The Days of a Man 



1890 



House 

 of the 

 Thousand 

 Terrors 



norous names as though he loved them. All to- 

 gether it was a rare experience, lasting until nearly 

 midnight, when we reached our destination Sand 

 and took a little steamer bound for Stavanger, 

 at which place we said goodby to Norway. 



On the Continent we visited a number of quaint, 

 charming places in Holland and Belgium with which 

 I was already familiar. But wishing to show my 

 wife the noble old monuments of the Netherlands' 

 history, I met with one disappointment in Rotter- 

 dam. For on former visits to that city I had been 

 strongly impressed by an old house which stood at 

 the northwest corner of the Groote Markt over- 

 looked by the benign statue of Erasmus. Its windows 

 were of medieval type, each one being made of 

 heavy convex circlets of glass like bottle bottoms. 

 Its roof had sagged, its corners slumped, and it bore 

 every evidence of great age and trying experience. 

 Over its door was the inscription, IN DUIZEND 

 VREEZEN "In a Thousand Terrors." 



In that house in the year 1568, when the Duke 

 of Alva was terrorizing the Netherlands, a group 

 of Calvinists sought refuge from the Spanish troopers. 

 Killing then a number of goats, they placed the 

 bodies behind the partly closed door so that it 

 could not be easily pushed open, while at the same 

 time the blood of the animals oozed out into the 

 street. By this device they saved their lives; for 

 the Spaniards, finding the door blocked by what they 

 took to be human corpses, thought that massacre 

 had there already done its perfect work. But to 

 the cowering inmates the night was full of a "thou- 

 sand terrors." 



C348II 



