levelling a never-failing musket at him; and then he would
seek with his finger for the trigger to fire the shot which
was to have killed his neighbour. But it is time that we
should connect with this epoch of the operations of the one,
and the espionage of the other, the visit which Cornelius de
Witt came to pay to his native town.




Chapter 7

The Happy Man makes Acquaintance with Misfortune


Cornelius de Witt, after having attended to his family
affairs, reached the house of his godson, Cornelius van
Baerle, one evening in the month of January, 1672.

De Witt, although being very little of a horticulturist or
of an artist, went over the whole mansion, from the studio
to the green-house, inspecting everything, from the pictures
down to the tulips. He thanked his godson for having joined
him on the deck of the admiral's ship "The Seven Provinces,"
during the battle of Southwold Bay, and for having given his
name to a magnificent tulip; and whilst he thus, with the
kindness and affability of a father to a son, visited Van
Baerle's treasures, the crowd gathered with curiosity, and
even respect, before the door of the happy man.