"
"There we differ," returned Van Mounen. "I'm great on names and
figures, but history, take it altogether, seems to me to be the
most hopeless kind of jumble."
Meantime Carl and Ludwig were having a discussion concerning some
square wooden monuments they had observed in the interior of the
church. Ludwig declared that each bore the name of the person
buried beneath, and Carl insisted that they had no names but only
the heraldic arms of the deceased painted on a black ground, with
the date of the death in gilt letters.
"I ought to know," said Carl, "for I walked across to the east
side, to look for the cannonball Mother told me was embedded
there. It was fired into the church, in the year fifteen hundred
and something, by those rascally Spaniards, while the services
were going on. There it was in the wall, sure enough, and while
I was walking back, I noticed the monuments. I tell you, they
haven't the sign of a name on them."
"Ask Peter," said Ludwig, only half convinced.
"Carl is right," replied Peter, who, though conversing with
Jacob, had overheard their dispute. "Well, Jacob, as I was
saying, Handel, the great composer, chanced to visit Haarlem and,
of course, he at once hunted up this famous organ.
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