| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: When a witch is young
Author: Mighels, Philip Verrill
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "When a witch is young" ***
WHEN A WITCH IS YOUNG
------------------------------------------------------------------------
═════════════════════════════
_WHEN A WITCH_
─────────────────────
❦ _IS YOUNG_ ❦
═════════════════════════════
_A Historical Novel_
─────────────────────
B y 4 — 1 9 — 6 9
═════════════════════════════
[Illustration]
═════════════════════════════
_R. F. FENNO & COMPANY_
9 AND 11 EAST 16TH STREET, New York
─────────────────────
1901
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1901
By R. F. FENNO & COMPANY
In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS.
---
PART I.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Le Roi est Mort 9
II. A Friendship of Chance 14
III. The Germ of a Passion 22
PART II.
I. A Rover and his Retinue 27
II. An Ungodly Performance 36
III. ’Twixt Cup and Lip 45
IV. The Opening of a Vista 53
V. A Weighty Confidence 62
VI. Pan’s Brother and the Nymph 71
VII. The Meeting in the Greenwood 78
VIII. Paying the Fiddler 86
IX. A Matter of State 94
X. To Foil a Spy 100
XI. Dangerous Tributes 105
XII. Hours that Grow Dark 110
XIII. A Kiss Deferred 121
XIV. Overtures from the Enemy 133
XV. Love’s Inviting Light 140
XVI. Garde’s Lonely Vigil 149
XVII. A Night Attack 153
XVIII. The Glint of Treasure 160
XIX. Mutiny 164
XX. Garde’s Extremity 171
XXI. Randolph’s Courtship 180
XXII. David’s Coercion 187
XXIII. Goody’s Boy 193
XXIV. A Greenwood Meeting 200
XXV. Love’s Traps for Confessions 213
XXVI. A Holiday Ended 221
XXVII. In Boston Town 228
XXVIII. Love’s Garden 234
XXIX. The Enemy in Power 243
XXX. A Fight at the Tavern 249
XXXI. A Refugee 255
XXXII. A Foster Parent 260
XXXIII. Repudiated Silver 269
XXXIV. Lodgings for the Retinue 275
XXXV. Garde Obtains the Jail Keys 280
XXXVI. Garde’s Ordeal 287
XXXVII. Rats in the Armory 296
XXXVIII. Love’s Long Good-by 303
XXXIX. Mutations 308
XL. Golden Oysters 314
XLI. Fate’s Devious Ways 319
XLII. Little Ruses and Waiting 327
PART III.
I. A Topic at Court 335
II. Illness in the Family 342
III. Foiled Purposes 345
IV. Making History 350
V. Old Acquaintances 357
VI. Juggling with Fire 362
VII. A Beef-eater Passes 368
VIII. A Woman Scorned 371
IX. Revelations 382
X. After Six Years 392
XI. A Blow in the Dark 398
XII. Adam's Nurse 403
XIII. Goody in the Toils 407
XIV. Garde’s Subterfuge 414
XV. The Midnight Trial 425
XVI. The Gauntlet Run 436
XVII. Bewitched 442
------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHEN A WITCH IS YOUNG.
----------
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
LE ROI EST MORT.
THE first, the last—the only King the Americans ever had, was dead. It
was the 13th day of August, in the year 1676. The human emotions of the
Puritan people of Massachusetts tugged at the shackles of a long
repression and broke them asunder, in the seemly town of Plymouth. King
Philip, the mighty Sachem of the Wampanoag Indians, had been slain. His
warriors were scattered and slaughtered. His war was ended.
Through the streets of Plymouth poured a vast throng of people. Men,
women and children, they ran and walked, surrounding a buff-colored army
that filled the thoroughfares like a turgid flood. This was the regiment
which Captain Benjamin Church had led to the final camp of King Philip,
in the swamps at Mt. Hope and Pocasset, where the last scene in the
sanguinary drama had been enacted.
Here was a troop of sixty horse, with officers. They were well mounted,
caparisoned with glittering back, breast and headpiece, and armed with
clanking sword, shouldered carbine, and great pistols, that flopped at
the waist. Behind them were foot-soldiers, brown Puritans—stern,
mirth-denying, lusty at fighting. Some of these bore no weapon other
than a pike. Another frequently had upon him sword, pistol and carbine.
Above the heads of these men on foot waved a thin forest of pike-staves,
on the tips of which bright steel threw back the dazzling rays of the
sun. There was clatter of scabbards on the pavement, thud and thud of
hoofs and feet in the roadway, and above all, shouts of men and gabble
of children.
There were hordes on either side of this human flood, pushing and
crowding to gain the front of the column, while a similar aggregation
hung back upon the flank of the regiment, hooting, craning necks and
racing to keep pace with the steady, long strides of the soldiers. This
division of interest was caused by the two counter attractions of the
pageant. Thus at the front, a red Indian was leading the march with a
wild, half-dancing step, while he contorted his body weirdly for the
purpose of displaying to all beholders the ghastly proof of victory—the
head of the great King Philip. This Indian ally might have stood for the
mockery of a drum-major, heading a march of doom.
The spectators, racing, crowding, following, took a crazed delight in
beholding this gory head. Love, anger, joy, the daily emotions of man,
were habitually so repressed by these serious people that now it seemed
as if they reveled as in an orgie of shuddering and gasping, to give
vent to their pent-up natures. They laughed, they skipped on nimble
feet, they sang praises. The young men and women snatched the occasion,
with its looseness of deportment, to look unbridled feelings into one
another’s eyes.
The other attraction, in the rear, was a captive, a mere boy, as white
as any in the multitude, and paler than the palest. Tall and lithe as he
was, his age was scarcely a whit above fourteen. He was dressed as an
Indian; he bore himself like a sullen brave. At his side was old
Annawon, the last of King Philip’s councilors, who, having surrendered
under a promise of “good quarter” was even now being led to his
execution.
The interest centered, however, in the boy. Through the stoicism which
he labored to hold as a mask upon his face, the signs of anguish played
like an undercurrent. In all the throng he had but a single friend, the
Red-man with whom he was marching. He looked about at the pitiless
embankment of faces. Near him a score of nimble boys were running, a
frantic desire to strike him depicted in their eyes. Further away a tall
man was moving, perforce, with the tide. On his shoulder he bore a
little Puritan maiden, who might have been crushed had he placed her on
her feet. She was looking at the boy-captive with eyes that seemed a
deeper brown for their very compassion. She clung to the man who held
her, with a tense little fist. Her other tiny hand was pressed upon her
cheek till all about each small finger was white, in the bonny
apple-blush of her color. It seemed as if she must cry out to the young
prisoner, in sympathy.
While the boy was gazing back his answer to the child—a quiver in
consequence almost loosening his lip—an urchin near him abruptly cast a
stone that struck him smartly in the side. With a panther-like motion
the captive launched himself upon his assailant and bore him to earth in
a second. The old councillor, Annawon, spoke some soft, quick word at
which the lad in buckskin immediately abandoned his overthrown
antagonist and regained his place in the march. His eyes blinked
swiftly, but in vain, for tears, of anger and pain, forced their way
between his lids and so to his cheeks, when he dashed them swiftly away
on his sleeve.
The foot-soldiers scurried forward and closed in about their dangerous
charge. The bawling youths of Plymouth seemed to multiply by magic. But
their opportunities for committing further mischief were presently
destroyed. The pageant was passing Plymouth jail. An officer hustled ten
of his men about the boy-prisoner and wedged them through the press of
people toward this place of gloom. Above the clamor then rose a voice,
and in the Indian tongue the boy-captive heard the words:
“Farewell, Little-Standing-Panther.”
It was old Annawon, who had divined that there would be no other parting
with the lad, who was the only creature which the war had left on earth
for him to love.
The boy cried: “Farewell,” and the passage through the people closed
behind him.
Those who looked beheld old Annawon smile faintly and sadly. It was the
only expression which had played across his face since his surrender,
and there was never another.
Through nearly every street the glad procession wound. At length, the
head of the butchered King Philip was thrust upon an iron stake, which
was planted deeply in the ground. Governor Winslow then requested that
the people disperse to their several homes.
The night at length came down—night the beneficent, that cloaks the
tokens of men’s barbarisms. Then the moon arose, casting a pale, cold
light, lest remorse lose her way. What a passionless calm settled upon
the sleeping village!
At last, with a tread as silent as that of death itself, an active
figure crept from shadow to shadow, in the streets which the moon had
silver-plated. The lone human being came to the square wherein was
planted the stake with the moon-softened head upon it. The visitor was
the white boy-captive, dressed in his Indian toggery. He had escaped
from the jail.
In the moonlight he came forward slowly. He halted and extended his arms
toward the stake with its motionless burden. He approached in reverence,
murmuring brokenly in the Indian tongue:
“Metacomet—Metacomet,——my foster-father,——I have come.”
He knelt upon the ground and clasping the cold iron stake in his arms,
he sobbed and sobbed, as if his heart would break.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II.
A FRIENDSHIP OF CHANCE.
THROUGH the gray mist of Plymouth’s dawn there came a sound of
footsteps, and then a murmur of melodious humming, somewhat controlled
and yet too sturdy and joyous to be readily accounted for in the strict
Puritan village. Presently, looming out of the uncertain light, appeared
the roughly-hewn figure of a young man of five and twenty. He was
singing to himself, as he hastened with big strides through the deserted
streets.
On the point of passing the place where the gibbeted head of King Philip
made a rude exclamation point in the calm of gray Plymouth, the early
riser suddenly noted the curled-up form of a human being on the ground,
his arm loosely bent about the iron stake, his head resting loosely
against it, his eyes fast closed in the sleep of exhaustion. The man
started slightly, halted and ceased his singing.
He blinked his eyes for a moment, shifted his feet uneasily and rubbed
stoutly at his jaw, as he gazed in perplexity at the picture before him.
He then tip-toed as if to go on, quietly, about his own business. He
glanced at the head, then back to the boy, from whose lips, in his
sleep, a little moan escaped. The visitor noted the traces where tears
had channeled down the lad’s pale cheeks. There was something
unescapable in the attitude of the bare golden head against the stake.
The man stopped and laid his big hand gently on the half-curled locks.
Instantly the boy awoke, leaped to his feet and fell down again, from
sheer stiffness, staring at the man with eyes somewhat wild. He arose
again at once, more steadily, overcoming the cramps in his muscles
doggedly, never ceasing for a second to watch the man who had waked him.
“I give you good morrow,” said the man. “It seems to me you have need of
a friend, since you have clearly lost one that you much esteemed.”
There was persuasion and honesty in the stranger’s warm-blue eyes, good
nature in his broad, smooth face and a large capacity for affection
denoted in his somewhat sensuous mouth. Such a look of friendship and
utter sincerity as he bestowed on the startled and defiant boy before
him could not have been easily counterfeited. The youthful know
sincerity by intuition.
“Who are you?” said the boy, his voice hoarse and weakened. “What would
anybody want with me?”
“My name is William Phipps,” said the stranger, simply. “I am a
ship-builder of Boston. If you have no better friend, perhaps I would do
till you can find one. I am on my way to Boston now. If you need a
friend and would like to leave Plymouth, you may come with me, unless
you feel you cannot trust any one about this village.” He paused a
moment and then added, “I think you must be the boy I heard of, Adam
Rust, brought in with the captured Indians.”
“My name is Adam Rust,” the boy admitted. “I have no friends left. If
you have been helping to kill the Wampanoags I would rather not try to
be your friend. But I know I would like you and I should be glad to go
to Boston, or any place away from here.” In the daylight he could not
bear to look up at the head above him.
“I have been too busy to fight,” said William Phipps, employing the same
excuse he had used for friends with recruiting proclivities. “And I have
been too happy,” he added, as if involuntarily. “So, you see, there is
no reason why I should not be your friend. Have you had any breakfast?”
He put out his hand to shake.
“No,” said Adam. He lost his hand in the big fist which Phipps
presented, and restrained himself from crying by making a mighty effort.
He had gone without eating for two days, but he said nothing about it.
“Then,” said Phipps heartily, “the sooner we start the better. We can
get something hot on the brig.”
He began his long striding again. Adam hesitated a moment. He looked up
at the features above him, his heart gushing full of emotion.
Some inarticulate farewell, in the Indian tongue, he breathed through
his quivering lips. His eyes grew dimmed. He fancied he saw a smile of
farewell and of encouragement play intangibly on those still, saddened
lineaments, and so he held forth his arms for a second and then turned
away to join his new-found protector.
William Phipps, having thought the boy to be following more closely than
he was, stopped to let him catch up. Thus he noted the look of anguish
with which the lad was leaving that grim remnant of King Philip behind.
Phipps was one of Nature’s “motherly men”—hardly ever more numerous than
rocs’ eggs on the earth. He felt his heart go forth to Adam Rust.
Therefore it was that he looked down in the boy’s face, time after time,
as they walked along together. Thus they came to the water-front and
wharves, at the end of one of which the brig “Captain Spencer” was
swinging.
“This ship belongs to me and I made her,” said Phipps, with candid pride
in his achievement. “You shall see that she sails right merrily.”
They went aboard. A few sailors scrubbing down the deck, barefooted and
with sleeves at elbow, now abandoned their task temporarily, at the
command of the mate, who had seen his captain coming, to hoist sail and
let go the hawsers. The chuckle in the blocks, as the sailors heaved and
hauled at the ropes, gave Adam Rust a pleasure he had never before
experienced.
Breakfast being not yet prepared for service, Phipps conducted his
foundling about the craft for a look at her beauties. When Adam had
putted the muzzle of the brig’s gun and felt the weight of a naked sword
in his fist, in the armory, the buoyancy of his youth put new color in
his cheeks and a sparkle in his eyes. He was a bright-natural,
companionable lad, who grew friendly and smiled his way into one’s
affections rapidly, but naturally. When he and Phipps had come up again
to the deck, after breakfast, they felt as if they had always been
friends.
The brig was under way. Shorewards the gray old Atlantic was wrinkled
under the fretful annoyance of a brisk, salty breeze. The ship was
slipping prettily up the coast, with stately courtesies to the stern
rocks that stood like guardians to the land.
“I think we shall find you were born for a sailor, Adam,” said the
master of the craft. “I can give you my word it is more joy and life to
sail a ship than to make one. And some day——” but he halted. The modest
boasts, with which he warmed the heart of his well-beloved wife, were a
bit too sacred for repetition, even to a boy so winning. “But,” he
concluded, “perhaps you would like to tell me something of yourself.”
Thus encouraged Adam related his story. He was the son of John Rust, a
chivalrous gentleman, an affectionate husband and a serious man, with a
light heart and a ready wit. John Rust had been the friend of the
Indians and the mediator between them and the whites until the sheer
perfidy of the Puritans had rendered him hopeless of retaining the
confidence of the Red men, when he had abandoned the office. Adam’s
mother had been dead for something more than four years. Afflicted by
his sense of loss, John Rust had become a strange man, a restless soul
hopelessly searching for that other self, as knights of old once sought
the holy grail.
He went forth alone into the trackless wilderness that led endlessly
into the west. Although the father and son had been knit together in
their affections by long talks, long ranges together in the forests and
by the lessons which the man had imparted, yet when John Rust had gone
on his unearthly quest, he could not bear the thought of taking young
Adam with him into the wilds.
He had therefore left the boy with his friends, the lad’s natural
guardians, the honorable nation of Wampanoags. “Keep him here, teach him
of your wisdom, make him one of your young warriors,” he had said when
he went, “so that when I return I may know him for his worth.”
King Philip, the mighty Sachem of the tribe, had thereafter been as a
foster-father to the boy. For more than two years the Red-man had
believed John Rust to have found his final lodge, and this was the
truth. And perhaps he had also found his holy grail. He perished alone
in the trackless forest. Adam had learned his wood-lore of his red
brothers. He was stout, lithe, wiry and nimble. He rode a horse like the
torso of a centaur. He was a bit of a boaster, in a frank and healthy
way.
King Philip’s war, ascribed, as to causes, to “the passion of the
English for territory; their confidence that God had opened up America
for their exclusive occupancy; their contempt for the Indians and their
utter disregard for their rights,” had come inexorably upon the
Wampanoags. In its vortex of action, movement, success and failure at
last for the Indians, Adam Rust had been whirled along with Metacomet.
He had never been permitted by King Philip to fight against his “white
brothers,” but he had assisted to plan for the safety of the old men,
women and children, in procuring game and in constructing shelters. He
had learned to love these silently suffering people with all his heart.
The fights, the hardships, the doom, coming inevitably upon the hopeless
Wampanoags, had made the boy a man, in some of the innermost recesses of
a heart’s suffering. He had seen the last sad remnants of the
Wampanoags, the Pocassets and the Narragansetts scatter, to perish in
the dismal swamps. He had witnessed the death of King Philip, brought
upon him by a treacherous fellow Red-man. And then he had marched in
that grim procession.
Adam made no attempt to convey an idea of the magnitude of his loss. It
would not have been possible. There is something in human nature which
can never be convinced that death has utterly stilled a beloved voice
and quenched the fire of the soul showing through a pair of eyes
endeared by companionship. This in Adam made him feel, even as he told
his tale to William Phipps, that he was somehow deserting his faithful
friends.
Bareheaded on the sun-lit deck as he told his story, lithe in his
gestures, splendidly scornful when he imitated the great chieftains of
the tribes, and then like a young Viking as at last he finished his
narrative and looked far and wide on the sparkling sea, in joyousness at
the newer chapter which seemed to open to the very horizons themselves
before him, Adam awakened the lusty youth and daring in William Phipps
and the dreams of a world’s career always present in his brain.
The man’s eyes sparkled, as he spun the wheel that guided the brig,
bounding beneath their feet. A restlessness seized upon the spirit in
his breast.
“Adam,” he said, “do you like this ship?”
“Yes!—oh, it makes me feel like shouting!” the boy exclaimed. “I wish I
could straddle it, like a horse, and make it go faster and wilder, ’way
off there—and everywhere! Oh, don’t it make you breathe!”
“Then,” said Phipps, repressing his own love of such a madness as Adam
had voiced, “let us go for a long sail together. I have long had in mind
a voyage for trading to Hispaniola. If you would like to go with me, I
will get the brig ready in a week.”
For his answer young Adam leaped as if he would spur the ship in the
ribs and ride her to the end of the earth forthwith.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER III.
THE GERM OF A PASSION.
A BONNIE little Puritan maid, Mistress Garde Merrill, stood in the open
doorway at her home, fervently hugging her kitten. The sunlight seemed
almost like beaten gold, so tangibly did it lay upon the house, the
vines that climbed the wall, and the garden full of old-fashioned
flowers.
A few leaves, which had escaped from the trees, in a longing to extend
their field of romping, were being whirled about in a brisk zephyr that
spun in a corner. A sense of warmth and fragrance made all the world
seem wantoning in its own loveliness.
Little Garde, watching the frolic of the leaves, and thinking them
pretty elves and fairies, dancing, presently looked up into the solemn
visage of a passing citizen, who had paused at the gate.
“Mistress Merrill,” he said, gravely, after a moment’s inspection of the
bright, enchanting little face, “your eyes have not the Puritan spirit
of meekness.” Thereupon he departed on his way, sadly shaking his head.
Garde’s eyes, in all truth, were dancing right joyously; and dancing was
not accounted a Puritan devotion. Such brown, light-ensnaring eyes could
not, however, constrain themselves to melancholy. No more could the
apple-red of her smooth, round cheeks retreat from the ardor of the sun.
As for her hair, like strands on strands of spun mahogany, no power on
earth could have disentangled its nets wherein the rays of golden light
had meshed and intermeshed themselves. In her brightness of color, with
her black and white kitten on her arm, the child was a dainty little
human jewel.
She was watching a bee and a butterfly when a shadow fell again into the
yard, among the flowers, at the entrance. Garde felt her attention drawn
and centered at once. She found herself looking not so much at a
bareheaded boy, as fairly into the depths of his very blue and steadfast
eyes.
The visitor stood there with his hands clasping two of the pickets of
which the gate was fashioned. He had seen everything in the garden at
one glance, but he was looking at Garde. His eyes began laughingly, then
seriously, but always frankly, to ask a favor.
“I prithee come in,” said Garde, as one a little struck with wonder.
The boy came in. Garde met him in the path and gave him her kitten. He
took it, apparently because she gave it, and not because he was
inordinately fond of cats. It seemed to Garde that she knew this boy,
and yet he had on a suit that suggested a young sailor, and she had
never made the acquaintance of any sailors whatsoever. If he would only
look elsewhere than at her face, she thought, perhaps she could
remember.
“See them,” she said, and she pointed to where the leaves were once more
capering in the corner.
The boy looked, but his gaze would swing back to its North, which it
found in two brown eyes.
“I saw you that day in Plymouth,” he said. “And I got out of their old
jail, and I didn’t see anybody else that looked kind or nice among all
those people.”
“Oh!” said Garde, suddenly remembering everything, “oh, you were—that
boy marching with the old Indian. I was so sorry. And I am so glad that
you got away. I am real glad you came to see me. Grandfather and I were
down there for a visit—so I saw you. Oh dear me!” She looked at her
young visitor with eyes open wide by amazement. It seemed almost too
much to believe that the very boy she had seen and so pitied and liked,
in that terrible procession at Plymouth, should actually be standing
here before her in her grandfather’s garden! “Oh dear me!” she presently
said again.
“I hate Plymouth!” said the boy, “but I like Boston.”
“I am so glad,” said Garde. “Will you tell me your name? Mine is Garde
Merrill.”
The boy said: “My name is Adam Rust.”
“I was named for all my aunts,” the maid imparted, as if eager to set a
troublesome matter straight at once, “Gertrude, Abigail, Rosella,
Dorothy and Elizabeth. The first letters of their names spell G-A-R-D-E,
Garde.”
Her visitor was rendered speechless for a moment. “Metacomet and all the
Indians used to call me Little-Standing-Panther,” he then said,
boyishly, not to be outdone in the matter of names.
“Metacomet—King Philip? Oh, then you are the boy that used to live with
the Indians, and that was how they got you!” gasped the little maid.
“Grandfather told auntie all about it. Oh, I wish I could live with the
Indians! I am very, very sorry they got you! But I am glad you came to
see me.”
Adam flushed with innocent and modest pride, thus to impress his small
admirer, who was named so formidably. He thought that nothing so
pleasant had ever happened in all his life.
“It is too sad to live with Indians,” he answered. A mist seemed to
obscure the light in his eyes and to cast a shadow between them and the
sweet face at which he was looking with frank admiration. The cloud
passed, however, as clouds will in the summer, and his gaze was again
one of illuminated smiles. “I am a sailor now,” he said, with a little
boast in his voice. “To-morrow morning we are going to start for
Hispaniola.”
“Oh dear me!” said Garde, in sheer despair of an adequate expression of
her many emotions. Then she added contritely: “I mustn’t say ‘Oh dear
me!’ but—oh dear—I wish I might.”
