John Dangerous!

Then, to make matters worse, there came that sad Affair of the Beguine.
Flesh and blood! a mortal man (I suppose) is not to be reckoned among
the vilest of Humanity because he falls in Love. How could I help
Wilhelmina van Praag being a Beguine? Moreover, a Beguine is not a Nun.
The Beguines belong to a modified kind of Monastic Order. They reside in
a large House with a wall and ditch around it, and that has a Church and
Hospital inside, and is for all the world like a little Town. But the
Sisterhood is perfectly secular; they mingle with the inhabitants of the
city, quit the Convent when they choose, and even marry when they are so
minded; but they are obliged, so long as they belong to the Order, to
attend Prayers a certain number of times a day, and to be within the
Convent-walls at a stated hour every evening. To be admitted to this
Order, they must be either unmarried or widows without children; and the
only certificate required of them is that of Good Behaviour, and that
they have a Competence to live upon. You may ask, if this almost entire
Liberty be granted them, what there was to hinder Mynheer Jan van
Dangerous and the Fair Beguine Wilhelmina van Praag from coming together
as Man and Wife? Wilhelmina was the comeliest Creature (save one) that I
have ever seen; and, but that she was a little Stout, would have passed
as the living model for the St. Catherine which Signor Raphael the
Painter did so well in Oils. I don't think I loved her; but she took my
Fancy immensely, and meeting her in the houses of divers Honourable
Families in Amsterdam, 'tis not to be concealed that I courted her with
much assiduity. This, by some mischief-making Persons, was held to be
highly compromising to the Fair Beguine. For all that I had become a
Grave Merchant, there was yet somewhat of the Gentleman of the Sword and
Adventurer on the High Seas about me; and a great hulking Cousin of the
young Fraw, that was a Lieutenant in their High Mightinesses Land
Forces,--the Amphibious Grenadiers I call 'em, and more used to
Salt-water than Salt-petre,--must needs challenge me to the Duello. The
laws against private warfare being very strict in Holland, we were
obliged to make a journey into Austrian Flanders, to Arrange our
Difficulty; and meeting on the borders of the Duchy of Luxembourg,
I--Well, is Jack Dangerous to be blamed for that he was, in the prime of
Life, an approved Master of Fence?

The Lieutenant being d