The Bow of Orange Ribbon: A Romance of New York

by Amelia E. Barr

The news of the duel spread with the proverbial rapidity of evil news. At the doors of all the public houses, in every open shop, on every private stoop, and at the street-corners, people were soon discussing the event, with such additions and comments as their imaginations and prejudices suggested. One party insisted that lawyer Semple was dead; another, that it was the English officer; a third, that both died as they were being carried from the ground.

Batavius, who had lingered to the last moment at the house which he was building, heard the story from many a lip as he went home. He was bitterly indignant at Katherine. He felt, indeed, as if his own character for morality of every kind had been smirched by his intended connection with her. And his Joanna! How wicked Katherine had been not to remember that she had a sister whose spotless name would be tarnished by her kinship! He was hot with haste and anger when he reached Van Heemskirk's house.

Madam stood with Joanna on the front-stoop, looking anxiously down the road. She was aware that Bram had called for his father, and she had heard them leave the house together in unexplained haste. At first, the incident did not trouble her much. Perhaps one of the valuable Norman horses was sick, or there was an unexpected ship in, or an unusually large order. Bram was a young man who relied greatly on his father. She only worried because supper must be delayed an hour, and that delay would also keep back the completion of that exquisite order in which it was her habit to leave the house for the sabbath rest.

After some time had elapsed, she went upstairs, and began to lay out the clean linen and the kirk clothes. Suddenly she noticed that it was nearly dark; and, with a feeling of hurry and anxiety, she remembered the delayed meal. Joanna was on the front-stoop watching for Batavius, who was also unusually late; and, like many other loving women, she could think of nothing good which might have detained him, but her heart was full only of evil apprehensions.

"Where is Katherine?" That was the mother's first question, and she called her through the house. From the closed best parlour, Katherine came, white and weeping.

"What is the matter, then, that you are crying? And why into the dark room go you?"

"Full of sorrow I am, mother, and I went to the room to pray to God; but I cannot pray."

"'Full of sorrow.' Yes, for that Englishman you are full of sorrow. And how can you pray when you are disobeying your good father? God will not hear you."

The mother was not pitiless; but she was anxious and troubled, and Katherine's grief irritated her at the moment. "Go and tell Dinorah to bring in the tea. The work of the house must go on," she muttered. "And I think, that it was Saturday night Joris might have remembered."

Then she went back to Joanna, and stood with her, looking through the gray mist down the road, and feeling even the croaking of the frogs and the hum of the insects to be an unusual provocation. Just as Dinorah said, "The tea is served, madam," the large figure of Batavius loomed through the gathering grayness; and the women waited for him. He came up the steps without his usual greeting; and his face was so injured and portentous that Joanna, with a little cry, put her arms around his neck. He gently removed them.