“I shan’t mind,” said Adam.
“I wish I could go to Hispaniola, too,” said Garde, honestly. “I hate to
be kept here as quiet as a clock that doesn’t go. I suppose you couldn’t
take me? Let’s sit down with the kitten and think it over together.”
“I don’t think we could take any girls,” said Adam, seating himself at
her side on the porch, “but I could bring you back something when I
come.”
“Oh, let’s talk all about what we would rather have most,” Garde
responded.
So their fingers mingled in the fur of the kitten and they talked of
fabulous things with which the West Indies were reported to abound. His
golden hair, and her hair so darkly red, made the picture in the
sunlight a thing complete in its brightness and beauty. The wind floated
a few stray filaments, richly red as mahogany, from the masses on
Garde’s pretty brow, across to the ringlets on Adam’s temple. To and
fro, over these delicate copper wires, stretched for its purpose, the
sweet love that comes first to a lad and a maid, danced with electrical
activity.
“If you are going to-morrow,” said Garde, “you must see all the flowers
and everything now.” She therefore took him by the hand and led him
about the garden, first she, then he, and then she once more carrying
the kitten.
They were still in the midst of their explorations of the garden, which
required that each part should be visited several times, when the gate
opened and in walked Garde’s tall, stern-looking grandfather.
David Donner rubbed his eyes in amazement, hardly believing that his
senses could actually be recording a picture of his granddaughter, hand
in hand with some utter stranger of a boy, in his own precincts. He came
quickly toward the pair, making a sound that came within an ell of being
a shout.
Garde looked up in sudden affright. Adam regarded the visitor calmly and
without emotion. Having first dropped the young sailor’s hand, Garde now
resolutely screwed her little warm fingers back into the boy’s fist.
“Grandfather,” she said boldly, “I shall sail to-morrow for Hispaniola.”
David Donner, at this, was so suddenly filled with steam pressure, which
he felt constrained to repress, that his eyes nearly popped out of their
sockets.
“Go away, boy,” he said to Adam. “Mistress Merrill, your conduct is
quite uncalled for.”
Having divined that his sister had deserted her post and gone, as was
her wont, to the nearest neighbor’s, for a snack of gossip, he glared at
Adam, swooped down upon Garde and caught her up in his arms abruptly,
kitten and all.
Her hold on Adam’s hand being rudely wrenched asunder, Garde felt her
heart break incontinently. She began to weep without restraint, in fact,
furiously. She also kicked, and was also deporting herself when the door
was slammed behind the forms of herself, her kitten and her grandfather,
a moment later.
Adam looked once where she had gone. His face had assumed a stolidity
which he was far from feeling. He walked to the gate and went away,
without once turning to look back at the house.
Mistress Garde, confronted by David Donner at close quarters, soon
regained her maidenly composure and wept surreptitiously on the stomach
of the kitten. At length she looked up in defiance at the silent old
man.
“I have changed the name of my kitten,” she said. “His name is
Little-Standing-Panther!”
Her grandfather, to whom this outbreak seemed something of an indication
of mental disorder, on her part, stared at the child dumbly. Not without
some justification for her deductions, Garde thought him quelled. In a
spirit of reckless defiance, and likewise to give some vent to her
feelings, she suddenly threw her arms about the bedewed kitten, on its
pillow, pressed her face against its fur and said to it, fervently:
“Little-Standing-Panther, I love you, and love you and love you!”
Grandfather Donner looked up in alarm. “Tut, tut, my child,” said he,
“love is a passion.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART II.
CHAPTER I.
A ROVER AND HIS RETINUE.
His only gold was in his hair;
He had no silver hoard;
But steel he had, enow to spare—
In his thews and in his sword!
TOWARD the close of a glorious day in September, 1683, William Phipps
beheld a smart brig nose her way up the harbor of Boston, and drop in
her anchor in the field of water wherein his ship-yard thrust its toes.
A small boat then presently put forth and made straight for the
ship-yard landing, where three men calmly alighted, throwing ashore a
small heap of shabby-genteel-looking baggage.
Somewhat annoyed, thus to have his precincts employed by any Tom, Dick
and Harry of chance, Phipps stepped from between the ribs of a ship’s
skeleton, which was being daily articulated, and strode toward the
intruders. Then a rumble, which ought to have been a shout, broke from
his lips, about the same second that a roar of joy appeared to leap out
of the foremost of the strangers, who had landed and who were coming
boldly forward.
William Phipps and the leader of the invading trio then rushed hotly
together and collided, giving each other a bear-like hug from which the
ship-builder presently extricated himself at a thought of how he might
be shocking all or any good Puritans who might chance to be witnessing
the scene.
“Well, shatter my hilt! and God bless you! if it isn’t your same old
beloved self!” said the stranger, heartily.
“My boy! Bless your eyes, Adam, I never thought to see you again!” said
bluff William Phipps. “You big young rascal! You full-rigged ship! Where
have you come from? What do you mean by making me swear myself into
purgatory at your carelessness in getting yourself killed? You
twenty-gun frigate—you—you big——”
He left off for very constraint, for his throat blocked up, despite his
most heroic efforts. He and Adam Rust began to roar with laughter, the
tears in their eyes needing some excuse. Meantime the two companions who
had come with the young rover, stood gazing about them, in patience, and
likewise looking in wonder on the two men before them.
There was reason enough to look, for Adam and Phipps were a pair to
command attention. It seemed as if a founder had used the big
ship-builder as a pattern on which to refine his art in casting the
younger man. Adam’s back was a trifle narrower; his chest was a bit
wider; he was trimmer at the waist, neater at the thigh, longer-armed.
His hands were smaller, just as his movements were quicker and lighter.
Although Adam’s hair crowned him with tawny ringlets of gold, while that
of Phipps was browner, and though the young fellow wore a small
mustache, in contrast, to the smooth-shaved face of his friend, it might
yet be said that the two men looked alike. Both were bronzed by weather,
both had steadfast eyes with the same frank expression, the same blue
tint and the same integrity about them.
In their dress the two men differed. William Phipps, whatsoever he might
indulge himself in doing when away on the sea, conformed to the
dark-brown simplicity of the Puritans when in Boston. Adam, on the other
hand, wore a brown velvet coat which, though at present somewhat faded
and moulting, had once been fine feathers in England. His waistcoat had
been of royal purple, before its nap fled before the onslaughts of the
clothes-brush, while his breeches were of a time-tanned forest green
which disappeared into the maw of his wide-topped leather boots. He wore
at his hip a veteran blade of steel, in a scabbard as battered as the
outer gate of a stronghold. When not in his fighting fist, the hilt of
this weapon contented itself with caresses from his softer hand, the
left.
The two men having shaken hands for the third time, and having looked
each other over from head to foot, and laughed and asked each other a
dozen questions, to which neither had returned any answers, Adam
suddenly remembered his comrades, waiting in the background. He turned
to them now, not without affection.
“Here, Pike and Halberd,” he said, “you must meet my third father,
Captain William Phipps, a noble man to whom you will owe allegiance all
your miserable lives. William, these are my beef-eaters. Don’t ask me
where I got them. They are neither out of jail nor heaven. But they have
let me save their lives and feed them and clothe them, and they are
valiant, faithful rascals. To know them is to love them, and not to know
them is to be snubbed by Satan. They have been my double shadow for a
year, sharing my prosperous condition like two peers of the realm.”
The beef-eaters grinned as they exchanged salutations with Phipps. Pike
was a short individual, inclined to be fat, even when on the slimmest of
rations. The pupils of his eyes were like two suns that had risen above
the horizon of his lower lids, only to obscure themselves under the
cloud-like lids above. Their expression, especially when he gazed upward
into Adam’s face, was something too appealingly saint-like and
beseeching for anything mortal to possess. Halberd was a ladder of a man
up which everything, save success, had clambered to paint expressions on
his face, which was grave and melancholy to the verge of the ludicrous.
He had two little bunches of muscle, each of which stuck out like half a
walnut, at the corners of his jaws, where they had grown and developed
as a result of his clamping his molars together, in a determination to
do or to be something which had, apparently, never as yet transpired.
The two looked about as much like beef-eaters as a mouse looks like a
man-eater. They were ragged, where not fantastic, in their apparel; they
were obviously fitter for a feast than a fight, for the sea had depleted
both of their hoardings of vigor and courage.
“Sire,” said Halberd, theatrically, “we have had nothing but good
reports of you for a year.” Whether he placed his hand on his heart or
his stomach, as he said this, and what he meant to convey as his
meaning, could never be wholly clear.
“We shall be honored to fight for you, if need arise,” said Pike, who
panted somewhat, on all occasions, “while there is a breath in our
bodies.”
“It is a privilege to know you both,” said Phipps, whose gravity was as
dry as tinder.
“Any friend of the Sachem’s is a friend of ours,” responded Halberd. He
said this grandly and made a profound bow.
“The ‘Sachem’?” repeated Phipps, and he looked at Adam, inquiringly.
Adam had the grace to blush a trifle, thus to be caught in one of the
harmless little boasts in which he had indulged himself, over sea. “Just
a foolish habit the two have gotten into,” he murmured.
“Ah,” said William Phipps. “Well, then, Sachem, it will soon be growing
dark, you had best come home with me to dinner.”
Involuntarily Adam turned about to look at the beef-eaters. Their eyes
had abruptly taken on a preternatural brightness at the word dinner.
“I have much to ask you and much to tell you,” Phipps added. “And the
goodwife would exact this honor if she knew you were come.”
The invitation did not include Adam’s retinue. He swallowed, as if the
delicious odors of one of Goodwife Phipp’s dinners were about to escape
him.
“Well,” he said, “the honors are all the other way about, but—the fact
is—a previous engagement—I—I have promised a rousing hot din—I have
accepted an invitation to dine with the beef-eaters, at the Crow and
Arrow.”
The ship-builder knew all about those “rousing hot dinners” of cold
eel-pie, potatoes and mustard, for which the Crow and Arrow tavern was
not exactly famous. He looked at Adam, to whom as their sachem the
beef-eaters appealed with their eyes, like two faithful animals. Adam
was regarding the pair silently, a faint smile of cheer and camaraderie
on his face.
“But—but my invitation included our friends,” Phipps hastened to say.
“Come, come, the tavern can wait till to-morrow. Gentlemen, you will
certainly not disappoint me.”
“’Tis well spoken that the tavern can wait,” said Pike.
“To disappoint the friend of the Sachem would be a grievous thing,” said
Halberd. “Let the galled tavern sweat with impatience.”
They would all have started away together at once, had not Phipps noted
the heap of baggage, left untidily upon his landing when the travelers
arrived.
“Well,” said he, “Adam, you know the way to the house, suppose you and
your friends carry your worldly goods to the tavern, engage your
apartments, and then follow me on. I, in the meantime, can hasten home
to apprise the wife that you are coming, with the beef-eaters, and she
can therefore make due preparations in honor of the event.”
“This is good sense,” said Adam. “Go along, or we shall be there before
you.”
Phipps, with a half dozen backward looks at his guests and their shabby
chattels, made his way out of the ship-yard without further delay. Adam
and his retinue gripped three or four parcels apiece and started, with
clank of sword, and in some discomfort, for the Crow and Arrow.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II.
AN UNGODLY PERFORMANCE.
ADAM RUST knew the Crow and Arrow more by that repute which had traveled
back to England, through the medium of young stalwarts and sailors, than
he did from personal acquaintance with its charms. He had seen the place
frequently enough, when first he came to Boston with William Phipps, but
the town had expanded much since then and bore an air of unfamiliarity.
The young man and his beef-eaters therefore wandered somewhat from their
course.
Being overladen and dressed out of the ordinary fashion, the trio soon
found themselves attracting attention, particularly from certain of the
youths of the quarter and the rough characters incidental to shipping
and the neighborhood thereof. Adam was carrying a long box, somewhat
decrepit with age. It swung against his legs and struck an occasional
post, or a corner, held insecurely as it was by his little finger only,
which was passed through a brass handle. In this manner, and with a
growing cluster of curious persons beginning to follow on behind, the
party were in sight of the tavern at last, when this long box of Adam’s
abruptly opened and spilled out a richly darkened old violin.
With a short exclamation of impatience, Adam halted and dropped his
other bundles. Over these tall Halberd fell, with a great clatter of
weapons, tin box and shaken bones. Adam fended him off from the violin,
snatched it up and scrutinized it with the eager concern which a mother
might bestow upon a delicate child. He found it uninjured, but, as it
might have been smashed, he clung to it fondly, reluctant to place it
again in its treacherous case.
Naturally the downfall of Halberd had delighted the gamin and the
sailors following. These formed a cluster about the party, and their
numbers drew additional spectators rapidly. A number of seafaring men
shoved stoutly forward, their eyes glistening at sight of the musical
instrument.
“I say, give us something, then, on that there red boy!” demanded one of
the men, as healthy a looking rascal as ever drew breath.
“You look a bonny lad, come on—there’s a good un,” said another.
“Rattle her guts,” said a third. “We ain’t heard the like of a fiddle
since we came to this town of preachers.”
Adam looked quietly about him. He knew most of the fellows about in the
rude circle for rough English rovers who would love him if he played, or
knock him and his belongings playfully into the street if he refused. He
was not accustomed to churlishness; moreover, he felt particularly in
the mood for playing. The ruddy sunset, the warm breath of the passing
day, the very taste of American air, seemed lusty and joyous, despite
the rigid Puritanical spirit of the mirth-denying people of the colony.
He took up the bow, twanged the strings, tightened two that had become
laggard, and jumped into the middle of a rollicking composition that
seemed to bubble up out of the body of the violin and tumble off into
the crowd in a species of mad delight.
Had the instrument been a spirit of wine, richly dark red as old port,
and rendered alive by the frolicking bow, it could not have thrown off
more merry snatches of melody’s mirth. It chuckled, it caught its
breath, like a fat old monk at his laughing, it broke out in guffaws of
hilarity, till not a soul in the audience could keep his feet seemly
beneath him.
The sailors danced, boldly, though clumsily. Their faces beamed with
innocent drunkenness, for drunk they were, with what seemed like the
fumes and taste of this wine of sound. They had been denied it so long
that it went to their heads at the first draught.
Across the street, issuing quietly and, he hoped, unobserved, from a
door that led into the tavern, a Puritan father now appeared, wiping his
mouth as a man has no occasion for doing unless he had recently dipped
his upper lip into a mug. He suddenly halted, at the sound of music from
over the way. He frowned at the now somewhat dense assemblage of boys
and citizens surrounding Adam Rust, and worked up a mask of severity on
his face from which it had been temporarily absent. He opened his mouth,
as if to speak, and then, realizing that he might not be heard at this
distance from them, moved a rod toward his fellow-beings and took a
stand in the street.
At this moment an ominous snap resounded above both the playing and its
accompaniment of scuffling feet and gruff explosions of enjoyment and
hearty appreciation. Instantly Adam ceased playing. He had felt a string
writhe beneath his fingers. The man in the roadway grasped at the moment
instantly, to raise his voice.
“Begone, disperse, you vagabonds!” he said. “What is the meaning of this
ungodly performance? Disperse, I say, you are bedeviled by this
shameless disciple of Satan!”
Adam, intent on his violin, which he found had not broken but had merely
slipped a string, heard this tirade, naturally, as did all the others. A
few boys sneaked immediately about the cluster of men and sped away, as
if from some terrible wrath to come.
“Who is yon sufferer for melancholy?” said Adam, looking carelessly at
the would-be interrupter. Then suddenly a gleam came into his eye, as he
recognized in the man one of the harsh hypocrites who had been among the
few zealots who had imprisoned him, years before. “Halberd,” he added,
“fetch the gentleman forward. Methinks he fain would dance and make
merry among us.”
His opening question had been hailed with snorts of amusement; his
proposal ignited all the roguishness in the crowd. Halberd, nothing loth
to add his quota to the general fun, strode forward at once, way being
made by the admiring throng, and he bowed profoundly before the bridling
admonisher in the street. Then without warning, he scampered nimbly to
the rear of the man of severity, took him by the collar and the slack of
his knickerbockers and hustled him precipitately into the gathering.
Adam began to play at once. The spectators gathered about the astonished
and indignant person of severity, thirsty for fun.
“You evidently wanted to dance, therefore by all means commence,” said
Adam.
“You are a veritable limb of Satan!” said the man. “You shall be
reported for this unseemly——”
“Halberd,” interrupted Adam, “the gentleman is as shy and timid as your
veriest girl. Could you not persuade him to dance?”
“I was born for persuasion,” said Halberd. Thereupon he drew from his
belt a pistol, most formidable, whether loaded or not, and pushed its
metal lips against the neck of the hedged-in Puritan, whom he continued
to restrain by the collar. “Make merry for this goodly company by doing
a few dainty steps,” he requested.
The crowd pushed in closer and roared with delight. Some one among them
knocked the reluctant dancer’s knees forward. He almost fell down.
“He’s beginning!” cried Adam, and he went for his fiddle with the bow as
if he were fencing with a dozen pirates.
“Dance!” commanded Halberd, “dance!”
Terpsichore’s victim was not a man of sand. Drops of perspiration oozed
out on his forehead. A look of abject fear drove the mask of severity
from his face. He jumped up and down ridiculously, his knees knocking
together for his castanets.
“Faster!” cried Adam, fiddling like a madman.
“Faster!” echoed Halberd, with his pistol-muzzle nosing in the dancer’s
ribs.
The man jumped higher, but not faster; he was too weakened by cowardice.
The sailors joined in. They could not keep their feet on the ground. The
contagion spread. Pike and Halberd joined the hopping. The offending
admonisher looked about at them in a frenzy of despair, afraid of who
might be witnessing his exhibition. He was a sorry dancer, for he was so
eager to please that he flopped his arms deliriously, as if to convince
his beholders of his willingness to make himself as entertaining as
possible. When he suddenly collapsed and fell down, Adam ceased playing.
The crowd settled on the pavement and applauded.
“For shame, good friend,” said Adam, solemnly, “now that I observe your
garb, I am shocked and amazed at your conduct. Friends, let us go to the
tavern and report this gentleman’s unseemly behavior. In payment for the
fiddling, you may fetch my bales of goods and merchandise.” He waved to
his shabby baggage and led the way to the Crow and Arrow, which had long
before disgorged nearly all of its company, and its landlord, to add to
the audience in the street.
Flinging up his only piece of gold, the young rover ordered refreshment
for all who crowded into the tavern, and while they were drinking, he
dragged the beef-eaters, with all the “bales of merchandise,” away to
the meager apartments provided above stairs in the sorry hostelry.
In the darkness of the hall, he ran heavily against some one who was
just on the point of quitting a room. The innocent person was bowled
endways.
“Confound your impudence!” said the voice of a man. “Why don’t you look
where you are going?”
“I couldn’t see for fools in the way,” retorted Adam. “I am no king,
requiring you to fall before me.”
“I can’t see your face, but I can see that you are an arrant knave,”
said the other hotly. “You never could have had a proper drubbing, or
you would be less reckless of your speech!”
“I have always been pitted to fight with bragging rascals of about your
size and ability with a weapon, else I might have been drubbed,” Adam
flung back, laying his hand on his sword as he spoke. “It shames my
steel to think of engaging a ten-pin!”
“By all tokens, sir, you are blind, as well as idiotic, to walk into
death so heedlessly. Be good enough to follow me into the yard.”
“Oh, fie on a death that flees and entreats me to follow,” was Adam’s
answer. “I rolled you once in this hall; I can do so again.
Halberd—Pike, candles to place at the head and feet of death!”
The beef-eaters, having reached the apartments appointed for their use,
had heard the disturbance in the hall, and expecting trouble, had
already lighted the candles. With three of these they now came forth.
The hall would have been light enough had it been in communication with
the outside world and the twilight, but as it was, it was nearly dark.
“I grieve for your mother,” sneered the stranger, whose sword could be
heard backing out of its scabbard. “You must be young to be so
spendthrift of your life.”
“On the contrary, you will find what a miser I am, even as to the drops
of my blood,” said Adam. “No one ever yet accused the Sachem——”
“The Sachem!” interrupted the other voice.
Halberd, who had sheltered the candle he bore with his hand, now threw
its light on the face of the man near by him.
“Shatter my hilt!” exclaimed young Rust, “Wainsworth!”
“Odds walruses!” said the man addressed as Wainsworth, “what a pretty
pair of fools we are. By gad, Adam, to think I wouldn’t know you by your
voice!”
Adam had leaped forward, while his sword was diving back into its
sheath. He caught Wainsworth by the hand and all but wrung it off.
“Bless your old soul,” he said, “why didn’t you say who you were?”
“I was kept busy listening to you telling me who and what I was,”
Wainsworth assured him, good-naturedly. “I never heard so much truth in
all my life.”
“I never thought to be so incontinently found out myself,” Adam
confessed contritely. “But as long as I have found you, I feel as good
as if I had fought a good fight and wiped my blade. Indeed, Henry, I am
tremendously glad to see you. How did you get here? When did you come?
What a blundering fool I was!”
“Come in, come in to my castle,” said Wainsworth, turning back to the
apartment he had been quitting when knocked over. “Bring in your
friends. You shall all share in my dinner. I’m a ship, burdened with
news for cargo to be unloaded. Come in here; we’ll talk all night.”
“But I am due at a dinner already, with my beef-eaters,” said Rust. “I
have been delayed past all reason now, but——”
“You weren’t delayed by our duel of words, I trust?”
“No, no, but I have kept our host waiting, nevertheless. I shall be back
before the night’s worn through, however, and then I am yours till
breath fails me.”
“Haste away then, Sachem Rust, for the sooner you are gone the sooner I
shall see you returned; and I shall consume myself with impatience till
I can tell you of the sweetest plight mortal man ever got himself
tangled in. I’ve got to tell you, for no one else on earth would answer.
Begone, then. Good-by, and hasten back.”
Adam bade him au revoir, for he felt that already William Phipps must be
thinking him sadly remiss and ungracious.
Preparations as to evening dress were soon completed. They consisted in
a brisk wash of face and hands for the trio, not one of the party being
endowed with a second suit of clothing. Thus they were upon the road,
walking soberly, though diligently, toward the Captain’s residence,
before the twilight had begun to fade.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER III.
’TWIXT CUP AND LIP.
WITH appetites still further whetted by their various diversions, the
comrades were hardly made happier when Adam found that once more the
many years’ growth of Boston town confused him. It was something of a
walk to the Phipps’ domicile from the Crow and Arrow the best one could
do. With devious windings added, it became the next thing to provoking.
“Aha, at last I know where we are,” said Adam, finally. “These streets
are as bad as London’s. But ten minutes more and we shall be at the
board.”
“If this is not so,” said Halberd, gravely, with a memory of seeing Adam
part with the last money which they possessed, “it would be a kindness
to let us lie down and perish here.”
