The Belle of Bowling Green
then showed nothing but that sacred peace and refinement which comes
only through a constant idea of God’s care and presence.
Annette stood still until she heard her grandmother’s door close; then,
after a moment or two of indecision, she took from under the
sofa-cushion a book, and stood it up before her with a comical air of
judgment.
“It is all your fault, you unlucky ‘Children of The Abbey,’” she said
sternly. “If I had been able to get rid of you, I should have gone with
grandmother to Uncle Gerard’s house this morning; and, considering the
news, we should certainly have remained there all day. And as
grandmother says, ‘if the pot boils, it always boils over on the Bowling
Green.’ I ought to have been where I could see and hear all that was
going on. I think Sapphira might have sent for me! People are so
selfish, and affairs always work so contrary. If I try to be unselfish
nothing good comes of it--to me; and if I am reasonably selfish then I
am sure to suffer for it. Grandfather de Vries is right; whenever I go
to see him, he always mumbles to me: ‘see now, love others well, but
thyself most of all.’ Grandfather de Vries is a wise man--every one says
so--and he tells me to love myself best of all. Well, I shall have no
company this afternoon but these silly ‘Children of The Abbey.’ They are
as distractingly absurd as they can be, but I want to know whether they
get married or not.”
She sought this information with great apparent interest, yet ever as
she turned the fascinating leaves, she let the book drop down a minute
while she wondered “what was going on on the Bowling Green.” For she had
that keen impression of “something missed” which frequently and
mockingly informs a person in whom selfishness is ingrained,
unconscious, hereditary.
And her premonition was more than true. Her uncle at that very hour was
standing on the topmost step of the flight leading to his house door,
and there was a crowd of young men before him--a crowd drunk with its
own passionate enthusiasm--who would not be satisfied until he had
spoken. His wife and his daughter stood at his right hand, and at his
left his son Christopher held aloft the torn and stained colours that
had floated above “Bloommaert’s Men” through the heroic days of the War
for Independence. Shout after shout greeted his appearance, and when
there was a moment’s pause, a beautiful youth stepped forward and called
out:
“Speak to us, judge. It is your words we are waiting for.” His hat was
in his hand, and his bare head, crowned with close, clustering curls,
was lifted to the judge. For one moment his eyes sought out Sapphira,
and she caught the glance, and it went to her heart like a ray of
sunshine. Yet it was into her father’s face she smiled as she gently
touched his arm. Then he spoke as if a burning coal had been laid on his
lips, and the very air felt as if set on fire by his words:
“My neighbours, and my fellow citizens!” he cried, “I have hitherto been
bitterly against this war with England; but now, I am for it. With all
my heart and soul, with all my body, with every shilling of my estate I
am for it. I have always been a true and consistent Federalist. But now,
there are no Federalists! there are no Republicans! We are all
Americans! Dutch and English and French and Scotch, all are to-day
Americans! America is the mother of us all. She has nursed us at her
breast. She has made us free from all ancient tyrannies. She has given
us homes and wives and children, filled our granaries with the finest of
the wheat, and set before us the commerce of the whole earth. Shall we
not love her? Shall we not defend her when she is insulted and wronged
and threatened?”
A roar of enthusiastic assent answered these questions.
“If we must fight we will strike no soft blows in battle. We will give
our enemy and the whole world this lesson--that no foreign warships can
safely come blustering and pillaging our coasts. New York is to be
defended, and New Yorkers are the men to defend their native city. Will
you do it?”
He was answered by a shout of affirmation.
“To the last gun?”
“Yes.”
“To the last man?”
“Yes! Yes! You will stand with us, Bloommaert?”
“Living or dead I will stand with you.” Then he took reverently in his
hands the faded glorious rag that Christopher Bloommaert held.
“Look,” he said, in a voice as tender as a woman’s--“look at the flag
that never waved over a coward, the flag to which we lifted our eyes
when all was dark, and saw victory in its stars. It is a flag made for
free men; will you ever let England--ever let any enemy--take it from
you?”
“We will die for it!”
“No, you will live for it! You will carry it from victory to victory and
fly it in the face of all the world--the flag of a free country--the
flag of men that will have nothing else, and nothing less--than absolute
liberty and absolute independence.” As he spoke these words he lifted
the old banner to his lips, and then held it out to the people.
It was an act of allegiance that embraced every soul present, and was
followed by a moment of silence that throbbed with emotion; then the
young man who had spoken for the company looked expressively at his
comrades, and they turned northward to the city, their hearts burning
with a steady fervour of loyalty, and their faces full of that
dauntless hope which of its own energy fulfils itself. Quiet they could
not long be, and when they reached the upper end of the Bowling Green,
they began to sing; softly at first, but gradually gathering into a
rattling vocal melody, the fiery passion of loyalty that filled their
hearts:
“Here’s to the Squire who goes to parade!
Here’s to the citizen soldier!
Here’s to the merchant who fights for his trade
Whom danger increasing makes bolder.
Here’s to the lawyer, who leaving his bar
Hastens where honour doth lead, Sir,
Changing his gown for the ensigns of war,
The cause of his country to plead, Sir!
