ers or at dinner or at breakfast or in bed, it
mattered not; they had come many miles to see the chateau, and see it
they would. "Alas!" thought I, "if, as some learned persons suppose,
individuals be recognisable in the next world, what a melancholy time of
it will be yours, poor Van Dyck! If they make all this hubbub about the
house you lived in, what will they do about your fleshy tabernacle?"

'As the season advanced, the crowds increased; and as autumn began, the
conflicting currents to and from the Rhine all met in my bedroom. There
took place all the rendezvous of Europe. Runaway daughters there first
repented in papa's arms, and profligate sons promised amendment for the
future. Myself and my wife were passed by unnoticed and disregarded
amid this tumult of recognition and salutation. We were emaciated like
skeletons; our meals we ate when we could, like soldiers on a retreat;
and we slept in our clothes, not knowing at what moment the enemy might
be upon us. Locks, bolts, and bars were ineffectual; our resistance only
increased curiosity, and our garrison was ever open to bribery.

'It was to no purpose that I broke the windows to let in the north wind
and acute rheumatism; to little good did I try an alarm of fire every
day about two, when the house was fullest; and I failed signally in
terrifying my torturers when I painted the gardener's wife sky-blue, and
had her placed in the hall, with a large label over the bed, "collapsed
cholera." Bless your heart! the tourist cares for none of these; and I
often think it would have saved English powder and shot to have exported
half a dozen of them to the East for the siege of Seringapatam. Had
they been only told of an old picture, a teapot, a hearth-brush, or
a candlestick that once belonged to Godfrey de Bouillon or Peter the
Hermit, they would have stormed it under all the fire of Egypt! Well,
it's all over at last; human patience could endure no longer. We escaped
by night, got away by stealth to Ghent, took post-horses in a feigned
name, and fled from the Chateau de Van Dyck as from the plague.
Determined no longer to trust to chances, I have built a cottage myself,
which has no historic associations further back than six weeks ago; and
fearful even of being known as the _ci-devant_ possessor of the chateau,
I never confess to have been in Ghent in my life; and if Van Dyck be
mentioned, I ask if he is not the postmaster at Tervueren.

'Here, then, I conclude my