“This is a most unlikely-looking street,” added Pike, dolefully.
“What do you know of Boston streets?” inquired Adam, who had a doubt or
two of the place himself. “Good beef-eaters, if you weary, wait here for
a moment, till I can run a little along this road, to see where it
leads. If it is right I will presently whistle; if wrong I can the
sooner return.”
The beef-eaters with one accord sat down upon a block of stone, while
their leader strode hastily up a passage which was in reality an alley,
at the rear of a number of residences. With a hope that he would soon
emerge into a street which he thought should be in the neighborhood,
Adam almost ran. Thus he disappeared about a turn of the lane.
He had gone less than twenty rods when he found himself approaching a
small assemblage of boys, who were yelling, in suppressed voices, and
gathering stones which they were throwing with wild aim into a corner,
where the coming darkness had already formed a center of shadows. Rust
was well among these young scamps before they were aware of his
presence. One urchin had by this secured a long stick with which he
advanced, the others making room to let him through, to poke and jab at
something which the lads had evidently driven to bay where it could not
escape. Yet so afraid did the young rogues appear to be that this
something would yet fly upon them and do them great harm, that Adam
walked at once among them, touching one upon the shoulder.
“The witch!” screamed this lad, as if the devil himself had clutched
him. With yells of terror all the boys scudded swiftly away, for a
matter of twenty feet, and then turned about to look at Rust. Seeing a
man merely, they were reassured. It is a singular and doubtless a
fortunate matter that there was never such a thing conceived as a male
witch.
“What have you here?” said Adam, pleasantly.
“A witch’s cat!” cried one of the boldest youths, re-approaching. “We
drove it in the corner to stone it to death!”
Now Adam had a lingering fondness for cats, from a time not many years
past.
“A witch’s cat?” he repeated. “What nonsense! What harm can a poor cat
do to big healthy boys like you? There are no witches, you young
varlets.” He went into the corner and peered about eagerly, to find the
dumb victim of the mad superstition then subtly growing in that
Massachusetts colony.
“There was a witch and she ran away, screaming!” scolded back the bold
spokesman of the group of boys, now gaining courage to edge nearer. “She
ran away through this garden!” He pointed to a rear yard, leading off
the alley to a house not far distant.
“She made me cough up pins and needles,” asserted another young liar,
glibly. “And a monster black monkey with cock’s feet followed her when
she ran.”
“He’s a prince of the powers of air himself,” whispered another lad, in
awe-stricken tones.
Adam had found the cat, a middle-aged animal, frightened, hurt, soiled,
but intelligent, since it knew it was being protected at last. He lifted
it forth from its small retreat, finding it to be a heavy,
black-and-white specimen, too inoffensive to scratch and claw, even in
its terror.
“You young——” he started to say.
“Here she comes! Here she comes!” yelled one of the lads, interrupting.
“Two of them! Run for your lives!”
The self-scared young cowards, screaming like so many demons, darted
down the alley as fast as their legs would let them go. Adam looked
where one had pointed and beheld, indeed, two female figures coming on a
distracted run through the near-by yard, toward him as he was standing
with the cat in his arms.
Although the first veil of darkness was already drawn through the air,
Rust could see that they were two young women who were coming. The one
who led, he then noted, was a plain, but a sweet, wholesome-looking
girl, who was evidently much excited. He stepped forward toward her,
with the cat, divining it was the animal she had come for, and so for
the moment he neglected to glance at the second young woman.
When he did look at her she was not far and he caught his breath
quickly. “Shatter my hilt!” was the thought that leaped into his brain,
“they do have young witches here after all!”
Advancing to the middle of the alley he made a profound bow, as the
foremost girl came pantingly from the garden gate. The girl, seeing him
now for the first time, halted abruptly.
“Good evening,” said Adam, “may I have the honor of restoring your pet?
He is excellently well behaved and, I trust, not seriously hurt.”
The girl walked timidly toward him. Her face flushed rosy red with
pleasure and confusion. Her companion, having been caught on a rosebush,
in the garden, was delayed and was stooping to disentangle her skirt
from the thorns.
“Oh, sir, you are very kind,” stammered the girl confronting Adam. “I
thought they would kill him. He isn’t mine, but I also hold him——”
The second young lady now came hastily out at the gate. Adam had been
too polite to look past number one, in search for the one he thought so
witching, but now his heart bounded to see her coming. She ran
precipitately at him, breaking in upon her companion’s speech.
“Oh, Standing-Panther,” she cried, impetuously, “my own dear, darling
love, why did you ever come out to such a place?”
She plucked her pet from Adam’s arm in one swoop. Rust, at the old name,
which he had buried with memories that sorely harrowed his soul, dropped
his hat, which he had doffed, and raising his hand to his cheek in
wonder, stared at the girl before him with widened eyes.
“At—at your service, Miss—Mistress Gar—Mistress Merrill,” he stuttered.
Garde, a vision of beauty distraught, suddenly looked up in his face.
Frank amazement was depicted in her glorious eyes.
“I beg—your pardon,” stammered Adam, “I see you were speaking to your
cat, and not to me.”
“You!—Adam!—Mr.—Mr. Rust!” she exclaimed. A red-hot blush surged upward,
flooding her face, her neck and even her delicate ears. “Not
Little-Standing—Oh dear me! Why, Prudence, what did I say? It—it isn’t
really——” she stopped in confusion.
“Adam Rust, Kneeling Panther at your service,” supplied the rover. He
made a bow that was truly splendid, with a long sweep of his hat and a
touch of his knee on the pavement, that for sheer grace could not have
been equaled in Boston. “Miss—Mistress Merrill, you have not quite
forgotten that you commissioned me to bring you something from
Hispaniola?” he added.
“But you—but you have grown so,” said Garde, still as red as a rose.
“And to meet like this—that was such a long time ago. I—I thank you for
saving my cat. I—we—Prudence, you must thank Mr. Rust.”
Prudence, on whom Adam had scarcely looked, since seeing Garde, had been
standing there looking at Rust with a sudden-born love in her eyes that
was almost adoration. She had developed, out of the Puritanical spirit
of the times, a control of her various emotions that Garde would never
possess. Therefore she had herself in hand at a second’s notice.
“I have thanked Mr. Rust,” she answered, quietly.
Garde was stealing a look at Adam the second he turned in politeness to
Prudence.
“This was no service at all,” he said. “Pray expend no further words
upon it.”
“Oh, Adam, I am so glad——” burst from Garde’s lips impetuously, but she
checked her utterance the instant his glance came flashing back to hers,
and added. “I mean, Mr. Rust, I am so glad the cat wasn’t hurt, and,
Prudence, we must surely return to the house at once.”
This was not at all what Garde had started to say, nor what she wanted
to say; but though it was the same Adam, quite to her heart’s
satisfaction, yet he was now a man, and a maidenly diffidence shamed her
riotous gladness, and—Prudence was present.
“But,” said Adam, fumbling in a pocket over the region of his heart,
“the trinket I brought you from Hispaniola?”
“Oh, marry, it has kept so well all these years,” said Garde roguishly,
“surely it must still keep till—surely anyway till daylight. Really,
sir, we must thank you again and return before it is actually dark.” She
gave him one look which, had he been a woman, he would readily have
interpreted, but being a man, somewhat of its significance was lost upon
him.
“But now I know I have kept it too long already,” he insisted, still
tugging at the stubborn pocket. “Surely——”
“It will be the riper for keeping a little longer,” said Garde, almost
impatient with him for not seeing that she wanted to receive it only
when they two were alone together. “We thank you once more, for saving
Little-Standing-Panther, and so—good night,”
“But when—what day?—to-morrow?” cried the eager rover. “When may I give
it?”
“Oh stupid!” said Garde to herself, almost vexed at his lack of
understanding and tact. Aloud she called back, “Did you say good night?
Prudence, say good night again to Mr. Rust.”
Prudence called good night once more, this making her third time, and
Adam was left there in the alley alone. He went to the gate and, leaning
over it, clutched two of its pickets in his hands, as once before he had
done to another gate, and stood there gazing ardently into the gathering
darkness.
At length, with a heavy sigh, of joy and impatience blended, he strode a
little down the lane. Then he strode back. So, up and down he paraded,
for fifteen minutes. At the end of this time he suddenly bethought him
of the beef-eaters and the dinner at William Phipp’s. He then hastened,
tardily enough, back the way he had originally come.
Eager to find his companions, yet completely scatterbrained by the
meeting with Garde, the sight of her radiant beauty, and the chaos of
plans for seeing her again at daylight, which were teeming in his head,
he fairly fell over the outstretched feet of his faithful followers
before he saw them.
They were still sitting upon the block of stone. They had interlocked
their arms, for mutual support, and then had fallen fast asleep, worn
out with the long day and made weak by a longer fast.
“Good old beef-eaters,” said Adam, affectionately, and gently shaking
them by the shoulders, he aroused them, got them on their feet and
guided them out of the alley. By great good fortune, he came to a
land-mark he remembered from his short sojourn in Boston, years before.
With this as a bearing, he made good time to the Captain’s house. They
met William Phipps at the gate, going forth to hunt them up.
“We have sauntered along,” said Adam, carelessly, “for such air as this
is a tonic to the appetite.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IV.
THE OPENING OF A VISTA.
FOR a man who had taken so much tonic, Adam had but indifferent relish
for the savory and altogether comforting little dinner which Goodwife
Phipps had kept all warm and waiting for the coming of her guests. His
head was filled with love and with altercations between hope that Garde
had meant this and fears that she might have meant that, and with
conjuring up all her speeches and glances, till he could hardly have
told whether he was afoot or horseback.
But if their leader neglected his opportunities, the beef-eaters made
good the reputation for three, as swordsmen with knife and fork.
Fortunately Goodwife Phipps had provided amply. But a fowl became a
glistening skeleton; a hot meat-pie was represented at last by a dish
that yawned like an empty chasm; a pyramid of Indian maize became a
scattered wreckage of cobs, and potatoes, bread and pudding vanished
into mere memories of what they once had been.
Adam, although he said nothing, talked like an auctioneer, during the
meal, to divert what he could of the attention which his retinue
perforce attracted to their appetites. This innocent ruse was not lost
on the charming little wife of William Phipps. She was a sweet little
woman, plump, black-haired, brown-eyed and gifted by Nature with much
vivacity, in her wit and in her engaging manners. She was older than her
husband, having been the widow of one merchant Hull, when she and the
Captain wedded. They were a happy couple, being indeed un-Puritanly
joyous in their partnership. She had taken a great liking to Adam, when
Phipps first brought him home. Now that he was a man, she liked him none
the less, yet she saw that he would always be a big, straightforward
boy. She watched him now with pleasure, listening to his quips and
sallies of nonsense, and nodding motherly at his evident concern for his
two forlorn beef-eaters, so obviously attached to him by ties of
affection.
The dinner being at length come to an end, with great satisfaction to
all concerned, Adam counseled the expanded beef-eaters to fare to the
Crow and Arrow, lest in their absence anything befall to prevent their
occupancy of the selected apartments. As nothing was to be had to drink
where they were, the worthy two were glad to act upon his suggestion.
Accordingly Adam and his hosts were left to themselves, whereupon they
fell upon a banquet of narrative and reminiscence forthwith.
“Now, Adam, tell us all about where you have been, and what you have
done, and all about everything,” said Mrs. Phipps, putting her plump
elbows on the table, which she had swiftly cleared of the dinner
wreckage. “Just begin at the day you left, with William, and tell us all
there is. But tell us first, have you fallen in love? Of course you must
have, but I do hope you will like one of our own girls best.”
“I fear you would have me begin at the last end first, after all,” said
Adam, thinking how recently he had fallen victim to Eros. “My tale is
brief and of no interest. William bade me cultivate the society of
gentlemen, when he sent me to England. Well, I had fencing and fiddling
of an Italian nobleman; I have fought with holy friars and princes; I
have sworn strange oaths with prelates and bishops; I have danced with
nuns and duchesses; I have ridden to hounds with curs and Kings. If I
have not learned drinking, gambling, love-making, dueling, swearing and
sundry other pretty accomplishments, then beshrew me for a clod and call
the court no place for schooling. I am richer than I was, since I may
look up at any moment and see you both at a glance. By the same token I
am happier. As to my heart, I’ll take oath I left it in Boston. And
there you have me.”
“Oh, this sounds very naughty indeed,” said Mrs. Phipps.
“I never counseled you to apprentice yourself to the devil,” said
Phipps. “You were first to learn navigation, of some——”
“Oh, of that I neglected to speak,” interrupted the rover. “William, you
will never make an anchor out of sea foam, nor a solid ship’s master out
of me, else my first or my last preceptor would have finished me off
roundly.”
“Who was your latest chief?” the Captain inquired.
“Captain William Kidd,” said Adam, “a generous friend, a fearless and
skilful seaman, and as bold a fighting man as ever clutched a hilt. I
met him at Barcelona, shipped with him for Bristol, fell in with my
beef-eaters, got rid of my money and pushed my sword through a pup—Lord
Something-or-other——and was still in time to catch Captain Kidd at
Portsmouth for New York. But I can’t bark enough for a sea-dog, as Kidd
was good enough to tell me himself.”
William Phipps nodded and nodded. Outwardly he was calm enough; inwardly
he stewed with heat. Adam had but added fuel to the fever of unrest and
thirst for adventure with which he had been born. He was not jealous of
all that his protégé had accomplished ahead of himself—indeed, he had
furthered the lad’s advancement, at the expense of his own sense of
bereavement when he and Adam parted,—but he was consumed with impatience
to be hewing at the great career for which he had from boyhood felt
himself destined. A light of determination burned in his eyes. He saw
that the boy before him had utterly outstripped him—the boy to whom he
had imparted all his own meager, self-acquired education. Not for a
moment did he regret that from Hispaniola he had sent the lad to
England, with a fellow-captain, nor would he for any price have stripped
his protégé of one single experience, but his mouth grew dry with the
lust for adventure that was glowing within him.
His wife saw these indications. She understood what was passing in his
mind. Before she had even sighed to herself, as a woman must, who feels
herself on the brink of a separation from one she truly loves, she
consented mentally to what she knew he would presently suggest. What she
was thus prepared for, came sooner than she had expected it might.
“Adam,” said Phipps, somewhat huskily, “I have been waiting for
something—I never knew what—to come along and start me off after the
fortune I have promised to get for the wife.”
“You are fortune enough for me, dear,” Mrs. Phipps interposed, in spite
of herself. “I should be satisfied to live like this forever.”
“I know,” said the Captain, “but I promised you should have a fair brick
house in the Green Lane, to the north, and I mean that you shall have
it. Adam, you are the something I have been waiting for, but what with
my worrying, over thinking you probably dead, I have never realized the
truth till this night.”
“And what may it be my privilege to do?” said Adam.
“Go with me to recover a fortune, sunk in a wreck. She rests on a reef
in the Bahamas, in a few fathoms of water. She was laded with gold and
went down with every ounce. I’ve got the maps, and now that I’ve got
you, bless your heart, we can sail in a week!”
“And how have you learned of this sunken treasure?” said Adam, who for
some reason appeared not at all boyishly eager to set off on this new
adventure. “Has somebody given you this tale and the maps as the price
for a well-built brig?”
“I had the information from a Spaniard, who died at my ship-yard,” said
Phipps. “He was the sole survivor of the wrecked vessel. I gave him
work. He was grateful. Death seized him suddenly, but before the end
came, he told me his tale, he said, as a measure of gratitude, directing
me to feel in his pockets for the maps, which I did. I have waited for
what I now am certain was your return.”
“Well,” said Adam, thoughtfully, twisting the ends of his small
mustache, “you couldn’t easily have paid me a greater compliment, I am
sure; but, my dear friend, you place me in an awkward position.”
“Awkward position? What awkward position?” said Phipps. “Here you are a
good swordsman, a man of some knowledge, and the companion I would
select of all the men I know.” Here Adam bowed solemnly. “Now what is to
hinder us from making this venture together? What do you mean by this
awkward position business?”
“I mean,” said the rover, “that I seem to serve no better purpose, the
moment I return to Boston, than to separate you two good people. Now I
am sensitive about a thing like that. I don’t like to be the cause of
such a separation.”
“What nonsense, you——” started the Captain.
“I prepared my mind for William’s adventure, long ago,” interrupted Mrs.
Phipps. “If he doesn’t go with you, he will go with some one else. And
as long as he is bent on going in the end, I should feel so much better,
Adam, if you were with him.”
Adam bowed to them both, again. He was glad to do this, as he was, in
point of fact, somewhat confused as to what to say.
“There, you young rascal,” said Phipps, “that knocks away your shores
and you are launched before you know it.”
“But,” suggested Adam, with an air of great solicitude for his friend’s
interests, “do you really think any wild-goose chase of this description
could be as solid and certain and wholesome as the ship-building
business? Would I be justified in encouraging you, Captain Phipps, to
leave your established business for such a wild——”
“Wild?” interposed Phipps. “You—you—now look here, what do you mean—you,
by your own accounts, the wildest young scamp afloat? Wild? As if
anything could be too wild for you. There is something at the bottom of
all this. Now out with it!”
“Why, William!” said Goodwife Phipps, “where are your eyes? Why, Adam
must have a sweetheart in Boston!”
Rust flushed hotly. His eyes would not, for all his pulling at them,
refrain from dancing. He conjured up an immediate fit of coughing, and
therefore held a handkerchief before his face.
Phipps looked at him suspiciously. “Is that what ails you?” he demanded.
“Is that why you are so hot to remain here in Boston?”
“Now I leave it to you both, as two good, sensible people,” said Rust,
artfully, “how could such a catastrophe have happened? I left Boston
seven years ago, while a mere cub, and I have been here now less than
that many hours. Do you think that between sunset and my coming here I
could have saved some fair angel’s life—or the life of her—her—well, say
her pet panther? Does that seem likely, or reasonable, say?”
“I wouldn’t dare trust you not to be saving a dozen,” grumbled Phipps.
“When a man has associated with gentlemen, you never can reckon on his
conduct.”
“Of course it does seem absurd, Adam, I admit,” said Mrs. Phipps, who
was enjoying the conversation mightily. “I had to make some suggestion.
And—oh, why, perhaps some young lady has recently arrived here from the
old country. Is that it, Adam?”
“I give you my word of honor that no young lady has come to Boston,
since I went abroad, for whom I care a brass farthing,” Adam assured his
hostess. “The further you go in this, the more innocent you will find
me.”
“Then are you turned lazy, or what is it that ails you,” inquired the
Captain, “that you fail to leap, as, by my word, I had thought you
would, to embrace this opportunity?”
“Oh, oh, poor dear Adam,” said the Captain’s wife, interrupting any
answer Rust might have been framing, “perhaps I know what it is, at
last.” She went to her husband quickly and whispered something in his
ear.
“Hum!” said Phipps, who was inclined to be a bit short with his protégé
for his many equivocal answers, “Why couldn’t he say so at once? See
here, Adam, what’s all this rigmarole about your pride? If you haven’t
got any money, what’s the odds to me? Who’s asking you to furnish any
funds? I’ve got the brig and I’ve got provisions and arms in plenty. If
that is what ails you, drop it, sir, drop it!”
Adam, willing to share another’s money as readily as he would give his
own last penny to a friend, had thought of nothing half so remote as
this to offer as an excuse for remaining in Boston, under the same sky
with Garde. But now that it was broached, he fathered it as quickly and
affectionately as if he had indeed been its parent.
“I had hoped it would not be unreasonable for me to crave a few days’
grace before giving you my answer to your generous proposition,” he
said, “for I am not without hopes of replenishing our treasury at an
early date.”
“But in the meantime——” started Phipps.
“Dearest,” interrupted his wife, with feminine tenderness of thought for
any innocent pride, “surely you have no mind to sail to-night? And there
are so many things for Adam to tell.”
The Captain, who had been drawing down his brow, in that serious
keep-at-it spirit which through all his life was the backbone of his
remarkable, self-made success, slacked off the intensity of his mood and
smiled at his wife, indulgently. He loved her and he loved Adam above
anything else in the world.
“Get you behind me, golden treasure,” he said, with a wave of his big,
wholesome hand. “Adam, I would rather hear you talk than to pocket
rubies.”
“I must be cautious lest I bankrupt myself by telling all I know this
evening,” said Adam. “Indeed, dear friends, it grows late already. I
must set my beef-eaters the good example of keeping seemly hours.” He
arose to go before the sunken treasure topic should again break out,
with its many fascinations and pitfalls.
His hosts protested against his leaving, yet they presently discovered
that the hour was, as he said, no longer early. He therefore departed
and wended his way through the now deserted streets, toward the Crow and
Arrow, his heart bounding with joyousness, his brain awhirl with
memories of everything of the evening, save the discussion of the sunken
treasure.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER V.
A WEIGHTY CONFIDENCE.
AT the tavern, when Adam entered, Halberd had succumbed to a plethora of
comfort, which had followed too soon on the paucity thereof, which had
been the program of the three for many weeks. He was snoring fiercely in
a corner. Pike, on the other hand, was inflated with life and activity
of speech. He was bragging eloquently, not only of his own prowess, but
also of that of Halberd and Adam as well.
Adam heard the end of a peroration of self-appraisement in which the
doughty Pike announced that one of his recent feats had been the slaying
of two murderous, giant pirates with his naked fists.
Among the sailors, dock-hands and tavern-loafers who made up the
auditors who were being entertained by these flights of narrative, was a
little, red-nosed, white-eyed man of no significance, who now stood up
and removed his coat.
“If you would like to have a bit of fun with me,” said he. “I’ll play
one of those pirates, till we see what you can do.”
Pike looked at him ruefully, rubbing his chin while thinking what to
answer to this challenge. He then waved his hand, grandly.
“Good sir,” he said, “the Sachem, my honored associate, has such an
appetite for these encounters that until he shall be satisfied I would
have no heart to deprive him of such good material as I can see you
would make for a fight. Doubtless I can arrange for him to do you the
honor you seek, after which I shall be pleased to weep at your funeral.”
“I would rather fight with him than you,” said the would-be belligerent,
“but before he comes, if you would like to have your neck broken——”
Satisfied that this business had gone far enough, Adam strode into the
tap-room, where the jovial spirits had congregated.
“My friends,” he interrupted, “you can put your necks to better purpose
by pouring something down them. Landlord, attend my guests. Pike——”
But the pirate-exterminator had fled, first edging to the door, at the
appearance of his chief, and then clattering up the stairs to the rooms
above with a noise like cavalry in full retreat.
“But if you would like to fight,” started the accommodating manikin,
still in process of baring his drum-stick arms, “why, Mr. Sachem——” but
he was not permitted to finish.
“Leave off the gab,” said a burly sailor. Clapping his private tankard—a
thing of enormous dimensions—fairly over the little head of the
challenger, he snuffed him completely and suddenly lifted him bodily to
the top of the bar, amid the guffaws of the entire company.
