WATCHING JUGGIvERS IN 



Photo by ]ixnil P. Albrecht 

 THF, MARKET-PLACE: TER GOES 



Over their bodices the maidens of Ter Goes wear gay 

 kerchiefs folded in prescribed and curious lines, and the caps 

 which cover their shapely heads are of lace plaited into wide- 

 spreading wings. 



about the castle walls grew up a little 

 town. This castle was called the Slot 

 van Ostende. Jacoba's ancestor built it, 

 and to its shelter she returned when 

 armies, husbands, powers, all were gone, 

 to sit beneath her mulberry-tree and 

 dream love-dreams of the man she would 

 marry if she dared. And, in spite of 

 solemn promise and loss of lands, she did 

 dare. But that story has little to do with 

 Ter Goes. 



Jacoba loved Goes and wished to wall 

 it and make it strong. In her time the 

 beautiful Church of St. Mary Magdalene, 

 the "finest in Zeeland today," was conse- 

 crated, its huge walls towering beside 

 her palace above the roofs of the little 

 town. Its quaint lantern peeped invit- 

 ingly through the trees as we neared the 

 town ; its high roof and beautiful win- 

 dows promised lovely vistas within. Its 

 interior was divided into two churches 

 we knew well. It had been robbed of its 

 saintly name and rebaptized "the Re- 



formed Church," or, 

 more simply yet, "the 

 Great Church," in the 

 centuries of Protestant 

 worship; but those 

 were its outside names 

 alone. Within were a 

 mighty and famous or- 

 gan and the old choir, 

 possessing renowned 

 tombstones. 



We meant to learn 

 precisely why the choir 

 was called the wandel- 

 kerk, for in our vocab- 

 ulary wand el meant 

 walk, and very plainly 

 the huge church had 

 stood very still for cen- 

 turies. Did the other 

 congregation walk in 

 the apse and study 

 tombstones when the 

 fire in the stoofjes 

 burned low and the 

 preacher was still in 

 full blast ? Do you 

 know what a stoofje 

 is? A little perforated 

 wooden box containing 

 bricquets of peat to 

 keep one's toes from 

 being frost-bitten on 

 pavements in churches 

 guiltless of heating apparatus in a land 

 of ice, frost, and lengthy sermons. A 

 good sexton is he and a far-seeing man 

 who can accurately measure the probable 

 length of the coming discourse in these 

 coals of fire. 



Jacqueline's mulberry-tree 

 Of the castle there are but a few in- 

 conspicuous remnants, to be found with 

 difficult)^ upon market days in the 

 crowded courtyard of the rather shabby 

 little inn which bears its name. In the 

 maze of wagons, chaises, big, high-step- 

 ping horses and velvet-jacketed farmers 

 you may perhaps find some one who will 

 unlock for you a little door in the corner 

 of the wall and disclose a tiny court al- 

 most filled by a decrepit tree. 



Age and weather have split its trunk 

 in many deep gashes ; its limbs bend al- 

 most to the ground with weariness and 

 years. Yet even this summer its foliage 

 was youthfully fresh and dense : its twies 



the cold stone 



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