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CHAPTER V
THE ‘COMPENDIOUS GUIDE’ ON DUTCH SYNTAX
Boyton’s monograph on pronunciation is his finest piece of work. He never quite reaches that level elsewhere; and, if he is destined after a hundred and fifty years to achieve a name, it had better rest on his ‘Doctrine of the Native’ than on his Syntax.
So van Dam assured us, when our little party met in his room the week before Christmas.
We had all been busy; but busy or not, the Cape men found time to skim over Boyton’s entertaining paragraphs, as, indeed, we guessed, from the frequent guffaws and readings that reached us from time to time through the closed doors. To night we had accepted an invitation to supper, before the holidays; and we were to hear his views on O’Neill’s ‘Guide, Philosopher and Friend’, Boyton, – in other words the ‘Wegwijzer tot de nederduitsche taal’. Long since Jack had, indeed, got other and more modern manuals of Dutch, so that he was supposed to look now with a certain contempt on his former monitor: but the “compendious guide” had laid the basis of his erudition, and he had still a sneaking regard for its honest old pages.
NO DEFINITE RULES
What we wanted, indeed, was stories from Jack himself: but we had exhausted the more dramatic of these; and to get the fine aroma of the others – there were still many others – we thought some acquaintance with the compendium’s syntax was essential.
Van Dam had undertaken to put us up to any niceties he had been struck with.
The first thing he told us was that Boyton had no clear ideas of any sort, and never laid down any definite rule. This lent him a certain diffidence in regard to most points, – a diffidence which in the case of HET became positive fright. At the first mention of de, het, and an adjective, he gives as much encouragement as he can.
ALL NOUNS TO WHICH HET IS PREFIXED ARE NEUTER
It is not much.
An insurmountable Difficulty for the Englischman is the right use of the Particles, especially het. Sufficient rules cannot be given, E. g. het mooie kind: eene sterke vrouw, een zwart schip.
This is certain, that all Nouns, to which the Particles, het, dat, or dit, are added are of the Neuter Gender; on this account, the e final, in the Adjectives, when joined with such words, is, generally, rejected.
Even this rule admits of an exception. E. G. It is never said: een snel vogel: de groote paard. But it is correct to say, if the meaning admits it, een groote man. (also groot.) A native may be consulted with advantage.
When Boyton is labouring under strong emotion, the effect is always to increase the number of commas, colons, and other stops.
His agitation may also be traced in the way he harks back to any fundamental rule that he has already discussed ad nauseam.
DEN IS NOT A PURE NOMINATIVE
It is quite pathetic to note how he urges on his readers to reserve their dezen and dien and den for the accusative.
It is good Dutch to say: ik zag dien braven man gisteren, I saw that honest man yesterday; but it is very bad Dutch, – whatever custom may have introduced in some places; to say– dien braven man heeft het gezegd.
Take some gems at random.
N.B. Prepositions are that part of speech, which are so called because they are, commonly, put before the words, which are subsequent to them, as onder and ondanks.
N.B. Most Adverbs may be distinguished from adjectives by this rule: If a substantive is added after them, they will make nonsense; whereas, being joined to an Adjective or a Verb, they will make good sense.
“What I admire most,” said van Dam handing back The Work to O’Neill, “is the elasticity of the rules. He says, for instance, that you can render I know by ik weet, and on the whole he is inclined to recommend that way of it. But he never commits himself.
“It must be also admitted that there are other authors of good standing who employ the Subjunctive form where we might expect the Indicative and who say IK WETE, I know.”
IK GRAUW, IK KEF, EN IK KWEEL
That’s one of his rules!
As a matter of fact there is no finality about anything in these pages. O’Neill, you were in training for a poet when you took up this book. I confess I should have liked to hear you going over your fifteen classes of irregular verbs, on the model (say) of ik grauw, ik kef en ik kweel, or even of ik krijsch, ik piep en ik lieg.
There is a rich profusion of tenses too in Boyton. He needn’t have apologized for being too simple when he furnishes you with four ordinary optatives and four future optatives.”
A BOYTON TO THE RESCUE
“You may jest as you like about Boyton”, interrupted Jack; “but I tell you it’s a book that has points. Do you know it once helped me to save a lady’s life?”
“Save a lady’s life!” said the Professor and the Philosopher in one breath. “We’ll withdraw all we’ve said, if you’ll prove to us, now, that the ‘Compendious Guide’ was ever the least good to any human being.”
“Tell your adventure in your own way, O’Neill,” a boyish voice chimed in; “and shame the cynics.”