Rust lost no time in arousing Halberd, whom he herded to the apartments
aloft with brief ceremony.
Wainsworth, who had been sitting up in his room, writing letters while
he waited for Adam’s return, now heard his friend coming and opened his
door to bid him welcome. With another big hand-shake, and a smile over
their recent mis-encounter, the two went into the lighted apartment,
Wainsworth closing the door behind him.
“It’s a wonder you find me anything more than a small heap of ashes,”
said Wainsworth, “for I have fairly burned and smoked with my eagerness
to see you back.”
“I can smell the smoke,” said Adam. “How very like tobacco it is. And
now that I am here I presume you are quite put out.”
“You are not in love or your wits would be as dull as mine,” his friend
replied. “But sit down, sit down, and tell me all about yourself.”
“I thought you wanted to do the telling.”
“Well, I do, confound you, but——”
“What’s all this?” interrupted Adam. He had caught sight, on the table,
of two glittering heaps of money, English coins, piled in two apparently
equal divisions on the cloth.
“That? Oh, nothing, your share and mine,” said Wainsworth, taking Adam’s
hat and sweeping one of the heaps into its maw with utter unconcern.
“Stow it away and be seated.”
“Well, but——” started Rust.
“Stow it, stow it!” interrupted Wainsworth. “I didn’t bother you with
buts and whyfores when you divided with me. I have something of more
importance to chat about.”
“This is ten times as much as I gave to you,” objected Adam, doggedly.
“You gave me ten times more than you kept yourself, when it meant ten
times as great a favor. I am mean enough only to divide even,” answered
Wainsworth. “Say anything more about it, and I shall pitch my share out
of the window.”
As a matter of fact, Rust had impoverished himself for this friend, when
in England, at a moment most vital in Wainsworth’s career. He had no
argument, therefore, against accepting this present, much-needed
capital. He placed the clinking coins in his pocket, not without a sense
of deep obligation to his friend. It made one more bond between them,
cementing more firmly than ever that affectionate regard between them,
on the strength of which either would have made a great personal
sacrifice for the other. No sooner, however, had Adam cleared his hat
and weighted his clothing with the money, than he realized that the only
good argument he had possessed to oppose to Captain Phipps’ scheme to
take him away from Boston, namely, his poverty, was now utterly
nullified. He started as if to speak, but it was already too late. If
the Captain found him out, what could he say or do?
“Now then,” said Wainsworth, “we can talk.”
“I am an empty urn, waiting to be filled with your tales and
confessions,” said Adam.
Wainsworth settled back in his chair and stroked his small imperial,
hung on his under lip. “Yes, we can talk,” he repeated. He sat upright
again, and once more leaned backward. “I don’t know where to begin,” he
admitted.
“You might start off by saying you’re in love.”
“Who told you I’m in love? I haven’t said so. You’d be in love yourself,
if ever you had met her. She’s a beauty, Adam! She’s divine! She’s
glorious! Odds walruses, you’d be clean crazy about her! Why, you would
simply rave—you couldn’t be as calm as I am if you knew her, Adam! She’s
the loveliest, sweetest, most heavenly angel that ever walked the earth!
Why, I can’t give you an idea! She,—she, she just takes your breath!
There is nothing in Boston like her—nothing in the world. Why, man, you
couldn’t sit still if you had ever seen her!” He got up and paced the
room madly. “You could no more sit there and tell me about her as I am
telling you than you could drink the ocean!”
“No, I suppose I couldn’t.”
“Of course you couldn’t. I’m an older man than you are—a whole year
older—and I know what I am talking about. You would go raving mad, if
you saw her. She is the most exquisite—Adam! She’s peerless!”
“Then you are in love?” said Adam. “Up to this last moment I thought
there might be some doubts about it, but I begin to suspect perhaps you
are.”
“Love? In love? My dear boy, you don’t know what love is! I adore her! I
worship her! I would lay down my life for her! I would die ten thousand
deaths for her, and then say I loved her still!”
“That would be a remarkable post-mortem power of speech,” said Adam.
“And I suppose she loves you as fervently as you love her.”
“Of course she does—that is,—now, now why would you ask such a silly
question as that? A love like mine just reaches forth and surrounds her;
and it couldn’t do that if she didn’t—well, you know how those things
are.”
“Oh, certainly. If she loves you and you love her, that makes it
complete, and as I am a bit tired, and this leaves no more to be said——”
“But there is more to be said! Why don’t you ask me some questions?”
“Silly questions?”
“No! Of course not! Some plain, common-sense questions.”
“Well, then, is she beautiful?”
“Odds walruses, Adam, she is the most beautiful girl that ever breathed.
She surpasses rubies and diamonds and pearls. She eclipses——”
“Ah, but is she lovely?”
“Lovely?—She’s a dream of loveliness. I wish you could see her! You
would throw stones at your grandmother, if you could see how lovely she
is. Lovely!—Can’t you invent some better word—something that means more?
Lovely doesn’t express it. Go on, go on, ask me something more!”
“Oh, well, is she pretty or plain?”
“She is most radiantly beautiful.—Look here, Adam, you think I am an
ass.”
“My dear old fellow, I didn’t stop to think.”
“You are making fun of me!”
“Impossible, Henry. You told me to ask you some simple questions. Does
she live here in Boston?”
“She does, of course she does, or I shouldn’t be here, should I? She
lives here and Boston has become my Heaven!”
“Oh, well, thanks for your hospitality. Let’s see,—is she beauti—but I
may have asked that before.” He yawned and rubbed his eyes to keep them
open. “Oh, I do think of another. What is her name?”
“Her name?” chuckled Wainsworth, walking up and down in an ecstasy of
delight. “Her name is the prettiest name in the universe. It’s
Garde—Garde Merrill—Garde! Oh, you just love to say Garde, Garde,
Garde!”
Adam started, suddenly awake and alert. He passed his hand across his
eyes stiffly. His face became as pale as paper. Wainsworth was still
walking restlessly up and down, intent on his own emotions.
“It’s a name like a perfume,” he went on. “Garde, Garde. You can’t think
how that name would cling to a man’s memory for years—how it rings in a
man’s brain—how it plays upon his soul!”
Adam was thinking like lightning. Garde!—She loved Wainsworth—he had
said so. It was this that had made her appear so restrained, unnatural,
eager to return to the house. This was why her answers had been so
evasive. The whole situation broke in on him with a vividness that
stunned his senses.
A mad thought chased through his brain. It was that, if he had spoken
first, this moment of insupportable pain could have been avoided, but
that Wainsworth having spoken first had acquired rights, which he, as a
friend, loving him dearly, would be bound to respect. He thought of the
money he had just accepted from this brother-like friend. He saw the
impossibility of ever saying to Henry that he too loved Garde
Merrill—had loved her for seven years—had heard her name pealing like
the bell of his own very being in his soul! But no—he couldn’t have
spoken! He knew that. He would never dare to say that she loved him, in
return for the love he had fostered for her, these seven years. No, he
could not have spoken of her like this to any soul, under any
circumstances. To him her name was too precious to be pronounced above a
whisper to his own beating heart. He did not realize that, by that very
token of her sacredness to him, he loved her far more deeply, far more
sublimely than could any man who would say her name over and over and
babble of his love.
He only knew that his brain was reeling. He could only see that
Wainsworth, for whom he would have sacrificed almost anything, was all
engrossed in this love which must mean so much. He only realized that
all at once he had lost his right to tell this dearly beloved friend the
truth, and with this he had also lost the right, as an honorable
comrade, to plead his own soul’s yearning at the door of Garde’s heart.
Wainsworth, in his ecstatic strolling and ringing of praises, was
tolling a knell for Adam, saying “Garde” and then “Garde” and again
presently “Garde,” which was the only word, in all his rapid talk that
reached the other’s ears.
Adam arose, unsteadily. Wainsworth had not observed his well-concealed
agitation.
“I—must be going,” said Rust, huskily, turning his face away from the
light. He tried to feign another yawn. “I am no longer good company.
Good night.”
“What, going?” said Henry, catching him affectionately by the shoulders.
“Ah, Adam, I suppose I am a bit foolish, but forgive me. You don’t know
what it is to love as I have learned to love. And, dear friend, it has
made me love you more—if possible—than ever.”
“Good night, Henry,” said Adam, controlling his voice with difficulty.
“Good night—and God bless you.”
“Say ‘God bless Mistress Garde Merrill’—for my sake,” said Henry.
Adam looked at him oddly and repeated the words like a mere machine.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VI.
PAN’S BROTHER AND THE NYMPH.
ADAM returned to his room attempting to pucker his lips for a careless
whistle which failed to materialize. He had evolved a rude but logical
philosophy of his own for every phase of life; but what philosophy ever
fooled the maker thereof, with its sophistries?
The beef-eaters were snoring so ominously that Adam was constrained to
think of two volcanoes threatening immediate eruptions.
“Poor old boys!” he said to himself. There was no particular reason for
this, save that he felt he must pity something, and self-pity he
abhorred. He was trying not to think of the one companion that always
drew his emotions out of his reluctant heart and gave them
expression—his violin.
Standing in the middle of the floor, without a light in the room, he
reasoned with himself. He said to his inner being that doubtless
Wainsworth loved her more than he did anyway; that he, Adam, having
carried away a boyish memory, which he had haloed with romanticism for
seven years, could not call his emotions love. Moreover, he had as yet
only seen her in the dark, and might not be at all attracted by her true
self in the daylight. Naturally, also, Wainsworth had as much right in
the premises as any man on earth, and no man could expect a girl to
remember a mere homely lad for seven years and know that he loved her,
or that he thought he did, and so reciprocate the affection and calmly
await his return. Clearly he was an absurd creature, for he had fostered
some silly notion in his heart, or brain, that Garde was feeling toward
him, all these years, as he felt toward her. It was fortunate he had
found everything out so soon. The thing to do now was to think of
something else.
All the while he was thus philosophizing, he had a perfect
subconsciousness that told him the violin would win—that soon or late it
would drag his feelings out of him, in its own incomparable tones. He
only paused there arguing the matter because he hated to give in without
a fight. That violin always won. It must not be permitted to arrogate to
itself an absolute mastery over his moods.
Presently, beginning to admit that he would yet have to tuck the
instrument under his chin, whether or no, he worked out a compromise. He
would not play it, or sound it, or fondle it in the town. If it wanted
to voice things and would do it—well, he would carry it out into the
woods.
Feeling that he had, in a measure, conquered, Rust stole silently across
the apartment to the corner in which he had placed the violin with his
own loving hands, lifted the case without making a sound and crept out
as if he had been a thief, pressing the box somewhat rigidly against his
heart.
He reached the street without difficulty. The town was asleep. A dog
barking, a mile away, and then a foolish cock, crowing because he had
waked, were the only sounds breaking over all Boston. The last thin rind
of the moon had just risen. In the light it cast, the houses and shadows
seemed but a mystic painting, in deep purple, blacks and grays. Silently
as Adam could walk, these houses caught up the echo of his footfalls,
and whispered it on, from one to another, as if it had been a pass-word
to motionless sentinels.
He came to the Common, discerning Beacon Hill, dimly visible, off to the
right. With grass under foot he walked more rapidly. Past the
watch-house and the powder-house, in the center of the Common, he
strode, on to Fox Hill and then to the Roxbury Flats, stretching wide
and far, to the west of the town.
Being now far from all the houses, alone in an area of silence, Adam
modified his gait. He even stood perfectly still, listening, for what he
could not have heard, gazing far away, at scenes and forms that had no
existence. Night and solitude wrought upon him to make him again the boy
who had lived that free, natural existence with the Indians. His tongue
could not utter, his imagination could not conceive, anything concrete
or tangible out of the melancholy ecstasy which the night aroused in his
being and which seemed to demand some outward response from his spirit.
He felt as if inspiration, to say something, or to do something, were
about to be born in his breast, but always it eluded him, always it was
just beyond him and all he could do, as his thought pursued it, was to
dwell upon the sublimity breathing across the bosom of Nature and so
fairly into his face.
He had come away without his hat. Bareheaded, at times with his eyes
closed, the better to appreciate the earth in its slumber, he fairly
wantoned in the coolness, the sweetness and the beauty of the hour. Thus
it was past three o’clock in the morning when at length he came to the
woods.
Man might build a palace of gold and brilliants, or Nature grow an
edifice of leaves all resplendent with purples, reds, yellows and
emeralds, but, when night spread her mantle, these gems of color and
radiance might as well be of ebon. It is the sun that gilds, that
burnishes, that lays on the tints of the mighty canvas; and when he
goes, all color, all glitter and all beauty, save of form, have ceased
to be.
Adam saw the trees standing dark and still, their great black limbs
outstretched like arms, with upturned hands, suppliant for alms of
weather. There was something brotherly in the trees, toward the Indians,
Adam thought, and therefore they were his big brothers also. He had even
seen the trees retreating backward to the West, as the Red men had done,
falling before the march of the great white family.
If Nature has aught of awe in her dark hours, she keeps it in the woods.
The silence, disturbed by the mystical murmuring of leaves, the reaching
forth of the undergrowth, to feel the passer-by in the depth of shadows,
the tangled roots that hold the wariest feet until some small
animal—like a child of the forest—can scamper away to safety, all these
things make such a place seem sentient, breathing with a life which man
knows not of, but feels, when alone in its midst.
To Adam all these things betokened welcome. His mood became one of
peculiar exultation, almost, but not quite, cheer. As a discouraged
child might say, “I don’t care, my mother loves me, anyway, whether
anybody else does or not,” so Adam’s spirit was feeling, “If there is no
one else to love me, at least I am loved by the trees.”
With this little joy at his heart, he penetrated yet a bit further into
the absolute darkness, and sitting down upon a log, which had given his
shins a hearty welcome, he removed his violin from its case and felt it
over with fond hands and put its smooth cheek against his own cheek,
before he would go on to the further ecstasy which his musical embrace
became when he played to tell of his moods.
“Now something jolly, my Mistress,” he said to the instrument, as if he
had doubts of the violin’s intentions. “Don’t be doleful.”
Like a fencer, getting in a sharp attack, to surprise the adversary at
the outset, he jumped the bow on to the strings with a brisk, debonair
movement that struck out sparks of music, light and low as if they were
played for fairies. It was a sally which soon changed for something more
sober. It might have seemed that the fencer found a foe worthy his steel
and took a calmer method in the sword-play. Then a moment later it would
have appeared that Adam was on the defensive.
As a matter of fact, it was next to impossible for Rust to play bright,
lively snatches of melody, this night, try as he might. The long notes,
with the quality of a wail in them, got in between the staccato
sparkles. When Adam thought of the Indians, their minor compositions
transmitted themselves through his fingers into sound, before he was
aware. He had braced himself stiffly on philosophy all the way to this
forest-theater, but to little avail. He presently stopped playing
altogether.
“If he loves her and she loves him,” he told himself, resolutely, “why,
then, it is much better that two should be happy than that all three
should finally be made miserable by some other arrangement, which a man
like me, in his selfishness, might hope to make. It’s a man’s duty,
under such circumstances, to dance at the wedding and be a jolly chap,
and——hunt around for another girl.”
He attacked the violin again, when it was apparently off guard, and
rattled off a cheerful ditty before the instrument could catch its
breath, so to speak. Then a single note taunted him with a memory, and
the violin nearly sobbed, for a second, till the jig could recover its
balance. The strings next caught at a laggard phrase and suddenly bore
in a relentless contemplation of the future and its barren promise. The
brighter tones died away again. So went the battle.
Trying his best to compel the violin to laugh and accept the situation,
while the instrument strove to sigh, Adam played an odd composition of
alternating sadness and careless jollity, the outpouring being the
absolute speech of his soul.
He played on and on. Inasmuch as his philosophy was as right as any
human reasoning is likely to be, Adam’s more cheerful nature won. But
the victory was not decided, no more than it was permanent. Yet he was
at last the master of the situation.
Heedless of the time as he had been, in his complete absorption, Rust
had not observed the coming of morning. Nevertheless the sun was up, and
between the branches of the trees it had flung a topaz spot of color at
his feet—a largess of light and warmth. Without thinking about it, or
paying any attention to it, Adam had fixed his eyes on this patch of
gold.
Suddenly his senses became aware that the spot had been blotted out of
existence. He looked up and beheld a vision of loveliness—as fair a
nymph as ever enjoyed a background of trees.
It was Garde.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VII.
THE MEETING IN THE GREENWOOD.
WITH her glorious mahogany-colored hair loose in masses on her
shoulders, with her eyes inquiring, and her lips slightly parted as she
stole forward, thrilled with the exquisite beauty of Adam’s playing, in
such a temple of perfect harmonies, Garde appeared like the very spirit
of the forest, drawn from sacred bowers by the force of love that
vibrated the instrument’s strings.
No bark of pine tree was browner than her eyes; no berries were redder
than her lips, nor the color that climbed upward in her cheeks, the
white of which was as that of the fir beneath its outer covering. As
some forest dryad, maidenly and diffident, she held her hand above her
heart when Adam looked up and discovered her presence.
The man leaped to his feet, like one startled from sleep. It almost
seemed as if a dream had brought him this radiant figure. No word came,
for a moment, to his lips.
“Why—it’s you!” said Garde.
“Garde!—Miss—Mistress Merrill!” said Adam, stammering. “By my hilt,
I—the—the wonder is ’tis you.”
“Not at all,” corrected Garde, recovering something that passed for
composure. “I come here frequently, to gather herbs and simples for
Goody Dune, but for you to be here, and playing—like that——”
“Yes,” agreed Adam, when he had waited in vain for her to finish,
“perhaps it is an intrusion. You—you came away from the town early.”
“Why did you come here to play?” she asked. Her own nature so yearned
over the forest and things beautiful, her own emotions were so wrought
upon by the sublimity of earth’s chancels of silence, that she felt her
soul longing for its kindred companion, who must be one reverent, yet
joyous, where Nature ruled. She wanted Adam to pour forth the tale of
his brotherhood with the trees and the loneliness of his heart, that
would make him thus to play in such a place and at such a time. While
she looked at him, the love she had fostered from her childhood was
matured in one glorious blush that welled upward from her bosom to her
very eyes themselves.
Adam had looked at her but once. It was a long look, somewhat sad, as of
one parting with a dear companion. In that moment he had known how
wholly and absolutely he loved her. His pretended doubts of the night
before had fled as with the darkness. The daylight in her eyes and on
her face had made him henceforth a sun-worshiper, since the sun revealed
her in such purity of beauty.
In the great delight which had bounded in his breast at seeing her
there, he had momentarily forgotten his conversation with Wainsworth.
When she asked him why he had come to the woods, he would fain have
knelt before her, to speak of his love, to tell of his anguish and to
plead his cause, by every leap of his heart, but he had remembered his
friend and his old Indian schooling in stoicism gathered upon him,
doubtless for the very presence of the firs and pines, so solemn and
Indianesque about him. He put on a mask he had worn over melancholy
often.
“Why, I came here for practise, of which I am sadly in need,” he said.
“When once I played before King Pirate and his court of buccaneers, I
was like to be hung for failing, after a mere six hours of steady
scraping at the strings. If you came for simples, verily you have found
a simple performer and simple tunes.”
Garde was painfully disappointed in him. His flippancy had, as he
intended it should, deceived her. She shut that little door of her heart
through which her soul had been about to emerge, ready to reveal itself
to and to speak welcome to its mate. She did not cease to love him,
emotional though she was, for love is like a tincture, or an attar,—once
it is poured out, not even an ocean of water can so dilute it as to
leave no trace of its fragrance, and not until the last drop in the
ocean is drained can it all be removed or destroyed. No, she was pained.
She desired to retreat, to take back the overture which, to her mind,
had been a species of abandon of her safeguards and so patent that she
could not conceive that Adam had failed to note its significance. Yet
she gave him up for a soulless Pan reluctantly. That playing, which had
drawn her, psychically, physically, irresistibly to his side, could have
no part with things flippant. It had been to her like a heart-cry, which
it seemed that her heart alone could answer. And when she had found that
it was Adam playing—her Adam—she had with difficulty restrained herself
from running to him and sobbing out the ecstasy suddenly awakened within
her. The memory of the music he had made was still upon her and she was
timidly hopeful again when she said:
“How long have you been practising here?”
Adam mistook this for a little barb of sarcasm. His mind was morbid on
the subject of Wainsworth and of Garde’s evasiveness of the evening
before. He put on more of the motley.
“Not half long enough,” he said, “by the violence I still do to melody;
and yet too long by half, since I have frightened the birds from the
forest. There is always too much of bad playing, but it takes much bad
practising to make a good performer. I am better at playing a jig. Shall
I try, in your honor?”
“Thank you, if you please, no, I would rather you would not,” said
Garde. It was her first Puritanical touch. If she had given him
permission to play his jig, very many things might have been altered,
for Adam would have revealed himself and would have opened her
heart-doors once again, such a mastery over everything debonair in his
nature would the violin have assumed, with its spell of deeper emotions,
inevitable—with Garde so near.
Adam laughed, well enough to appear careless. “I commend your judgment,”
he said, “though I have always thought, even after last night,—ah, by
the way, where is your companion, Mistress Prudence somebody?”
He had parried his own tendency to get back to the tender subjects and
memories flooding his heart, but not in a manner to gladden Garde.
Indeed, the ring of artificiality in everything he said made her less
and less happy.
“Her name is Prudence Soam. She is my cousin, and she is at home,” said
Garde, quietly. “If you would care to see her again, I will tell her of
your wish.” She could readily understand how any one might like
Prudence, knowing what a sweet, good girl her cousin was, but it caused
her an acute pain to think she had cherished the image of Adam in her
heart for seven years, only to find now that he had been inconstant.
She suddenly thought of the meeting of the evening before. Adam’s
willingness to present her—in the presence of Prudence—with that
something which he had brought her from his first trip to Hispaniola,
appeared to her now in a light, not of his stupidity, but of his
deliberate intention to show her that he had not preserved a sacred
dream of their childhood friendship, as she had so fondly hoped he had.
She even wondered if he might not have seen, known and cared for
Prudence before. She concluded that he cared for Prudence now, and
certainly not for herself. Then she thought he might think of that
something, which he had wished so to give her—that something from
Hispaniola,—and she feared he might present it to her now. This would
have been too much to bear, under the circumstances.
Adam was indeed thinking on this very subject, but Wainsworth—his
friend—arose like a specter in his meditations, and all that Garde had
said had confirmed him in his belief of her coldness to himself, so that
he preferred to seem to forget the trinket, which would have been at
once the token of his love and constancy.
“Mistress Prudence Soam,” Adam repeated, replying to Garde’s last
remarks. “Indeed I should be but a sorry clod, not to wish to see her
again. Does she also come searching for simples?”
“No,” replied Garde, a little dully. “But I thank you for reminding me
that I must set about my task. Therefore I must bid you good day.”
