She pulled herself up directly, and drank the little glass of strong spirit and water I held to her lips. It was what we call schnapps in Holland, and the flavor is detestable enough to bring a dead man to life if he could but taste it. "Horrible," said she, making a face like a child taking medicine. "There, I will be good. Forgive me, dear Loveday. Every one is not so strong as you are." "There, now, you are quite yourself," said I, "and you will be better still when you have had your supper. Shall I order it, Master Batie?" "If you will," he answered, looking immensely relieved, for he could not speak either Dutch or French, and his Latin was not of much use here. So I went out and took counsel with the landlady, who was a neat, clever housewife from Middleburg. She was ready to run her feet off when she found I had been there, and knew some of her friends, at least by name. She got us the best her house afforded. Mistress Curtis made a sad face at the soup, but she liked the bread and the rich milk, and thick cream, and the golden butter, so sweet and hard as I think no one but a Dutch woman can make it. My mistress was quite herself again, laughing as she told her husband of all the odd mischances of our voyage. But she was ever light-hearted in our greatest straits. "And now are we safe, I trust," said she. "I long to be at rest, even if only for the sake of these faithful women and honest John Symonds." "Nay, trouble not for me, madam; I shall do well enough any where," said old John, as she turned to him. "Only I marvel why these people can not speak like Christians, so a man could understand them." My lady laughed, while Master Batie said, in his grave way: "Nay, John, there are many good Christians in the world who do not speak English. As to our being in safety, I hope we are so at least for the present. We will go to-morrow to Saulin, a small town, where I have hired a house with its furniture, and where we may, I trust, find a refuge till this tyranny be overpast. But it will behoove us to live quiet and retired, and to be very prudent." "Perhaps, then, it is as well for us that nobody but Loveday can speak Dutch," observed my mistress. "As for me, I can read French well enough, but my accent is incurably English." Well, we removed to Saulin next day, and took up our abode in our own hired house—not a spacious one by any means, but neat and comfortable. It was an odd little town, once a place of some importance, but old and decaying.