CHAPTER I.
RED OR BLUE RIBBONS
It was the fourth year of the captivity of New York, and the beleaguered city, in spite of military pomp and display, could not hide the desolations incident to her warlike occupation. The beautiful trees and groves which once shaded her streets and adorned her suburbs had been cut down by the army sappers; her gardens and lawns upturned for entrenchments and indented by artillery wheels; and some of the best parts of the city blackened and mutilated by fire. Her churches had been turned into prisons and hospitals, and were centres of indescribable suffering and poisonous infection; while over the burnt district there had sprung up a town of tents inhabited by criminals and by miserable wretches whom starvation and despair had turned into highwaymen.
But these conditions were the work of man. Nature still lavished upon the captive city a glory of sunshine and blue skies, and winds, full of the freshness and sparkle of the great sea, blew through all her sickly streets. Wherever the gardens had not been destroyed, there was the scent of mays and laburnums, and the indescribable beauty of apple blossoms on the first day of their birth.
In front of one of these fortunate enclosures, belonging to a little house on Queen Street, an old gentleman was standing, looking wistfully in at a trellis of small red roses. He turned away with a sigh as a man dressed like a sailor touched him on the arm, saying, as he did so:
"Well, then, Elder, a good afternoon to you? I am just from Boston, and I have brought you a letter from your son."
"You, De Vries! I didna look for you just yet."
"You know how it is. I am a man of experience, and I had a good voyage both ways."
"And Robertson and Elliot and Ludlow will have a good percentage on your cargoes?"
"That is the way of business. It is as it ought to be. I do not defraud or condemn the Government. It is the young – who have no knowledge or experience – who do such things."
"What do you bring in, Captain?"
"Some provisions of all kinds; and I shall take back some merchandise of all kinds – for them who can not get it in any other way."
"To Boston again?"
"This time only to the Connecticut coast. The goods will easily go further. The trade is great. What then? I must waste no time; I have to live by my business."
"And I have nae doubt you think the 'business' on the King's service."
"Every respectable man is of that way of thinking. We carry no military stores. I am very precise about that. It is one of my principles. And what, then, would the merchants of New York do without this opening for trade? They would be ruined; and there would also be starvation. They who say different are fools; we give help and comfort to the royalists, and we distress the rebels, for we take from them all their ready money. If the trade was not 'on the King's service,' the Governor would not be in it."
"Even so! That circumstance shows it is not far out o' the way."
"'Out of the way!' What the deuce, Elder! I am a deacon in the Middle Kirk. My respectability and honesty cannot be concealed: any one can see them. Batavius de Vries would not steal a groschen; no, nor half of one!"
"Easy, easy, Captain! Why should you steal? It is far mair lucrative to cheat than to steal; and the first is in the way o' business – as you were remarking. But this or that, my good thanks for the letter you have brought me; and is there anything I can do in return for your civility?"
"If you will kindly call at my dwelling and tell Madame I am arrived here safe and sound; that would be a great satisfaction for us both."
"I pass your door, Captain, and I will tell Madame the good news. Nae doubt she will gie me a smile for it."
Then De Vries turned away with some remark about business, and Elder Semple stood still a moment, fingering the bulky letter which had been given him; and, as he did so, wondering what he should do, for "ill news comes natural these days," he thought, "and maybe I had better read it through, before I speak a word to Janet anent it. I'll step into the King's Arms and see what Alexander has to say."
When he entered the coffee-room he saw his son, Mr. Neil Semple, and Governor Robertson sitting at a table with some papers between them. Neil smiled gravely, and moved a chair into place for his father, and the Governor said pleasantly:
"How are you, Elder? It is a long time since I saw you."
"I am as well as can be expected, considering a' things, Governor; but what for will I be 'Elder,' when I have nae kirk to serve?"
"Is that my fault, Elder?"
"You might have spoke a word for the reopening of the kirk, and the return o' Dr. Rogers. Your affirmative would have gone a long way toward it. And the loyal Calvinists o' New York hae been too long kirkless. What for didn't you speak the word, Governor? What for?"
