Chapter 19

Such communion he held with himself until the night came on, and the dew began to fall; and Lysbet said to herself, "I will walk down the garden: perhaps there is something I can say to him." As she rose, Joris entered, and they met in the centre of the room. He put his large hands upon her shoulders, and, looking solemnly in her face, said, "My Lysbet, I will go with the people; I will give myself willingly to the cause of freedom. A long battle is it. Two hundred years ago, a Joris Van Heemskirk was fighting in it. Not less of man than he was, am I, I hope."

There was a mist of tears over his eyes--a mist that was no dishonour; it only showed that the cost had been fully counted, and his allegiance given with a clear estimate of the value and sweetness of all that he might have to give with it. Lysbet was a little awed by the solemnity of his manner. She had not before understood the grandeur of such a complete surrender of self as her husband had just consummated. But never had she been so proud of him. Everything commonplace had slipped away: he looked taller, younger, handsomer.

She dropped her knitting to her feet, she put her arms around his neck, and, laying her head upon his breast, said softly, "My good Joris! I will love thee forever."

In a few minutes Elder Semple came in. He looked exceedingly worried; and, although Joris and he avoided politics by a kind of tacit agreement, he could not keep to kirk and commercial matters, but constantly returned to one subject,--a vessel lying at Murray's Wharf, which had sold her cargo of molasses and rum to the "Committee of Safety."

"And we'll be haeing the custom-house about the city's ears, if there's 'safety' in that,--the born idiots," he said.

Joris was in that grandly purposeful mood that takes no heed of fretful worries. He let the elder drift from one grievance to another; and he was just in the middle of a sentence containing his opinion of Sears and Willet, when Bram's entrance arrested it. There was something in the young man's face and attitude which made every one turn to him. He walked straight to the side of Joris,--

"Father, we have closed his Majesty's custom-house forever."

"_We!_ Who, then, Bram?"

"The Committee of Safety and the Sons of Liberty."

Semple rose to his feet, trembling with passion. "Let me tell you, then, Bram, you are a parcel o' rogues and rebels; and, if I were his Majesty, I'd gibbet the last ane o' you."

"Patience, Elder. Sit down, I'll speak"--

"No, Councillor, I'll no sit down until I ken what kind o' men I'm sitting wi'. Oot wi' your maist secret thoughts. Wha are you for?"

"For the people and for freedom am I," said Joris, calmly rising to his feet. "Too long have we borne injustice. My fathers would have spoken by the sword before this. Free kirk, free state, free commerce, are the breath of our nostrils. Not a king on earth our privileges and rights shall touch; no, not with his finger-tips. Bram, my son, I am your comrade in this quarrel." He spoke with fervent, but not rapid speech, and with a firm, round voice, full of magical sympathies.

"I'll hear nae mair o' such folly.--Gie me my bonnet and plaid, madam, and I'll be going.--The King o' England needna ask his Dutch subjects for leave to wear his crown, I'm thinking."

"Subjects!" said Bram, flashing up. "Subjection! Well, then, Elder, Dutchmen don't understand the word. Spain found that out."

"Hoots! dinna look sae far back, Bram. It's a far cry, to Alva and Philip. Hae you naething fresher? Gude-night, a'. I hope the morn will bring you a measure o' common sense." He was at the door as he spoke; but, ere he passed it, he lifted his bonnet above his head and said, "God save the king! God save his gracious Majesty, George of England!"

Joris turned to his son. To shut up the king's customs was an overt action of treason. Bram, then, had fully committed himself; and, following out his own thoughts, he asked abruptly, "What will come of it, Bram?"

"War will come, and liberty--a great commonwealth, a great country."

"It was about the sloop at Murray's Wharf?"

"Yes. To the Committee of Safety her cargo she sold; but Collector Cruger would not that it should leave the vessel, although offered was the full duty."

"For use against the king were the goods; then Cruger, as a servant of King George, did right."

"Oh, but if a tyrant a man serves, we cannot suffer wrong that a good servant he may be! King George through him refused the duty: no more duties will we offer him. We have boarded up the doors and windows of the custom-house. Collector Cruger has a long holiday."

