CHAPTER XVII.
Groningen to Zutphen Fresh tea--Dutch meals--The Doelens--Groningen--Roman Catholic priests--The boys' penance--Luther and Erasmus--The peat country--Folk lore--Terburg--Thomas a Kempis--Zwolle--The wild girl--Kampen--A hall of justice indeed--An ideal holiday-place--The wiseacres--Urk--Sir Philip Sidney--Zutphen--The scripture class--The wax works--Dutch public morality.
I remember the Doelen at Groningen for several reasons, all of them thoroughly material.

(Holland is, however, a material country.) First I would put the very sensible custom of providing every guest who has ordered tea for breakfast with a little tea caddy.

At the foot of the table is a boiling urn from which one fills one's teapot, and is thus assured of tea that is fresh.

So simple and reasonable a habit ought to be the rule rather than the exception: but never have I found it elsewhere.

This surely is civilisation, I said.
The Doelen was also the only inn in Holland where an inclusive bottle of claret was placed before me on the table; and it was the only inn where I had the opportunity of eating ptarmigan with stewed apricots--a very happy alliance.
Good however as was the Groningen dinner, it was a Sunday dinner at the Leeuwarden Doelen which remains in my memory.