Netherlands -- History -- 1648-1714 -- Fiction; Tulip Mania, 1634-1637 -- Fiction; Witt, Johan de, 1625-1672 -- Fiction
The honest lad was not aware of the important character of his message;
nevertheless, he used as much speed as if he had known it; and in less
than an hour he had already gone a league and a half.
Rosa took from him the note, which had now become useless, and explained
to him what she wanted him to do for her. The boatman placed himself
entirely at her disposal, promising to keep pace with the horse if Rosa
would allow him to take hold of either the croup or the bridle of her
horse. The two travellers had been on their way for five hours, and made
more than eight leagues, and yet Gryphus had not the least suspicion of
his daughter having left the fortress.
The jailer, who was of a very spiteful and cruel disposition, chuckled
within himself at the idea of having struck such terror into his
daughter’s heart.
But whilst he was congratulating himself on having such a nice story to
tell to his boon companion, Jacob, that worthy was on his road to Delft;
and, thanks to the swiftness of the horse, had already the start of Rosa
and her companion by four leagues.
And whilst the affectionate father was rejoicing at the thought of
his daughter weeping in her room, Rosa was making the best of her way
towards Haarlem.
Thus the prisoner alone was where Gryphus thought him to be.
Rosa was so little with her father since she took care of the tulip,
that at his dinner hour, that is to say, at twelve o’clock, he was
reminded for the first time by his appetite that his daughter was
fretting rather too long.
He sent one of the under-turnkeys to call her; and, when the man came
back to tell him that he had called and sought her in vain, he resolved
to go and call her himself.
He first went to her room, but, loud as he knocked, Rosa answered not.
The locksmith of the fortress was sent for; he opened the door, but
Gryphus no more found Rosa than she had found the tulip.
At that very moment she entered Rotterdam.
Gryphus therefore had just as little chance of finding her in the
kitchen as in her room, and just as little in the garden as in the
kitchen.
The reader may imagine the anger of the jailer when, after having made
inquiries about the neighbourhood, he heard that his daughter had hired
a horse, and, like an adventuress, set out on a journey without saying
where she was going.
Gryphus again went up in his fury to Van Baerle, abused him, threatened
him, knocked all the miserable furniture of his cell about, and promised
him all sorts of misery, even starvation and flogging.
Cornelius, without even hearing what his jailer said, allowed himself to
be ill-treated, abused, and threatened, remaining all the while sullen,
immovable, dead to every emotion and fear.
After having sought for Rosa in every direction, Gryphus looked out for
Jacob, and, as he could not find him either, he began to suspect from
that moment that Jacob had run away with her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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