pHarke DeJong had loved Lainie Van Huel since the moment he first saw her, but her family were members of the liberal elite who ruled the Dutch government, and Harke's father was the leader of a group of Dutch Seceders who secretly opposed the liberal views of the state church. When Lainie's body is discovered floating in a rain-swollen stream, her brother, Dirk, threatens to bring ruin upon Harke's family in retaliation for her death. Haunted by grief over Lainie's death and consumed by guilt for the hardships now facing his family, Harke flees his homeland to seek a better life in America. ppbrppArmed with an old promissory note from George Washington and a packet of love letters written to his grandmother by a Dutch privateer, he sets out to pursue his fortune. On the way to America, he befriends Jelle Schippers, a na ve young man traveling to Wisconsin in the hopes of rescuing his uncle from financial ruin, and Catherine Weller, the independent daughter of an American railroad baro