forgot to examine.
On the other hand, it seemed to Van Baerle an auspicious
omen that this very cell was assigned to him, for according
to his ideas, a jailer ought never to have given to a second
pigeon the cage from which the first had so easily flown.
The cell had an historical character. We will only state
here that, with the exception of an alcove which was
contrived there for the use of Madame Grotius, it differed
in no respect from the other cells of the prison; only,
perhaps, it was a little higher, and had a splendid view
from the grated window.
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Cornelius felt himself perfectly indifferent as to the place
where he had to lead an existence which was little more than
vegetation. There were only two things now for which he
cared, and the possession of which was a happiness enjoyed
only in imagination.
A flower, and a woman; both of them, as he conceived, lost
to him for ever.
Fortunately the good doctor was mistaken. In his prison cell
the most adventurous life which ever fell to the lot of any
tulip-fancier was reserved for him.
One morning, whilst at his window inhaling the fresh air
which came from the river, and casting a longing look to the
windmills of his dear old city Dort, which were looming in
the distance behind a forest of chimneys, he saw flocks of
pigeons coming from that quarter to perch fluttering on the
pointed gables of Loewestein.
These pigeons, Van Baerle said to himself, are coming from
Dort, and consequently may return there. By fastening a
little note to the wing of one of these pigeons, one might
have a chance to send a message there. Then, after a few
moments’ consideration, he exclaimed, —
“I will do it.”
A man grows very patient who is twenty-eight years of age,
and condemned to a prison for life, — that is to say, to
something like twenty-two or twenty-three thousand days of
captivity.
Van Baerle, from whose thoughts the three bulbs were never
absent, made a snare for catching the pigeons, baiting the
birds with all the resources of his kitchen, such as it was
for eight slivers (sixpence English) a day; and, after a
month of unsuccessful attempts, he at last caught a female
bird.
It cost him two more months to catch a male bird; he then
shut them up together, and having about the beginning of the
year 1673 obtained some eggs from them, he released the
female, which, leaving the male behind to hatch the eggs in
her stead, flew joyously to Dort, with the note under her
wing.
She returned in the evening. She had preserved the note.
Thus it went on for fifteen days, at first to the
disappointment, and then to the great grief, of Van Baerle.
On the sixteenth day, at last, she came back without it.
Van Baerle had addressed it to his nurse, the old Frisian
woman; and implored any charitable soul who might find it to
convey it to her as safely and as speedily as possible.
In this letter there was a little note enclosed for Rosa.
Van Baerle’s nurse had received the letter in the following
way.
Leaving Dort, Mynheer Isaac Boxtel had abandoned, not only
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his house, his servants, his observatory, and his telescope,
but also his pigeons.
The servant, having been left without wages, first lived on
his little savings, and then on his master’s pigeons.
Seeing this, the pigeons emigrated from the roof of Isaac
Boxtel to that of Cornelius van Baerle.
The nurse was a kind-hearted woman, who could not live
without something to love. She conceived an affection for
the pigeons which had thrown themselves on her hospitality;
and when Boxtel’s servant reclaimed them with culinary
intentions, having eaten the first fifteen already, and now
wishing to eat the other fifteen, she offered to buy them
from him for a consideration of six stivers per head.
This being just double their value, the man was very glad to
close the bargain, and the nurse found herself in undisputed