The Argosy — page 221: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

202 GA FE RIN a. A Story of Mesmerism. By Letitia MCCLINTOCK. 16 VERYONE in Amsterdam knew the rich Heemskerks, whose splendid Brocade Fabriek occupied half the length of the High Street. The Turk, the Hindoo and the Spanish merchant were to be seen in earnest discourse with old Heemskerk in the doorway of the shop. Amsterdam was the queen of the commercial world in the year 1598, but the paving of the town was defective, the streets being in many places ankle deep in mud; and the lighting was accomplished by means of lanterns swung from a chain crossing the streets at wide intervals. Heemskerk was rich, but his brocades were no better than Van Burgh’s fustians, or Sperling’s damasks, or Standt’s linens; and to Holland the buyers came from other lands for corn and timber, for granite, for spices—for products of distant climes which the hardy sailors of the young republic had brought home. The sons of the commonwealth were sailors even more than traders, yet it was a source of grief to Heemskerk that his only son chose to be a sailor instead of a merchant. Jacob was a stalwart man in the prime of life, who had been at sea ever since his youth, and had won distinctions in every quarter of the ocean. Now in his prime he was elected to the honour of exploring the Arctic seas in search of a passage to China and Cathay. Amsterdam was fitting out two vessels for the trip, and Jacob Heemskerk, who firmly believed that a pathway existed by the north of Nova Zembla and across the pole to farthest Ind, was to be skipper and supercargo of one of them. We shall see what the States-General thought of their Skipper ; how he was esteemed in the city, and what his father and wife felt on the matter. While he was being entertained at supper by the Mayor and principal burghers of his native city, Mynheer Heemskerk, his father, dressed in a long cloth gown and velvet skull-cap, with his wrinkled hands crossed behind his back, was marching backwards and forwards in a salon over the Brocade Fabriek. Near one of the tall, narrow windows sat his daughter-in-law, the Skipper’s wife, using the waning daylight at her painting, for she was an artist. He paused near the easel, and growled out something about his son. ‘“ That fool, Jacob! That ass, Jacob!” A sigh from the stately, dark-haired woman, and an angry grunt from the old man, who set off again on his trudge to the bottom of the long room. CONNIELOO<Sy eon al