We all glared at the First-year’s man – who was making himself very much at home for a lad of his tender years – but as he had nothing more to say, we let him off with a look, and turned to the lethargic story-teller.
CHAPTER VI
THE GRAMMATICAL CARESS
“You saved life with that Boyton-Grammar of yours, if I catch the drift of your last remark?” interposed the Professor magniloquently, as if he were addressing a public meeting.
“May I hazard the guess that Boyton on that occasion was rather a weapon of offence than of defence?”
“Well, you’re right,” said O’Neill. “Offence is more in Boyton’s line. And he certainly did press heavily, that day, on a butcher’s boy. You remember those slagersjongens that saunter about, in white linen coats, with great protruding baskets on their shoulders. They jostle and push wherever they have a chance, and whirl round with their cargoes of meat, so as to make you start. You know the tribe. Well, Boyton proved an admirable corrective to the insolence of one of these imps.
A HAPPY CROWD
It was a day there was a sort of festival in the Hague.
From early in the afternoon there was a crush everywhere. The singels and the main roads through the Wood were filled with holiday-makers. Soldiers were parading here and there. Everyone was in the best of good humour; music in the distance rose and fell on the air; flags fluttered from the windows. Look where you might, there were bright dresses, prancing horses, snorting motors, and pedestrians of all descriptions.
I was one of the pedestrians.
I had been at my grammar in the morning; and after a long spell in the house had stepped over to Enderby’s, and coaxed that lazy fellow out for a stroll. It was perfect weather, and the crowds were wonderfully well-behaved. We enjoyed ourselves finely ‘under the green-wood tree,’ till we were brought to a stand-still in a dense mass of humanity that was packed along the edge of a canal, scarcely moving. A procession or something had impeded the traffic some moments.
INNOCENCE IN DANGER
There was a knot of butchers’ boys right in front of us. They were roughly shoving their neighbours about, and seeing what mischief they could do. Horse play, in fact. They didn’t seem to fit into Boyton’s categories, either of ‘Natives intelligent’ or ‘polite’.
Presently one brawny scoundrel began to throw stones at the occupants of a carriage that was slowly passing by.
I couldn’t believe my eyes!
There sat an old lady of eighty or ninety, with soft white hair – the very picture of fragility; opposite her was a nurse in dark uniform, in charge of three dainty little children in pink and white – mere babies of three or four – with innocent blue eyes gazing all round them. And, actually, that ruffianly knecht was about to bombard the group with whatever he had in his hand!
Bang went a big mass of something – presumably hard, from the rattle it made – against the side of the carriage.
Happily he was a poor marksman, that rascally slager; for at that short range he ought to have been able to demolish so fragile an old lady at the first shot, or at the very least have put out one eye.
As it was, he only knocked off her bonnet.
Enraged, apparently, at his poor practice at a practically stationary target so close at hand, he picked up another half-brick and wheeled, to take more deliberate aim.
The delicate old lady grew pale, and spasmodically fumbled with her parasol to shield the children.
NEMESIS
I thought her eye caught mine; and, seeing there was no escape for her unless I interposed – no one till now seemed to have noticed the occurrence – I shouted, “Stop, slager, stop!” and whisked Boyton’s learned pages right into his face, taking care at the same moment to administer a vigorous push to the long arm of the lever conveniently made by his basket.
This forced him to revolve suddenly on his own axis – beefsteak and all; and, as he spun round, I accelerated his motion with a pat or two from the ‘compendium’. It was all the work of an instant, and executed just in time. The grammatical caress foiled his aim completely, and he flung his missile blindly in the wrong direction.
As I slipped unostentatiously into the crowd out of the immediate neighbourhood of the discomfited marksman, I had the satisfaction of seeing the dear old lady recover colour and smile. The babies crowed with delight, and clapped their hands. They thought it was a game got up for their special benefit!
THE OUTCOME OF A REVOLUTION
I raised my hat and retired, a warm glow of self-approval in my breast, and on my lips an involuntary quotation from Boyton: “De spraakkunst is voor iedereen onmisbaar.”
Meantime the brickbat fell harmlessly on the back of a policeman who, with hands tightly clasped behind him, was studying a bed of scarlet geraniums.
He never even turned, but only said “Ja, ja,” over his shoulder!
Two days after this adventure my eye caught the following paragraph among the advertisements in the Nieuwe Courant:
“Stop, Slager, stop!”
The Baroness X. and her three grandchildren herewith beg heartily to thank the young Englishman for his gallant conduct in the Wood, on the 31st Ultimo.