Adam thought something would snap inside his breast. There was the
sunlight, streaming through the aisles of the trees; there was Garde,
whom he loved beyond anything of earth, setting off alone when he should
be at her side, culling her herbs, touching her hands as he gave her the
aromatic leaves that he too knew so well, and looking into Paradise
through her eyes, that had so danced when first he knew them. But what
of Wainsworth? What of the honor of a friend to a friend?
“Good day,” he echoed, with a mock gaiety that struck painfully on the
ears of both. “I trust your quest will be as successful as I could wish
your life to be happy.”
He hesitated a moment, for it was hard to part thus. Garde had hoped he
might volunteer to go along and carry the tiny basket she held on her
arm, for a woman’s love can never be so discouraged as not to have a new
little hope every other moment that something may happen to set matters
aright in spite of all. But Adam did not dare to prolong this test of
his honor to Wainsworth. He felt that his head was reeling, but with a
stately bow he took a final, lingering look at the sweetest vision he
had ever seen, and started away.
Garde, steadied by her pride, returned his bow and walked further into
the woods.
Adam felt that he must pause and turn; that the “Garde!” that welled up
from his heart would burst through his lips in spite of all he could do.
With his violin clasped beneath his arm, however, he conquered himself,
absolutely, and never so much as turned about again to see where the
wood-nymph had gone.
But Garde could not so slay her dearest impulse. She turned before she
had gone ten steps. Looking back, she saw Adam, bareheaded, crowned by
his golden ringlets,—through which the sunbeams were thrust like fingers
of gilt,—trailing his sword, clutching his violin, striding off in his
boots as lithely as a panther and bearing up under his faded brown coat
as proudly as a king.
“Oh, Adam!” she said, faintly, but he was already too far away to hear
the little wood-note which her voice had made.
He disappeared. She knew he would soon be clear of the trees.
Reluctantly at first, and then eagerly, though silently, she flitted
along from tree to tree, where he had gone, till at length she came to
the edge of the forest.
Adam, heavy with Wainsworth’s gold, was walking less buoyantly now. He
was far out on the flat, heading southward, not exactly toward Boston.
Garde watched him yearningly, going, going and never once looking
backward to where he had left her.
She could bear no more. She sank down on the moss at the foot of a tree,
and leaning against the gnarled old trunk, she covered her face with her
hands and cried, heart-brokenly.
Had she watched but a moment longer, she would have seen Adam halt,
slowly turn about, and with his hand at his lips gaze toward the woods
steadily for fully a minute. Then with a slow gesture he waved a kiss
back to where she was and once more went upon his way.
The man had no mind to walk through Boston in daylight, with his violin
naked in his hands. Keeping therefore southward, he came at length to
the upper part of the harbor. Here he engaged a boatman with a sloop to
convey him down to the ship-yard of Captain William Phipps.
The worthy ship-builder soon made him welcome.
“William,” said Adam, “I have replenished the treasury, as I said I
might, and I have made up my mind to join you in your treasure-hunting
expedition.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VIII.
PAYING THE FIDDLER.
ASSUME a cheerfulness, if you have it not, and it may presently grow
upon you. This happened to Adam, so that when he left Captain Phipps, to
return to the tavern for his breakfast and to seek out the beef-eaters,
his mood was almost volatile again. There is much virtue in having
something other than one’s troubles to think upon. The sunken treasure
afforded Adam a topic.
He made his way to his apartments in the Crow and Arrow by the stairs at
the rear. He found the rooms empty. Beef-eaters, bag and baggage were
gone. Even the violin-case was not to be found.
Somewhat surprised that his faithful followers would so desert him, or
at least move the family habitation without consulting their comrade,
and on notice so brief, Rust knocked on Wainsworth’s door, to ask him if
he had seen anything of the worthy Pike and Halberd. But Wainsworth too
was out.
Upon proceeding post haste down to the tap-room, Adam broke in upon a
scene of armistice, after a first shock of war. Standing at bay, with
drawn swords, the shabby chattels of the trio in a corner behind them,
were the beef-eaters, confronting and defying the landlord and several
valiant citizens, in the midst of whom was the small individual who had
so much desired to fight, on the previous evening, and who was now
haranguing the opposing forces volubly.
“Here comes the master-vagabond now!” he cried, the moment Adam appeared
in the room. “Now, sirs, for your proof that you are not a pack of
wandering beggars and braggarts!”
“At last!” cried Halberd and Pike, together, coming quickly forward to
grasp their comrade in arms by the hands.
“We have defended your good name and possessions!” said Pike.
“We have flung the lie into the teeth of these varlets!” added Halberd.
“You have come in good time.”
“What’s the meaning of all this business?” demanded Adam, of the
assembled company.
Every one started to talk or to shout at once. Adam heard such things
as:
“They have called you and us a lot of penniless beggars and pirates!”
“What are you but a swaggering bully?”
“You are a fiddling limb of Satan!”
The landlord said, more moderately, “I did but desire to protect my
house in its good repute.”
The fierce little white-eyed man waved both his fists.
“These dogs,” he snapped to Adam, “have boasted that you are loaded down
with gold!”
“Yes, they mentioned gold,” said the landlord, tentatively.
“Gold?” said Adam. “Is it a crime to have no gold? How much gold would
you see?” he pulled his two hands from his pockets and scattered heaps
of yellow sovereigns on the table.
The beef-eaters nearly collapsed with amazement, at the sight of this
wealth. The landlord fell to rubbing his hands with ecstasy.
“You unseemly traducers of fair gentlemen,” he said, with virtuous
indignation, to the belligerents behind him, “how dare you come here to
insult and to villify my guests?”
“He probably stole it,” cried the incorrigible little white-eyed
terrier. “He has naught to do but to make God-fearing men——and his
betters, at that—dance against their will in the public streets!”
“Ah,” said Adam, striding forward and purposely bending with great show
of looking down to where the little man was standing, “so you have come
to pay the fiddler for the sport which your friend enjoyed yesterday
evening? How little he reckons my fiddling worth. This is so sad that
nothing short of a breakfast can console me. Landlord——”
“Braggart! knave!” cried the little man, interrupting. “I offer to fight
you again! You dare not fight!”
The smaller the dog the rarer the punishments and the larger the
arrogance.
“Shatter my hilt!” said Adam, “you and another gnat would devour me
whole.”
Without warning, and yet gently, Rust took him by the collar, twirled
him about so that he could lay his other hand on the trousers of the
midget, and hoisting him off his feet, though he kicked and made a
disturbance with yelling and raving, carried him at once to the open
window of the tavern and dropped him out, on the sidewalk beneath.
Three or four partisans, who had backed up little white-eyes and the
landlord, now edged toward the door. Adam made one motion in their
direction and they got out with becoming alacrity.
“Lock that door till we have had our breakfast,” Rust commanded.
The landlord had no more than complied, than the little rat, dropped
from the window, came banging against the barrier on the outside,
demanding admittance vociferously.
“Who is yon whiffet?” Adam asked.
“His name is Psalms Higgler,” laughed the landlord, with fine hypocrisy.
“How bravely you served him, and rightly too.” He rubbed his hands
gleefully.
“And his friend who sent him hither, he that danced so divertingly, what
may be his name?”
“Isaiah Pinchbecker, you doubtless mean. And what will you have for
breakfast, sire?”
“I will have you carry my bales of merchandise back to my apartments,”
said Adam, who did not propose to move out of the house until he felt
inclined, preferring to remain there and command respect for himself and
the beef-eaters, even while he knew that the landlord had joined the
miserable snappers at his heels. “And look to it you move smartly and
return to order something to eat.”
The landlord, spurred by the sight of the gold, and eager to make all
possible amends for the errors of judgment he had committed, staggered
up the stairs, panting like a grampus.
Adam now turned to his comrades, who recited three times over the
incidents of the morning, which consisted chiefly of the charges made by
Psalms Higgler, evidently at the instigation of Pinchbecker—the
nimble-footed—and which had so nearly culminated in their expulsion from
the tavern.
Tempest in a teapot as it had been, the business was an indication of
feelings which went as deep as politics, in which the whole colony had
been simmering for years. Moreover, the incident was not yet concluded.
The same year which had witnessed King Philip’s war, at the close of
which Adam had gone away, one of the greatest mischief-makers with whom
the Colonists had ever been called upon to deal, Edward Randolph, had
come to Boston with a design to despoil the colony of its charter. He
had worked openly, in some directions, secretly in others. He had
enlisted malcontents, dissenters-from-everything, hypocrites and men
with private greeds, in his Tory following. Among these were
Pinchbecker, his friend, the landlord of the Crow and Arrow, Psalms
Higgler and many others of their ilk.
Now Pinchbecker came under the category of hypocrites. He assumed the
Puritans’ manners, speech and customs, and did, in fact, despise some of
the looser habits of the Royalists, though he was their willing tool,
working for future favor and gain. He had therefore felt himself sorely
aggrieved when compelled to his dance, in a public highway, and having
first egged on his little terrier, Psalms, had then repaired to Edward
Randolph, himself, for redress of his wrongs.
Randolph, thinking he smelt a bluff and ready Tory lot, in Adam, and his
company, found occasion to visit the tavern without delay. He arrived
while Rust and the beef-eaters were still at their breakfast. He entered
the house at the rear and ordered a drink at the bar.
Motioning the landlord to silence, that worthy being much astonished to
see him so early, Randolph presently turned about, as if he had not
before observed the trio at table.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I drink ill when I drink alone; will you not
permit me to order something in which you can join me?”
Adam looked up. “Thank you,” he said, “it is our misfortune to have
ordered, just as you were coming in.”
“The misfortune is mine,” insisted Randolph. He drank alone.
Rust had taken in the visitor’s details at a glance. The man was of
medium size and nervous temperament. He had a great brow, heavy with
perceptive faculties, at the expense of those of reflection. His eyes
were deep-set, round, intense and close together, the nose that divided
them being as thin and curved as a beak. His lips were thin and
tight-shutting. He looked like a human bird-of-prey.
“By your dress and manner you are recently from England,” said the man,
sauntering leisurely toward Adam, when he had smacked his lips and set
down his mug.
“By your courtesy,” said Adam, “you are a student, curious to know your
fellow-beings.”
Randolph laughed. “Curious?” said he. “You do me wrong. I care neither
who nor what a gentleman is, so long as he is witty and blest with
humor. Your repute and the tale of your love for dancing have preceded
you, sir. I confess I was tempted to come here and see you.”
“I beseech you for an opportunity to say that I was merely charitable,”
said Rust. “I ordered the dance to amuse my beef-eaters. Perhaps you are
a dancer yourself?”
Randolph bit his lip. He was not getting on to his liking. He smiled,
however, and said:
“I have few graces, after I have mentioned a sense of admiration——”
“And blandishment,” put in Adam, who frankly disliked the man.
“Say appreciation, rather,” corrected Randolph. “I have had a hearty
laugh over that dance. I wish I had been there to see it; such merriment
is so rare in Massachusetts.”
“Nearly as rare as introductions between gentlemen,” Adam answered.
He tipped up his mug and drank the last of his brew carelessly. Randolph
turned red with anger. His gray eyes looked like cold fire, yet he was
still unwilling to accept defeat in his effort to find out the bent of
Adam’s political views.
“We live in a time when the stoutest friends and companions in good
causes might be lost to each other by formality,” he said, with a smile
doing its best to bend his features. “I must beg your pardon, if I
seem——”
He was interrupted by the entrance, at this moment, of William Phipps,
who came in at the door which the landlord had quietly unbolted.
“What, Adam, not yet done with eating?” he called out, bluntly. “Come,
come, I have been waiting this long time for you and your friends to
have a look over the brig.”
“With you at once,” rejoined the rover.
He and the beef-eaters knocked over their heavy chairs and stools, as
they arose from the table. Phipps looked at Randolph. The two men
nodded, distantly and somewhat frowningly. Without so much as glancing
at Randolph, Adam and his retinue walked to the door and so away, with
the Captain.
Randolph needed no further intimation of Adam’s probable leanings,
politically, than this obvious camaraderie with Phipps—who was a patriot
as immovable and staunch as a rock fortress. He clenched his fists and
ground his molars savagely.
“Curse the young fool!” he said. “I’ll make him wish for a civil tongue
to be hung in his head!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IX.
A MATTER OF STATE.
MISTRESS GARDE MERRILL, having several hours before delivered her
simples and aromatic leaves to old Goody Dune, just outside the limits
of the town, stood looking out of the window, at her Uncle John Soam’s
home, where she was visiting. Thus it was that she saw her grandfather,
David Donner enter the gate. Two minutes afterward she beheld the
unusual sight of three Governors come into the garden together.
The first was ex-Governor Leverett, that stern old Roundhead, the
ex-Captain of Cromwell’s horse. At his side was Governor Winslow, up
from Plymouth, on grave affairs. Behind them was an older man, and
perhaps a wiser one, Governor Simon Bradstreet, still hale and hearty
after fifty-three years of service to the colonies.
Bringing up the rear of the little procession was Henry Wainsworth,
private secretary to Leverett. He looked toward the windows in the hope
of seeing Garde, but that young lady stepped silently back into the
shadows, for she had no desire to be seen.
Neither David Donner nor the other visitors came to the house, nor even
to the front door thereof. It was a fine day, so that the garden seemed
all smiles. A cow was mooing lustily and chickens were singing in their
contentment. These sounds were interspersed with the hawing of a saw,
and then with hammer strokes, these latter disturbances issuing from a
newly constructed granary and cow-shed which John Soam, Garde’s uncle,
had recently afforded.
David Donner, who had known that he would find Goodman Soam in this
shed, had tracked across the garden without ceremony. The governors and
Wainsworth, having confidence that Donner knew what he was doing,
followed where he led, to the center whence the clatter of industry
proceeded.
The hammer-pounding had abated nothing, nor did it cease when the three
grave citizens and Wainsworth had entered the house and ranged
themselves silently beside David Donner, to whom they could not well
speak for the din. They nodded to their friend, however, and looked up,
like students of astronomy all of one mind, at Goodman Soam above them.
John Soam had never been reputed a carpenter of talent in Boston.
However, here he was, standing on the head of a barrel and obviously
completing the task of ceiling this room of the granary, for his head,
shoulders and arms were out of sight, in the darksome region above the
ceiling, while part of his body and his legs, below, moved in vigorous
jerks as he pounded into place and nailed what appeared to be the last
board but one which would be needed to complete the job on which he was
so commendably engaged.
It seemed to his visitors that they had never before seen Goodman Soam
in so tight an orifice as was the one from which he now protruded. They
waited in patience for the nailing to cease, conversation being
impossible meantime. John was, by all reckoning, a thorough workman, for
he drove home nail after nail, without ceasing for so much as a breath.
At length the board was secured to the carpenter’s satisfaction, for he
ceased to hammer and could be heard to feel his work lovingly as he
examined its beauties in the half light in which he had labored.
“Good morrow, John Soam,” now said Governor Leverett, having first
coughed behind his hand. “Here are several fellow-townsmen come to your
place.”
John was seen to give a squirm. “Oh, good morrow,” said he, his voice
muffled by the ceiling between him and his friends. “I have been doing a
little work. Wait a moment, good friend, till I may gather my nails and
tools.”
The five good men waited, hearing John scramble the nails together with
a few metallic clinks.
“We went first to your house, David,” said John Winslow to David Donner.
“We came to see you and John Soam, as promised, on a matter of some
gravity.”
John Soam now, upon making an effort to retreat out of the slender
orifice which he had left when he nailed in his board, found his chest
and shoulders thicker than his waist. He wriggled. This being of no
avail to extricate him, he struggled. A convulsion of activity then
seized upon him. He attempted to sit down, he dragged at himself, he
began to do unseemly things. But he could not get out. He had hammered
in his own head and arms, with many good nails in the board.
His friends below him now overheard a sound which, in a simian, if
simians talked at all, would have been a curse. John wrestled as if
demons, expert in catch-as-catch-can, were restraining him up there in
the attic. He kicked about, with a violence so great as to overthrow the
barrel whereon he had been standing. For a second his two blind feet
felt about for his whilom support in an agony of helplessness.
“Goodman Leverett,” he then bawled, in tones of repressed emotion, “will
you put back that barrel for a moment, till I may come down?”
“If you will constrain your legs to seemly conduct, I will,” said the
governor. He and David Donner having received a kick apiece, now
reinstated Goodman Soam’s pedestal.
John became quiescent for a moment. His friends shifted about, uneasily.
“May we help you in any respect, John?” inquired Winslow.
“Are you fastened in?” added Simon Bradstreet.
“Might we not pull him down?” suggested Wainsworth.
“My friends, how many be you?” said the hot, muffled voice of John.
“Five,” said one of the solemn governors. “Shall we give you a little
assistance?”
“It would only be a little I should want,” said the carpenter, dropping
the nails he had clung to in desperation.
The five gentlemen disposed themselves about John’s anatomy and pulled
at his legs with united strength, grasping the cloth of his trousers for
the purpose.
“Enough! enough!” roared John, after a moment of hopeless pain and
wriggling.
His warning came belated. His trousers were of good stuff enow, but
trousers have their limitations. They parted, slightly above the uneven
line of gripping hands, and came away in ragged banners.
The five citizens were horrified. So was John. Two of the gentlemen,
with the booty taken from their friend, fell heavily to the floor.
“Dear me, this was most uncalled for,” said David Donner.
John Soam tried to draw his legs up under his coat, vainly. He made
terrible sounds of anguish, in his nakedness below and his loneliness up
above the ceiling. His fellow-citizens, undecided as to whether they
should go outside, for the sake of modesty, or remain and lend further
aid to John, looked at one another inquiringly.
“John,” then said Leverett, somewhat sternly, “would you council us to
get an ax and knock out the board you have hammered into place?”
“Yes,” bawled the carpenter, “there be two axes in the corner. Let them
both be employed!”
“I have chopped down a tree in my youth,” said David Donner.
He therefore took one of the axes, while Governor Winslow took the
second.
They were then at a loss to reach the ceiling, wherefore it became
necessary for the good men to build up a platform, of boxes and boards,
while John Soam’s legs tried to hide, one behind the other.
The platform being hastily constructed, the ax-men mounted and began to
swing ill-directed blows upward at the stubborn board which the
carpenter had hammered in so thoroughly.
No more than three blows had been delivered when John made protest,
howling lustily for the purpose, as the ax-men failed at first to hear
him, while busy with their work of salvation.
“It jars me rudely,” he roared out, unable wholly to repress his
feelings. “It’s hellish.”
“Ahem,” said Governor Leverett. “What would you council us to do next,
friend Soam?”
“Saw the board,” counseled John. “It was a rare good fit, but it had
best be sawed.”
The platform was now changed and one after another the five citizens
plied the saw, for the board was wet, and to saw above one’s head is
irksome in a high degree. Yet at length the cut was made, at one end,
and those below could thrust the imprisoning plank upward. Being still
stoutly nailed at the further end, the board scraped off some buttons,
erstwhile sewn to John’s waistcoat, and it otherwise harassed him before
it was high enough to permit the carpenter to emerge from his attic. He
appeared at last, however, red of countenance and in a fine condition to
do some private blaspheming, had the opportunity been present for the
exercise of this, man’s inalienable function. His friends were
immeasurably relieved to see him, safe.
“Friend John,” said David Donner, “we have come hither on matters of
state. When you are rehabilitated we shall, I believe, be glad of your
further counsel.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER X.
TO FOIL A SPY.
HIS friends, forming a hollow square, now escorted John to the house at
a quick walk. He disappeared like a Jack into its box, when the door was
finally opened, while the grave citizens entered the parlor and awaited
his return. Clothed decorously once more, he was presently with them
again, when the council of five, with Wainsworth sitting near, drew up
to the heavy, oaken table.
They now listened to Governor Winslow, who had journeyed from Plymouth
for this meeting.
“I have begun to lose hope,” he said, “that we shall be able to postpone
much longer the day of evil. We thought our charter was threatened ten
or twelve years ago and we have held it by sheer power of
procrastination and tactics of elusiveness, but Randolph has been with
us here in Boston for seven years, and the harm he did to our
independence in seventy-six has been accumulating interest in trouble
for us, one might say, ever since. He has mastered our methods; he is
closing in upon us every day. It is now a desperate case, requiring a
desperate remedy. The only question is, what means can we undertake to
offset some of the ill repute in which he has caused King Charles to
hold us, and to nullify his further machinations.”
“It would not be safe, would it, to expel the man Randolph from the
colony?” said Leverett, who had first coughed behind his hand.
“Oh no,” said Donner.
“Such an action would precipitate difficulties with the King,” added
Simon Bradstreet.
“And we would not dare to restrain him from further evil work?” John
Soam inquired.
His friends shook their heads.
“We know well enough that he has gathered much testimony from persons
willing to swear falsely, as to the grants to Gorges and Mason, in Maine
and New Hampshire,” said David Donner. “Might we not go over this same
ground and procure true, sworn testimony and statements from more
credible persons, with which to refute him?”
“That would have been well advised seven years ago,” said Bradstreet,
who had a way of tweaking his own nose when he began to speak, “but at
that time we were still engrossed with, and alarmed by, the war with
King Philip, and moreover we knew nothing of Randolph’s methods. It
would have done well then, but now it is too late—much too late—for that
sort of work.”
“I have thought upon the matter long and seriously,” said Winslow. “I
can see no way so good as to send an agent from among ourselves to
England, to intercede with Charles and to plead our cause personally at
the Court, day after day.”
David Donner knew what was coming. He glared at an imaginary Stuart
family.
John Soam said: “I can see the wisdom of such a course. I consider that
when Goodman Simon Bradstreet went to London before, he did this colony
great service. That was—let me see—why, twenty-three good long years
since. Are you of a mind to go once more, Friend Simon?”
“I am an old man,” said Bradstreet, tweaking his nose with extra vigor.
“A younger wit would be of far more service.”
With his four score of years on his head Simon Bradstreet yet did
injustice to his immortal youth and energy. The council knew that it was
the gall and wormwood which he had manfully swallowed, twenty-three
years before, when he went to Charles the Second to congratulate him
upon his restoration to the throne, that wrought upon him now more than
did the infirmities of age.
“If we prove successful in finding an agent from among us, Friend Soam,”
said Winslow, “will you be one with us to find money for his
pilgrimage?”
“And whom would you have in mind?” John cautiously replied.
The governors turned with one accord to David Donner.
“They have asked this service of me,” said David.
Leverett said: “There is no one else so free, so gifted and so
bountifully supplied with knowledge of these colonies. Nor is there any
one among us whose comprehension of the intrigues and artifices employed
by Randolph is so reliable.”
“We have none among us more diplomatic and logical and yet adherent to
the cause of truth,” added Winslow.
“I feel sure, David, you are the fittest man in Boston for this
important undertaking,” John Soam said, gravely.
“And we could count on you to furnish some of the necessary funds, if
Donner will go, could we not?” asked Winslow, striking while the Soam
iron was hot.
