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     TALES FROM "BLACKWOOD"


     Contents of this Volume

     _My Friend the Dutchman. By Frederick Hardman, Esq._

     _My College Friends. No. II. Horace Leicester._

     _The Emerald Studs. By Professor Aytoun._

     _My College Friends. No. III. Mr W. Wellington Hurst._

     _Christine: a Dutch Story. By Frederick Hardman, Esq._

     _The Man in the Bell._


     WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
     EDINBURGH AND LONDON




TALES FROM "BLACKWOOD."




MY FRIEND THE DUTCHMAN.

BY FREDERICK HARDMAN.

[_MAGA._ OCTOBER 1847.]


"And you will positively marry her, if she will have you?"

"Not a doubt of either. Before this day fortnight she shall be Madame
Van Haubitz."

"You will make her your wife without acquainting her with your true
position?"

"Indeed will I. My very position requires it. There's no room for a
scruple. She expects to live on my fortune; thinks to make a great catch
of the rich Dutchman. Instead of that I shall spend her salary. The old
story; going out for wool and returning shorn."

The conversation of which this is the concluding fragment, occurred in
the public room of the Hotel de Hesse, in the village of Homburg on the
Hill--then an insignificant handful of houses, officiating as capital
of the important landgravate of Hesse-Homburg. The table-d'hote had been
over some time; the guests had departed to repose in their apartments
until the hour of evening promenade should summon them to the excellent
band of music, provided by the calculating liberality of the
gaming-house keepers, and to loiter round the _brunnen_ of more or less
nauseous flavour, the pretext of resort to this rendezvous of idlers and
gamblers. The waiters had disappeared to batten on the broken meats from
the public table, and to doze away the time till the approach of supper
renewed their activity. My interlocutor, with whom I was alone in the
deserted apartment, was a man of about thirty years of age, whose dark
hair and mustaches, marked features, spare person, and complexion
bronzed by a tropical sun, entitled him to pass for a native of southern
Europe, or even of some more ardent clime. Nevertheless he answered to
the very Dutch patronymic of Van Haubitz, and was a native of Holland,
in whose principal city his father was a banker of considerable wealth
and financial influence.

