And Hyde kissed her fondly. Ugly, heartless, sinful, she might be to others; but to him she had been a double mother. "I'll never forget you," he answered; "never, grandmother."

"I know what the town will say: 'Well, well, old Lady Capel has gone to her deserts at last.' Don't mind them, Dick. Let them talk. They will have to go too; it's the old round—meat and mirth, and then to bed—a—long—sleep."

"Grandmother?"

"I hear you, Dick. Good-night."

"Is there anything you want done? Think, dear grandmother."

"Don't let Exmouth come to my funeral. I don't want him—grinning over—my coffin."

"Any other thing?"

"Put me beside Jack Capel. I wonder—if I shall—see Jack." A shadow, gray and swift, passed over her face. Her eyes flashed one piteous look into Hyde's eyes, and then closed forever.

And while in the rainy, dreary London twilight Lady Capel was dying, Katherine was in the garden at Hyde Manor, watching the planting of seeds that were in a few weeks to be living things of beauty and sweetness. It had ceased raining at noon in Norfolk, and the gravel walks were perfectly dry, and the air full of the fragrance of innumerable violets. All the level land was wearing buttercups. Full of secrets, of fluttering wings, and building nests were the trees. In the apple-blooms the bees were humming, delirious with delight. From the beehives came the peculiar and exquisite odour of virgin wax. Somewhere near, also, the gurgle of running water spread an air of freshness all around.



And Katherine, with a little basket full of flower-seeds, was going with the gardener from bed to bed, watching him plant them. No one who had seen her in the childlike loveliness of her early girlhood could have imagined the splendour of her matured beauty. She had grown "divinely tall," and the exercise of undisputed authority had added a gracious stateliness of manner. Her complexion was wonderful, her large blue eyes shining with tender lights, her face full of sympathetic revelations. Above all, she had that nameless charm which comes from a freedom from all anxious thought for the morrow; that charm of which the sweet secret is generally lost after the twentieth summer. Her basket of seeds was clasped to her side within the hollow of her left arm, and with her right hand she lifted a long petticoat of quilted blue satin. Above this garment she wore a gown of wood-coloured taffeta, sprigged with rose-buds, and a stomacher of fine lace to match the deep rufflings on her elbow-sleeves.

Little Joris was with his mother, running hither and thither, as his eager spirits led him: now pausing to watch her drop from her white fingers the precious seed into its prepared bed, anon darting after some fancied joy among the pyramidal yews, and dusky treillages, and cradle walks of holly and privet. For, as Sir Thomas Swaffham said, "Hyde garden looked just as if brought from Holland;" and especially so in the spring, when it was ablaze with gorgeous tulips and hyacinths.

She had heard much of Lady Capel, and she had a certain tenderness for the old woman who loved her husband so truly; but no thought of her entered into Katherine's mind that calm evening hour. Neither had she any presentiment of sorrow. Her soul was happy and untroubled, and she lingered in the sweet place until the tender touch of gray twilight was over fen and field. Then her maid, with a manner full of pleasant excitement, came to her, and said,—

"Here be a London pedler, madam; and he do have all the latest fashions, and the news of the king and the Americans."

Now, for many reasons, the advent of a London pedler was a great and pleasant event at the Manor House. Katherine had that delightful and excusable womanly foible, a love of fine clothing; and shops for its sale were very rare, even in towns of considerable size. It was from packmen and hawkers that fine ladies bought their laces and ribbons and gloves; their precious toilet and hair pins, their paints and powders, and India scarfs and fans, and even jewellery. These hawkers were also the great news-bearers to the lonely halls and granges and farmhouses; and they were everywhere sure of a welcome, and of such entertainment as they required. Generally each pedler had his recognized route and regular customers; but occasionally a strange dealer called, and such, having unfamiliar wares, was doubly welcome. "Is it Parkins, Lettice?" asked Katherine, as she turned with interest toward the house.

"No, ma'am, it isn't Parkins; and I do think as the man never showed a face in Hyde before; but he do say that he has a miracle of fine things."

In a few minutes he was exhibiting them to Katherine, and she was too much interested in the wares to notice their merchant particularly.

Indeed, he had one of those faces which reveal nothing; a face flat, hard, secret as a wall, wrinkled as an old banner. He was a hale, thick-set man, dressed in breeches of corduroy, and a sleeved waistcoat down to his knees of the same material. His fur cap was on the carpet beside his pack; and he had a fluent tongue in praise of his wares, as he hung his silks over Lettice's outstretched arm, or arranged the scarfs across her shoulders.

There was a slow but mutually satisfactory exchange of goods and money; and then the pedler began to repack his treasures, and Lettice to carry away the pretty trifles and the piece of satin her mistress had bought. Then, also, he found time to talk, to take out the last newspapers, and to describe the popular dissatisfaction at the stupid tyranny of the Government toward the Colonies. For either from information, or by some process rapid as instinct, he understood to which side Katherine's sympathies went.

"Here be the 'Flying Postman,' madam, with the great speech of Mr. Burke in it about the port of Boston; but it won't do a mossel o' good, madam, though he do tell 'em to keep their hands out o' the Americans' pockets."

"The port of Boston?"

"See you, madam, they are a-going to shut the port o' Boston, and make Salem the place of entry; that's to punish the Bostonians; and Mr. Burke, he says, 'The House has been told that Salem is only seventeen miles from Boston but justice is not an idea of geography, and the Americans are condemned without being heard. Yet the universal custom, on any alteration of charters, is to hear the parties at the bar of the House. Now, the question is, Are the Americans to be heard, or not, before the charter is broken for our convenience?... The Boston bill is a diabolical bill.'"

He read aloud this bit of Mr. Burke's fiery eloquence, in a high, droning voice, and would, according to his custom, have continued the entertainment; but Katherine, preferring to use her own intelligence, borrowed the paper and was about to leave the room with it, when he suddenly remembered a scarf of great beauty which he had not shown.

"I bought it for my Lady Suffolk," he said; "but Lord Suffolk died sudden, and black my lady had to wear. It's forrin, madam; and here it is—the very colour of affradiles. But mayhap, as it is candle-teening, you'd like to wait till the day comes again."

