on the southwest opened into a wide open space called the Outer Court-yard. Along the northwest side a broad and beautiful sheet of water, in which the walls, turrets, and chapel-spires of the inclosed castle mirrored themselves, was spread between the mass of buildings and an umbrageous promenade called the Vyverberg, consisting of a sextuple alley of lime-trees, and embowering here and there a stately villa. A small island, fringed with weeping willows, and tufted all over with lilacs, laburnums, and other shrubs then in full flower, lay in the centre of the miniature lake; and the tall solid tower of the Great Church, surmounted by a light openwork spire, looked down from a little distance over the

scene.

It was a bright morning in May. The white swans were sailing tranquilly to and fro over the silver basin; and the mavis, blackbird, and nightingale, which haunted the groves surrounding the castle and the town, were singing as if the daybreak were ushering in a summer festival.

But it was not to a merry-making that the soldiers were marching, and the citizens thronging so eagerly from every street and alley towards the castle. By four o'clock the Outer and Inner Courts had been lined with detachments of the Prince's Guard, and companies of other regiments to the number of twelve hundred men. Occupying the northeastern side of the court rose the grim, time-worn front of the ancient hall, consisting of one tall pyramidal gable of ancient gray brickwork flanked with two tall slender towers; the whole with the lancetshaped windows and severe style of the twelfth century, excepting a rose-window in the centre, with the decorated mullions of a somewhat later period.

In front of the lower window, with its Gothic archway hastily converted into a door, a shapeless platform of rough, unhewn planks had that night been rudely patched together. This was the scaffold. A slight railing around it served to protect it from the crowd, and a heap of coarse sand had been thrown upon it. A squalid, unclean box of unplaned boards, originally prepared as a coffin for a Frenchman,-who some time before had been condemned to death for murdering the son of Goswyn Meurskens, a Hague tavern-keeper, but pardoned by the Stadtholder, — lay on the scaffold. It was recognized from having been left for a long time, half forgotten, at the public execution place of The Hague.

Upon this coffin now sat two common soldiers of ruffianly aspect playing at dice, betting whether the Lord or the Devil would get the soul of Barneveld. Many a foul and ribald jest

at the expense of the prisoner was exchanged between these gamblers, some of their comrades, and a few townsmen who were grouped about at that early hour. The horrible libels, caricatures, and calumnies which had been circulated, exhibited, and sung in all the streets for so many months, had at last thoroughly poisoned the minds of the vulgar against the fallen

statesman.

The great mass of the spectators had forced their way by daybreak into the hall itself to hear the sentence, so that the Inner Court-yard had remained comparatively empty.

At last, at half-past nine o'clock, a shout arose, "There he comes! there he comes!" and the populace flowed out from the hall of judgment into the court-yard like a tidal wave.

In an instant the Binnenhof was filled with more than three thousand spectators.

The old statesman, leaning on his staff, walked out upon the scaffold and calmly surveyed the scene. Lifting his eyes to heaven, he was heard to murmur, "O God! what does man come to!» Then he said bitterly once more, "This, then, is the reward of forty years' service to the State!"

La Motte, who attended him, said fervently: "It is no longer time to think of this. Let us prepare your coming before God." "Is there no cushion or stool to kneel upon?" said Barneveld, looking around him.

The provost said he would send for one; but the old man knelt at once on the bare planks. His servant, who waited upon him as calmly and composedly as if he had been serving him at dinner, held him by the arm. It was remarked that neither

master nor man, true stoics and Hollanders both, shed a single tear upon the scaffold.

La Motte prayed for a quarter of an hour, the Advocate remaining on his knees.

He then rose and said to John Franken, "See that he does not come near me," pointing to the executioner, who stood in the background grasping his long double-handed sword. Barneveld then rapidly unbuttoned his doublet with his own hands, and the valet helped him off with it. "Make haste! make haste!" said his master.

The statesman then came forward, and said in a loud, firm

voice to the people:

I

"Men, do not believe that I am a traitor to the country. have ever acted uprightly and loyally as a good patriot, and as such I shall die."

The crowd was perfectly silent.

He then took his cap from John Franken, drew it over his eyes, and went forward towards the sand, saying:

"Christ shall be my guide. O Lord, my Heavenly Father, receive my spirit."

As he was about to kneel with his face to the south, the provost said:

"My lord will be pleased to move to the other side, not where the sun is in his face."

He knelt accordingly with his face towards his own house. The servant took farewell of him, and Barneveld said to the executioner:

"Be quick about it. Be quick."

The executioner then struck his head off at a single blow.