He did not speak lightly, and his air was that of a man who accepts a grave responsibility. "I met Sears and about thirty men with him on Wall Street. I went with them, thinking well on what I was going to do. I am ready by the deed to stand."

"And I with thee. Good-night, Bram, To-morrow there will be more to say."

Then Bram drew his chair to the hearth, and his mother began to question him; and her fine face grew finer as she listened to the details of the exploit. Bram looked at her proudly. "I wish only that a fort full of soldiers and cannon it had been," he said. "It does not seem such a fine thing to take a few barrels of rum and molasses."

"Every common thing is a fine thing when it is for justice. And a fine thing I think it was for these men to lay down every one his work and his tool, and quietly and orderly go do the work that was to be done for honour and for freedom. If there had been flying colours and beating drums, and much blood spilt, no grander thing would it have been, I think."

And, as Bram filled and lighted his pipe, he hummed softly the rallying song of the day,--

"In story we're told How our fathers of old Braved the rage of the winds and the waves; And crossed the deep o'er, For this far-away shore, All because they would never be slaves--brave boys! All because they would never be slaves.

"The birthright we hold Shall never be sold, But sacred maintained to our graves; And before we comply We will gallantly die, For we will not, we will not be slaves--brave boys! For we will not, we will not be slaves."

In the meantime Semple, fuming and ejaculating, was making his way slowly home. It was a dark night, and the road full of treacherous soft places, fatal to that spotless condition of hose and shoes which was one of his weak points. However, before he had gone very far, he was overtaken by his son Neil, now a very staid and stately gentleman, holding under the government a high legal position in the investigation of the disputed New-Hampshire grants.

He listened respectfully to his father's animadversions on the folly of the Van Heemskirks; but he was thinking mainly of the first news told him,--the early return of Katherine. He was conscious that he still loved Katherine, and that he still hated Hyde. As they approached the house, the elder saw the gleam of a candle through the drawn blind; and he asked querulously, "What's your mother doing wi' a candle at this hour, I wonder?"

"She'll be sewing or reading, father."

"Hoots! she should aye mak' the wark and the hour suit. There's spinning and knitting for the night-time. Wi' soldiers quartered to the right hand and the left hand, and a civil war staring us in the face, it's neither tallow nor wax we'll hae to spare."

He was climbing the pipe-clayed steps as he spoke, and in a few minutes was standing face to face with the offender. Madam Semple was reading and, as her husband opened the parlour door, she lifted her eyes from her book, and let them calmly rest upon him.

"Fire-light and candle-light, baith, Janet! A fair illumination, and nae ither thing but bad news for it."

"It is for reading the Word, Elder."

"For the night season, meditation, Janet, meditation;" and he lifted the extinguisher, and put out the candle. "Meditate on what you hae read. The Word will bide a deal o' thinking about. You'll hae heard the ill news?"

"I heard naething ill."

"Didna Neil tell you?"

"Anent what?"

"The closing o' the king's customs."

"Ay, Neil told me."

"Weel?"

"Weel, since you ask me, I say it was gude news."

"Noo, Janet, we'll hae to come to an understanding. If I hae swithered in my loyalty before, I'll do sae nae mair. From this hour, me and my house will serve King George. I'll hae nae treason done in it, nor said; no, nor even thocht o'."

"You'll be a vera Samson o' strength, and a vera Solomon o' wisdom, if you keep the hands and the tongues and the thochts o' this house. Whiles, you canna vera weel keep the door o' your ain mouth, gudeman. What's come o'er you, at a'?"

"I'm surely master in my ain house, Janet."

"'Deed, you are far from being that, Alexander Semple. Doesna King George quarter his men in it? And havena you to feed and shelter them, and to thole their ill tempers and their ill ways, morning, noon, and night? You master in your ain house! You're just a naebody in it!"

"Dinna get on your high horse, madam. Things are coming to the upshot: there's nae doot o' it."

"They've been lang aboot it--too lang."

"Do you really mean that you are going to set yoursel' among the rebels?"

