlers came out from the stable to unharness the horses.
"Now, Rollo," said Mr. George, "we will go in and order a breakfast, and then we will take our walk through the village while it is getting ready."
"Yes," said Rollo. "I should like some breakfast very much."
"What shall we have?" asked Mr. George.
"What you like," replied Rollo. "You always get good breakfasts."
"Well," said Mr. George, "we will tell them the old story."
Just at this moment James came up to the door of the hotel where Mr. George and Rollo had been standing during this conversation.