"Pray, my dear aunt, talk sensibly. Give me your advice; you know already that I value it. What is the first step to be taken?"
"Go and talk with her father. I a.s.sure you, no real progress can be made without it. The girl you think worth asking for; but it is very necessary for you to know what fortune goes with her beauty."
"If her father refuse to give her to me"--
"That is not to be thought of. I have seen that some of the best of these Dutch families are very willing to be friendly with us. You come of a n.o.ble race. You wear your sword with honour. You are not far from the heritage of a great t.i.tle and estate. If you ask for her fortune, you offer far above its equivalent, sir."
"I have heard Mr. Neil Semple say that Van Heemskirk is a great stickler for trade, and that he hates every man who wears a sword."
"You have heard more than you need listen to. I talked to the man an hour last night. He is as honest as a looking-gla.s.s, and I read him all through with the greatest ease. I am sure that he has a heart very tender, and devoid of anger or prejudice of any kind."
"That is to be seen. I have discovered already that men who can be very gentle can also be very rough. But this suspense is intolerable, and not to be borne. I will go and end it. Pray, what is the hour?"
"It is about three o"clock; a very suitable hour, I think."
"Then give me your good wishes."
"I shall be impatient to hear the result."
"In an hour or two."
"Oh, sir, I am not so foolish as to expect you in an hour or two! When you have spoken with the father, you will doubtless go home with him and drink a dish of tea with your divinity. I can imagine your unreasonable felicity, d.i.c.k,--seas of milk, and ships of amber, and all sails set for the desired haven! I know it all, so I hope you will spare me every detail,--except, indeed, such as relate to pounds, shillings, and pence."
It was a very hot afternoon; and Van Heemskirk"s store, though open to the river-breezes, was not by any means a cool or pleasant place. Bram was just within the doors, marking "Boston" on a number of flour-barrels, which were being rapidly transferred to a vessel lying at the wharf. He was absorbed and hurried in the matter, and received the visitor with rather a cool courtesy; but whether the coolness was of intention or preoccupation, Captain Hyde did not perceive it. He asked for Councillor Van Heemskirk, and was taken to his office, a small room, intensely warm and sunny at that hour of the day.
"Your servant, Captain."
"Yours, most sincerely, Councillor. It is a hot day."
"That is so. We come near to midsummer. Is there anything I can oblige you in, sir?"
Joris asked the question because the manner of the young man struck him as uneasy and constrained; and he thought, "Perhaps he has come to borrow money." It was notorious that his Majesty"s officers gambled, and were often in very great need of it; and, although Joris had not any intention of risking his gold, he thought it as well to bring out the question, and have the refusal understood before unnecessary politeness made it more difficult. He was not, therefore, astonished when Captain Hyde answered,--
"Sir, you can indeed oblige me, and that in a matter of the greatest moment."
"If money it be, Captain, at once I may tell you, that I borrow not, and I lend not."
"Sir, it is not money--in particular."
"So?"
"It is your daughter Katherine."
Then Joris stood up, and looked steadily at the suitor. His large, amiable face had become in a moment hard and stern; and the light in his eyes was like the cold, sharp light that falls from drawn steel.
"My daughter is not for you to name. Sir, it is a wrong to her, if you speak her name."
"By my honour, it is not! Though I come of as good family as any in England, and may not unreasonably hope to inherit its earldom, I do a.s.sure you, sir, I sue as humbly for your daughter"s hand as if she were a princess."
"Your family! Talk not of it. King nor kaiser do I count better men than my own fore-goers. Like to like, that is what I say. Your wife seek, Captain, among your own women."
"I protest that I love your daughter. I wish above all things to make her my wife."
"Many things men desire, that they come not near to. My daughter is to another man promised."
"Look you, Councillor, that would be monstrous. Your daughter loves me."
Joris turned white to the lips. "It is not the truth," he answered in a slow, husky voice.