"Going? Na, na; I have aye been amang them. And ten years syne, when the Stamp Act was the question, you were heart and soul wi' the people. The quarrel to-day is the same quarrel wi' a new name. Tak' the side o' honour and manhood and justice, and dinna mak' me ashamed o' you, Alexander. The Semples have aye been for freedom,--Kirk and State,--and I never heard tell o' them losing a chance to gie them proud English a set-down before. What for should you gie the lie to a' your forbears said and did? King George hasna put his hand in his pocket for you; he has done naething but tax your incomings and your outgoings. Ask Van Heemskirk: he's a prudent man, and you'll never go far wrong if you walk wi' him."

"Ask Van Heemskirk, indeed! Not I. The rebellious spirit o' the ten tribes is through all the land; but I'll stand by King George, if I'm the only man to do it."

"George may be king o' the Semples. I'm a Gordon. He's no king o' mine. The Gordons were a' for the Stuarts."

"Jacobite and traitor, baith! Janet, Janet, how can you turn against me on every hand?"

"I'll no turn against you, Elder; and I'll gie you no cause for complaint, if you dinna set King George on my hearthstone, and bring him to my table, and fling him at me early and late." She was going to light the candle again; and, with it in her hand, she continued: "That's enough anent George rex at night-time, for he isna a pleasant thought for a sleeping one. How is Van Heemskirk going? And Bram?"

"Bram was wi' them that unloaded the schooner and closed the custom-house--the born idiots!"

"I expected that o' Bram."

"As for his father, he's the blackest rebel you could find or hear tell o' in the twelve Provinces."

"He's a good man; Joris is a good man, true and sure. The cause he lifts, he'll never leave. Joris and Bram--excellent! They two are a multitude."

"Humff!" It was all he could say. There was something in his wife's face that made it look unfamiliar to him. He felt himself to be like the prophet of Pethor--a man whose eyes are opened. But Elder Semple was not one of the foolish ones who waste words. "A wilfu' woman will hae her way," he thought; "and if Janet has turned rebel to the king, it's mair than likely she'll throw off my ain lawfu' authority likewise. But we'll see, we'll see," he muttered, glancing with angry determination at the little woman, who, for her part, seemed to have put quite away all thoughts of king and Congress.

She stood with the tinder-box and the flint and brimstone matches in her hands. "I wonder if the tinder is burnt enough, Alexander," she said; and with the words she sharply struck the flint. A spark fell instantly and set fire to it, and she lit her match and watched it blaze with a singular look of triumph on her face. Somehow the trifling affair irritated the elder. "What are you doing at a'? You're acting like a silly bairn, makin' a blaze for naething. There's a fire on the hearth: whatna for, then, are you wasting tinder and a match?"

"Maybe it wasna for naething, Elder. Maybe I was asking for a sign, and got the ane I wanted. There's nae sin in that, I hope. You ken Gideon did it when he had to stand up for the oppressed, and slay the tyrant."

"Tut, woman, you arena Gideon, nor yet o' Gideon's kind; and, forbye, there's nae angel speaking wi' you."

"You're right there, Elder. But, for a' that, I'm glad that the spark fired the tinder, and that the tinder lit the match, and that the match burnt sae bright and sae bravely. It has made a glow in my heart, and I'll sleep well wi' the pleasure o' it."

Next morning the argument was not renewed. Neil was sombre and silent. His father was uncertain as to his views, and he did not want to force or hurry a decision. Besides, it would evidently be more prudent to speak with the young man when he could not be influenced by his mother's wilful, scornful tongue. Perhaps Neil shared this prudent feeling; for he deprecated conversation, and, on the plea of business, left the breakfast-table before the meal was finished.

The elder, however, had some indemnification for his cautious silence. He permitted himself, at family prayers, a very marked reading of St. Paul's injunction, "Fear God and honour the king;" and ere he left the house he said to his wife, "Janet, I hope you hae come to your senses. You'll allow that you didna treat me wi' a proper respect yestreen?"

She was standing face to face with him, her hands uplifted, fastening the broad silver clasp of his cloak. For a moment she hesitated, the next she raised herself on tiptoes, and kissed him. He pursed up his mouth a little sternly, and then stroked her white hair. "You heard what St. Paul says, Janet; isna that a settlement o' the question?"