“You may, to be sure,” John responded, more slowly. “But David has not
yet indicated whether he will undertake this mission or no.”
This was, indeed, the crucial point. Strict old Puritan that he was,
despiser of ostentations, father already of that spirit of independence
and Americanism being sown broadcast in New England, David Donner had
already made many a wry face over the prospect of serving the colony by
an expedient so bitter as he conceived this present task to be.
“I have debated this matter, since I had my first intimation of what to
expect from Governor Winslow,” he said, pursing up his mouth as if he
were about to swallow a brew of hoarhound. “I am not a young man myself.
I may never return to this land. But—if it is the prompting of your
wisdom to send me, I cannot refuse to serve this colony and these
earnest, toiling people.”
Of the joy which his colleagues felt there was no sign apparent. For
that matter, they would be as sad at losing Donner from their circle as
they would be glad to send him on his mission. Their lives were made up
of joyless duties, woven as a woof through a warp of joyless worship.
But among his hearers there was Wainsworth, and he was glad, not so much
to have the severe old man going abroad, as to know that Mistress Garde
Merrill would now in all probability remain permanently with John Soam
and his wife, who were good-natured, affectionate people. Indeed Mrs.
Soam was a natural woman, more delighted when she was fostering or
encouraging a mating, ’twixt youthful hearts, than she was when kneading
dough into loaves that looked like fat, dimpled babies, and this is
saying more than might readily be supposed.
Thus when, soon after, the meeting had broken up and the Governors had
stiffly departed, it was but natural that Henry should discover,
innocently enough, that he had left a bundle of papers behind. It was
quite as natural, also, that upon returning and purposely knocking at
the door of the family living-room, whereas the papers should have been
still in the parlor, he should be admitted by Goodwife Soam and asked in
most cordially, and sent with Garde to look for the truant documents.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XI.
DANGEROUS TRIBUTES.
ELOQUENT as Wainsworth had proved himself, in the presence of Adam, he
was but an indifferent love’s-man, now that he found himself alone with
Garde.
“I wanted to come back for—for the papers,” he stammered.
“Yes,” said Garde, whose spirit of elfishness Henry always aroused,
“they would soon have missed you sorely.”
“Would they—What, papers?—Oh, you are making fun of——”
“I am making a search to find them,” interrupted Garde. “Here they are.
I am so sorry they have detained you.”
“Thank you—oh, thank you,” said Henry, still stumbling confusedly. “It
is such a lovely day I thought I should like to come back and—and—and
see—if I had really left them here.”
“Yes, such a lovely day would make any one wish to do the same thing,”
said Garde, gravely. “Now that you have them, you must be very happy
again.”
“Yes, oh yes—no, no, the papers haven’t made me happy.”
“Then I am sorry you are sad,” said Garde. “Perhaps the lovely day
outside will make you feel more joyous again.”
“But I am not sad,” protested Henry, getting momentarily redder. “I
wanted to say—I wanted to come back——”
“Yes, you did say so, to get the papers.”
“No—yes!—but I wanted to say——”
“That you had left them, because it was such a lovely day?”
“Yes, of course, but—no, no, I wanted to say—church!”
“Oh, they are church papers, Mr. Wainsworth?” asked Garde innocently.
“No, I—I wanted to say it is such a lovely day——”
“You have said so many things that you may have mentioned the day
before.” Garde’s eyes were dancing, but he had hardly dared to look at
her face, lest his tongue should fail him utterly.
He now fixed his attention on the table with all his power of will.
“I wanted to say, if the Sabbath is a lovely day, like this, may I not
walk to meeting with you and David Donner?”
Piqued somewhat by the way Adam had treated her, Garde instantly saw a
possible opportunity of arousing Adam’s jealousy. He would doubtless
attend meeting. He might see her with Henry. As Prudence would also be
there, with her father, there might be further developments.
“If it is a lovely day, Mr. Wainsworth,” she answered, “I think Granther
Donner will be glad of your company, but if it is not a lovely day,
Granther and I will have to get along as best we may, alone, I suppose.”
“No, I meant any sort of a day!” cried Wainsworth, desperately. “If the
Sabbath is any sort of a day. I only said if it was as lovely as to-day
because any day, would be a lovely day, if——” and there he stuck.
“If it were as lovely as to-day,” Garde supplied.
“Yes,” said Henry, hopelessly. “Then—then that is settled?”
“Do you mean the weather? It ought to be settled, I should think.”
“No, I mean that I am to go with you and David Donner to meeting, no
matter what sort of a day it is.”
“I think Granther will be glad of your company,” said Garde again. She
led the way back to the living-room before Henry could frame any more of
his tumble-down speeches.
Prudence and her mother were both here, now, and both looked up to smile
at Wainsworth, whom they had grown to like for his evident sincerity.
Mrs. Soam was a pleasant woman, with a double chin from which it seemed
all manner of comfortable little chucklings of good-nature took their
start. She should have been the mother of several boys, for she liked
nice boys and felt a sense of motherhood over all she knew. Prudence was
not at all like her mother. Her face was small and serious. She spoke
with a quaint drawl. Although quite as old as Garde, she appeared so
unsophisticated and childish, so quiet and unassertive that no one would
have looked to find womanly emotions, in her breast.
“Well, Henry,” said Mrs. Soam, who always called “her boys” by their
first names, “how have you been and what have you been doing? Have you
heard from England recently? How was your mother, when you heard?”
“She was quite well, thank you,” said Henry, who could talk to Garde’s
aunt without confusion, “but I have not heard from her recently. Oh—I
nearly forgot—I have heard from England, in a manner. That is, a friend
I knew there, arrived in Boston only yesterday.”
“Yes? And who was that?” said Mrs. Soam.
Garde had started to go up-stairs to her own apartment, which she shared
with Prudence, but she halted at the door and came back, for Wainsworth
said:
“His name is Adam Rust.”
Garde and Prudence both took up some knitting and began to ply the
needles, over which their eyes were bent, intently.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Soam, encouragingly. “Is he a Puritan?”
“I don’t know,” said Wainsworth, frankly. “I think perhaps he is. At any
rate, he belongs here, I feel sure. But wherever he belongs, or whatever
he is, he’s a splendid fellow. I was riding to hounds when we met. My
horse threw me, and my foot was caught in the stirrup. I was being
dragged when Rust stopped my run-away horse. He is one of the most
superb horsemen I ever knew.”
“Why, do you mean that he saved your life?” inquired Goodwife Soam. “It
must have been a terrible moment.”
“I haven’t much brains, but I was about to lose what I had,” said
Wainsworth, generously. “He came in the nick of time. And afterwards,
when I happened to be a bit short of funds—as a man will, you know,
sometimes—why, he loaned me nearly every penny he had in the world!”
“Was that not most improvident?” said the listener.
“Yes, I suppose it was. You know, you wouldn’t call him exactly
provident. He is too good-hearted a fellow to be that, you know. He is
one of those fellows you can tell anything about yourself. I tell him
everything.”
He looked up at Garde, as he said this, wishing he could tell her the
half that he had confided to Rust. She never lifted her eyes, however,
from her knitting.
“And what did he tell you of your mother?” asked Mrs. Soam.
“Oh, nothing. He never knew the mater.” Henry tried to think what Adam
had told him. “He just—well, told me of a few general matters.”
Garde listened eagerly, almost breathlessly, dwelling on every word
concerning Rust, but her aunt returned once more to the subject of
Wainsworth’s mother and no more was heard of Adam, for Henry presently
bade them all good day and proceeded to follow, belated as he was, where
his chief had gone, at the close of the meeting.
When he disappeared, Garde dropped her knitting and went quietly up the
stairs, for the purpose of being alone, to think.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XII.
HOURS THAT GROW DARK.
CAPTAIN WILLIAM PHIPPS was as eager as a boy, now that he had definitely
settled on the purpose which had for its object the quest of the sunken
treasure. Therefore he and Adam and the beef-eaters worked unceasingly
to prepare the brig, “Captain Spencer,” for the cruise to the Bahamas.
What with provisioning the craft, enlisting more trustworthy men for the
voyage and refitting a somewhat depleted and inefficient arsenal, Phipps
waxed brusque and impatient. He had desired to get away from Boston not
later than Saturday afternoon, but as the tasks before them had been
tackled by Adam and the rest of them on Friday morning, the worthy
Captain’s ambition to be on the sea on the Sabbath—a day for which he
had little liking—was vain. Saturday night therefore approached and
Phipps fumed, for he could not so outrage the Puritans’ sense of things
Godly as to sail on Sunday, wherefore the departure had perforce to be
postponed till Monday morning.
Adam, with an exaggerated sense of honor, had resisted the longing to go
by night to that same alley in which he had rescued Garde’s cat and met
that young lady with Mistress Prudence Soam. He spent the time with his
beef-eaters and with Wainsworth, making merry for these music-hungering
friends on the violin, which now seemed to him more than ever the one
thing left him on which to concentrate the love of his affectionate
nature.
On Sunday morning Captain Phipps betook himself to his brig, as she lay
in mid-stream, to pother about by himself, while Adam dutifully escorted
Goodwife Phipps to meeting, at South Church, which was nearer than the
old church and more popular as well.
It was a solemn, black procession of Puritans that walked decorously to
meeting in the sunlight. The day was one of almost unseemly beauty, for
Nature was fairly barbarous in the colors which she wore like jewels.
There was riotous gladness in the breeze that tipped back the bonnets
from many a pretty face, to let the sun have a look at peach-bloom
cheeks; there was a deviltry in the warmth that the girls felt first at
their ankles, where thin stockings only protected them; and there was a
twitter and chirrup of birds in the air.
In their homely black and their stiff white collars, the men were as
solemn as posts. No bells sounded, either from afar, with mellowed
pealings, nor nearer with persistent nagging. Men, women and children
alike walked with their eyes steadfastly fixed on the ground.
However, there were two pairs of eyes less meek. They were Adam’s and
Garde’s. It therefore came to pass that each discovered the other,
before the church portals were reached. Garde’s heart began to beat as
if it were knocking to call Adam’s attention. Adam’s hammered as if it
were forging more fetters to bind him tighter in his love.
Garde, with her grandfather and Wainsworth, preceded Rust and Mrs.
Phipps into the sanctuary. Adam followed eagerly, and yet as one about
to enter a prison. He had seen Wainsworth, but Henry, in his ecstasy,
had contented himself with looking devotedly at Garde’s little shoes.
Inside the church, Garde sat somewhat toward the back, while Adam, with
the men, occupied a bench at the side of the building from which he
could see Mistress Merrill’s profile perfectly, as often as he dared to
look in her direction.
Garde, with much resolution, permitted herself not so much as one tiny
flicker of a glance toward Adam, all during the time of service. She
felt him looking at her, however, from time to time, and rejoiced that
her little ruse to make him stirred up and mayhap jealous was
succeeding. The flush of maidenhood’s beauty which had mounted to her
cheek, the moment she found that Adam was near, remained throughout the
morning.
Later to church than any other, a man, alone, and none too reverent,
entered the door and took a seat on the side, from which he could scan
many of the faces in the place. It was Randolph. He had come there for
the sole purpose of looking about him, his reasons being various, but
none of them Godly. He shut his mouth grimly at beholding Adam present,
but when his gaze finally rested on Garde, all the more radiantly
beautiful for the simplicity of her dress, it became fixed, first, then
covetous, and finally passionate.
It was not until the meeting was finished that Garde ventured to take a
sly glance at Adam. Her gaze met his. She saw and comprehended, then,
such a fathomless sadness in his look, before he could drop his gaze,
that she was instantly most penitent over what she had done.
It was the same look she had seen in his eyes that day when he had
marched as a captive, at the end of King Philip’s war—a look she never
had, and never could, forget.
As for Rust, he had confirmed to his satisfaction, all that Wainsworth
had told him. If he had not been convinced before and ready to renounce
his own hopes, he was quite persuaded and determined now. He thought how
fortunate it was that Phipps had the brig all ready to sail on the
morrow. It was very much better to end the matter with the smallest
possible delay.
He spent the afternoon with Phipps and the beef-eaters on the ship. To
his credit, he made himself an agreeable and cheerful companion. Indeed,
what with the songs he had sung for Wainsworth and the others, and the
spirit of his raillery, boasting and readiness to fight or to fiddle, he
had succeeded in deceiving them all as to the nature under his
waistcoat.
Yet when the night was come and the magnet which had been drawing and
drawing him to that alley, sacred to the memory of Garde’s cat, once
more exercised its influence, more powerfully than ever, he became a
restless creature.
It has been said that man justifies himself in whatsoever he does. Adam
thought he needed justification for desiring to go once, just once, into
that alley, wherefore he prepared his mind with several excuses. Armed
with these he at length slipped away from the Crow and Arrow and found
his way to the rear of that house into which he had seen Garde and
Prudence disappear, on that memorable first night in Boston.
Had Rust come to this trysting-place at the same hour on the two
previous evenings, he would have met Mistress Merrill face to face.
Garde, in her impulsive eagerness to see him again, had waited for
little debating before she slipped from the house, to see if he might
not have come to deliver that certain trinket from Hispaniola. Her
cousin Prudence, more diffident, had desired to come forth also, but she
had lacked Garde’s readiness of execution and courage. However she had
not lacked the incentive, and as no maiden is utterly awed, in the
presence of a tender passion, Mistress Prudence had at length steeled
her heart, and to-night she came tripping diffidently forth, not long
after Adam’s arrival on the scene.
So silently had Prudence come that Adam, who might have arranged
otherwise, suddenly found himself confronted, before he had made up his
mind whether he wished any one might appear or not.
“Why, good evening, Mr. Rust,” said Prudence, with a little gasp at her
own daring, “why, I was just walking in the garden and couldn’t think
who it might be, here by the gate. Why, how strange we should meet!”
Adam had said good evening, waving a salute grandly with his hat, the
moment Prudence had spoken, for he had realized instantly that she was
not Garde and his presence of mind had risen to the occasion without
delay.
“I—wandered up here looking, for—for distressed cats,” said Adam.
“Oh, did you?” said Prudence, innocently. “That was real noble.”
Adam hated to have anything he did called noble. He therefore hastened
to do penance, in a measure, for his slightly inaccurate statement.
“I am bound to confess,” he added, “that I did have a faint hope that I
might see either you or Mistress Merrill—or both—to say good-by, for
to-morrow I am off again, for a jaunt on the sea.”
“Going away?” echoed Prudence. “Oh, why, Garde might be disappointed,
not to see you and say good-by.”
Adam thought this was sweet of Prudence, as indeed it was. He could have
mentioned some disappointments himself, but he refrained from doing so.
He thought, in a somewhat bitterly philosophical vein, that perhaps it
was better as it was, better that he should not see Garde again, under
the circumstances.
“You are very kind,” he said. “Perhaps it would not be asking too much
of you to get you to take a small packet—in fact, I have presumed to
provide myself with two little packages, which I trust you and Mistress
Merrill will receive, merely as tokens of a rover’s amusement in the
little event of a few evenings ago, and of a pleasant memory which the
episode will furnish for otherwise lonely moments.”
He had indeed made up two small parcels, intending behind the ruse of
making a small gift to both Garde and Prudence, to bestow thus the
present to Garde brought from Hispaniola and long delayed as to
delivery. He therefore took these carefully wrapped trinkets from his
pocket and held them forth.
“If I might prevail upon your good nature,” he said, “to accept this one
and to give this other into the hands of Mistress Merrill, I should be
grateful to you for the favor.”
Fate takes obvious delight in making her weavings complete. It was
inevitable that Garde should come out to that garden gate, while Adam
and Prudence were talking there together, and that she should therefore
see Adam, presenting something to her cousin, and should at once proceed
to place an erroneous construction on the situation. Angered, humiliated
and hurt, she fled back to the house, as Prudence was accepting the
proffered trinkets and regretfully bidding Adam Rust good-by.
It was hardly feasible so to conceal herself in the house that Prudence
would be long in searching her out, when at length that quiet and
pleased young lady came back to the house, hence Garde accepted Adam’s
present before she exactly comprehended what she was doing.
Prudence, having performed her duty, when the gift had passed to its
rightful owner, hastened away to open her own packet, in privacy. She
found an old Spanish doubloon in the bit of paper, and though a trifle
disappointed that she did not discover an accompanying inscription, was
nevertheless gladdened to the very core of her being.
Garde, rebellious and ready to weep with conflicting emotions, which had
not been assuaged by hearing Prudence tell how innocently she had
happened to meet Mr. Rust, felt like flinging Adam’s gift upon the floor
and stamping it flat with her lively little foot. But the tenderness of
the love she had fostered so long, and the slight hope to which she
still clung, combined with her natural curiosity, proved too strong for
resistance. She opened the neatly tied and folded paper.
Inside was a golden brooch of exquisite workmanship, a treasure
absolutely irresistible to any beauty-loving young woman. But her gaze
flew to a secondary little wad of paper, folded as a note. This she tore
open with nerveless fingers.
“From Hispaniola,” Adam had written, simply.
Under this he had penned a quatrain of rather obscure meaning and weakly
versification:
“It always haps, when there are three,
But two can bide in unity;
That two may long their gladness keep,
The third should bury sorrow deep.”
Garde read these lines and then read them again, more puzzled by the
second perusal than she had been by the first. She began then to feel
wounded. She was ready to cry. The brooch had made her heart bound with
joy. Then she remembered that Adam had procured it for her years before,
since when his affections might have been transferred, his ideals might
have been altered and the sense in which he gave it her might have been
reduced to something utterly unromantic. He might indeed have given it
to her only because of his desire to keep a foolish promise made in his
boyhood.
The lines were not an explanation of his conduct. If they meant that she
was a third party, interfering with the happiness of himself and
Prudence, then the unkindness of it all was not the full depth of its
possibilities—it was impudent, arrogant and fairly hateful, in that
light.
On the other hand, could it be possible that Adam did not mean that she
was such a third party as the lines indicated, and if so, what did he
mean? Was he himself such a third party? This appeared impossible on the
very face of it, for not only was Garde not interested in, and happy
with, some other person, but if she had been, Adam could not possibly
have known it, and certainly, in the two times they had met, she had
given him no reason for supposing that anything of the sort could exist.
It was too much for her wearied brain to cope with. She had puzzled over
Adam’s conduct every moment since their meeting in the woods, till she
could think no more. There was the beautiful brooch, and here were these
ominous, enigmatical lines. All she knew was that she was very unhappy.
Adam, in the meantime, made progress back to the tavern as if he were
all but becalmed and had no more than steerage way at the best. He had
only one thing to be glad about, and that was that his beef-eaters would
not be at the Crow and Arrow to meet him. They had already taken up
quarters on the brig. There Adam expected to join them, with the last of
his worldly goods, when he should have taken final leave of Wainsworth.
When he reached his solitary apartments, however, he was sorry the
faithful old beef-eaters were not there to give him welcome, for the
place was dark and cheerless. He lighted his candle and looked about the
room with melancholy interest.
Presently his attention was attracted to a number of bright spots on the
floor, irregular patches, from which the light was reflected somewhat
dully. Candle in hand he walked toward the corner where these glittering
objects were strewn about. With a sudden misgiving he noted that his
violin case had been brought out from the place of concealment in which
he had carefully kept it.
Bending forward, with one hand poised in an attitude of arrested action,
he stared at the litter on the floor, his face becoming colorless as he
stood there, numbed. A low moan came from between his lips—such a sound
as he had made in his sleep, as he once lay curled up at the foot of the
stake on which King Philip’s head was impaled.
The fragments on the floor were the scraps and litter of his violin.
There was not one piece as large as three of his fingers. Isaiah
Pinchbecker and Psalms Higgler had taken their revenge.
Slowly Adam knelt down and gathered the bits of wood in a little heap,
lovingly. He was not enraged. A lover who finds his sweetheart murdered
cannot at first be filled with anger. Adam gathered every little scrap
and splinter. He tried to fit little fragments together; he tried to
efface heel-marks and bits of boot-grime from some of the pieces, as if
he searched for features which he loved.
It seemed as if he could not realize that the violin was actually
destroyed. He looked away from it and then back at the small heap
beneath his hands, like one half expecting to wake from a dream and find
everything as it had been before something unthinkable occurred.
Perhaps a woman who had given to her child, willingly and absolutely,
the mastery over her every emotion, thought and hope, and who had come
upon the body of that child, slain and mutilated, could have understood
what lonely Adam Rust underwent.
For like such a woman, conceiving a fear that the despoilers might
return and rob her even of the body of her child, the man presently, in
a fever of excitement, took every patch, shred and chip of the red wood
and hiding it carefully inside his waistcoat, dropped himself down from
the window to the earth and went away in the darkness, like a wild thing
pursued.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XIII.
A KISS DEFERRED.
GARDE, when she had questioned her cousin Prudence, until there was
little or nothing concerning Adam’s visit and farewell at the gate which
she did not know, was still far from being certain of anything in
connection with the whole predicament.
One thing, however, gave her a small measure of comfort. This was that
her brooch was much more beautiful than the Spanish doubloon Adam had
given to Prudence. Yet this comfort grew cold as she reflected that even
if Adam did possibly like her as much as he did Prudence, he had written
her those incomprehensible lines about burying sorrow, and he had gone
away, she knew not where, or in what manner, without even giving her an
opportunity of bidding him God-speed.
Mistress Merrill was not impulsive and nimble-witted without having
resources at command, when occasion demanded. She was up ahead of the
ordinary lark, on Monday morning, making straight for the home of old
Goody Dune, for whom she frequently gathered simples.
Goody Dune had not contented herself in life with simples only. She had
gathered complexities of wisdom and the things abstruse in life, for
many a year. She was a wrinkled old woman whom children, kittens, dogs,
horses and all things guided by instinct always sought in friendship at
once. Anyone with patience enough to reconstruct her face on the lines
it must once have worn, in her youth, would have found personal beauty
still indicated in the old woman’s countenance. Her eyes still ensnared
pretty lights of humor; her lips were still of that soft texture which
in youth is so charming and in old age too flexible over vacancies where
teeth are gone. Her hair was plentiful and so entirely gray that one
might have looked at it closely and then have said: “Yes, the black ones
seem to be coming; they will soon be getting quite thick.”
Never yet had Garde been able to get to Goody’s house sufficiently early
to knock on the door. Goody always opened it to receive her. And always
the old woman’s great black cat stood up, on top of the tall clock, on
which she had been lying but the moment before, now arching her back and
stretching, to add her welcome to that of her mistress.
The room never had ceased to have its fascinations for Garde, since the
first time she had seen it, in her childhood. The small bags, which hung
from the rafters, along with pendants made of herbs, roots and bulbs,
might have contained gold and precious gems, for all that Garde knew to
the contrary, while the dark cupboard and the great chest increased the
possibilities of the place, which would have been so grand to rummage
in, had it not been for the brass warming-pan, so terribly like a
watchful moon, forever looking down from the wall. Then lastly, and
mostly, in some particulars, there was Rex, the jackdaw, a veritable
concentration of all the dark arts and wisdoms extant.
