Red Lion Inn

The Red Lion Inn is a modest establishment near Breedstraat where the skating boys pause for food and lodging. Its welcoming meal and carefully observed coffee room make it a vivid stop on their journey; its upstairs rooms also become the setting for a nighttime attempted robbery, which Peter van Holp turns into a test of alertness and courage.

Location and Arrival

After entering the city, the boys look for an inn and find an unpretentious house marked by a comically painted lion above its door. The Red Lion is kept by Huygens Kleef, a stout Dutchman described with short legs and a very long pipe. Its position near Breedstraat gives the stop a specific place in the boys’ passage through the city, while its plain appearance distinguishes it from a grand hotel or public monument.

The boys arrive hungry. Their earlier tiffin in Haarlem had done little more than sharpen their appetites, and skating and a swift journey by canal have increased them further. Peter asks the host to provide whatever he can, and the inn becomes a place of immediate practical comfort: a meal and a night’s rest for a group worn out by travel.

The Coffee Room

The evening scene is set in a large, spare room whose details convey the inn’s domestic character. Its floor resembles a checkerboard of yellow and red glazed tiles; high-backed wooden chairs stand around a broad fireplace, and polished steel firedogs catch the firelight. Tiles cover the hearth and chimney, while a narrow shelf above holds brass candlesticks, pipe lighters, and tinderboxes. Pine tables, a closet, and a dresser crowded with mugs, dishes, pipes, tankards, and bottles complete the room. The furnishings are dimmed by tobacco smoke but otherwise kept clean with soap and sand.

At nine o’clock on December 6, 184—, two shabby men in wooden shoes sit smoking by the fire while Huygens Kleef moves about in leather knee breeches, felt shoes, and a green jacket. A heap of skates in the corner marks the room as a temporary refuge for travelers on the ice. The six tired boys occupy the chairs. Their supper consists of gingerbread, Dutch sausage, rye bread sprinkled with anise seed, pickles, Utrecht water, and unfamiliar coffee. Benjamin Dobbs makes wry faces, but Jacob Poot declares the meal better than anything he has eaten. After eating, the boys laugh and talk, count their money while discussing expenses, and follow a boy carrying their skates and a candlestick to bed.

The Attempted Robbery

The inn’s sense of safety is unsettled after the boys have gone upstairs. One of the ill-favored men from beside the fire moves toward the dresser to order beer as Ludwig van Holp leaves the room. Ludwig quietly tells Carl Schummel that he dislikes the man’s eye and thinks he looks like a pirate. The suspicion gives way to danger during the night, when a robber creeps toward the boys’ belongings with a shining knife.

Peter, lying apparently asleep, watches the intruder approach. When the man lays the knife down and reaches for clothes on a chair beside Peter’s bed, Peter springs onto his back, stuns him, takes the knife, and pins him to the floor. He calls the others awake and holds the robber down until help arrives. The sequence reverses the inn’s ordinary purpose as a shelter: the boys’ room has become a place of sudden vulnerability, but Peter’s composure prevents the theft from succeeding.

The Inn in the Narrative

The landlord’s daughter recognizes the captured man’s large wooden shoes and identifies him as someone placed in the next room after the young guests had gone to bed. She regrets that the boys were sent so far from the household’s hearing. Huygens Kleef condemns the intruder’s conduct and goes for the police. In less than fifteen minutes, two officers arrive; they direct the landlord to appear with the boys before a magistrate in the morning, then take the prisoner away.

The aftermath returns the inn to the rhythms of travel. Though the capture has startled the party, fatigue soon carries the boys back to sleep. Carl alone remains awake for a time, hearing the carillons and the watchman’s clapper and watching the night give way to morning. By holding together supper, lodging, local furnishings, and danger, the Red Lion Inn makes an ordinary stop on the skating journey serve both as a detailed picture of Dutch daily life and as the setting for a compact adventure.