Fish is being cleaned and the gin shops are well patronized, for it seems a common habit in this moist northern climate frequently to take “Een sneeuw-balletje” of gin and sugar, which does not taste at all badly, be it said.  All sorts of strange-looking people are met in the little narrow street, and all doing strange-looking things, but with the air of its being in no wise unusual with them.  All in all, Scheveningen is an entertaining spot in which to linger.

DELFT[A]

[Footnote A:  From “Sketches in Holland and Scandinavia.”]

BY AUGUSTUS J.C.  HARE

An excursion must be made to Delft, only twenty minutes distant from The Hague by rail.  Pepys calls it “a most sweet town, with bridges and a river in every street,” and that is a tolerably accurate description.  It seems thinly inhabited, and the Dutch themselves look upon it as a place where one will die of ennui.  It has scarcely changed with two hundred years.  The view of Delft by Van der Meer in the Museum at The Hague might have been painted yesterday.  All the trees are dipt, for in artificial Holland every work of Nature is artificialized.  At certain seasons, numbers of storks may be seen upon the chimney-tops, for Delft is supposed to be the stork town par excellence.  Near the shady canal Oude Delft is a low building, once the Convent of St. Agata, with an ornamental door surmounted by a relief, leading into a courtyard.  It is a common barrack now, for Holland, which has no local histories, has no regard whatever for its historic associations or monuments.  Yet this is the greatest shrine of Dutch history, for it is here that William the Silent died.

Philip II. had promised 25,000 crowns of gold to any one who would murder the Prince of Orange.  An attempt had already been made, but had failed, and William refused to take any measures for self-protection, saying, “It is useless:  my years are in the hands of God; if there is a wretch who has no fear of death, my life is in his hand, however I may guard it.”

At length, a young man of seven-and-twenty appeared at Delft, who gave himself out to be one Guyon, a Protestant, son of Pierre Guyon, executed at Besancon for having embraced Calvinism, and declared that he was exiled for his religion.  Really he was Balthazar Gerard, a bigoted Catholic, but his conduct in Holland soon procured him the reputation of an evangelical saint.

The Prince took him into his service and sent him to accompany a mission from the States of Holland to the Court of France, whence he returned to bring the news of the death of the Duke of Anjou to William.  At that time the Prince was living with his court in the convent of St. Agata, where he received Balthazar alone in his chamber.  The moment was opportune, but the would-be assassin had no arms ready.  William gave him a small sum of money and bade him hold himself in readiness to be sent back to France.