“Good morning, my dear,” said Goody, as Garde entered, breathless with
her haste, “you have come to see me early.”
“She’s in love,” said the jackdaw, gravely.
“Oh, dear me!” gasped the girl.
“Rex, you wicked one,” expostulated Goody, mildly. “Never mind, my dear,
he found you out that morning last week.”
This was the truth for Goody had said these very same words, several
times, in the presence of Rex, no more than five minutes after Garde had
gone, that day when she and Adam had met in the forest.
“But I—oh, Goody, Rex is really wicked,” said Garde. “But I do so need
you to tell me something.”
“Who doesn’t,” answered Goody. “What a pity it would be if I could never
save anyone in the world from some little pain, or some mistake, and
yet”—she shook her head, smiling half sadly—“how few human beings are
willing even to listen. They must all burn their fingers and learn for
themselves.”
“Fools!” said the jackdaw, “fools, fools, fools. I’m a fool myself.”
Fortunately Garde was not unaccustomed to these interruptions on the
part of the knowing bird, so that, although he always made her pause and
look at him, as if she expected to see how he did it, when he spoke, she
was now enabled to tell Goody her troubles with quite as much rapidity
as coherence.
She held back nothing. She told all about her original glimpse of Adam
in the Plymouth procession, of their meeting, her immediate regard for
him, then and there, the long fostering of her affection, and the events
of the days just past. This done, she produced her slip of paper, on
which Adam had written his mediocre verse, and laid it before the wise
woman to be deciphered.
Goody read the lines several times. “How old are you now, my dear?” she
asked, and then she added, “It hasn’t anything to do with your worries;
it is only for my own foolish gratification that I ask.”
“I am eighteen,” said Garde.
“Well, I should have been puzzled myself, at eighteen,” said the old
woman. She looked into vacancy, for a moment, dwelling on some fond
memory that brought her sad smile to her withered lips again. “But you
need not be worried. He loves you, dear, as indeed he should, but for
some reason or other he believes you care for somebody else, and he is
therefore taking himself away. Believing as he does, he is certainly
right, as well as brave, in going away.”
“But I don’t love—like any one else,” protested Garde. “And I don’t see
how or why he ever got such an idea into his head. He doesn’t know
anybody that I know. He went to meeting with Mrs. Phipps—Oh! oh—Mr.
Wainsworth!—He does know Mr. Wainsworth.”
“Yes, dearie, and does Mr. Wainsworth seem to fancy you, or anything of
that sort?”
“And Mr. Wainsworth told us he had seen Adam, and that he told him
everything,” said Garde, thinking for herself and musing aloud. “Oh,
dear me!”
“Oh, dear me!” said Rex, derisively.
“And do you know where your Adam is going, and when?” inquired Goody.
“Those ought to be your main considerations now.”
“Why, to-day,” answered Garde. “But I don’t know where, or anything else
about it. What shall I do? If he goes away like that, I may never see
him again!”
“Did you say he went to meeting with Goodwife Phipps?”
“Yes,—yes, I saw him myself.”
“Then you can be almost certain that he is off somewhere with Captain
William Phipps, for a more restless, sea-hankering man never lived and
remained so good as Captain Phipps.”
“Oh, I might have thought of that!”
“Then you ought to be able to think of something to do this very
morning,” said Goody, a little, pretty color burning up in her wrinkled
cheeks. “It is still early, and you have good stout legs.”
Garde suddenly jumped up and kissed her.
“Good-by!” she said. “Oh, thank you, thank you, so much! But—haven’t you
something I can take to—to Captain Phipps?”
Goody immediately supplied her with a small package. “Take him this
tea,” she said. “No sailor should ever go to sea without it.”
Garde sped away, as if on the wings of impulse.
“She’s in love! she’s in love!” screamed the jackdaw, hilariously. As
she ran, Garde could hear him clapping his wings against his body, in
noisy applauding.
Running and walking alternately, by the quieter streets and lanes,
meeting no one on her way, Garde finally arrived in sight of the
ship-yard belonging to William Phipps. Her first impulsive thought had
by now had time to abate somewhat and give place to a more sober
reflection. Mistress Merrill began to wonder what she would say, if she
did manage to see Adam Rust. It had been by a swift inspiration, almost
an instinct of a maidenly young woman, that she had provided herself
with an excuse for racing to this place. No modest girl could bear the
thought of seeming to run after a man, or to say anything bold to him,
or anything calculated to show that she held herself in any way other
than proudly aloof, where he must bring his love, if he would sue for
her favor.
She thought of all this as she went. She also began to think that
perhaps Goody Dune might be mistaken. If Adam were found and he did not
love her after all, not for all the world would he get one sign from her
that she loved him or cared for him one tiny bit, or cared whether he
went or remained.
She was breathless, rosy as a cherry and excited. Her hair had fallen
down and the plaits had loosened. It hung about her face and nestled
against her creamy throat like strands of ebony, richly copper-plated.
Her dark eyes were flashing; her lips were parted, revealing her teeth
like little white soldiers in a row. As she ran, her skirts whipped
upward, in curves, about the roundest and trimmest ankles imaginable.
She now observed a small boat, approaching the landing. Out in the
stream the sails of the “Captain Spencer” were rising like clouds. Garde
then discovered the figure of a tall man, who had been sitting on a heap
of logs, for he arose and went toward the dory, which had evidently come
from the ship to fetch him. She recognized familiar outlines and the
drag of the sword which the man was wearing.
“Adam!” she cried. “Oh, Adam, wait!”
But she was still too far away to be heard. Adam continued leisurely
walking toward the landing. Then the sailor who had rowed ashore for
Rust, saw the picturesque figure coming toward them so swiftly, and
pointed her out to Adam.
Rust was puzzled for a moment. Then he knew it was Garde. His heart
turned a double somersault in his breast. He felt himself grow red to
the tips of his ears. He walked toward the girl as one uncertain of what
is expected of him next.
Garde stopped running, when some distance away, and came on more slowly,
brushing a wisp of hair from her face. Suddenly afraid of what she had
done, uncertain of what she would or could say, to explain her presence
so that he would think no less of her than before, she was glad he had
not heard her call out his name, but she was tremendously excited. Her
eyes shone like brown jewels. Her bosom was heaving rapidly.
“Why—good morning, Mistress Merrill,” said Adam.
“Oh—it is you—Mr. Rust!” said Garde, in the surprise which a woman can
feign on a second’s notice. “Why, I thought—why, good morning. I thought
I might find Captain Phipps here, and Goody Dune wished me to give him
this tea, and she heard—she heard he was going away this morning.”
“Oh! thank you, very much,” said Adam, a little thickly, in his
tremendous excitement, which he was endeavoring to restrain. “Goody Dune
was very thoughtful, and you were kind to come.”
“But Goody didn’t tell me I should find you here,” said Garde,
truthfully enough. She had never felt so stirred in her life. But
outwardly she was beginning to be calm. “You told Prudence you were
going away. Can it be possible that you are going with Captain Phipps?”
“Yes, this morning,” said Adam.
Then there was a silence for a moment. Garde hardly knew what to say
next. If she should make the slightest advance and he should receive it
coldly, or derisively, or without understanding, she would die of
mortification. The pause became dreadful to bear—to them both.
“I got—Prudence gave me the brooch—from Hispaniola,” Garde stammered,
presently.
Adam saw it. It was rising and falling like a little golden ship, on her
bosom. He felt himself somewhat at sea. If he could only have blurted
out that he loved her—if it had not been for Wainsworth, what a moment
this would have been!
“I am glad you like it,” he said.
Garde felt that there was little encouragement in this remark. “You will
not forget to give the tea to Captain Phipps, will you?” she said. “I
think I must now return.”
“I wish you had brought this tea down here for me!” said Rust suddenly,
no longer answerable to his loyalty to Wainsworth.
Garde had wished he would say these very words. She had rehearsed the
answer she would make if he did. Her heart, had it been a bird beating
its wings, could not have fluttered more wildly.
“If I had come down here to see you, it would only have been to tell you
that you have made some mistake,” she said, averting her gaze from his
and looking on the ground.
Adam trembled, uncontrollably, violently. She saw it in his hand.
“Do you mean——” he said.
“Yes,” said Garde, raising her eyes to his frankly.
“Then I can love you! I do love you! I’ll come back here and marry you,
sweetheart! I shall love you and tell you I love you and love you!” he
burst forth passionately. “My little Garde! my love! my sweetheart!—my
little wife that I shall have and love till my heart is full!”
Garde gasped for breath in the whirlwind of his words, that swept her
fairly off her feet. Her hand had been on a post, where she had been
picking away little particles of bark. Adam took it. His big hand
encompassed it all about. She felt his soul rush to his fingers, to meet
the throbbing of her own emotions.
“Oh, Adam!” was all she could say for a moment.
“Garde!” he replied, “my Garde—my love! Why didn’t you tell me about it
before?”
“You—you were the one,” she said, somewhat regaining her footing. “You
were going away without even saying good-by.”
“I thought——”
“Yes, you thought such silly things,” interrupted Garde, impulsively,
yet joyfully. “You thought I could like somebody else, and that is why
you were going away—without even asking. And I don’t know why you ever
came to see me the first time and made me name my cat Standing-Panther,
if you were going to think such things as that.”
Adam laughed. It was a sudden bubbling over of his spirits. He was the
bright-eyed, joyous boy again, all at once.
“Poor Henry—poor Henry!” he said, with irrepressible mirth and gladness.
“But he never loved you as I love you, sweetheart! He couldn’t! I love
you so that I would cut down an army to get you and run away with you
here in my arms though all the demons of earth should follow!”
“Oh but, Adam—you mustn’t!” said Garde, as Rust was about to demonstrate
the ardor of which he had spoken.
“What, sweetheart, not one little kiss?” he said.
“Why, no, of course not, Adam,” she answered him, blushing prettily.
“Aren’t we betrothed?” he demanded.
“I have not said I will marry you, have I, Adam?” she said, roguishly.
“But you shall, sweetheart. I love you so much that you can’t help it! I
love you so it seems as if I shall explode! I love you, dear! Do you
hear me say it? I love you! I love you, Garde. You do love me,
sweetheart—just a little?”
“Yes, I—love you a lit——,” Garde was saying.
“A-d-a-m R-u-s-t.——come—aboard!” came a great voice across the harbor,
from the brig out in the stream.
“Beg pardon, sir, the Capting’s calling,” shouted the sailor, who had
rowed ashore for Rust.
Adam waved him a dumb reply. “Then you will give me one little kiss, for
good-by, sweetheart?” he begged.
“No—it’s too soon,” said Garde. “Besides——”
“But I am going away,” interrupted Adam. “And I have loved you seven
years!”
“Oh, you are not going away now—not now, when we have just found out
there was some mistake?” said Garde.
“I have promised to go, and therefore I must,” said Adam. “And I have to
go and get that fortune now, so that I can come back and marry you,
sweetheart! I must keep my promise to Captain Phipps.”
“But you won’t stay away for seven years again, will you, Adam?”
inquired Garde, looking at him wistfully and candidly now, with all her
love in her eyes. “If you do——” she left the sentence unfinished.
“No, I will not,” Adam assured her. “But if I remained away for fifty
years, I should love you and love you still. And will you love me,
dearest, as long as that?”
“Yes, I shall love you longer than that,” answered Garde. She was not
impulsive now, but her manner was sweetly earnest, therefore it was more
beautiful than all her other beauty. “I shall always love you now,
Adam,” she added. “It seems to me as if I always had.”
William Phipps roared across the water once again.
Adam’s less tumultuous, more enduring love, came into his eyes. He
thought the caress of her long look was sweeter than the kiss Garde
might have given him.
“I shall have to go,” he murmured. “God bless you and keep you,
sweetheart. Good-by, dear Garde.”
“Good-by, Adam,” said Garde. “I shall pray for your swift return.”
He swept her little hand to his lips for a second and then strode away.
Garde placed her other hand over the tingling fingers he had kissed, as
if to prevent the caress from escaping.
As he went out over the water, she waved her tiny handkerchief to him,
and permitted two warm tears to trickle down her face.
Adam’s memory of her was of her pretty, brown figure, seen from afar,
and the look in her eyes, which he felt that no space could dim in his
vision.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XIV.
OVERTURES FROM THE ENEMY.
AGAINST his long journey across the Atlantic, David Donner made
preparations that consumed no small amount of time. A sufficient
quantity of money had been subscribed by the patriots who were so
concerned for the charter, but this was one of the least important
details of Donner’s contemplated venture. As a matter of fact, the
Puritans had acquired the arts of procrastination patiently and
laboriously, for this had proved their most efficient weapon of defense,
in those days of struggling against the Stuart dynasty, and therefore
the cream of the putting-off science permeated the very being of David
Donner. He nursed his preparations till they grew and flourished.
Two ships bound for England sailed without him. He was quite calm as he
contemplated further events of a like nature. At length his
fellow-citizens, eager to have him at his work, expostulated with him,
mildly. His answer astounded them all. He said he had reasons for
believing that Edward Randolph was beginning to feel inclined toward
more kindliness of spirit with regard to the Colony and the men who had
built it there in the wilderness. Randolph had made overtures of
friendship to him. He appeared to be a more agreeable person than any
one of them had heretofore believed.
Randolph, indeed, was fairly wooing the old man’s regard. He had begun
by nodding, pleasantly, when he and Donner passed in the streets. He had
followed this up by halting at Donner’s gate and admiring his flowers,
for which the old man had a secret passion.
“If I could dissuade him from his evil purposes,” said David to his
colleagues, “if I could win his favor for the charter, and so enlist his
services with us, instead of against us, I should be of vastly more
service to Massachusetts by remaining here than I could be if I were to
go to the Court of Charles.”
Nevertheless the governors held the promise of David Donner sacred. He
would go as agreed, unless he could shortly furnish something
substantial as a result of this coy flirtation of Randolph’s to gain his
good opinion.
It had been observed that Randolph had been a regular attendant at South
Church for several Sundays. This new departure of his had been at first
regarded with suspicion. Coupled with his attention to David, however,
it began to look honest and therefore hopeful.
Grandfather Donner was pothering about in his garden, on one of these
mornings, when Randolph paused at the gate, as he had frequently done,
and asked leave of the old man to present him with a small rose-tree,
having even then a beautiful rose upon it, to plant in some sunny corner
of the place.
No olive branch of peace could have opened Donner’s heart more
effectually than did this simple matter.
“Come in, friend,” said he. “Come in.”
“It has always seemed a pity to me,” said Randolph, “that men whose
political ideas may happen to differ should not be friendly in other
particulars, with no more thought of their daily affairs than they would
have of the clothing upon their backs.”
“Just so,” said David, who thought the time propitious for missionary
work at home, “but I should think, however, that with your youth and
earnestness you might have a great future before you, as one of us,
working as we work, hoping as we hope, and helping to build this new
commonwealth on a rock of solidity and unity.”
“I have thought of that,” said the heavy-browed visitor. “But how would
a man proceed to accomplish a result so remote from one like myself?”
“Would you plant it here, or next to the wall?” said David, holding the
rose-tree in his hand and looking about for a suitable place in which to
tuck its roots.
“I would plant it here, by all means,” said Randolph.
Donner began to dig in the earth with a knife. “Well,” said he, “I
should say you would do best to get married and adopt our ways, and
labor with us to maintain our government and rights.”
Randolph’s deep-set eyes gleamed with satisfaction. He said: “You may
not be surprised to know that I have had such an ambition as this. Could
I look for your encouragement and support, if I entertained the idea of
marrying, here among your people, and making my life with your lives?”
“Why, to be sure, friend. I would be the first to welcome the attachment
of your heart and your interests among us. And have you looked with
favor upon some one of our young women?”
Randolph noted with pleasure that the rose-tree was firmly planted and
the earth about it patted and pressed down almost affectionately. “It
would hardly be fair,” he said, “to give one flower, only to ask for
another.”
“Would you have some of my poor flowers?” said the old man, innocently.
“Why you shall, then, anything you like.”
“I spoke of my hopes that I have dared to entertain,” said the visitor.
“I referred to the fairest flower in all Boston, indeed in all
Massachusetts.”
Donner looked up at him quickly. He rose to his feet, having been down
on one knee to plant the rose. “Have I understood you aright?” he said.
“It has slipped from my tongue unguardedly,” said the younger man. “Your
encouragement of my hopes led me to this confidence. But I feel I can
speak to you almost as if you were in the attitude of a father. I can
come to you where I could not come to any other man in Boston. I have
seen Mistress Merrill, in the simplicity and piety of her life, and this
has made me wish to become one of you, working with you and living your
lives. Can you not encourage me so far as this?”
David Donner was all but rendered speechless. Such a thought as that
Garde had grown up and blossomed had never entered his mind. But not
only to find that this was so, but also to have Edward Randolph—the
enemy—desiring this alliance, this was more than he could think of, for
a moment. He had egged the man on, while he had some vague idea of some
other young woman in mind—some other man’s daughter, or
granddaughter,—he had been ready to abet such an arrangement, gladly,
for the good of the colony, but to find that it was Garde that Randolph
wanted—this was indeed a bolt from a clear sky.
“Friend,” he said, finally, “I shall have to think this over.”
“I feared it would sound abrupt,” said the visitor, “yet it is not a
sudden fancy with me. It has been my constant thought for many weeks. I
have even foreseen difficulties. I have worked so many years apparently
against the interests most dear to the colonists.”
Donner nodded at him, for this sounded frank. But the old man’s thoughts
were afield, wandering, for the proposition came home to him with
tremendous significance.
“But,” resumed Randolph, “any man can conceive that an agent must do, to
the best of his ability, that which he honestly believes to be his duty,
howsoever unpleasant the task imposed upon him may finally appear.”
“True,” said David, still vaguely.
“I have done my work as well as I could,” the man went on. “I have
accumulated matter of vast significance. I am almost sorry that I have
done so thoroughly well, the task appointed me, and still all this work
might make me the better fitted for citizenship among you, if I follow
out your suggestion.”
Donner was not insensible of the threat which this artful speech
implied, the threat that all this accumulated matter and knowledge would
be used against the colony and the charter, if this man were not made
one of their number. But Garde was not to be lightly weighed in the
balance. Randolph’s frankness partially disarmed the old man; and the
life of the charter, he felt, was the life of their independence, their
manhood, their very being. The tiny roots and tendrils of American
patriotism grew from the very hearts of those early fathers of liberty.
“This is a matter which would much concern Mistress Merrill,” said
Donner. “I made the error of trying to coerce her mother. I shall never
coerce Garde.”
“I trust not,” replied his guest. “And yet I hope you will think upon
the matter and mayhap speak to Mistress Merrill in this regard, for
although I am in a conflict, ’twixt my duty to my King and the high
regard which I have been constrained to place with you and your people,
through Mistress Merrill, yet I fear I am eager to be remiss with
Charles, rather than a traitor to my own heart.”
“I will think upon it,” said David, slowly.
Randolph thanked him, spoke of the rose again and went his way. He was a
gardener himself, and having planted his seed, knew enough not to dig it
up to see if it had yet begun to sprout.
David Donner sat down to think, not of Garde and not of all that
Randolph’s visit signified, but of Garde’s mother and his harshness when
her heart had burgeoned with aspirations for itself, and of the pain and
wretchedness he had brought to all concerned. He thought of the mad
little elopement into which he had driven his daughter, which had ended
so disastrously to the honest but poverty-overtaken father of her child.
Then he thought of the home-coming, the birth of Garde and the death of
the forlorn little mother. He could hear again her faint words of
forgiveness; he could see again her wan smile on her faded lips; he
could still feel the weak, white hands that raised to slip themselves
about his neck and which, when he had put them down, he folded on her
breast, still forever.
“I have never coerced little Garde,” he said aloud, “never, Ruth,
never.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XV.
LOVE’S INVITING LIGHT.
SOMETHING had happened to Mistress Garde Merrill, even as far back as
upon that first Sunday at Meeting, when Adam had been beneath the South
Church roof, where she could see him from the corners of her eyes. Love
had left its sign-manual upon her. She had suddenly become illumined
from within, by her heart’s emotions, so that she appeared to shine from
afar, in the somewhat gray and unjoyous lives of the Puritan young men
about her.
Thus it was that, in addition to Randolph, who attended the service
solely for the purpose of feasting his eyes upon her beauty, there was
always Wainsworth, who heard nothing of the Meeting’s cheerless
proceedings. And there was also young Piety Tootbaker, who knew not at
which shrine he was worshiping, from Sunday to Sunday.
Garde was half the time at her uncle, John Soam’s. This fact increased
the facilities for the young men to seek her presence, for the Soams
were life-loving people, in spite of their Puritan conformity to the
somewhat melancholy and smileless practices of the day. Moreover, John
Soam, who thought himself something of a farmer, as well as a carpenter
and Jack-of-all-genius, not infrequently impressed the would-be suitors
into various duties with which he was amusing himself about his place.
Piety Tootbaker was a fat young man of modest wealth in his own right,
his father having died leaving Piety his sole heir. He was a heavy lump,
who came often and said next to nothing, so that his intentions might
have lain anywhere between Prudence, Garde and the family cow, for aught
that any one could ascertain definitely. He was John Soam’s easiest
prey, when the farmer or carpenter, as the case might be, was seized
with a desire to work.
Randolph contented himself with courting David Donner. He felt no small
contempt for Wainsworth and Tootbaker, whose movements he was stealthily
watching. He had placed his reliance on power always, and with complete
success. The present was no time to alter his usual tactics.
Grandfather Donner, left alone with his thoughts, arrived at no
conclusions rashly. He went systematically to work on his friends, to
get from each an expression of belief that Randolph, if he would become
one of them, working for instead of against them, would be a valuable
factor for the preservation of the charter. This opinion he readily
secured, especially as he gave no hint, as yet, of the method by which
Randolph’s conversion was finally to be accomplished. Indeed so much
promise could his friends discern in the securing of an end so
commendable, that David Donner began to justify himself in the thought
of aiding this matter with all reasonable power. He encouraged the
growth of a better opinion of Randolph, in his own mind. He argued the
man’s case with his friends, with fanatical insistence, until they
perforce admitted virtues in Randolph’s disposition, heretofore quite
overlooked.
Thus he wrought upon himself until, mentally, he accepted the ex-enemy
as his grandson-in-law, to whom he was willing to extend his welcome, if
not actually his love. With this development of the case, his dislike
for the journey to England increased, while, far from abating, his
concern for the charter grew the more active, as he dreamed of
preserving it here at his own home.
His state of mind was not a thing at which he arrived immaturely. The
proposition had come to him with something of a shock. He had never
contemplated Garde’s marriage at all. She was still a child to him, or
at least, she had been, up to the moment when Randolph spoke. Not the
least difficult of his tasks with himself had been that of compelling
himself to admit that Garde had actually arrived at the threshold of
womanhood—that she was marriageable. This having been finally
accomplished, Randolph had half won his battle.