A singular look of speculation came into Katherine's face. She examined the scarf without delay; and, as she fingered the delicate silk, she led the man on to talk of Lady Suffolk, though, indeed, he scarcely needed the stimulus of questioning. Without regard as to whether Katherine was taking any interest or not in his information, he detailed with hurried avidity the town talk that had clung to her reputation for so many years; and he so fully described the handsome cavalry officer that was her devoted attendant that Katherine had no difficulty in recognizing her husband, even without the clews which her own knowledge of the parties gave her.

She stood in the gray light by the window, fingering the delicate satin, and listening. The pedler glanced from his goods to her face, and talked rapidly, interloping bits of news about the court and the fashions; but going always back to Lady Suffolk and her lover, and what was likely to take place now that Lord Suffolk was out of the way. "Though there's them that do say the captain has a comely wife hid up in the country."

Suddenly she turned and faced the stooping man: "Your scarf take: I will not have it. No, and I will not have anything that I have bought from you. All of the goods you shall receive back; and my money, give it to me. You are no honest hawker: you are a bad man, who have come here for a bad woman. You know that of my husband you have been talking—I mean lying. You know that this is his house, and that his true wife am I. Not one more word shall you speak.—Lettice, bring here all the goods I bought from this man; poisoned may be the unguents and scents and gloves. Of such things I have heard."

She had spoken with an angry rapidity that for the moment confounded the stranger; but at this point he lifted himself with an insolent air, and said, "The goods be bought and paid for, madam; and, in faith, I will not buy them back again."

"In faith, then, I will send for Sir Thomas Swaffham. A magistrate is he, and Captain Hyde's friend. Not one penny of my money shall you have; for, indeed, your goods I will not wear."

She pointed then to the various articles which Lettice had brought back; and, with the shrug of a man who accepts the inevitable, he replaced them in his pack, and then ostentatiously counted back the money Katherine had given him. She examined every coin, and returned a crown. "My piece this is not. It may be false. I will have the one I gave to you.—Lettice, bring here water in a bowl; let the silver and gold lay in it until morning."



And, turning to the pedler, "Your cap take from the floor, and go."

"Of a truth, madam, you be not so cruel as to turn me on the fens, and it a dark night. There be bogs all about; and how the road do lay for the next house, I know not."

"The road to my house was easy to find; well, then, you can find the road back to whoever it was sent you here. With my servants you shall not sit; under my roof you shall not stay."

"I have no mind to go."

"See you the mastiff at my feet? I advise you stir him not up, for death is in his jaw. To the gate, and with good haste! In one half-hour the kennels I will have opened. If then within my boundaries you are, it is at your life's peril."

She spoke without passion and without hurry or alarm; but there was no mistaking the purpose in her white, resolute face and fearless attitude. And the pedler took in the situation very quickly; for the dog was already watching him with eyes of fiery suspicion, and an occasional deep growl was either a note of warning to his mistress, or of defiance to the intruder. With an evil glance at the beautiful, disdainful woman standing over him, the pedler rose and left the house; Katherine and the dog so closely following that the man, stooping under his heavy burden, heard her light footsteps and the mastiff's heavy breathing close at his heels, until he passed the large gates and found himself on the dark fen, with just half an hour to get clear of a precinct he had made so dangerous to himself.

For, when he remembered Katherine's face, he muttered, "There isn't a mossel o' doubt but what she'll hev the brutes turned loose. Dash it! women do beat all. But I do hev one bit o' comfort—high-to-instep as she is, she's heving a bad time of it now by herself. I do think that, for sure." And the reflection gave him some gratification, as he cautiously felt his steps forward with his strong staff.



XIV.

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments: love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds."

In some respects, the pedler's anticipations were correct. Katherine had "a bad time by herself" that night; for evil has this woful prerogative,—it can wound the good and the innocent, it can make wretched without provocation and without desert. But, whatever her suffering, it was altogether her own. She made no complaint, and she offered no explanation of her singular conduct. Her household, however, had learned to trust her; and the men and women servants sitting around the kitchen-fire that night, talked over the circumstance, and found its very mystery a greater charm than any possible certainty, however terrible, could have given them.

"She be a stout-hearted one," said the ostler admiringly. "Tony and I a-watched her and the dog a-driving him through the gates. With his bundle on his back, he was a-shuffling along, a-nigh on his all-fours; and the madam at his heels, with her head up in the air, and her eyes a-shining like candles."

"It would be about the captain he spoke."

The remark was ventured by Lettice in a low voice, and the company looked at each other and nodded confidentially. For the captain was a person of great and mysterious importance in the house. All that was done was in obedience to some order received from him. Katherine quoted him continually, granted every favour in his name, made him the authority for every change necessary. His visits were times of holiday, when discipline was relaxed, and the methodical economy of life at the manor house changed into festival. And Hyde had precisely that dashing manner, that mixture of frankness and authority, which dependents admire. The one place in the whole world where nobody would have believed wrong of Hyde was in Hyde's own home.

And yet Katherine, in the secrecy of her chamber, felt her heart quake. She had refused to think of the circumstance until after she had made a pretence of eating her supper, and had seen little Joris asleep, and dismissed Lettice, with all her accustomed deliberation and order. But, oh, how gratefully she turned the key of her room! How glad she felt to be alone with the fear and the sorrow that had come to her! For she wanted to face it honestly; and as she stood with eyes cast down, and hands clasped behind her back, the calm, resolute spirit of her fathers gathered in her heart, and gave an air of sorrowful purpose to her face and attitude. At that hour she was singularly like Joris Van Heemskirk; and any one familiar with the councillor would have known Katherine to be his daughter.

