The World's Greatest Books_ Volume 3 Part 53

All this was Boxtel's work. It was he who had reported to the magistrate the visit of De Witt and the placing of the packet in a cabinet. And now, with Van Baerle out of the house as a prisoner, Boxtel in the dead of night broke into his neighbour's house, to secure the priceless bulbs of the black tulip. He had made out where they were growing, and he plunged his hands into the soft soil--only to find nothing. Then the wretched man guessed that the bulbs had gone with the prisoner to The Hague, and decided to go in pursuit. Van Baerle could only keep them while he was alive, and then--they should be his, Isaac Boxtel's.

_III.--The Theft of the Tulip_

Van Baerle was placed in the cell occupied by Cornelius de Witt in the Buytenhof. Outside, in the market-place, the bodies of the De Witts were hanging, and Van Baerle read with horror the inscription, "Here hang that great rascal John de Witt and the little rascal Cornelius de Witt, enemies of their country."

Gryphus laughed when the prisoner asked him what it meant, and replied, "That's what happens to those that write secret letters to the enemies of the Prince of Orange."

A terrible despair fell on Van Baerle, but he refused to escape when Rosa, the gaoler's beautiful daughter, suggested it to him. He was brought to trial, and though he denied all knowledge of the correspondence, his goods were confiscated, and he was condemned to death. He bequeathed his three tulip bulbs to Rosa, explained how she must get a certain soil from Dordrecht, and went out calmly to die. On the scaffold Van Baerle was reprieved and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, for the Prince of Orange shrank from further bloodshed.

One spectator in the crowd was bitterly disappointed. This was Boxtel, who had bribed the headsman to let him have Van Baerle's clothes, believing that he would thus obtain the priceless bulbs.

Van Baerle was sent to the prison of Loewenstein, and in February 1673, when he was thinking his tulips lost for ever, he heard Rosa's voice.

Gryphus had applied for the gaolership of Loewenstein, and had been appointed.

Nothing could persuade him that if Van Baerle was not a traitor he was certainly in league with the devil, like all learned men, and he did all he could to mortify and annoy his prisoner. But Rosa would come every night when her father, stupefied by gin, was asleep, and talk to Cornelius through the barred grating of his cell door.

He taught her to read, and together they planned how the tulip bulbs should be brought to flower. One bulb Rosa was to plant, the second Van Baerle would cultivate in his cell with soil placed in an old water jug, and the third was to be kept in reserve.

Once more hope revived in Baerle's mind, but Rosa often suffered vexation because Cornelius thought more of his black tulip than of her.

In the meantime Boxtel, under the a.s.sumed name of Jacob Gisels, had made his way to Loewenstein in pursuit of the bulbs, and had ingratiated himself with Gryphus, offering to marry his daughter. Rosa's tulip had to be guarded from Gisels, who was always spying on her movements. She kept it in her room for safety, but Boxtel had a key made, and the day the tulip flowered, and arose a spotless black, he resolved to take it at once, and rush to Haarlem and claim the prize.

The day came. Rosa described to Cornelius the wonderful black tulip, and they drew up a letter to the president of the Horticultural Society at Haarlem, begging him to come and fetch the wonderful flower.

That very night while Cornelius and Rosa rejoiced as lovers--for now even Rosa was convinced of the prisoner's love for her--over the happiness of the flowering tulip, Boxtel crept into her room, and carried off the black tulip to Haarlem.

As for Van Baerle, he was beside himself with the rage of desperation when Rosa told him that the black tulip had been stolen. Rosa, bent on recovering the tulip, and certain in her own mind as to the thief, hastened away from Loewenstein the next day without a word, Gryphus was mad when he learnt his daughter was nowhere to be found, and put down the mysterious disappearance of Jacob Gisels and Rosa to the work of the devil, and was convinced that Van Baerle was the devil's agent.

The third day after the theft Gryphus, armed with a stick and a knife, attacked Cornelius, calling out, "Give me back my daughter." Cornelius got hold of the stick, forced Gryphus to drop the knife, and then proceeded to give the gaoler a thrashing. The noise brought in turnkeys and guards, who speedily carried off the wounded gaoler and arrested Van Baerle. To comfort the prisoner they a.s.sured him he would certainly be shot within twelve hours.

Then an officer, an aide-de-camp of the Prince of Orange, entered, escorted Van Baerle to the prison gate, and bade him enter a carriage.

Believing himself about to die, he thought sadly of Rosa and of the tulip he was never to see again. The carriage rolled off, and they travelled all that day and night until the journey ended at Haarlem.

