LITMIR.BIZ

II.

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      "To be a sweetness more desired

       than spring—

       This is the flower of life."

      Joris Van Heemskirk had not thought of prayer; but, in his vague fear and apprehension, his soul beat at his lips, and its natural language had been that appeal at his daughter's closed door. For Semple's words had been like a hand lifting the curtain in a dark room: only a clouded and uncertain light had been thrown, but in it even familiar objects looked portentous. In these days, the tendency is to tone down and to assimilate, to deprecate every thing positive and demonstrative. But Joris lived when the great motives of humanity stood out sharp and bold, and surrounded by a religious halo.

      Many of his people had begun to associate with the governing race, to sit at their banquets, and even to worship in their church; but Joris, in his heart, looked upon such "indifferents" as renegades to their God and their fatherland. He was a Dutchman, soul and body; and no English duke was prouder of his line, or his royal quarterings, than was Joris Van Heemskirk of the race of sailors and patriots from whom he had sprung.

      Through his father, he clasped hands with men who had swept the narrow seas with De Ruyter, and sailed into Arctic darkness and icefields with Van Heemskirk. Farther back, among that mysterious, legendary army of patriots called "The Beggars of the Sea," he could proudly name his fore-goers—rough, austere men, covered with scars, who followed Willemsen to the succour of Leyden. The likeness of one of them, Adrian Van Heemskirk, was in his best bedroom—the big, square form wrapped in a pea-jacket; a crescent in his hat, with the device, "Rather Turk than Papist;" and upon his breast one of those medals, still hoarded in the Low Countries, which bore the significant words, "In defiance of the Mass."

      He knew all the stories of these men—how, fortified by their natural bravery, and by their Calvinistic acquiescence in the purposes of Providence, they put out to sea in any weather, braved any danger, fought their enemies wherever they found them, worked like beavers behind their dams, and yet defiantly flung open their sluice-gates, and let in the ocean, to drown out their enemies.

      Through his mother, a beautiful Zealand woman, he was related to the Evertsens, the victorious admirals of Zealand, and also to the great mercantile family of Doversteghe; and he thought the enterprise of the one as honourable as the valour of the other. Beside the sailor pictures of Cornelius and Jan Evertsen, and the famous "Keesje the Devil," he hung sundry likenesses of men with grave, calm faces, proud and lofty of aspect, dressed in rich black velvet and large wide collars—merchants who were every inch princes of commerce and industry.

      These lines of thought, almost tedious to indicate, flashed hotly and vividly through his mind. The likes and dislikes, the faiths and aspirations, of past centuries, coloured the present moments, as light flung through richly stained glass has its white radiance tinged by it. The feeling of race—that strong and mysterious tie which no time nor circumstances can eradicate—was so living a motive in Joris Van Heemskirk's heart, that he had been quite conscious of its appeal when Semple spoke of a marriage between Katherine and his own son. And Semple had understood this, when he so cunningly insinuated a common stock and a common form of faith. For he had felt, instinctively, that even the long tie of friendship between them was hardly sufficient to bridge over the gulf of different nationalities.

Then, Katherine was Van Heemskirk's darling, the very apple of his eye. He felt angry that already there should be plans laid to separate her in any way from him. His eldest daughters, Cornelia and Anna, had married men of substance in Esopus and Albany: he knew they had done well for themselves, and had become contented in that knowledge; but he also felt that they were far away from his love and home. Joanna was already betrothed to Capt. Batavius de Vries; Bram would doubtless find himself a wife very soon; for a little while, he had certainly hoped to keep Katherine by his own side.