Most women are restless when they are in anxiety. Katherine felt motion to be a mental disturbance. She sat down, and remained still as a carven image, thinking over what had been told her. There had been a time when her husband's constant talk of Lady Suffolk had pained her, and when she had been a little jealous of the apparent familiarity which existed in their relations with each other; but Hyde had laughed at her fears, and she had taken a pride in putting his word above all her suspicions. She had seen him receive letters which she knew to be from Lady Suffolk. She had seen him read and destroy them without remark. She was aware that many a love-billet from fine ladies followed him to Hyde. But it was in accord with the integrity of her own nature to believe in her husband's faithfulness. She had made one inquiry on the subject, and his assurance at that time she accepted as a final settlement of all doubts. And if she had needed further evidence, she had found it in his affectionate and constant regard for her, and in his love for his child and his home.

It was also a part of Katherine's just and upright disposition to make allowances for the life by which her husband was surrounded. She understood that he must often be placed in circumstances of great temptation and suspicion. Hyde had told her that there were necessarily events in his daily experience of which it was better for her to be ignorant. "They belong to it, as my uniform does," he said; "they are a part of its appearance; but they never touch my feelings, and they never do you a moment's wrong, Katherine." This explanation it had been the duty both of love and of wisdom to accept; and she had done so with a faith which asked for no conviction beyond it.

And now she was told that for years he had been the lover of another woman; that her own existence was doubted or denied; that if it were admitted, it was with a supposition which affected both her own good name and the rights of her child. In those days, America was at the ends of the earth. A war with it was imminent. The Colonies might be conquered. She knew nothing of international rights, nor what changes such a condition might render possible. Hyde was the probable representative of an ancient noble English family, and its influence was great: if he really wished to annul their marriage, perhaps it was in his power to do so. She knew well how greedy rank was of rank and riches, and she could understand that there might be powerful family reasons for an alliance which would add Lady Suffolk's wealth to the Hyde earldom.



She was no craven, and she faced the position in all its cruel bearings. She asked herself if, even for the sake of her little Joris, she would remain a wife on sufferance, or by the tie of rights which she would have to legally enforce; and then she lifted the candle, and passed softly into his room to look at him. Though physically like the large, fair, handsome Van Heemskirks, little Joris had certain tricks of expression, certain movements and attitudes, which were the very reflection of his father's,—the same smile, the same droop of the hair on the forehead, the same careless toss of the arm upward in sleep. It was the father in the son that answered her at that hour. She slipped down upon her knees by the sleeping boy, and out of the terror and sorrow of her soul spoke to the Fatherhood in heaven. Nay, but she knelt speechless and motionless, and waited until He spoke to her; spoke to her by the sweet, trustful little lips whose lightest touch was dear to her. For the boy suddenly awoke; he flung his arms around her neck, he laid his face close to hers, and said,—

"Oh, mother, beautiful mother, I thought my father was here!"

"You have been dreaming, darling Joris."

"Yes; I am sorry I have been dreaming. I thought my father was here—my good father, that loves us so much."

Then, with a happy face, Katherine rose and gave the child cool water, and turned his hot pillow, and with kisses sent him smiling into dreamland again. In those few tender moments all her fears slipped away from her heart. "I will not believe what a bad man says against my husband—against my dear one who is not here to defend himself. Lies, lies! I will make the denial for him."

And she kept within the comfort of this spirit, even though Hyde's usual letter was three days behind its usual time. Certainly they were hard days. She kept busy; but she could not swallow a mouthful of food, and the sickness and despair that crouched at the threshold of her life made her lightest duties so heavy that it required a constant effort and a constant watchfulness to fulfil them. And yet she kept saying to herself, "All is right. I shall hear in a day or two. There is some change in the service. There is no change in Richard—none."

On the fourth day her trust had its reward. She found then that the delay had been caused by the necessary charge and care of ceremonies which Lady Capel's death forced upon her husband. She had almost a sentiment of gratitude to her, although she was yet ignorant of her bequest of eight thousand pounds. For Hyde had resolved to wait until the reading of the will made it certain, and then to resign his commission, and carry the double good news to Katherine himself. Henceforward, they were to be together. He would buy more land, and improve his estate, and live happily, away from the turmoil of the town, and the disagreeable duties of active service in a detestable quarrel. So this purpose, though unexpressed, gave a joyous ring to his letter; it was lover-like in its fondness and hopefulness, and Katherine thought of Lady Suffolk and her emissary with a contemptuous indifference.

"My dear one she intended that I should make miserable with reproaches, and from his own home drive him to her home for some consolations;" and Katherine smiled as she reflected how hopeless such a plan of separation would be.

Never, perhaps, are we so happy as when we have just escaped some feared calamity. That letter lifted the last fear from Katherine's heart, and it gave her also the expectation of an early visit. "I am very impatient to see you, my Kate," he wrote; "and as early as possible after the funeral, you may expect me." The words rang like music in her heart. She read them aloud to little Joris, and then the whole household warmed to the intelligence. For there was always much pleasant preparation for Hyde's visits,—clean rooms to make still cleaner, silver to polish, dainties to cook; every weed to take from the garden, every unnecessary straw from the yards. For the master's eye, everything must be beautiful. To the master's comfort, every hand was delighted to minister.

So these last days of May were wonderfully happy ones to Katherine. The house was in its summer draperies—all its windows open to the garden, which had now not only the freshness of spring, but the richer promise of summer. Katherine was always dressed with extraordinary care and taste. Little Joris was always lingering about the gates which commanded the longest stretch of observation. A joyful "looking forward" was upon every face.

Alas, these are the unguarded hours which sorrow surprises! But no thought of trouble, and no fear of it, had Katherine, as she stood before her mirror one afternoon. She was watching Lettice arrange the double folds of her gray taffeta gown, so as to display a trifle the high scarlet heels of her morocco slippers, with their scarlet rosettes and small diamond buckles.

"Too cold a colour is gray for me, Lettice: give me those scarlet ribbons for a breast knot;" and as Lettice stood with her head a little on one side, watching her mistress arrange the bright bows at her stomacher, there came a knock at the chamber door.

"Here be a strange gentleman, madam, to see you; from London, he do say."

A startled look came into Katherine's face; she dropped the ribbon from her hand, and turned to the servant, who stood twisting a corner of her apron at the front-door.

"Well, then, Jane, like what is the stranger?"

"He be in soldier's dress, madam"—

"What?"

