The Bow of Orange Ribbon - Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (best book club books of all time txt) 📗

was standing upon a ladder, pinning among the evergreens and scarlet berries rosettes and bows of ribbon of the splendid national colour, and singing with a delightsome cheeriness,--

"But the maid of Holland,
For her own true love,
Ties the splendid orange,
Orange still above!
_O oranje boven!_
Orange still above!"

"Orange still above! Oh, my dear, don't trouble yourself to come down! I can pass the time tolerably well, watching you."

It was Mrs. Gordon, and she nodded and laughed in a triumphant way that very quickly brought Katherine to her side. "My dear, I kiss you. You are the top beauty of my whole acquaintance." Then, in a whisper, "_Richard sends his devotion. And put your hand in my muff: there is a letter._ And pray give me joy: I have just secured an invitation. I asked the councillor and madam point blank for it. Faith, I think I am a little of a favourite with them! Every one is talking of the bridegroom, and the bridegroom is talking to every one. Surely, my dear, he imagines himself to be the only man that will ever again commit matrimony. _Oranje boven_, everywhere!" Then, with a little exultant laugh, "_Above the Tartan_, at any rate. How is the young Bruce? My dear, if you don't make him suffer, I shall never forgive you. Alternate doses of hope and despair, that would be my prescription."

Katherine shook her head.

"Take notice, in particular, that I don't understand nods and shakes and sighs and signs. What is your opinion, frankly?"

"On my wedding day, as I left Richard, this he said to me: 'My honour, Katherine, is now in your keeping.' By the lifting of one eyelash, I will not stain it."

"My dear, you are perfectly charming. You always convince me that I am a better woman than I imagine myself. I shall go straight to Dick, and tell him how exactly proper you are. Really, you have more perfections than any one woman has a right to."

"To-morrow, if I have a letter ready, you will take it?"

"I will run the risk, child. But really, if you could see the way mine host of the 'King's Arms' looks at me, you would be sensible of my courage. I am persuaded he thinks I carry you under my new wadded cloak. Now, adieu. Return to your evergreens and ribbons.


"'For your own true love,
Tie the splendid orange,
Orange still above!'"


And so, lightly humming Katharine's favourite song, she left the busy house.

Before daylight the next morning, Batavius had every one at his post. The ceremony was to be performed in the Middle Kirk, and he took care that Joanna kept neither Dominie de Ronde nor himself waiting. He was exceedingly gratified to find the building crowded when the wedding party arrived. Joanna's dress had cost a guinea a yard, his own broadcloth and satin were of the finest quality, and he felt that the good citizens who respected him ought to have an opportunity to see how deserving he was of their esteem. Joanna, also, was a beautiful bride; and the company was entirely composed of men of honour and substance, and women of irreproachable characters, dressed with that solid magnificence gratifying to a man who, like Batavius, dearly loved respectability.

Katherine looked for Mrs. Gordon in vain; she was not in the kirk, and she did not arrive until the festival dinner was nearly over. Batavius was then considerably under the excitement of his fine position and fine fare. He sat by the side of his bride, at the right hand of Joris; and Katherine assisted her mother at the other end of the table. Peter Block, the first mate of the "Great Christopher," was just beginning to sing a song,--a foolish, sentimental ditty for so big and bluff a fellow,--in which some girl was thus entreated,--

"Come, fly with me, my own fair love;
My bark is waiting in the bay,
And soon its snowy wings will speed
To happy lands so far away,

"And there, for us, the rose of love
Shall sweetly bloom and never die.
Oh, fly with me! We'll happy be
Beneath fair Java's smiling sky."

"Peter, such nonsense as you sing," said Batavius, with all the authority of a skipper to his mate. "How can a woman fly when she has no wings? And to say any bark has wings is not the truth. And what kind of rose is the rose of love? Twelve kinds of roses I have chosen for my new garden, but that kind I never heard of; and I will not believe in any rose that never dies. And you also have been to Java; and well you know of the fever and blacks, and the sky that is not smiling, but hot as the place which is not heaven. No respectable person would want to be a married man in Java. I never did."

"Sing your own songs, skipper. By yourself you measure every man. If to the kingdom of heaven you did not want to go, astonished and angry you would be that any one did not like the place which is not heaven."

"Come, friends and neighbours," said Joris cheerily, "I will sing you a song; and every one knows the tune to it, and every one has heard their vaders and their moeders sing it,--sometimes, perhaps, on the great dikes of Vaderland, and sometimes in their sweet homes that the great Hendrick Hudson found out for them. Now, then, all, a song for

"'MOEDER HOLLAND.