"By the sun in heaven, it is the truth! Ask her."
"Then a great scoundrel are you, unfit with honest men to talk. Ho! Yes, your sword pull from its scabbard. Strike. To the heart strike me. Less wicked would be the deed than the thing you have done."
"In faith, sir, "tis no crime to win a woman"s love."
"No crime it would be to take the guilders from my purse, if my consent was to it. But into my house to come, and while warm was yet my welcome, with my bread and wine in your lips, to take my gold, a shame and a crime would be. My daughter than gold is far more precious."
There was something very impressive in the angry sorrow of Joris. It partook of his own magnitude. Standing in front of him, it was impossible for Captain Hyde not to be sensible of the difference between his own slight, nervous frame, and the fair, strong ma.s.siveness of Van Heemskirk; and, in a dim way, he comprehended that this physical difference was only the outward and visible sign of a mental and moral one quite as positive and unchangeable.
Yet he persevered in his solicitation. With a slight impatience of manner he said, "Do but hear me, sir. I have done nothing contrary to the custom of people in my condition, and I a.s.sure you that with all my soul I love your daughter."
"Love! So talk you. You see a girl beautiful, sweet, and innocent. Your heart, greedy and covetous, wants her as it has wanted, doubtless, many others. For yourself only you seek her. And what is it you ask then!
That _she_ should give up for you her father, mother, home, her own faith, her own people, her own country,--the poor little one!--for a cold, cheerless land among strangers, alone in the sorrows and pains that to all women come. Love! In G.o.d"s name, what know you of love?"
"No man can love her better."
"What say you? How, then, do I love her? I who carried her--_mijn witte lammetje_--in these arms before yet she could say to me, "Fader"!" His wrath had been steadily growing, in spite of the mist in his eyes and the tenderness in his voice; and suddenly striking the desk a ponderous blow with his closed hand, he said with an unmistakable pa.s.sion, "My daughter you shall not have. G.o.d in heaven to himself take her ere such sorrow come to her and me!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Sir, you are very uncivil"]
"Sir, you are very uncivil; but I am thankful to know so much of your mind. And, to be plain with you, I am determined to marry your daughter if I can compa.s.s the matter in any way. It is now, then, open war between us; and so, sir, your servant."
"Stay. To me listen. Not one guilder will I give to my daughter, if"--
"To the devil with your guilders! Dirty money made in dirty traffic"--
"You lie!"
"Sir, you take an infamous advantage. You know, that, being Katherine"s father, I will not challenge you."
"_Christus!_!" roared Joris, "challenge me one hundred times. A fool I would be to answer you. Life my G.o.d gave to me. Well, then, only my G.o.d shall from me take it. See you these arms and hands? In them you will be as the child of one year. Ere beyond my reason you move me, _go_!" and he strode to the door and flung it open with a pa.s.sion that made every one in the store straighten themselves, and look curiously toward the two men.
White with rage, and with his hand upon his sword-hilt, Captain Hyde stamped his way through the crowded store to the dusty street. Then it struck him that he had not asked the name of the man to whom Katharine was promised. He swore at himself for the omission. Whether he knew him or not, he was determined to fight him. In the meantime, the most practical revenge was to try and see Katherine before her father had the opportunity to give her any orders regarding him. Just then he met Neil Semple, and he stopped and asked him the time.
"It will be the half hour after four, Captain. I am going home; shall I have your company, sir?"
"I have not much leisure to-night. Make a thousand regrets to Madam Semple and my aunt for me."
Neil"s calm, complacent gravity was unendurable. He turned from him abruptly, and, muttering pa.s.sionate exclamations, went to the river-bank for a boat. Often he had seen Katherine between five and six o"clock at the foot of the Van Heemskirk garden; for it was then possible for her to slip away while madam was busy about her house, and Joanna and Batavius talking over their own affairs. And this evening he felt that the very intensity of his desire must surely bring her to their trysting-place behind the lilac hedge.