She asked no further question, but went downstairs; and, as the tapping of her heels was heard upon them, Jane lifted her apron to her eyes and whimpered, "I think there be trouble; I do that, Letty."

"About the master?"



"It be like it. And the man rides a gray horse too. Drat the man, to come with news on a gray horse! It be that unlucky, as no one in their seven senses would do it."

"For sure it be! When I was a young wench at school"—and then, as she folded up the loose ribbons, Letty told a gruesome story of a farmer robbed and murdered; but as she came to the part the gray horse played in the tale, Katherine slowly walked into the room, with a letter in her hand. She was white, even to her lips; and with a mournful shake of her head, she motioned to the girls to leave her alone. She put the paper out of her hand, and stood regarding it. Fully ten minutes elapsed ere she gathered strength sufficient to break its well-known seal, and take in the full meaning of words so full of agony to her.

"It is midnight, beloved Katherine, and in six hours I may be dead. Lord Paget spoke of my cousin to me in such terms as leaves but one way out of the affront. I pray you, if you can, to pardon me. The world will condemn me, my own actions will condemn me; and yet I vow that you, and you only, have ever had my love. You I shall adore with my last breath. Kate, my Kate, forgive me. If this comes to you by strange hands, I shall be dead or dying. My will and papers of importance are in the drawer marked "B" in my escritoire. Kiss my son for me, and take my last hope and thought."

These words she read, then wrung her hands, and moaned like a creature that had been wounded to death. Oh, the shame! Oh, the wrong and sorrow! How could she bear it? What should she do? Captain Lennox, who had brought the letter, was waiting for her decision. If she would go to her husband, then he could rest and return to London at his leisure. If not, Hyde wanted his will, to add a codicil regarding the eight thousand pounds left him by Lady Capel. For he had been wounded in his side; and a dangerous inflammation having set in, he had been warned of a possible fatal result.

Katherine was not a rapid thinker. She had little, either, of that instinct which serves some women instead of all other prudences. Her actions generally arose from motives clear to her own mind, and of whose wisdom or kindness she had a conviction. But in this hour so many things appealed to her that she felt helpless and uncertain. The one thought that dominated all others was that her husband had fought and fallen for Lady Suffolk. He had risked her happiness and welfare, he had forgotten her and his child, for this woman. It was the sequel to the impertinence of the pedler's visit. She believed at that moment that the man had told her the truth. All these years she had been a slighted and deceived woman.

This idea once admitted, jealousy of the crudest and most unreasonable kind assailed her. Incidents, words, looks, long forgotten rushed back upon her memory, and fed the flame. Very likely, if she left her child and went to London, she might find Lady Suffolk in attendance on her husband, or at least be compelled for his life's sake to submit to her visits. She pondered this supposition until it brought forth one still more shameful. Perhaps the whole story was a scheme to get her up to London. Perhaps she might disappear there. What, then, would be done to her child? If Richard Hyde was so infatuated with Lady Suffolk, what might he not do to win her and her large fortune? Even the news of Lady Capel's death was now food for her suspicions. Was she dead, or was the assertion only a part of the conspiracy? If she had been dead, Sir Thomas Swaffham would have heard of the death; yet she had seen him that morning, and he had made no mention of the circumstance.

"To London I will not go," she decided. "There is some wicked plan for me. The will and the papers are wanted, that they may be altered to suit it. I will stay here with my child. Even sorrow great as mine is best borne in one's own home."

She went to the escritoire to get the papers. When she opened the senseless chamber of wood, she found herself in the presence of many a torturing, tender memory. In one compartment there were a number of trout-flies. She remembered the day her husband had made them—a long, rainy, happy day during his last visit. Every time she passed him, he drew her face down to kiss it. And she could hear little Joris talking about the work, and his father's gay laughter at the child's remarks. In an open slide, there was a rude picture of a horse. It was the boy's first attempt to draw Mephisto, and it had been carefully put away. The place was full of such appeals. Katherine rarely wept; but, standing before these mementos, her eyes filled, and with a sob she clasped her hands across them, as if the sight of such tokens from a happy past was intolerable.

Drawer B was a large compartment full of papers and of Hyde's personal treasures. Among them was a ring that his father had given him, his mother's last letter, a lock of his son's hair, her own first letter—the shy, anxious note that she wrote to Mrs. Gordon. She looked sadly at these things, and thought how valueless all had become to him at that hour. Then she began to arrange the papers according to their size, and a small sealed parcel slipped from among them. She lifted it, and saw a rhyme in her husband's writing on the outside,—

"Oh, my love, my love! This thy gift I hold More than fame or treasure, more than life or gold."

It had evidently been sealed within a few months, for it was in a kind of bluish-tinted paper which Hyde bought in Lynn one day during the past winter. She turned it over and over in her hand, and the temptation to see the love-token inside became greater every moment. This was a thing her husband had never designed any human eye but his own to see. Whatever revelation there was in it, much or little, would be true. Tortured by doubt and despair, she felt that impulse to rely on chance for a decision which all have experienced in matters of grave moment, apparently beyond natural elucidation.

"If in this parcel there is some love-pledge from Lady Suffolk, then I go not; nothing shall make me go. If in it there is no word of her, no message to her or from her; if her name is not there, nor the letters of her name,—then I will go to my own. A new love, one not a year old, I can put aside. I will forgive every one but my Lady Suffolk."

So Katherine decided as she broke the seal with firmness and rapidity. The first paper within the cover made her tremble. It was a half sheet which she had taken one day from Bram's hand, and it had Bram's name across it. On it she had written the first few lines which she had had the right to sign "Katherine Hyde." It was, indeed, her first "wife" letter; and within it was the precious love-token, her own love-token,—the bow of orange ribbon.

