village
where neatness and show were in full blossom, but the inhabitants seemed
to be either asleep or dead.

Not a footprint marred the sanded paths where pebbles and seashells lay
in fanciful designs. Every window shutter was tightly closed as though
air and sunshine were poison, and the massive front doors were never
opened except on the occasion of a wedding, a christening, or a funeral.

Serene clouds of tobacco smoke were floating through hidden corners, and
children, who otherwise might have awakened the place, were studying
in out-of-the-way corners or skating upon the neighboring canal. A few
peacocks and wolves stood in the gardens, but they had never enjoyed
the luxury of flesh and blood. They were made out of boxwood hedges and
seemed to be guarding the grounds with a sort of green ferocity. Certain
lively automata, ducks, women, and sportsmen, were stowed away in summer
houses, waiting for the spring-time when they could be wound up and
rival their owners in animation; and the shining tiled roofs, mosaic
courtyards, and polished house trimmings flashed up a silent homage to
the sky, where never a speck of dust could dwell.

Hans glanced toward the village, as he shook his silver kwartjes and
wondered whether it were really true, as he had often heard, that some
of the people of Broek were so rich that they used kitchen utensils of
solid gold.

He had seen Mevrouw van Stoop's sweet cheeses in market, and he knew
that the lofty dame earned many a bright silver guilder in selling them.
But did she set the cream to rise in golden pans? Did she use a golden
skimmer? When her cows were in winter quarters, were their tails really
tied up with ribbons?

These thoughts ran through his mind as he turned his face toward
Amsterdam, not five miles away, on the other side of the frozen Y.
*{Pronounced eye, an arm of the Zuider Zee.} The ice upon the canal was
perfect, but his wooden runners, so soon to be cast aside, squeaked a
dismal farewell as he scraped and skimmed along.

When crossing the Y, whom should he see skating toward him but the great
Dr. Boekman, the most famous physician and surgeon in Holland. Hans had
never met him before, but he had seen his engraved likeness in many
of the shop windows in Amsterdam. It was a face that one could never
forget. Thin and lank, though a born Dutchman, with stern blue eyes,
and queer compressed lips that seemed to say "No smiling permitted," he
certainly was not a v