Many persons from the crowd now sprang, in spite of all opposition, upon the scaffold, and dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood, cut wet splinters from the boards, or grubbed up the sand that was steeped in it; driving many bargains afterwards for these relics to be treasured, with various feelings of sorrow, joy, glutted or expiated vengeance.

It has been recorded, and has been constantly repeated to this day, that the Stadtholder, whose windows exactly faced the scaffold, looked out upon the execution with a spy-glass; saying as he did so:

"See the old scoundrel, how he trembles! He is afraid of the stroke."

But this is calumny. Colonel Hauterive declared that he was with Maurice in his cabinet during the whole period of the execution; that by order of the prince all the windows and shutters were kept closed; that no person wearing his livery was allowed. to be abroad; that he anxiously received messages as to the proceedings, and heard of the final catastrophe with sorrowful emo

tion.

JOHN MUIR

(1836-)

OHN MUIR, an explorer and naturalist, whose field of work has been particularly the western and northwestern mountain regions of America, - where at least one great glacier now bears his name,- was born at Dunbar, Scotland, in 1836. With his parents and a large flock of brothers and sisters, he came to the United States in 1850, after some good common-schooling in Dunbar. He began his study of nature in the region near Fort Winnebago, Wisconsin, with an ever increasing interest and delight in whatever belongs to the world of creatures, plants,

and stones, particularly in the waving solitudes of forests and rock-and-snow tracts of the northwestern Sierras.

Muir's freedom to devote himself to a life of observation and record was delayed: and in the story of his years of manual work as a farmer, mechanic, lumberman, sheep-herder, and what not besides, there comes surprise at his power to find time and energy for other pursuits in the nature of an avocation; and with the surprise we have a sense of pleasure that a man of untiring muscles and mind could win free of all that checked his natural preferences. He studied grammar and mathematics while a farm hand, and read through a library of books when in the fields. He earned enough as a young man to give himself four years of special scientific study in the University of Wisconsin. Then began an independent life, in which he alternated seasons of hard work, wholly or much alone; partly through the circumstances of his wanderings, partly by his own choice. It is said that during ten years of mountaineering in the remoter Sierras, he met no men except one band of Mono tribesmen.

JOHN MUIR

For some ten summers and winters prior to 1876, Mr. Muir was settled near the Yosemite district. In the year named he became a member of the Geodetic Survey of the Great Basin, and attempted much botanical work. During 1879 and subsequently, after he reached Alaska, he explored and charted its vast mountain ranges, discovered

Glacier Bay and the Muir Glacier system; and with that expedition and the two succeeding tours he became the foremost authority on Alaska's geologic and other natural aspects. He also visited the Yukon and Mackenzie Rivers, and traversed the cañon country of California. He was of the party on board the Corwin in 1881, sent out to trace the lost Jeannette, which enterprise added largely to his sketches and notes for scientific use. Since 1879, the year of his marriage, Mr. Muir has had his home in California; but to find him in it at other than a given time, is somewhat an accident, so indefatigable is his industry as a naturalist. He is as ready to-day for an alpine excursion of weeks or months as in the early period of a naturalistic career exceptionally arduous and fruitful.

Mr. Muir has written much less than his explorations would suggest: but as a contributor to the highest class of American and foreign periodicals, and the author of volumes dealing with his experiences, impressions, and discoveries, he is a writer of distinct and unusual individuality. He is less a man of letters in his manner than he is the direct, graphic, and sincere observer, whose aim is to write down simply what he sees or feels, to put the reader in the quickest and closest touch with a topic or a scene. But the simplicity and personal effect of his style give it a peculiar vigor and eloquence. He has been spoken of as a naturalist whose observations "have the force of mathematical demonstration." In the study of glacial conditions, botanic life, the fauna of the Northwest, and kindred subjects, he is reckoned a specialist by the first scientists of the day; and his personal traits have won him the esteem of the army of scientists who have visited the Western country where he lives and works. His most popular volume, 'The Mountains of California,' promises to become a classic; his editorial contributions in Picturesque California are thoroughly effective; and he has won wide favor through descriptive pages, splendid for spontaneous and vivid prose pictures of great scenery,- studies of the wind's movement of a pine forest, or a delicate flower of California, or a wild-bird's lonely nest.

A WIND-STORM IN THE FORESTS

From The Mountains of California. Copyright 1894, by The Century

THE

Company

HE mountain winds, like the dew and rain, sunshine and snow, are measured and bestowed with love on the forests, to develop their strength and beauty. However restricted the scope of other forest influences, that of the winds is universal. The snow bends and trims the upper forests every winter, the