"And this afternoon comes here Neil Semple. Scarcely he believed me that
Katherine was out. Joris, what wilt thou do about the young man?"
"His fair chance he is to have, Lysbet. That to the elder is promised."
"The case now is altered. Neil Semple I like not. Little he thought of
our child's good name. With his sword he wounded her most. No patience
have I with the man. And his dark look thou should have seen when I
said, 'Katherine is not at home.' Plainly his eyes said to me, 'Thou art
lying.'"
"Well, then, what thought hast thou?"
"This: one lover must push away the other. The young dominie that is now
with the Rev. Lambertus de Ronde, he is handsome and a great hero. From
Surinam has he come, a man who for the cross has braved savage men and
savage beasts and deadly fever. No one but he is now to be talked of in
the kirk; and I would ask him to the house. Often I have seen the gown
and bands put the sword and epaulets behind them."
"Well, then, at the wedding of Batavius he will be asked; and if before
there is a good time, I will say, 'Come into my house, and eat and drink
with us.'"
So the loving, anxious parents, in their ignorance, planned. Even then,
accustomed in all their ways to move with caution, they saw no urgent
need of interference with the regular and appointed events of life. A
few weeks hence, when Joanna was married, if there was in the meantime
no special opportunity, the dominie could be offered as an antidote to
the soldier; and, in the interim, Neil Semple was to honourably have
such "chance" as his ungovernable temper had left him.
The next afternoon he called again on Katherine. His arm was still
useless; his pallor and weakness so great as to win, even from Lysbet,
that womanly pity which is often irrespective of desert. She brought him
wine, she made him rest upon the sofa, and by her quiet air of sympathy
bespoke for him a like indulgence from her daughter. Katherine sat by
her small wheel, unplaiting some flax; and Neil thought her the most
beautiful creature he had ever seen. He kept angrily asking himself why
he had not perceived this rare loveliness before; why he had not made
sure his claim ere rivals had disputed it with him. He did not
understand that it was love which had called this softer, more exquisite
beauty into existence. The tender light in the eyes; the flush upon the
cheek; the lips, conscious of sweet words and sweeter kisses; the heart,
beating to pure and loving thoughts,--in short, the loveliness of the
soul, transfiguring the meaner loveliness of flesh and blood, Neil had
perceived and wondered at; but he had not that kind of love experience
which divines the cause from the result.