Amelia E. Barr - The Bow of Orange Ribbon

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"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?"

[Illustration: Jane lifted her apron to her eyes]

"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."

[Illustration: "O Richard, my lover, my husband!"]

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."

[Illustration: Chapter heading]

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.

[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."

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