_IV.--The Triumph of the Tulip_

Rosa reached Haarlem just four hours after Boxtel's arrival, and she went at once to seek an interview with Mynheer van Systens, the President of the Horticultural Society. Immediate admittance was granted on her mentioning the magic words "black tulip."

"Sir, the black tulip has been stolen from me," said Rosa.

"But I only saw it two hours ago!" replied the president.

"You saw it--where?"

"Why, at your master's! Are you not in the service of Mynheer Isaac Boxtel?"

"I, sir? Certainly not! But this Isaac Boxtel, is he a thin, bald-headed, bow-legged, crook-backed, haggard-looking man?"

"You have described him exactly."

"He is the thief; he stole the black tulip from me."

"Well, go and find Mynheer Boxtel--he is at the White Swan Inn, and settle it with him." And with that the president took up his pen and went on writing, for he was busy over his report.

But Rosa still implored him, and while she was speaking the Prince of Orange entered the building. Rosa told everything, how she had received the bulb from the prisoner at Loewenstein, and how she had first seen the prisoner at The Hague. Then Boxtel was sent for. He was ready with his tale. The girl had plotted with her lover, the state prisoner, Cornelius van Baerle, and had stolen his--Boxtel's--black tulip, which he had unwisely mentioned. However, he had recovered it.

A thought struck Rosa.

"There were three bulbs. What has become of the others?" she asked.

"One failed, the second produced the black tulip, and the third is at home at Dordrecht," said Boxtel uneasily.

"You lie; it is here!" cried Rosa. And she drew from her bosom the third bulb, still wrapped in the same paper Van Baerle had so hastily put round the bulbs on his flight. "Take it, my lord," she said, handing it to the prince. And then, glancing at the paper for the first time, she added, "Oh, my lord, read this!"

William pa.s.sed the third bulb to the president, and read the paper carefully. It was Cornelius de Witt's letter to his G.o.dson, exhorting him to burn the packet without opening it. It was the proof of Van Baerle's innocence and of his ownership of the bulbs.

"Go, Mynheer Boxtel; you shall have justice. And you, Mynheer van Systens, take care of this maiden and of the tulip," said the prince.

That same evening the prince summoned Rosa to the town hall, and talked to her. Rosa did not deny her love for Cornelius.

"But what is the good of loving a man condemned to live and die in prison?" the prince asked.

"I can help him to live and die," came the answer.

The prince sealed a letter, and sent it off to Loewenstein by Colonel van Deken. Then he turned to Rosa, and said, "The day after to-morrow is Sunday, and it will be the festival of the tulip. Take these 500 guilders, and dress yourself in the costume of a Friesland bride, for I want it to be a grand festival for you."

Sunday came, May 15, 1673, and all Haarlem gathered to do honour to the black tulip. Boxtel was in the crowd, feasting his eyes on the sacred flower, which was born aloft in a litter. The procession stopped, and the flower was placed on a pedestal, while the people cheered with wild enthusiasm. At the solemn moment when the Prince of Orange was to acclaim the triumphant owner of the black tulip and present the prize of 100,000 guilders, the coach with the unhappy prisoner Cornelius van Baerle drew up in the market-place.

Cornelius, hearing that the celebration of the black tulip was actually proceeding, besought his guard to let him have one glimpse of the flower; and the pet.i.tion was granted by the Prince of Orange.

From a distance of six paces Van Baerle gazed at the black tulip, and then he, with the mult.i.tude, turned his eyes towards the prince. In dead silence the prince declared the occasion of the festival, the discovery of the wonderful black tulip, and concluded, "Let the owner of the black tulip approach."

Cornelius made an involuntary movement. Boxtel and Rosa rushed forward from the crowd.

The prince turned to Rosa. "This tulip is yours, is it not?" he said.

"Yes, my lord," she answered softly. And general applause came from the crowd.

"This tulip will henceforth bear the name of its producer, and will be called _Tulipa nigra Rosa Baerttensis_, because Van Baerle is to be the married name of this damsel," the prince announced; and at the same time he took Rosa's hand and placed it within the hand of the prisoner, who had rushed forward at the words he had heard.

Boxtel fell down in a fit, and when they raised him up he was dead.

The procession returned to the town hall, the prince declared Rosa the prizewinner, and informed Cornelius that, having been wrongfully condemned, his property was restored to him. Then he entered his coach, and was driven away.

Cornelius and Rosa departed for Dordrecht, and Van Baerle remained ever faithful to his wife and his tulips.