The Bow of Orange Ribbon: A Romance of New York

          “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.

[Illustration:  “One night in Rome, in a moment, the thing was altered,”]

“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.

[Illustration:  “I must draw my sword again”]

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.

[Illustration:  “We have closed his Majesty’s custom-house forever”]

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.

[Illustration:  “I am reading the Word”]

“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.”

[Illustration:  He was standing on the step of his high counting-desk.]

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.”

[Illustration:  Chapter heading]