Mass_."

He knew all the stories of these men,--how, fortified by their natural
bravery, and by their Calvinistic acquiescence in the purposes of
Providence, they put out to sea in any weather, braved any danger,
fought their enemies wherever they found them, worked like beavers
behind their dams, and yet defiantly flung open their sluice-gates, and
let in the ocean, to drown out their enemies.

Through his mother, a beautiful Zealand woman, he was related to the
Evertsens, the victorious admirals of Zealand, and also to the great
mercantile family of Doversteghe; and he thought the enterprise of the
one as honourable as the valour of the other. Beside the sailor pictures
of Cornelius and Jan Evertsen, and the famous "Keesje the Devil," he
hung sundry likenesses of men with grave, calm faces, proud and lofty of
aspect, dressed in rich black velvet and large wide collars,--merchants
who were every inch princes of commerce and industry.

These lines of thought, almost tedious to indicate, flashed hotly and
vividly through his mind. The likes and dislikes, the faiths and
aspirations, of past centuries, coloured the present moments, as light
flung through richly stained glass has its white radiance tinged by it.
The feeling of race--that strong and mysterious tie which no time nor
circumstances can eradicate--was so living a motive in Joris Van
Heemskirk's heart, that he had been quite conscious of its appeal when
Semple spoke of a marriage between Katherine and his own son. And Semple
had understood this, when he so cunningly insinuated a common stock and
a common form of faith. For he had felt, instinctively, that even the
long tie of friendship between them was hardly sufficient to bridge over
the gulf of different nationalities.