Page:The black tulip (IA 10892334.2209.emory.edu).pdf/124

 A flower and a woman, both of them, as he conceived, lost to him for ever.

Fortunately the good doctor was mistaken. In his prison-cell the most adventurous life which ever fell to the lot of any tulip-fancier, was reserved for him.

One morning, whilst at his window, inhaling the fresh air which came from the river, and casting a longing look to the windmills of his dear old city Dort, which were looming in the distance behind a forest of chimneys, he saw flocks of pigeons coming from that quarter, to perch fluttering on the pointed gable ends of Lœvestein.

These pigeons, Van Baerle said to himself, are coming from Dort, and consequently may return there. By fastening a little note to the wing of one of these pigeons, one might have a chance to send a message there. Then, after a few moments’ consideration, he exclaimed,—

“I will do it.”

A man grows very patient who is twenty-eight years of age, and condemned to a prison for life, that is to say, to something like twenty-two or twenty-three thousand days of captivity.

Van Baerle, from whose thoughts the three bulbs were never absent, made a snare for catching the pigeons, baiting the birds with all the resources of his kitchen, such as it was, for eight stivers (sixpence English) a day; and, after a month of unsuccessful attempts, he at last caught a female bird.

It cost him two more months to catch a male bird; he then shut them up together, and having about the beginning of the year 1673 obtained some eggs from them, he released the female, which, leaving the male behind to hatch the eggs in her stead, flew joyously to Dort, with the note under her wing.