It was towards the close of a glorious August, and for two months I had
been wandering in Rhine-land. Not after the fashion of deluded Cockneys,
who fancy they have seen the Rhine when they have careered from Cologne
to Mannheim astride of a steam-engine, gaping at objects passed as soon
as perceived; drinking and paying for indifferent vinegar as
Steinberger-Cabinet, eating vile dinners on the decks of steamers, and
excellent ones in the capital hotels which British cash and patronage
have raised upon the banks of the most renowned of German streams. On
the contrary, I had early dispensed with the aid of steam, to wander on
foot, with the occasional assistance of a lazy country diligence or
rickety _einspaenner_, through the many beautiful districts that lie upon
either bank of the river; pedestrianising in Rhenish Bavaria, losing
myself in the Odenwald, and pausing, when occasion offered, to pick a
trout out of the numerous streamlets that dash and meander through dell
and ravine, on their way to swell the waters of old Father Rhine. At
last, weary of solitude--scarcely broken by an occasional gossip with a
heavy German boor, village priest, or strolling student--I thirsted
after the haunts of civilisation, and found myself, within a day of the
appearance of the symptom, installed in a luxurious hotel in the free
city of Frankfort on the Maine. But Frankfort at that season is
deserted, save by passing tourists, who escape as fast as possible from
its lifeless streets and sun-baked pavements; so, after glancing over an
English newspaper at the Casino, taking one stroll in the beautiful
garden surrounding the city, and another through the Jew-quarter--always
interesting and curious, although anything but savoury at that warm
season--I gathered together my baggage and was off to Homburg. There I
could not complain of solitude, of deserted streets and shuttered
windows. It seemed impossible that the multitude of gaily dressed belles
and cavaliers, English, French, German, and Russ, who, from six in the
morning until sunset, lounged and flirted on the walks, watered
themselves at the fountains, and perilled their complexions in the
golden sunbeams, could ever bestow themselves in the two or three
middling hotels and few score shabby lodging-houses composing the town
of Homburg. Manage it they did, however; crept into their narrow cells
at night, to emerge next morning, like butterflies from the chrysalis,
gay, bright, and brilliant, and to recommence the never-varying but
pleasant round of eating, sauntering, love-making, and gambling. Homburg
was not then what it has since become. That great house of cards, the
new Cursaal, had not yet arisen; and its table-d'hote, reading-room, and
profane mysteries of roulette and rouge-et-noir, found temporary
domicile in a narrow, disreputable-looking den in the main street, where
accommodation of all kinds, but especially for dinner, was scanty in the
extreme. The public tables at the hotels were consequently thronged, and
there acquaintances were soon made. The day of my arrival at Homburg I
was seated next to Van Haubitz; his manner was off-hand and frank; we
entered into conversation, took our after-dinner cigar and evening
stroll together, and by bed-time had knocked up that sort of intimacy
easily contracted at a watering-place, which lasts one's time of
residence, and is extinguished and forgotten on departure. Van Haubitz,
like many Continentals and very few Englishmen, was one of those
free-and-easy communicative persons who are as familiar after twelve
hours' acquaintance as if they had known you twelve years, and who do
not hesitate to confide to a three days' acquaintance the history of
their lives, their pursuits, position, and prospects. I was soon made
acquainted, to a very considerable extent, at least, with those of my
friend Van Haubitz, late lieutenant of artillery in the service of his
majesty the King of Holland. He was the youngest of four sons, and
having shown, at a very early age, a wild and intractable disposition
and precocious addiction to dissipation, his father pronounced him
unsuited to business, and decided on placing him in the army. To this
the _Junker_ (he claimed nobility, and displayed above his arms a
species of coronet, bearing considerable resemblance to a fragment of
chevaux-de-frise, which he might have been puzzled to prop with a
parchment) had no particular objection, and might have made a good
enough officer, but for his reckless, spendthrift manner of life, which
entailed negligence of duty and frequent reprimands. Extravagant beyond
measure, unable to deny himself any gratification, squandering money as
though millions were at his command, he was constantly overwhelmed with
debts and a martyr to duns. At last his father, after thrice clearing
him with his creditors, consented to do so a fourth time only on
condition of his getting transferred to a regiment stationed in the
Dutch East Indies, and remaining there until his return had the paternal
sanction. To avoid a prison, and perhaps not altogether sorry to leave a
country where his cash and credit were alike exhausted, he embarked for
Batavia. But any pleasant day-dreams he may have cherished of tropical
luxuries, of the indulgence of a _farniente_ life in a grass hammock,
gently balanced by Javan houris beneath banana shades, of spice-laden
breezes and cool sherbets, and other attributes of a Mohammedan
paradise, were speedily dissipated by the odious realities of filth and
vermin, marsh-fever and mosquitoes. He wrote to his father, describing
the horrors of the place, and begging to be released from his pledge and
allowed to return to Holland. His obdurate progenitor replied by a
letter of reproach, and swore that if he left Batavia he might live on
his pay, and never expect a stiver from the paternal strong-box, either
as gift or bequest. To live upon his pay would have been no easy matter,
even for a more prudent person than Van Haubitz. He grumbled
immoderately, swore like a pagan, but remained where he was. A year
passed and he could hold out no longer. Disregarding the paternal
displeasure, and reckless of consequences, he applied to the chief
military authority of the colony for leave of absence. He was asked his
plea, and alleged ill health. The general thought he looked pretty well,
and requested the sight of a medical certificate of his invalid state.
Van Haubitz assumed a doleful countenance and betook him to the
surgeons. They agreed with the general that his aspect was healthy:
asked for symptoms; could discover none more alarming than regularity of
pulse, sleep, appetite, and digestion, laughed in his face and refused
the certificate. The sickly gunner, who had the constitution