Freedom appears,
Every heart cheers,
And calls for the help of the brave Volunteers.”
They sang the verse to the gay inspiring music of its old English song,
and then gave lustily the cheers it called for. Their echo floated into
the Bloommaert house, where the family were sitting down to their
belated dinner; for this commonplace event was eagerly accepted as a
relief. To eat and to drink, that would mean help and remission, and
they had felt until feeling had become prostrating and oppressive.
Christopher made the first remark, and this was to quote the last line
of the song, “Calls for the help of the brave Volunteers,” asking after
a short pause, “Is it not so, father?”
“Yes, Christopher. I suppose you will sail soon?”
“As soon as my new ship is ready. Peter is hurrying it forward. I am
impatient to be off.”
“Have you seen Peter to-day?” asked his mother.
“I saw him, but he was far too busy to talk. The hammers ring in his
ship-yard from the first streak of dawn to the last glint of daylight.
And now the demand for ships will be doubled.”
“We shall want soldiers as well as sailors, Christopher,” said the
judge.
“That is true, father, and they will not be to beg nor to seek. This is
a cause that knocks at every man’s door. Leonard Murray is only one of
many rich young men who are raising companies at their own expense.”
“Then it _was_ Leonard Murray with those men who were here an hour ago,”
said Mrs. Bloommaert. “I felt sure of it; but how much he has changed.”
“In some ways, yes; in general he is just the same good fellow he has
ever been. I had a few words with him early this morning, and he asked
me to give his respectful remembrance to you and to Sapphira.”
“It is four or five years since I saw him; where has he been?”
“He was at Yale nearly two years; then he went with a party as far west
as the Mississippi, and down the river to New Orleans. He was staying
with the Edward Livingstons until the rumours of war became so positive
that he could not doubt their truth. Then he sailed from New Orleans to
Norfolk, and so on to Washington. He reached Washington the very day of
the proclamation of war and came so rapidly with the news that Mayor
Clinton received it some hours before the official notice.”
“And every hour is of the greatest importance now,” said the judge.
“Indeed, I have hardly time for my afternoon pipe, for I promised Mr.
Clinton to meet him at four o’clock.”
This information hurried the dinner a little, and Judge Bloommaert took
his smoke very restlessly. After he had left the house, Christopher did
not remain long. His ship’s progress absorbed his thoughts, and he was
not a talkative man. His ardour, his national pride, and his hatred of
oppression were quite as potent factors with Christopher Bloommaert as
with any patriot in New York, but the force they induced was a silent
and concentrated one. On land he seemed to be rather a heavy man, slow
in his movements and short in his speech; but the passion of his nature
was only biding its opportunity, and those who had ever seen Christopher
Bloommaert in action on his own deck knew for all time afterwards what
miracles physical courage set on fire by patriotism and by personal
interest combined might accomplish.
As he was leaving the room he held the open door in his hand a minute,
and said: “Mother, do you know that Aaron Burr is back? He put up his
sign in Nassau Street yesterday; I saw it this morning.”
“Dear me, Chris! I hope he has come to help his country in her
trouble--that would be only right.”
“Help his country! Aaron Burr help! The man is dead.”
“What do you mean, Chris? You said he was back, now you say he is dead.”
“His honour is slain, and all men have lost faith in him. The man is
dead.”
He went away with these words, and Sapphira and her mother watched him
out of sight. For some minutes they did not speak; then Mrs. Bloommaert
asked: “Did you know Leonard Murray this morning, Sapphira?”
“Yes, mother. I knew him at once. I think that he passed the house twice
yesterday. I was not quite sure then, but this morning I had not a
moment’s doubt. I wish Annette had been here. She will be very much
disappointed.”
“Annette would have spoiled everything. I am glad she was not here.”
“Oh, mother!”
“Yes, she would. I will tell you how. When your father was called out,
and took his stand on the topmost step, with Christopher and the flag on
one side of him and you and I on the other side, do you think Annette
would have been satisfied to stand with us? To be only one of a group?
That is not Annette’s idea of what is due to Annette.”
“But what could she have done to alter it?”
“She would have said in her pretty, apologetic way that it was ‘too bad
to crowd us, and that any place was right for her,’ and, before an
answer was possible, she would have slipped past Christopher and seated
herself on the second step at his feet. With her long curls and her
white frock, and the blue snood in her hair, and the flag above her, she
would have made a picture sufficiently lovely to have attracted and
distracted every man present. There would have been but a poor, divided
enthusiasm; and yet, Annette would have been so naturally and so
innocently conspicuous that both your father and Christopher would have
been unconscious of her small, selfish diplomacy.”
“Annette is so pretty.”
“And so vain of her beauty.”
“That is true, but I fancy, mother, even the flowers are vain of their
beauty. I have noticed often how the roses when in full bloom, sway and
bend and put on languishing airs as if they knew they were sweet and
lovely. And, to be sure, I have frequently when I have looked in a
mirror been very glad I had a fair face and a good form.”