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,—­