She gave a sharp cry as it fell upon the desk; and then she lifted and kissed it, and held it to her breast, as she rocked herself to and fro in a passionate transport of triumphant love. Again and again she fed her eyes upon it. She recalled the night she wore it first, and the touch of her mother's fingers as she fastened it at her throat. She recalled her father's happy smile of proud admiration for her; the afternoon, next, when she had stood with Joanna at the foot of the garden and seen her lover wearing it on his breast. She remembered what she had heard about the challenge, and the desperate fight, and the intention of Semple's servant to remove the token from her senseless lover's breast, and her father's noble interference. The bit of fateful ribbon had had a strange history, yet she had forgotten it. It was her husband who had carefully sealed it away among the things most precious to his heart and house. It still kept much of its original splendid colour, but it was stained down all its length with blood. Nothing that Hyde could have done, no words that he could have said, would have been so potent to move her.

"I will give it to him again. With my own hands I will give it to him once more. O Richard, my lover, my husband! Now I will hasten to see thee."



With relays at every post-house, she reached London the next night, and, weary and terrified, drove at once to the small hostelry where Hyde lay. There was a soldier sitting outside his chamber-door, but the wounded man was quite alone when Katherine entered. She took in at a glance the bare, comfortless room, scarcely lit by the sputtering rush-candle, and the rude bed, and the burning cheeks of the fevered man upon it.

"Katherine!" he cried; and his voice was as weak and as tearful as that of a troubled child.

"Here come I, my dear one."

"I do not deserve it. I have been so wicked, and you my pure good wife."

"See, then, I have had no temptations, but thou hast lived in the midst of great ones. Then, how natural and how easy was it for thee to do wrong!"

"Oh, how you love me, Katherine!"

"God knows."

"And for this wrong you will not forsake me?"

She took from her bosom the St. Nicholas ribbon. "I give it to thee again. At the first time I loved thee; now, my husband, ten thousand times more I love thee. As I went through the papers, I found it. So much it said to me of thy true love! So sweetly for thee it pleaded! All that it asks for thee, I give. All that thou hast done wrong to me, it forgives."

And between their clasped hands it lay,—the bit of orange ribbon that had handselled all their happiness.

"It is the promise of everything I can give thee, my loved one," whispered Katherine.

"It is the luck of Richard Hyde. Dearest wife, thou hast given me my life back again."



XV.

"Wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes, But presently prevent the ways to wail."

It was a hot August afternoon; and the garden at Hyde Manor was full of scent in all its shady places,—hot lavender, seductive carnation, the secretive intoxication of the large white lilies, and mingling with them the warm smell of ripe fruits from the raspberry hedges, and the apricots and plums turning gold and purple upon the southern walls.

Hyde sat at an open window, breathing the balmy air, and basking in the light and heat, which really came to him with "healing on their wings." He was pale and wasted from his long sickness; but there was speculation and purpose in his face, and he had evidently cast away the mental apathy of the invalid. As he sat thus, a servant entered and said a few words which made him turn with a glad, expectant manner to the open door; and, as he did so, a man of near sixty years of age passed through it—a handsome, lordly-looking man, who had that striking personal resemblance to Hyde which affectionate brothers often have to one another.

"Faith, William, you are welcome home! I am most glad to see you."

"Sit still, Dick. You sad rascal, you've been playing with cold steel again, I hear! Can't you let it alone, at your age?"

"Why, then, it was my business, as you know, sir. My dear William, how delighted I am to see you!"

"'Tis twelve years since we met, Dick. You have been in America; I have been everywhere. I confess, too, I am amazed to hear of your marriage. And Hyde Manor is a miracle. I expected to find it mouldy and mossy—a haunt for frogs and fever. On the contrary, it is a place of perfect beauty."

"And it was all my Katherine's doing."

"I hear that she is Dutch; and, beyond a doubt, her people have a genius that develops in low lands."

"She is my angel. I am unworthy of her goodness and beauty."

"Why, then, Dick, I never saw you before in such a proper mood; and I may as well tell you, while you are in it, that I have also found a treasure past belief of the same kind. In fact, Dick, I am married, and have two sons."

There was a moment's profound silence, and an inexplicable shadow passed rapidly over Hyde's face; but it was fleeting as a thought, and, ere the pause became strained and painful, he turned to his brother and said, "I am glad, William. With all my heart, I am glad."

"Indeed, Dick, when Emily Capel died, I was sincere in my purpose never to marry; and I looked upon you always as the future earl, until one night in Rome, in a moment, the thing was altered."

"I can understand that, William."

"I was married very quietly, and have been in Italy ever since. Only four days have elapsed since I returned to England. My first inquiries were about you."

"I pray you, do not believe all that my enemies will say of me."

"Among other things, I was told that you had left the army."

"That is exactly true. When I heard that Lord Percy's regiment was designed for America, and against the Americans, I put it out of the king's power to send me on such a business."

"Indeed, I think the Americans have been ill-used; and I find the town in a great commotion upon the matter. The night I landed, there had come bad news from New York. The people of that city had burned effigies of Lord North and Governor Hutchinson, and the new troops were no sooner landed than five hundred of them deserted in a body. At White's it was said that the king fell into a fit of crying when the intelligence was brought him."

Hyde's white face was crimson with excitement, and his eyes glowed like stars as he listened.



"That was like New York; and, faith, if I had been there, I would have helped them!"

"Why not go there? I owe you much for the hope of which my happiness has robbed you. I will take Hyde Manor at its highest price; I will add to it fifty thousand pounds indemnity for the loss of the succession. You may buy land enough for a duchy there, and found in the New World a new line of the old family. If there is war, you have your opportunity. If the colonists win their way, your family and means will make you a person of great consideration. Here, you can only be a member of the family; in America, you can be the head of your own line. Dick, my dear brother, out of real love and honour I speak these words."

"Indeed, William, I am very sensible of your kindness, and I will consider well your proposition for you must know that it is a matter of some consequence to me now. I think, indeed, that my Katherine will be in a transport of delight to return to her native land. I hear her coming, and we will talk with her; and, anon, you shall confess, William, that you have seen the sweetest woman that ever the sun shone upon."

Almost with the words she entered, clothed in a white India muslin, with carnations at her breast. Her high-heeled shoes, her large hoop, and the height to which her pale gold hair was raised, gave to the beautiful woman an air of majesty that amazed the earl. He bowed low, and then kissed her cheeks, and led her to a chair, which he placed between Hyde and himself.