CHAPTER VII
A GOSSIPY LETTER
“Don’t talk any more about that grammar-book,” I interposed. “It’s all very well in its way, but it doesn’t account for half Jack’s adventures. Now I can let you into a secret. Please don’t look so apprehensive, O’Neill! As it happens, I had a descriptive letter from Enderby just about the time that Jack was making the most brilliant progress with his Dutch vocabulary. It gave me a vivid picture of what was going on in the Hague when this linguist of ours got really started to work.
O’NEILL AS A GUIDE
Here are two of these long epistles. In the first he tells me all about the MacNamaras – Jack’s cousins, you know – who came across from Kilkenny, for a trip to Holland. They were at the Oude Doelen when he wrote, and our friend Jack was posing as a great Dutch scholar and showing them the sights.
(From Enderby to Cuey-na-Gael)Doelen Hotel,The Hague.
My dear Cuey-na-Gael,
You would be amazed to see the confidence with which O’Neill acts as guide to the MacNamaras.
MacNamara père is mostly buried in museums, or is on the hunt for archaeological papers, so Kathleen and Terence are left on Jack’s hands.
He has been everywhere with them, and has evidently impressed them with his astounding Dutch. To them it seems both correct and fluent. They have only had three days of it as yet, and haven’t had time to find him out. Kathleen is as haughty as ever; and I can see she chafes at being obliged to submit to the direction of a mere boy, as she regards Jack.
She was furious the day before yesterday, when in passing through one of the back streets he asked her if she had ever noticed what the Dutch Government printed in front of the surgeries.
MEN MANGLED HERE
She glanced up and, to her horror, read: “Hier mangelt men.” It was only a momentary shock; she guessed soon enough what it meant; but it gave her a turn all the same. Perhaps it wasn’t a very finished kind of joke, but she needn’t have been quite so fierce about it.
“You’re cruel,” she said, “cruel and heartless! Why even your dogmatic and intolerable chum, Mr. van Leeuwen wouldn’t have been so harsh as that.”
Now it was that little speech of hers that suggested something to me. Was there ever anything between her and van Leeuwen? They were at the University about the same time, and it seems van Leeuwen was a great friend of the father, who had him down to his place in the country and showed him his manuscripts. But I believe Kathleen couldn’t stand him. They used always to be arguing about the Suffragettes, and passed for official enemies, in a way, – at least as uncompromising leaders on opposite sides. She was fond of saying that van Leeuwen was a standing proof that mere learning couldn’t enlarge the mind. Once in a private debate she referred to him as a “learned barbarian and a retrograde mediævalist.”
NOUN HUNGER
She was called to order for it, of course; but her apology didn’t amount to much. She said she wouldn’t mind dropping the adjectives, but she would stick to the nouns.
I believe van Leeuwen was quite content, however, and congratulated his witty antagonist on the fact that she would mellow with time.
We always thought in those days they were sworn foes, and always would be. But I have a dim idea there is now more friendly interest on both sides. And, by the way, van Leeuwen has been carrying on brisk correspondence with O’Neill, especially since he heard the MacNamaras were expected. He has offered his services, and those of his motor, to all and sundry, especially if they hail from Dublin: so I don’t think he can be keeping up very much of a grudge.
But I was going to tell you about Jack.
Lately I had noticed that his Dutch vocabulary was growing very rich. He seemed to have quite a hunger for nouns, and he used to ask the names of everything. But I have no idea of what he was up to. To day I’ll find out and write you.
Much haste. Yours as ever.
Enderby.
KINDSCH GEWORDEN
(From Enderby to Cuey-na-Gael)
Dear Cuey,
I’ve just been at the Doelen Hotel – and the Macs are gone! Very sudden I must say. I suppose Kathleen has got tired of Holland; or is she trying to avoid van Leeuwen?
You see MacNamara mère had written me a friendly little note from Kilkenny, telling me that the Doctor – as she always calls her husband – had got a trifle absent-minded since his deafness became troublesome, and would I look him up occasionally during his stay in the Hague, and give him some advice about the Rhine.
Well, when I reached Vieux Doelen, the birds were flown. Gone at six o’clock, I was told – the three of them – to Cologne! Quick work, I thought; so I made a bee-line for O’Neill’s. He surely would know about this sudden departure.
And in any case I wanted to get a glimpse of his new mysterious studies.
Just fancy! The landlady met me at the door with tears in her eyes.
A ROMMEL
“O Mijnheer, Mijnheer!” she exclaimed half-sobbing. “Ik vrees voor mijnheer O’Neill. Hij studeert te veel, of ik weet het niet – maar het is niet goed met hem. Ik geloof”, and here her voice sank to a horrified whisper, “dat hij een beetje kindsch geworden is; want hij heeft speelgoed gekocht, en hij maak overal zoo een rommel.”
