"_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 Const.i.tution. 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 a.s.sociates 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 pa.s.sionate flame. "Free, G.o.d gave us this fair land, and we will keep it free. There has been in it no crowns and sceptres, no b.l.o.o.d.y Philips, no priestly courts of cruelty; and, in G.o.d"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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "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 mola.s.ses 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 att.i.tude 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 pa.s.sion. "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 pa.s.sed it, he lifted his bonnet above his head and said, "G.o.d save the king! G.o.d 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 mola.s.ses."
"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 sh.o.r.e, 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.