Of course the discussion of the American project was merely opened at that time. English people, even at this day, move only after slow and prudent deliberation; and then emigration was almost an irrevocable action. Katherine was predisposed to it, but yet she dearly loved the home she had made so beautiful. During Hyde's convalescence, also, other plans had been made and talked over until they had become very hopeful and pleasant; and they could not be cast aside without some reluctance. In fact, the purpose grew slowly, but surely, all through the following winter; being mainly fed by Katherine's loving desire to be near to her parents, and by Hyde's unconfessed desire to take part in the struggle which he foresaw, and which had his warmest sympathy. Every American letter strengthened these feelings; but the question was finally settled—as many an important event in every life is settled—by a person totally unknown to both Katherine and Hyde.

It was on a cold, stormy afternoon in February, when the fens were white with snow. Hyde sat by the big wood-fire, re-reading a letter from Joris Van Heemskirk, which also enclosed a copy of Josiah Quincy's speech on the Boston Port Bill. Katherine had a piece of worsted work in her hands. Little Joris was curled up in a big chair with his book, seeing nothing of the present, only conscious of the gray, bleak waves of the English Channel, and the passionate Blake bearing down upon Tromp and De Ruyter.

"What a battle that would be!" he said, jumping to his feet. "Father, I wish that I had lived a hundred years ago."

"What are you talking about, George?"

"Listen, then: 'Eighty sail put to sea under Blake. Tromp and De Ruyter, with seventy-six sail, were seen, upon the 18th of February, escorting three hundred merchant-ships up the channel. Three days of desperate fighting ensued, and Tromp acquired prodigious honour by this battle; for, though defeated, he saved nearly the whole of his immense convoy.' I wish I had been with Tromp, father."

"But an English boy should wish to have been with Blake."

"Tromp had the fewer vessels. One should always help the weaker side, father. And, besides, you know I am half Dutch."

Katherine looked proudly at the boy, but Hyde had a long fit of musing. "Yes," he answered at length, "a brave man always helps those who need it most. Your father's letter, Katherine, stirs me wonderfully. Those Americans show the old Saxon love of liberty. Hear how one of them speaks for his people: 'Blandishments will not fascinate us, nor will threats of a halter intimidate. For, under God, we are determined that wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will die free men.' Such men ought to be free, Katherine, and they will be free."

It was at this moment that Lettice came in with a bundle of newspapers: "They be brought by Sir Thomas Swaffham's man, sir, with Sir Thomas's compliments; there being news he thinks you would like to read, sir."

Katherine turned promptly. "Spiced ale and bread and meat give to the man, Lettice; and to Sir Thomas and Lady Swaffham remind him to take our respectful thanks."

Hyde opened the papers with eager curiosity. Little Joris was again with Tromp and Blake in the channel; and Katherine, remembering some household duty, left the father and son to their private enthusiasms. She was restless and anxious, for she had one of those temperaments that love a settled and orderly life. It would soon be spring, and there were a thousand things about the house and garden which would need her attention if they were to remain at Hyde. If not, her anxieties in other directions would be equally numerous and necessary. She stood at the window looking into the white garden close. Something about it recalled her father's garden; and she fell into such a train of tender memories that when Hyde called quickly, "Kate, Kate!" she found that there were tears in her eyes, and that it was with an effort and a sigh her soul returned to its present surroundings.



Hyde was walking about the room in great excitement,—his tall, nervous figure unconsciously throwing itself into soldierly attitudes; his dark, handsome face lit by an interior fire of sympathetic feeling.

"I must draw my sword again, Katherine," he said, as his hand impulsively went to his left side,—"I must draw my sword again. I thought I had done with it forever; but, by St. George, I'll draw it in this quarrel!"

"The American quarrel, Richard?"

"No other could so move me. We have the intelligence now of their congress. They have not submitted; they have not drawn back, not an inch; they have not quarrelled among themselves. They have unanimously voted for non-importation, non-exportation, and non-consumption. They have drawn up a declaration of their rights. They have appealed to the sympathies of the people of Canada, and they have resolved to support by arms all their brethren unlawfully attacked. Hurrah, Katherine! Every good man and true wishes them well."

"But it is treason, dear one."

"Soh! It was treason when the barons forced the Great Charter from King John. It was treason when Hampden fought against 'ship-money,' and Cromwell against Star Chambers, and the Dutchman William laid his firm hand on the British Constitution. All revolutions are treason until they are accomplished. We have long hesitated, we will waver no more. The conduct of Sir Jeffrey Amherst has decided me."

"I know it not."

"On the 6th of this month the king offered him a peerage if he would take command of the troops for America; and he answered, 'Your majesty must know that I cannot bring myself to fight the Americans, who are not only of my own race, but to whose former kindness I am also much obliged.' By the last mail, also, accounts have come of vast desertions of the soldiers of Boston; and three officers of Lord Percy's regiment are among the number. Katherine, our boy has told me this afternoon that he is half Dutch. Why should we stay in England, then, for his sake? We will do as Earl William advises us,—go to America and found a new house, of which I and he will be the heads. Are you willing?"

"Only to be with you, only to please you, Richard. I have no other happiness."

"Then it is settled; and I thank Sir Jeffrey Amherst, for his words have made me feel ashamed of my indecision. And look you, dear Kate, there shall be no more delays. The earl buys Hyde as it stands; we have nothing except our personal effects to pack: can you be ready in a week?"

"You are too impatient, Richard. In a week it is impossible.

"Then in two weeks. In short, my dear, I have taken an utter aversion to being longer in King George's land."

"Poor king! Lady Swaffham says he means well; he misunderstands, he makes mistakes."

"And political mistakes are crimes, Katherine. Write to-night to your father. Tell him that we are coming in two weeks to cast our lot with America. Upon my honour, I am impatient to be away."

When Joris Van Heemskirk received this letter, he was very much excited by its contents. Putting aside his joy at the return of his beloved daughter, he perceived that the hour expected for years had really struck. The true sympathy that had been so long in his heart, he must now boldly express; and this meant in all probability a rupture with most of his old associates and friends—Elder Semple in the kirk, and the Matthews and Crugers and Baches in the council.