“Ja, juffrouw,” I strove to explain, “Mijnheer studeert natuurlijk.”
But she persisted, “Oh mijnheer! studeeren is het niet. Hij ziet het scherm voor een kachel aan, en verknoeit alles. Ik ben zoo bang, zoo benauwd! Ik durf het huis niet uit, van Maandag af al!”
Rather flustered by all this, I promised to call the doctor if it were necessary; then climbed up the stairs to O’Neill’s door.
All was still. I knocked and entered. What a sight met my eyes! Indeed it was enough to astonish more experienced people than the landlady.
HOME-MADE BERLITZ
Neatly fastened on one side of the table was a model train, engine and all. Beside it was a toy house, with yard, garden, and stiff wooden trees. Then there was a bit of a doll’s room with a kitchen stove. And verily to every one of these articles there was a label affixed.
There sat the student, pen in hand, with a dictionary and a gum-bottle at his elbow. Snippets of paper littered his writing-desk and the floor around. His unfinished lunch (labelled too) looked down reproachfully from a pile of books built on the table.
Over the gorgeous screen that hid the hearth a conspicuous card was hung, bearing the mystic inscription, “What ought to be here – Kachel.”
No wonder the careful hospita was upset. It would have been hard to say whether the apartment was more like a museum or an auction room.
He glanced up with a sort of blush when I came near; but raised his hand to enjoin silence, as he found the word he was in search of, and wrote it down.
Half expecting to see prices marked, I examined some of the labels.
Nearly every thing had its Dutch name gummed on to it, such as ‘spiegel lijst,’ ‘behangsel,’ ‘schotel of bakje,’ and even on his sleeve ‘mouw van mijn jas.’
“It’s all right!” he burst forth enthusiastically. “Doing Berlitz Dutch, you see! Self-taught, too! Splendid plan. Three hundred words a day. I’ll have two thousand new nouns at my fingers’ ends before the Macs are back from the Drachenfels. Precious few things in the ordinary way of life, I won’t know then! Eh, what?”
SPOORWEG BEPALINGEN
Then it dawned upon me he was getting up vocabulary.
“Nouns, of course,” he said. “All nouns. That’s the secret. True basis of any language.
“It’s a discovery of my own. If you know the names of two or three thousand material things, you can never be at a loss. But I stick in a proverb, too, here and there, wherever it comes handy. See?”
He held up the sleeve of his dressing-gown on which the candid announcement was made in bold round-hand: “Ik heb het achter de mouw”, and pointed to his bread-knife, which was tastefully adorned with the words: “Het mes op de keel zetten.”
Yes, I saw.
Well; then he explained, and argued, and tried to proselytize me. He was making hay while the sun shone – which meant that he was preparing, in the absence of Terence and Kathleen, for his famous cycling-tour; getting on his armour, in fact.
In such spirits I had never seen him.
And, I must say, he made out a good case for his method. It seems he had anticipated most of the queries he might be obliged to put during his travels. He had docketed every part of a railway carriage, and even mastered all sorts of regulations, from those of the Luxe-trein to Buurtverkeer, and from the yearly ticket to the humble perronkaartje. It looked very thorough, and I understood that he had treated his cycle the same way. But I have grave doubts! I am the more confirmed in my scepticism from what the landlady told me at the door. After reassuring her on the score of O’Neill’s health, I emphasised the fact that he was going on a trip, and must practise Dutch by way of preparation.
THE GROOTE WATER-BAAS
That was worse than all, she thought; as Mijnheer O’Neill would certainly come to harm. “Hij is zoo veranderd! Hè! Het is zoo eng.”
Yesterday he had asked her about the print of a sea-fight that her little boy had put up in the hall. She said it was de Ruyter; and began to expatiate on that hero’s achievements.
But he cut her short with: “Een beroemde man was hij zeker; misschien de grootste water-baas van zijn tijd.”
I explained that he probably meant zee-held; but not remembering the right term in time, had taken one like it.
But the landlady could not be pacified.
“Het doet mij huiveren te denken dat hij op reis gaat!” she said.
TWO THOUSAND NEW WORDS
I was not without my apprehensions either. For he means to start out next week with two thousand new words.
He’ll probably find that such hastily acquired information is not without its drawbacks.
But more again.
Vale, vale.
As ever yours,
Phil Enderby.
P. S. The Macs are gone to Bonn, where your uncle expects to find wonderful manuscripts. Not much fun for Kathleen though! And Terence will be bored to death. Why doesn’t O’Neill bring him back to Holland and show him Amsterdam and other towns?
