A Dominie in Doubt Part 31

"Nay! School Humanitaire!" I persisted.

At this juncture another man came forward, and the two of them jawed away gutturally for some time. I began to grow weary.

"h.e.l.l!" I murmured to myself half aloud.

The postman brightened, and enlightenment came to him.

"Engelissman!" he exclaimed.

"Liar!" I cried, "I'm a Scot," and I left the two of them discussing Engelissmen.

After much trouble and many bitter words I found the school. A gentleman who looked extremely like Bernard Shaw before Shaw's hair turned grey, was digging in a garden with a lot of boys and girls. He was Mr. Elbrink, the head-master. He could speak English and he showed me round.

The school is rather like what is known as the crank school in England.

In a manner it is the super-crank school, for everyone on the staff is teetotal, vegetarian, and a non-smoker. Here it was that I heard of Lightheart for the first time, and I blushed for my ignorance of the gentleman. It appears that he was a great educational reformer, a sort of Froebel I fancied, for handwork seemed to be the main consideration in the school. But I regret to say that the school did not impress me much. Too many children were doing the same sort of work; they sat in desks and held themselves more or less rigid. Here was benevolent authority again, not true freedom. All schools in Holland are State schools, and the Humanitarian School is one of them. It is almost impossible for a State school to be very much advanced; I think it is impossible, for the State is the national crowd, and a large crowd has little use for the crank.

I returned to Amersfoort, where by this time I had become the guest of the International School of Philosophy. This is a building standing in about twenty acres of ground amid the pine forests two miles south of the town. I was the sole guest, for the summer cla.s.ses had not started. This school is the beginning of a great movement. Here students from every country will meet and discuss life and education.

Mr. Reiman, the president, talked long and earnestly to me about the scheme, but I found myself challenging his insistence on spiritual education.

The aim of the school is to develop the spiritual side of man, an excellent aim . . . so long as man does not imagine that by living on the higher plane he is annihilating his earthly self. Everyone there was very, very kind to me, but I did not feel quite in my element, for I am not an obviously spiritual person. I find that I can discuss the higher life best when I have a gla.s.s of Pilsener at my elbow and a penny cigar in my mouth. It is clear that I have a complex about the higher life, and it may be a sour-grapes complex. All the same I should like to attend a summer course at Amersfoort and listen to the wise men dilate on the Bhagavadgita, Psycho-a.n.a.lysis and Religion, Plato, Sufism, and other subjects on the programme; anyway I would have no prepossessions and prejudices in listening to Dr. G. R. S. Meads'

course of lectures on The Mystical Philosophy and Gnosis of the Trismegistic Tractates.

From Amersfoort I went to Amsterdam.

"Umsterdum, dree kla.s.se, returig," I said to the ticket office girl.

"Third cla.s.s return?" she asked with a smile and gave me the ticket.

I was indignant.

It is the most humiliating thing in the world to ask a question in Dutch and to be answered in English. In Rotterdam I had stopped a seafaring looking man and tried to ask him in Dutch what was the way to the Hotel de France. He listened patiently while I struggled with the language; then he spat on my boot.

"Hotel de France?" he replied in broad c.o.c.kney, "d.a.m.ned if I know."

On the way to Amsterdam I got into a carriage full of farmers and one of them made a remark to me. I shook my head.

"Engelissman?" he said.

I nodded.

Then those men began to talk about Engelissmen, and they talked and laughed all the way to Amsterdam. Every now and then one of them would jerk his thumb in my direction. It was a trying journey.

Arrived in Amsterdam I made for the Rijks Museum. At the door a seedy-looking man touched me on the arm.

"Guide, sir?"

"No thank you."

"Two hundred rooms, sir! Official guide."

"No thank you."

He kept pace with me, and in a weak moment I inquired his charge. It was three guilden (five s.h.i.+llings), and I saw at once that the dirty dog had won, for he took on an air of possession.

"Righto," I said resignedly, and he led me into the building.

He began his tiresome patter.

"Thees picture was painted in 1547; beautiful ees eet not? Wonderful arteest!"

I sighed.

"Take me to the Rembrandts," I said.

I cannot describe this incident. I hated the beast because I had been so weak as to accept his services. The beauty of Rembrandt and Franz Hals was lost on me; all I could see was the dirty face of that guide.

Rembrandt's _Night Watch_ made me forget the creature for a moment, but when he began to describe it I fled in horror. We finished up in the modern section, and as I looked at van Gogh and Cezanne and Whistler's _Effie Deans_ his squeaky voice kept up a running commentary. I rushed from the building after a ten minutes' tour, paid the worm his three guilden . . . and then went back and enjoyed the gallery. But I nearly committed murder in the Rijks Museum that day. If ever I am hanged it will be for murdering an official guide. This particular specimen spoiled my visit to Amsterdam. I could not get away from the thought of my weakness, and I fled the city.

In the train going back to Amersfoort a genial Dutchman made a remark to me. I resolved that I should pretend to be a fellow-countryman.

"Ja!" I said, and the answer seemed to satisfy him. He went on to say other things, and when his facial expression seemed to demand an affirmative I said "Ja!"

After a time he frowned as he said a sentence.

"Nay!" said I.

That did it. He became white with anger, and swore at me all the way to Amersfoort. He had a fine command of language, too, and I was extremely sorry that I could not understand it.

On the Sat.u.r.day I set off on my return journey to Rotterdam, doing a tour in American fas.h.i.+on of Leiden on the way. It was like going home, for I liked Rotterdam. I think it was the gay paint on the barges that attracted me so much.

On the Sunday morning the Austrian kiddies arrived, and my sight-seeing ended.

XII.

The Austrian kiddies arrived at the Maas station on Sunday morning, and the Dutch folk gave them a kindly welcome. The Rotterdam committee was in charge, and I stood back because it was not my job. The kiddies came tumbling out of the train with great relief, for they had travelled for two nights. All had heavy rucksacks, many of them the packs of their dead fathers and brothers.

My eye lit on little Hansi. She stood on the platform crying, and I went forward to comfort her. Alas! I knew less German than I did Dutch, and I knew not what she said; but one of the Austrian escort told me that she had been homesick all the way. There is, however, a universal language that all children understand, and I took wee Hansi in my arms and cuddled her. The flow of tears stopped and she took from a small basket slung to her neck a tiny naked doll. I included Puppe in the cuddle, and Hansi smiled. A dear wee mite she was, very very thin, with great big eyes that were sunken. Her tears did not affect me, but when she smiled I found myself weeping, and I had to blow my nose hard.

The four hundred and fifty-eight children were bundled across the road to a s.h.i.+p, which took them in two parts across the Maas to the large building used by the Cunard Line for emigrants. Many of them thought they were on the way to England, and ten minutes later I found a wee chap gazing round in wonder on the land of England.

"This aint England, anywye," he said at last in evident disgust; "look at them clogs! This is Holland."

The boy was a Londoner resident in Vienna. There were about a dozen English children in the party. Later I found one standing in front of a group of Austrian boys.

"Any one o' you," he was shouting, "I'll box the whole gang o' you!"

This c.o.c.kney, his little brother, and their sister were the thorn in the flesh of the escort.