He was sitting in the calm evening, with unloosened buckles, in a cloud of fragrant tobacco, talking of these things. "It is full time, come what will," said Lysbet. "Heard thou what Batavius said last night?"

"Little I listen to Batavius."

"But this was a wise word. 'The colonists are leaving the old ship,' he said; 'and the first in the new boat will have the choice of oars.'"

"That was like Batavius, but I will take higher counsel than his."

Then he rose, put on his hat, and walked down his garden; and, as he slowly paced between the beds of budding flowers, he thought of many things,—the traditions of the past struggles for freedom, and the irritating wrongs that had imbittered his own experience for ten years. There was plenty of life yet in the spirit his fathers had bequeathed to him; and, as this and that memory of wrong smote it, the soul-fire kindled, glowed, burned with passionate flame. "Free, God gave us this fair land, and we will keep it free. There has been in it no crowns and sceptres, no bloody Philips, no priestly courts of cruelty; and, in God's name, we will have none!"

He was standing on the river-bank; and the meadows over it were green and fair to see, and the fresh wind blew into his soul a thought of its own untrammelled liberty. He looked up and down the river, and lifted his face to the clear sky, and said aloud, "Beautiful land! To be thy children we should not deserve, if one inch of thy soil we yielded to a tyrant. Truly a vaderland to me and to mine thou hast been. Truly do I love thee." And then, his soul being moved to its highest mark, he answered it tenderly, in the strong-syllabled mother-tongue that it knew so well,—

"Indien ik u vergeet, o Vaderland! zoo vergete mijne regter-hand zich zelve!"

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?"

"When such a family a man has," he answered, waving his hand complacently toward the six children, "he must have some prudence and consideration. I had been well content with one child; but we must have our number, there is no remedy. And I am a householder, and I pay my way, and do my business. It is a fixed principle with me not to meddle with the business of other people."

"But, sir, this is your business, and your children's business also."

"I think, then, that it is King George's business."

"It is liberty"—

"Well, then, I have my liberty. I have liberty to buy and to sell, to go to my own kirk, to sail the 'Great Christopher' when and where I will. My house, my wife, my little children, nobody has touched."

"Pray, sir, what of your rights? your honour?"

"Oh, indeed, then, for ideas I quarrel not! Facts, they are different. Every man has his own creed, and every man his own liberty, so say I.—Come here, Alida," and he waved his hand imperiously to a little woman of four years old, who was sulking at the window, "what's the matter now? You have been crying again. I see that you have a discontented temper. There is a spot on your petticoat also, and your cap is awry. I fear that you will never become a neat, respectable girl—you that ought to set a good pattern to your little sister Femmetia."

Evidently he wished to turn the current of the conversation; but as soon as the child had been sent to her mother, Joris resumed it.

"If you go not yourself to the fight, Batavius, plenty of young men are there, longing to go, who have no arms and no clothes: send in your place one of them."

"It is my fixed principle not to meddle in the affairs of other people, and my principles are sacred to me."

"Batavius, you said not long ago that the colonists were leaving the old ship, and that the first in the new boat would have the choice of oars."

"Bram, that is the truth. I said not that I would choose any of the oars."

"A fair harbour we shall make, and the rewards will be great, Batavius."

"It is not good to cry 'herrings,' till in the net you have them. And to talk of rowing, the colonists must row against wind and tide; the English will row with set sail. That is easy rowing. Into this question I have looked well, for always I think about everything."

"Have you read the speeches of Adams and Hancock and Quincy? Have you heard what Colonel Washington said in the Assembly?"

"Oh, these men are discontented! Something which they have not got, they want. They are troublesome and conceited. They expect the century will be called after them. Now I, who punctually fulfil my obligations as a father and a citizen, I am contented, I never make complaints, I never want more liberty. You may read in the Holy Scriptures that no good comes of rebellion. Did not Absalom sit in the gate, and say to the discontented, 'See thy matters are good and right; but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee;' and, moreover, 'Oh, that I were made a judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice'? And did not Sheba blow a trumpet, and say, 'We have no part in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse. Every man to his tents, O Israel'? Well, then, what came of such follies? You may read in the Word of God that they ended in ruin."



Hyde looked with curiosity at the complacent orator. Bram rose, and, with a long-drawn whistle, left the room. Joris said sternly, "Enough you have spoken, Batavius. None are so blind as those who will not see."

"Well, then, father, I can see what is in the way of mine own business; and it is a fixed principle with me not to meddle with the business of other people. And look here, Joanna, the night is coming, and the dew with it, and Alida had sore throat yesterday: we had better go. Fast in sleep the children ought to be at this hour." And he bustled about them, tying on caps and capes; and finally, having marshalled the six children and their two nurses in front of him he trotted off with Joanna upon his arm, fully persuaded that he had done himself great credit, and acted with uncommon wisdom. "But it belongs to me to do that, Joanna," he said; "among all the merchants, I am known for my great prudence."

"I think that my father and Bram will get into trouble in this matter."

"You took the word out of my mouth, Joanna; and I will have nothing to do with such follies, for they are waxing hand over hand like the great winds at sea, till the hurricane comes, and then the ruin."

The next morning was the Sabbath, and it broke in a perfect splendour of sunshine. The New World was so new and fresh, and Katherine thought she had never before seen the garden so lovely. Joris was abroad in it very early. He looked at the gay crocus and the pale snowdrop and the budding pansies with a singular affection. He was going, perchance, on a long warfare. Would he ever return to greet them in the coming springs? If he did return, would they be there to greet him? As he stood pensively thoughtful, Katherine called him. He raised his eyes, and watched her approach as he had been used when she was a child, a school-girl, a lovely maiden. But never had she been so beautiful as now. She was dressed for church in a gown of rich brown brocade over a petticoat of paler satin, with costly ornaments of gold and rubies. As she joined her father, Hyde joined Lysbet in the parlour; and the two stood at the window watching her. She had clasped her hands upon his shoulder, and leaned her beautiful head against them. "A most perfect picture," said Hyde, and then he kissed Lysbet; and from that moment they were mother and son.