"'We have taken our land from the sea,
Its fields are all yellow with grain,
Its meadows are green on the lea,--
And now shall we give it to Spain?
No, no, no, no!

"'We have planted the faith that is pure,
That faith to the end we'll maintain;
For the word and the truth must endure.
Shall we bow to the Pope and to Spain?
No, no, no, no!

"'Our ships are on every sea,
Our honour has never a stain,
Our law and our commerce are free:
Are we slaves for the tyrant of Spain?
No, no, no, no!

"'Then, sons of Batavia, the spade,--
The spade and the pike and the main,
And the heart and the hand and the blade;
Is there mercy for merciless Spain?
No, no, no, no!'"

By this time the enthusiasm was wonderful. The short, quick denials came hotter and louder at every verse; and it was easy to understand how these large, slow men, once kindled to white heat, were both irresistible and unconquerable. Every eye was turned to Joris, who stood in his massive, manly beauty a very conspicuous figure. His face was full of feeling and purpose, his large blue eyes limpid and shining; and, as the tumult of applause gradually ceased, he said,--

"My friends and neighbours, no poet am I; but always wrongs burn in the heart until plain prose cannot utter them. Listen to me. If we wrung the Great Charter and the right of self-taxation from Mary in A.D. 1477; if in A.D. 1572 we taught Alva, by force of arms, how dear to us was our maxim, 'No taxation without representation,'--

"Shall we give up our long-cherished right?
Make the blood of our fathers in vain?
Do we fear any tyrant to fight?
Shall we hold out our hands for the chain?
No, no, no, no!"

Even the women had caught fire at this allusion to the injustice of the Stamp Act and Quartering Acts, then hanging over the liberties of the Province; and Mrs. Gordon looked curiously and not unkindly at the latent rebels. "England will have foemen worthy of her steel if she turns these good friends into enemies," she reflected; and then, following some irresistible impulse, she rose with the company, at the request of Joris, to sing unitedly the patriotic invocation,--

"O Vaderland, can we forget thee,--
Thy courage, thy glory, thy strife?
O Moeder Kirk, can we forget thee?
No, never! no, never! through life.
No, no, no, no!"

The emotion was too intense to be prolonged; and Joris instantly pushed back his chair, and said, "Now, then, friends, for the dance. Myself I think not too old to take out the bride."

Neil Semple, who had looked like a man in a dream during the singing, went eagerly to Katherine as soon as Joris spoke of dancing. "He felt strong enough," he said, "to tread a measure in the bride dance, and he hoped she would so far honour him."

"No, I will not, Neil. I will not take your hands. Often I have told you that."

"Just for to-night, forgive me, Katherine."

"I am sorry that all must end so; I cannot dance any more with you;" and then she affected to hear her mother calling, and left him standing among the jocund crowd, hopeless and distraught with grief. He was not able to recover himself, and the noise and laughter distracted and made him angry. He had expected so much from this occasion, from its influence and associations; and it had been altogether a disappointment. Mrs. Gordon's presence troubled him, and he was not free from jealousy regarding the young dominie. He had received a call from a church in Haarlem; and the Consistory had requested him to become a member of the Coetus, and accept it. Joris had interested himself much in his favour; Katherine listened with evident pleasure to his conversation. The fire of jealousy burns with very little fuel; and Neil went away from Joanna's wedding-feast hating very cordially the young and handsome Dominie Lambertus Van Linden.

The elder noticed every thing, and he was angry at this new turn in affairs. He felt as if Joris had purposely brought the dominie into his house to further embarrass Neil; and he said to his wife after their return home, "Janet, our son Neil has lost the game for Katherine Van Heemskirk. I dinna care a bodle for it now. A man that gets the woman he wants vera seldom gets any other gude thing."

"Elder!"

"Ah, weel, there's excepts! I hae mind o' them. But Neil won't be long daunted. I looked in on him as I cam' upstairs. He was sitting wi' a law treatise, trying to read his trouble awa'. He's a brave soul. He'll hae honours and charges in plenty; and there's vera few women that are worth a gude office--if you hae to choose atween them."

"You go back on your ain words, Elder. Tak' a sleep to yoursel'. Your pillow may gie you wisdom."

And, while this conversation was taking place, they heard the pleasant voices of