"I'm no blaming St. Paul, Alexander. If ever St. Paul approves o' submitting to tyranny, it's thae translators' fault. He wouldna tak' injustice himsel', not even from a Roman magistrate. I wish St. Paul was alive the day: I'm vera sure if he were, he'd write an epistle to the English wad put the king's dues just as free men would be willing to pay them. Now, don't be angry, Alexander. If you go awa' angry at me, you'll hae a bad day; you ken that, gudeman."

It was a subtile plea; for no man, however wise or good or brave, likes to bespeak ill-fortune when it can be averted by a sacrifice so easy and so pleasant. But, in spite of Janet's kiss, he was unhappy; and when he reached the store, the clerks and porters were all standing together talking. He knew quite well what topic they were discussing with such eager movements and excited speech. But they dispersed to their work at the sight of his sour, stern face, and he did not intend to open a fresh dispute by any question.

Apprentices and clerks then showed a great deal of deference to their masters, and Elder Semple demanded the full measure due to him. Something, however, in the carriage, in the faces, in the very, tones of his servants' voices, offended him; and he soon discovered that various small duties had been neglected.

"Listen to me, lads," he said angrily; "I'll have nae politics mixed up wi' my exports and my imports. Neither king nor Congress has anything to do wi' my business. If there is among you ane o' them fools that ca' themselves the 'Sons o' Liberty,' I'll pay him whatever I owe him now, and he can gang to Madam Liberty for his future wage."

He was standing on the step of his high counting-desk as he spoke, and he peered over the little wooden railing at the men scattered about with pens or hammers or goods in their hands. There was a moment's silence; then a middle-aged man quietly laid down the tools with which he was closing a box, and walked up to the desk. The next moment, every one in the place had followed him. Semple was amazed and angry, but he made no sign of either emotion. He counted to the most accurate fraction every one's due, and let them go without one word of remonstrance.

But as soon as he was alone, he felt the full bitterness of their desertion, and he could not keep the tears out of his eyes as he looked at their empty places. "Wha could hae thocht it?" he exclaimed. "Allan has been wi' me twenty-seven years, and Scott twenty, and Grey nearly seventeen. And the lads I have aye been kindly to. Maist o' them have wives and bairns, too; it's just a sin o' them. It's no to be believed. It's fair witchcraft. And the pride o' them! My certie, they all looked as if their hands were itching for a sword or a pair o' pistols!"

At this juncture Neil entered the store. "Here's a bonnie pass, Neil; every man has left the store. I may as weel put up the shutters."

"There are other men to be hired."

"They were maistly a' auld standbys, auld married men that ought to have had mair sense."

"The married men are the trouble-makers; the women have hatched and nursed this rebellion. If they would only spin their webs, and mind their knitting!"

"But they willna, Neil; and they never would. If there's a pot o' rebellion brewing between the twa poles, women will be dabbling in it. They have aye been against lawfu' authority. The restraints o' paradise was tyranny to them. And they get worse and worse: it isna ane apple would do them the noo; they'd strip the tree, my lad, to its vera topmost branch."

"There's mother."

"Ay, there's your mother, she's a gude example. She's a Gordon; and thae Gordon women cried the '_slogan_' till their men's heads were a' on Carlisle gate or Temple Bar, and their lands a' under King George's thumb. But is she any wiser for the lesson? Not her. Women are born rebels; the 'powers that be' are always tyrants to them, Neil."

"You ought to know, father. I have small and sad experience with them."

"Sae, I hope you'll stand by my side. We twa can keep the house thegither. If we are a' right, the Government will whistle by a woman's talk."

"Did you not say Katherine was coming back?"

"I did that. See there, again. Hyde has dropped his uniform, and sold a' that he has, and is coming to fight in a quarrel that's nane o' his. Heard you ever such foolishness? But it is Katherine's doing; there's little doot o' that."

"He's turned rebel, then?"

"Ay has he. That's what women do. Politics and rebellion is the same thing to them."

"Well, father, I shall not turn rebel."

"O Neil, you take a load off my heart by thae words!"

"I have nothing against the king, and I could not be Hyde's comrade."