They walked to church together; and Hyde thought how beautiful the pleasant city was that sabbath morning, with its pretty houses shaded by trees just turning green, its clear air full of the grave dilating harmony of the church-bells, its quiet streets thronged with men and women—both sexes dressed with a magnificence modern Broadway beaux and belles have nothing to compare with. What staid, dignified men in three-cornered hats and embroidered velvet coats and long plush vests! What buckles and wigs and lace ruffles and gold snuff-boxes! What beautiful women in brocades and taffetas, in hoops and high heels and gauze hats! Here and there a black-robed dominie; here and there a splendidly dressed British officer, in scarlet and white, and gold epaulettes and silver embroideries! New York has always been a highly picturesque city, but never more so than in the restless days of A.D. 1775.

Katherine and Hyde and Bram were together; Joris and Lysbet were slowly following them. They were none of them speaking much, nor thinking much, but all were very happy and full of content! Suddenly the peaceful atmosphere was troubled by the startling clamour of a trumpet. It was a note so distinct from the music of the bells, so full of terror and warning, that every one stood still. A second blast was accompanied by the rapid beat of a horse's hoofs; and the rider came down Broadway like one on a message of life and death, and made no pause until he had very nearly reached Maiden Lane.

At that point a tall, muscular man seized the horse by the bridle, and asked, "What news?"

"Great news! great news! There has been a battle, a massacre at Lexington, a running fight from Concord to Boston! Stay me not!" But, as he shook the bridle free, he threw a handbill, containing the official account of the affair at Lexington to the inquirer.

Who then thought of church, though the church-bells were ringing? The crowd gathered around the man with the handbill, and in ominous silence listened to the tidings of the massacre at Lexington, the destruction of stores at Concord, the quick gathering of the militia from the hills and dales around Reading and Roxbury, the retreat of the British under their harassing fire, until, worn out and disorganized, they had found a refuge in Boston. "And this is the postscript at the last moment," added the reader: "'Men are pouring in from all the country sides; Putnam left his plough in the furrow, and rode night and day to the ground; Heath, also, is with him.'"

Joris was white and stern in his emotion; Bram stood by the reader, with a face as bright as a bridegroom's; Hyde's lips were drawn tight, and his eyes were flashing with the true military flame. "Father," he said, "take mother and Katherine to church; Bram and I will stay here, for I can see that there is something to be done."

"God help us! Yes, I will go to Him first;" and, taking his wife and daughter, he passed with them out of the crowd.

Hyde turned to the reader, who stood with bent brows, and the paper in his hand. "Well, sir, what is to be done?" he asked.

"There are five hundred stand of arms in the City Hall; there are men enough here to take them. Let us go."

A loud cry of assent answered him.

"My name is Richard Hyde, late of his Majesty's Windsor Guards; but I am with you, heart and soul."

"I am Marinus Willet."

"Then, Mr. Willet, where first?"



"To the mayor's residence. He has the keys of the room in which the arms are kept."

The news spread, no one knew how; but men poured out from the churches and the houses on their route, and Willet's force was soon nearly a thousand strong. The tumult, the tread, the animus of the gathering, was felt in that part of the city even where it could not be heard. Joris could hardly endure the suspense, and the service did him very little good. About two o'clock, as he was walking restlessly about the house, Bram and Hyde returned together.

"Well?" he asked.

"There were five hundred stand of arms in the City Hall, and I swear that we have taken them all. A man called Willet led us; a hero, quick of thought, prompt and daring,—a true soldier."

"I know him well; a good man."

"The keys the mayor refused to us," said Bram.

"Oh, sir, he lied to us! Vowed he did not have them, and sent us to the armourer in Crown Street. The armourer vowed that he had given them to the mayor."

"What then?"



"Oh, indeed, all fortune fitted us! We went en masse down Broadway into Wall Street, and so to the City Hall. Here some one, with too nice a sense of the sabbath, objected to breaking open the doors because of the day. But with very proper spirit Willet replied, 'If we wait until to-morrow, the king's men will not wait. The arms will be removed. And as for a key, here is one that will open any lock.' As he said the words, he swung a great axe around his head; and so, with a few blows, he made us an entrance. Indeed, I think that he is a grand fellow."

"And you got the arms?"

"Faith, we got all we went for! The arms were divided among the people. There was a drum and a fife also found with them, and some one made us very excellent music to step to. As we returned up Broadway, the congregation were just coming out of Trinity. Upon my word, I think we frightened them a little."

"Where were the English soldiers?"

"Indeed, they were shut up in barracks. Some of their officers were in church, others waiting for orders from the governor or mayor. 'Tis to be found out where the governor might be; the mayor was frightened beyond everything, and not capable of giving an order. Had my uncle Gordon been still in command here, he had not been so patient."

"And for you that would have been a hard case."

"Upon my word, I would not have fought my old comrades. I am glad, then, that they are in Quebec. Our swords will scarce reach so far."

"And where went you with the arms?"

"To a room in John Street. There they were stacked, the names of the men enrolled, and a guard placed over them. Bram is on the night patrol, by his own request. As for me, I have the honour of assisting New York in her first act of rebellion! and, if the military superstition be a true one, 'A Sunday fight is a lucky fight.'—And now, mother, we will have some dinner: 'The soldier loves his mess.'"

Every one was watching him with admiration. Never in his uniform had he appeared so like a soldier as he did at that hour in his citizen coat and breeches of wine-coloured velvet, his black silk stockings and gold-buckled shoes. His spirits were infectious: Bram had already come into thorough sympathy with him, and grown almost gay in his company; Joris felt his heart beat to the joy and hope in his young comrades. All alike had recognized that the fight was inevitable, and that it would be well done if it were soon done.

But events cannot be driven by wishes: many things had to be settled before a movement forward could be made. Joris had his store to let, and the stock and good-will to dispose of. Horses and accoutrements must be bought, uniforms made; and every day this charge increased: for, as soon as Van Heemskirk's intention to go to the front was known, a large number of young men from the best Dutch families were eager to enlist under him.