He was forbidden to go into the front room because the young ladies did not care to see him.
That back room was more than dark: It was narrow, and dirty, and reeked with all the fumes of "III, 7, c." But Walter was used to all this and much more. He had always been a martyr--bandages, poultices, bandy legs, biblical history, rickets, poems on goodness, evening prayers, the judgment day, hobgoblins for wicked children, closed eyes before and after the slice of bread, sleeping with crooked knees, committing sins, fear for the torn breeches, "divine service" with and without sensible accompaniment!
That droll robber song, whose origin we know so well, shows how easily his childish soul was moved by whatever seemed great to him. He was a pure child, and he was a good boy. He wouldn't have hurt a fly. The criminal character of his song was due to his desire to grasp what is greater than everything else and to be the leader in that world created by his childish fancy.
Robber--good! But a first-class robber, a robber of robbers, a robber without mercy--for pleasure!
As to the gross mistreatment of women mentioned in his song, he had no idea what it meant. He used the word for the sake of rhyme, and because from certain sentences in his book he had got the impression that it must afford great pleasure.
If, perchance, for those fourteen stivers Grandisson--weary remembrance--had fallen into his hands, his Wednesday's poem would have been quite different. No doubt he would have sought a reconciliation with the butcher's Keesje, forgiving him completely all his liberties with "Holland nobility" and even presenting him a few slate pencils.
For that is the striking characteristic of spirits such as Walter's. Whatever they are, they are that with all their might, always going further in any direction than they would seem to be warranted in doing by the mere external circumstances.
From such characters we could hope much, if through some chance--i. e., a natural cause, which we call chance, because we do not understand it and are ashamed to admit our ignorance--if through some chance they were not born among people who do not understand them, and, therefore, mistreat them.
It is one of our peculiarities that we like to mistreat anyone whose soul is differently organized from ours. How does the watch move? asks the child, and cannot rest until he has torn apart the wheels he could not understand. There the watch lies in pieces, and the little miscreant excuses himself with the remark that he just wanted to see how it was made.