XVI.

"_How glorious stand the valiant, sword in hand, In front of battle for their native land!_"

It was into this thundery atmosphere of coming conflict, of hopes and doubts, of sundering ties and fearful looking forward, that Richard and Katherine Hyde came, from the idyllic peace and beauty of their Norfolk house. But there was something in it that fitted Hyde's real disposition. He was a natural soldier, and he had arrived at the period of life when the mere show and pomp of the profession had lost all satisfying charm. He had found a quarrel worthy of his sword, one that had not only his deliberate approval, but his passionate sympathy. In fact, his first blow for American independence had been struck in the duel with Lord Paget; for that quarrel, though nominally concerning Lady Suffolk, was grounded upon a dislike engendered by their antagonism regarding the government of the Colonies.

It was an exquisite April morning when they sailed up New York bay once more. Joris had been watching for the "Western Light;" and when she came to anchor at Murray's Wharf, his was the foremost figure on it. He had grown a little stouter, but was still a splendid-looking man; he had grown a little older, but his tenderness for his daughter was still young and fresh and strong as ever. He took her in his arms, murmuring, "_Mijn Katrijntje, mijn Katrijntje! Ach, mijn kind, mijn kind!_"

Hyde had felt that there might be some embarrassment in his own case, perhaps some explanation or acknowledgment to make; but Joris waved aside any speech like it. He gave Hyde both hands; he called him "_mijn zoon_;" he stooped, and put the little lad's arms around his neck. In many a kind and delicate way he made them feel that all of the past was forgotten but its sweetness.

And surely that hour Lysbet had the reward of her faithful affection. She had always admired Hyde; and she was proud and happy to have him in her home, and to have him call her mother. The little Joris took possession of her heart in a moment. Her Katherine was again at her side. She had felt the clasp of her hands; she had heard her whisper "_mijn moeder_" upon her lips.

They landed upon a Saturday, upon one of those delightsome days that April frequently gives to New York. There was a fresh wind, full of the smell of the earth and the sea; an intensely blue sky, with flying battalions of white fleecy clouds across it; a glorious sunshine above everything. And people live, and live happily, even in the shadow of war. The stores were full of buyers and sellers. The doors and windows of the houses were open to the spring freshness. Lysbet had heard of their arrival, and was watching for them. Her hair was a little whiter, her figure a little stouter; but her face was fair and rosy, and sweet as ever.

In a few hours things had fallen naturally and easily into place. Joris and Bram and Hyde sat talking of the formation of a regiment. Little Joris leaned on his grandfather's shoulder listening. Lysbet and Katherine were busy unpacking trunks full of fineries and pretty things; occasionally stopping to give instructions to Dinorah, who was preparing an extra tea, as Batavius and Joanna were coming to spend the evening. "And to the elder and Janet Semple I have sent a message, also," said Lysbet; "for I see not why anger should be nursed, or old friendships broken, for politics."

Katherine had asked at once, with eager love, for Joanna; she had expected that she would be waiting to welcome her. Lysbet smiled faintly at the supposition. "She has a large family, then, and Batavius, and her house. Seldom comes she here now."

But about four o'clock, as Katherine and Hyde were dressing, Joanna and Batavius and all their family arrived. In a moment, their presence seemed to diffuse itself through the house. There was a sense of confusion and unrest, and the loud crying of a hungry baby determined to be attended to. And Joanna was fulfilling this duty, when Katherine hastened to meet her. Wifehood and motherhood had greatly altered the slim, fair girl of ten years before. She had grown stout, and was untidy in her dress, and a worried, anxious expression was continually on her countenance. Batavius kept an eye on the children; there were five of them beside the baby,--fat, rosy, round-faced miniatures of himself, all having a fair share of his peculiar selfish traits, which each expressed after its individual fashion.

Hyde met his brother-in-law with a gentlemanly cordiality; and Batavius, who had told Joanna "he intended to put down a bit that insolent Englishman," was quite taken off his guard, and, ere he was aware of his submission, was smoking amicably with him, as they discussed the proposed military organization. Very soon Hyde asked Batavius, "If he were willing to join it?"