As long as Garde would presently desire to marry, then why not Randolph,
especially as such an alliance would be of such tremendous political
significance? Yet he continued still to tell himself that Ruth’s child
should not be coerced in any direction whither she was not counseled by
her heart and her own inclination to proceed. He could see no reason,
however, why she should entertain any notions which might be at variance
with his own. Nevertheless it was not without emotion that he finally
summoned Garde to the interview in which he meant to broach the
proposition.
“My child,” he began, “I have desired to have a talk with you, which
bears upon matters of some importance to you and of vast significance to
the state.”
“Yes, Grandther,” said Garde dutifully, and she sat down with her
knitting. “I suppose you are going to England at last.”
“That remains to be seen,” said David. “The need for something to be
done is great. No loyal soul in all our commonwealth could wish for
aught but a chance to serve this colony in her present straits. Have you
great love for Massachusetts and her people, Garde?”
“Is not love a passion?” she answered, without raising her eyes from her
work.
“Love of one’s country is not an unseemly passion,” said her
grandfather.
“Then I have for Massachusetts a seemly regard,” said Mistress Merrill,
who had given all her love elsewhere.
“And could you sacrifice somewhat of your personal thoughts, and mayhap
desires, for the colony? Could you be a little patriot in the hour of
your country’s need, my child?” asked the old man, his look intent upon
her face.
Garde thought he doubtless referred to his projected trip abroad. She
was inclined to believe that she could endure the personal sacrifice of
living with the Soams during his absence.
“I should try to be dutiful,” she answered.
David Donner felt his old heart knocking on his ribs. It was a moment of
much intensity for him.
“You have always been a dutiful daughter,” he said. “Have you ever had a
thought, child, of the womanhood come upon you, and that mayhap you will
one day become a wife now, and be as other women, a child no longer?”
“Any young woman would think on these matters by nature,” replied Garde,
sagely. “But I have thought of nothing to occur soon, as to such a
matter.”
“No, no, to be sure,” said David, nervously. “Yet I have desired to
speak with you upon this subject, for an estimable young man has asked
me to do this in his favor.”
Garde, who had believed his thought anywhere but here, looked up at him
quickly. She saw the old man’s face drawn and eager, his eyes bright
with the flame of incipient fanaticism. She was wholly at a loss to
understand him.
“A young man?” she repeated. “Some one has spoken to you thus of me?”
For a moment her thought ran wildly to Adam. Could it be possible that
he had returned and spoken to Grandther Donner already?
Donner cleared his throat. He was pale, for he had not come to this
moment without some violence to his own conscience.
“My child,” he said, a little huskily, “a great opportunity is offered
to you to render a vast service to your country—to Massachusetts. Edward
Randolph, who has long been against us, has come to me with an earnest
desire to become one of us, working with us and not against us longer,
and asking your hand in marriage, to cement the unity of his interests
and hopes with ours. He appears to be an earnest, sincere man, at last
heartily in sympathy with our struggles, and worthy of good citizenship
among us. I have told him I would speak to you upon this matter, Garde,
and take him your answer.” He paused and mopped his forehead with his
handkerchief.
Garde could hardly believe her ears. She looked at her grandfather
oddly. The color left her cheeks, for a moment, only to rush back in a
flood at thought of Adam and the betrothal, to her so sacred. She had no
thought whatsoever, during that interval, of the colony, or of
patriotism, or of anything save what this proposition meant to Adam and
to her. As for Randolph, she know him only by sight, and her instinct
had prompted her to shun him, if not to loathe him. Her impulse was to
start to her feet and cry out a shrill repudiation of the man’s offer.
But the sight of Donner’s face awed her. She had never seen him look
like this before. She remained seated. She resumed her knitting.
“But I do not even know Mr. Randolph,” she said, mildly. “I have not
been taught to trust or to respect him.”
“But if we have done him injustice,” said David, eagerly, “surely we
must welcome an opportunity to correct it. He has worked against us, it
is true. He could overthrow our charter, but he chooses rather to become
one of our number. If I go abroad, I may fail at the Court of Charles.
If we can save our charter here at home, it will be the grandest thing
we have ever done. And you can do it, my child—you can do this great
thing! You will, I feel you will!”
Garde was a little terrified. The old man’s anxiety was almost dreadful
to see. Had he been laying bare a steel crow-bar in his nature, she
could not have comprehended more thoroughly the stubbornness which she
felt opposition to him now would discover in her grandfather.
“This comes to me so suddenly,” she said, “that I cannot at once think
upon it.”
“But you can think what it means to the colony!” said the man,
passionately. “You would wish to save the charter! Mr. Randolph has
become my friend. I have found that my former estimate of his character
was false. He can take away our charter in a moment—his work is done.
But he also can save us! He shall save us! Are you a daughter of this
commonwealth—a daughter of a patriot? You can save the charter. Oh, what
a glorious honor! You will let me take your answer back?”
Garde’s color had gone again, not to return. This was a moment that
frightened her heart. No one could have lived there as she had done and
not be saturated with the hopes and fears of the colonists, not be
trembling for the government, the independence, the manhood they had
builded up on those stern rocks. In her first baby utterances she had
lisped the word “Charter.” For ten years their charter had been their
Holy Grail to those American men and women of Massachusetts. The air was
pregnant with patriotism. The Charter had hung trembling in the balance
month after month, ever since Cromwell’s son had abdicated the English
throne and Charles had sat in power once again. Garde could not have
been the true daughter of America she was, had she not thrilled first
with the possibilities of this fateful moment, before her soul shivered
at the price she would have to pay to perform this splendid-seeming
deed.
Sense of duty had been bred and ingrained in the children of that hour.
It held a sway well-nigh incredible in youthful minds. It fell athwart
Garde’s thought with appalling weight. And yet her soul leaped to Adam’s
arms for protection, as her heart bounded to his with love. She felt as
if she could crash through the window and run away, to the
woods,——anywhere, to escape even the contemplation of this thing. Had it
not been for her knitting she felt she must have done something
dreadful. As it was she seemed to tie herself into the pattern—the
wilder self—and so to gain a sense of calmness.
“I could hardly answer this so soon,” she said. “Haste first leaves no
time for thought after.”
“Thought, child?” demanded the old man, on whom her calmness acted as
her mother’s had before her. “Can you wish to hesitate, when the whole
state stands breathless for your answer?”
“And did you hold me so lightly that you said, ‘Yes,’ the moment this
was presented to you?” said Garde. “Grandther, I was but a young girl
this morning. What has a moment done to make me such a woman as this?”
“But our charter—our government—our liberty, child!” cried David,
raising his two shaking hands above his head. “You can save them all!”
“And is it so light a matter for me to become the mother of our
liberty?” said Garde, on whom the spirit of wisdom had strangely
descended, no doubt from Goody Dune. “Grandther, you would wish to think
of this yourself.”
She had risen from her seat. She faced her grandfather and he saw her
eyes nearly on a level with his own. A look of her mother, sad,
appealing, forgiving, played intangibly across her face. The old man’s
look seemed to follow its transit. He passed his nervous fingers along
his brow. The fire died away in his eyes.
“Then think it over,” he said, huskily. “Think it over, my child, think
it over. I will not coerce your decision. No, I’ll not coerce her, Ruth,
no, no, I’ll not!”
He moved to the door, as one in a dream, and left the room.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XVI.
GARDE’S LONELY VIGIL.
DAVID DONNER was not to be deterred for long, by the shadow of a memory
which he had seen flit like a ghost of his past, across Garde’s
features. He was arriving at that age when a man’s memory is not so
strong as in years past and when the events of the day at hand seem
therefore the more important. He fretted under his promise to go abroad,
desiring this to be abrogated by his fellow-colonists, and this could
only be done when he should persuade them that the charter would be
saved, or at least his country better served, by his remaining where he
was. He had not as yet spoken to his colleagues of Randolph’s
proposition. He was waiting for Garde to give him her answer.
The girl watched the old man narrowly, to see how long she could wait,
for her answer was no more ready after a week than it had been on the
first day. This was not entirely because her affections were placed
elsewhere. She was a little patriot, otherwise her love for Adam would
have prompted her reply at once, and from hot lips. She was undergoing a
genuine struggle with herself. If it were true that she could save the
charter, should she permit her own happiness or Adam’s to stand before
the happiness and rights of all the Massachusetts people? Had not Adam
himself written that when there are three and only two could be happy,
the one, representing the minority, should suffer sorrow, that the
greater number might preserve their joy? Then, when she and Adam were
only two, how much more they should endure sorrow, when all the people
of that colony weighed against them in the question.
No, it was not a simple matter in which her own desires could speak out
above the clamor of duty. And yet, she could not feel the truth of
Randolph’s position and promise. Suppose he had not the ability, so to
save the charter as her grandfather believed he would. Suppose, having
the power, he should prove dishonest, when once he had won his desire.
What was there in a wife to tie him to his obligation? If politics had
prompted him to go so far, would they not continue to prompt him
further, after the marriage had given him his way? To sacrifice herself
and Adam was to Garde a mighty thing. She was capable of any heroism,
but her mind and her nature exacted that it be not specious. No travail
of motherhood ever gave a more acute or prolonged agony than was Garde’s
portion as she strove to give birth to a wise and right resolution.
Her grandfather, in the meantime, waxed more and more impatient. It had
been his habit from early manhood to have his own way. In avoiding
precisely the difficulties into which he had fallen with Garde’s mother,
he felt that he was on the safe side in his promise not to coerce his
grandchild. This gave him the greater latitude in which to bring
pressure upon her from what he conceived to be another standpoint. Yet
that repression of his feelings and passions which he had practised for
long among the Puritans, made him more patient with Garde’s indecision
than would otherwise have been the case. He became childishly eager,
more than harshly insistent, in this frame of mind. He coaxed her many
times in a day, to see what her bravery and loyalty could do.
Christmas and New Year were long past, and still Garde had made no
decision. In the spring, when she could make no more excuses for
delaying, she told her grandfather how gladly she would comply with his
wishes, if only she could know, absolutely, that Randolph would keep
faith with the colonists and secure them their charter against all need
for anxiety. This was her honest word. It came from her heart as if
every word had been jagged, leaving her wounded and all but ill.
“Let Mr. Randolph prove that he will work for our good with the King,”
she said. “Let him secure us but one year of ease from this constant
worry—let him show us a year of the favor he can win from Charles, and
then I shall be content. This is not much that I ask. If his heart is so
set upon me as he says, surely he could wait this time and do these
things. A true regard could wait for as many years as Jacob served for
Rachel.”
With this decision, which he regarded as a binding promise, and which he
represented to Randolph as a betrothal, David Donner had to be content.
Randolph could not, without betraying intended perfidy, object to
conditions so wisely conceived. Argument was precluded. Grimly shutting
his jaws, the man consented to the arrangement, for else he must have
abandoned his quest altogether.
As the months wore on, he went regularly to South Church, there to sit
out the service, which he detested like poison, for the purpose of
fixing his eyes upon Garde, as if he had been a beauty-vulture, only to
be satisfied by gazing upon her until he was all but self-hypnotized. As
for Garde, conscious as she was that the man thus stared in her
direction, she never so much as once gave his eyes an answering glance.
She did not love him; there should never be any pretense, come what
might, that she did. Her thoughts and her heart beats were true to Adam,
and so should remain to the end.
David Donner told his colleagues in triumph of what he had done, of the
answer Garde had made and of the hope they had for the future. He had
justified himself in remaining in Boston.
The measure of the power wielded, even at the throne of England by
Edward, Randolph could never have been estimated in Massachusetts, but
month after month slipped away while the charter remained intact and the
men of that anxious colony breathed with a sense of relief which none
had felt before, in nearly a score of years.
Garde, with what hope her year’s respite inspired, began her lonely wait
and watch for Adam’s return.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XVII.
A NIGHT ATTACK.
THE night was a thing of perfection, on the sea. The moon rode aloft and
its light danced merrily on the tips of the waves. A smart breeze pouted
the sails on the “Captain Spencer” till she plowed her way like a
skimming albatross through the phosphorescence of the southern field of
ocean.
On deck the beef-eaters, Adam and William Phipps, with the mate and a
jovial boatswain, were in high spirits. They were nearing their goal,
after a run which would have awakened some sort of a rollicking devil in
a deacon. Captain Phipps had felt a spell of bubbling coming upon him
for days. It always did, the moment he dropped Boston out of sight, over
the green, serrated edge of the riotous Atlantic. Therefore he had
broken off the neck of a bottle of good, red juice, which had lain for a
year in the hold of the brig, and this liquified comfort had circulated
generously.
The beef-eaters, arm in arm, were now spraddling about the deck in a
dance of which Terpsichore had never been guilty, even in her A B C’s of
the art. The boatswain was furnishing music from a tin pipe, the one
virtue of which was that it was tireless.
At length he altered the tune, or at least, so he said, and after a bar
or two of the measure had lost itself in the sails and shrouds, Adam
cleared his throat for a song.
“In the Northern sea I loved a maid,
As cold as a polar bear,
But of taking cold I was not afraid—
Sing too rel le roo,
And the wine is red—
For a kiss is a kiss, most anywhere,
When a man’s heart goes to his head.
Ho! the heart of a man is an onion, boys,
An onion, boys, with a shedding skin.
And it never gets old, for you off with its hide,
When you meet a new love, and it’s fresh within!
In the southern sea I loved a lass,
As warm as a day in June;
And oh that a summer should ever pass—
Sing too rel le roo.
And the wine is red—
For my summer, my lads, was gone too soon,
With a man’s heart gone to his head.
Ho, the heart of a man, etc.
In the Western seas I loved a miss,
As shy as the sharks that swim;
And it’s duties we owe to the art of the kiss—
Sing too rel le roo,
And the wine is red—
If a maiden so shy should be took with a whim,
And a man’s heart gone to his head.
Ho, the heart of a man is an onion, boys,
An onion, boys, with a shedding skin.
And it never grows old, for you off with its hide,
When you meet a new love, and it’s fresh within!”
There were more of these verses, one to fit every sea, of which there be
more than seven, as the song proved. The beef-eaters and Captain Phipps
joined in the chorus, for the boatswain gave it a rare flavor of music.
At the wheel, the second mate had jammed a marlin spike between the
spokes, to hold the brig on the wind, and sitting cosily down had gone
fast asleep. The lookout aloft had become absorbed in the singing, to
which he was bending every attention. In the midst of a chorus, which
might and might not have been the finale of Adam’s ditty, there was a
sudden alarm that rang from one end to the other of the brig, and all
too abruptly a black hulk of a ship, with never a light, came sizzling
the brine in her speed, the length of a few anchor-chains away, and made
for the “Spencer” with dire intent.
The music ceased as if it had been cut off with a knife. Scuttling
swiftly to the side of the ship and then bawling orders, and chasing to
the armory in hot haste, Phipps, Adam and the others yelled that a
pirate was upon them. The words, like an incantation of marvelous
potency, summoned men like so many gnomes, from hatches, companion-ways
and fo’castle, on the instant.
The brig’s deck suddenly swarmed with its own men, running hither and
thither, shouting, stumbling, swearing, while Phipps and Rust came
darting back with arms full of cutlasses, pistols and muskets, gathered
helter-skelter, and now thrown with a great clatter upon the planking.
Scrambling here to arm themselves, the sailors heard a crunch, felt the
brig shudder beneath their feet and beheld half a dozen iron hooks come
flying over the gunwale from the pirate, and saw them jerk snug up to
the rail, as the raiders pulled taut on the lines that quickly lashed
the two vessels together.
A black cascade of men came leaping from the pirate, landing heavily on
the “Spencer’s” deck. Their pistols blazed yellow exclamation points of
fire, as the men struck on their feet, and then with a clash of steel on
steel, Rust, Phipps and half a score of sailors rushed upon the invaders
and a mad scuffle and melée ensued.
Rust was conscious of a few things about him in the confusion. He
thought how cold the naked blades looked, slashing in the moonlight; he
heard the yells and curses against the background of a slapping sail
that was making a sound like a weird alarm; he felt the strength of the
big rascal, who was cutting at him with that brute force and disregard
for skill which is so deadly to engage. He thought the fellow would
slice his saber in two. He lost no time in feinting. The brute of a
buccaneer lurched forward to sweep his blade clean through Adam’s body
and then suddenly a moonbeam seemed to cleave its way through the
ruffian’s neck. He dropped his sword and spun around with his head
lolling sideways and went down.
Adam rushed to the taff-rail. The pirate ship was straining at the ropes
by which her hooks secured the two black hulks together. Smiting these
taut ropes with mad fury, Rust saw the pirate drift away and the gulf of
water widen between the two vessels, while the scoundrels aboard the
robber-ship yelled a discordant chorus of curses.
Then back into the fray, the din of which was rising, as wounded men
smarted and yelled and rushed upon one another anew, like snarling
wolves, Adam darted, pistoling a creature who came running upon him and
then heaving him overboard as the fellow writhed on the planks.
The sailors of the “Spencer” had somewhat the best of the conflict,
which was a match in scuffling hotly all over the deck. Less than a
dozen of the pirates had been able to leap aboard before the vessels
were apart, and their bawlings for help to their ship had been rendered
vain, for the moment, by Adam’s prompt action in cutting the lines.
However, the sea-scoundrels were versed in fighting, where the sailors
were merely rough-and-tumble sons of Cain whose rage was their principal
accoutrement. They were at their adversaries, hammer and tongs. They
were wrestling with some, hacking at others, swearing at all. It was a
small pandemonium in which it was next to impossible to distinguish
friend from foe.
Phipps, like the woodsman from Maine that he was, hewed his way from one
group to another, shouting to his men, hoarsely. The beef-eaters, as
inseparable as when they were dancing, chose but one man between them,
and one such they peeled to a horrid core, as the demon rushed upon
their sharpened weapons.
Adam stepped in a crawling line of gore, its head silver-tipped in the
moonlight, and slipped till it wrenched him to hold his footing. He saw
the sailors crowding three of the pirates to the rail and, joining them,
battered the cutlasses from their fists and helped to hoist them bodily
over and into the sea.
The din had hardly abated anything of its volume. The scene was one of
the maddest activity. But the robbers not already done for, were now at
bay against the masts, the capstan or the rail. One tripped backward
over a coil of rope. The next instant he was screaming help and murder
at the top of his lungs. This he continued even after a dreadful rattle
and spluttering came in his voice.
Over the reddened decks one or two wounded creatures were crawling, one
wiping gore from his face and flinging it off his fingers. Swords and
pistols lay about. One dying human was lying on his side, with his arm
extended and his index finger slowly crooked and straightened and
crooked again, as if he beckoned to death to come more quickly.
The sail began to slap at the mast again, as the brig swung bow on in
the wind and stopped in stays. The croaked curses of the pirates, on
their ship, which was now again drawing swiftly toward the “Spencer,”
made Adam and Phipps suddenly run to the brig’s brass gun, which was
looking dumbly forth toward the pirate.
Rust had filled his pocket with loose powder. The cannon was already
loaded. He poured a small pyramid of powder on the vent and he and
Phipps, with the combined strength of two giants, slewed the piece
around till a ball from the pirate could have been tossed into its
yawning muzzle.
From the galley, the cook came running with blazing coals on a shovel.
He had been watching the gun. The pirate missed her mark. She came up in
stays, just as the “Spencer” got again on the wind. The bows of the
robber-craft were almost in touch with the brig.
Adam saw that the cannon would fail to sweep the pirate’s decks—that the
shot would be practically wasted, if it went at the gun’s present
elevation. With a sudden impulse he leaped astride its smooth, brass
nose and bore it down, depressing the muzzle toward the water, just as
the crazy cook turned his shovel upside down on the primed vent.
There was suddenly a deafening roar. The concussion shook every man’s
feet from under him. The gun leaped backward, like a bucking horse, and
Rust went sprawling on the decks, for he had been left abruptly, with no
support beneath him.
The shot tore a hole in the pirate the size of a hogshead, squarely on
her water-line, in her starboard bow. She came about in the wind and the
sea rushed into her hold in a torrent.
A dreadful silence ensued when the air was clear of the detonation. Then
a moan from a dying wretch on the “Spencer’s” deck seemed to touch into
being a chorus of yells from the doomed pirate, where the murderous crew
found themselves armed to the teeth and yet sinking, defenseless, into
the very jaws of death. Their sails slackened again and shook with a
sound as of funeral shrouds.
The “Spencer” scudded away into the boulevard of silver which the moon
was paving with its light. The sinking pirate gathered the cannon’s
smoke about her and settled swiftly, but not in silence, into the grave
that fitted so snugly about its body.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE GLINT OF TREASURE.
THE brig “Captain Spencer,” came duly to her goal at the green Bahamas.
What with wounds received from the pirates, who had called so
unceremoniously, and from sea-sickness, which they always had, the
beef-eaters were glad of the sight of land. Phipps and Rust were filled
with rejoicings by reason of the dreams they had of thrusting a naked
arm apiece into the sea and fetching up handfuls of gold with which to
return to two sweet women in Boston.
All hands were presently doomed to disappointment. Phipps learned that
his treasure-ship was indeed a fact, but that she was small, both in
tonnage and her burden of Spanish coins, that she lay in many fathoms of
water and that, indeed, she was scarcely worth serious attention.
Phipps was, however, a popular man at these bits of jeweled land in the
emerald sea. He had traded there on several occasions, making friends
always. Thus it came that a hobbling old salt, whom he had befriended in
a scrimmage, consoled him with the information of a large treasure-ship,
sunk somewhere in the neighborhood of Hispaniola. He resolved at once to
pursue this matter to the end, for which purpose the “Captain Spencer”
would be wholly inadequate, as the Spanish Main was as filled with
pirates as the sky may be of buzzards over dying caravans.
With the approval of the entire party, the brig was now headed for
England, Adam and Phipps feeling confident of their ability to secure a
larger ship for their enterprise.
On familiar soil when the “Spencer” at length came to anchor, off the
tower of London, in the Thames, Adam had little difficulty in finding a
market for the brig. With the proceeds of the sale in his pockets,
William Phipps, under Adam’s tuition, blossomed out as a gentleman of no
little personal attractiveness. Adam, as one born to the purple, donned
a handsome attire and swaggered with all the elegance of a prince.
He was soon in the midst of his former acquaintances, with one of whom
he fought a duel at the end of the first week, requiring his vanquished
foe, who was only sufficiently wounded to be satisfied, to kneel in
humility and to wipe the victor’s blade clean of his own red juice, on
the hem of his coat.
Rust until now had never had occasion to regret the disfavor in which
Charles Stuart held him, since a certain distinguished lady had declared
the “Sachem” to be vastly more entertaining than his Majesty with ready
narratives. However, he was undismayed, for with James, fated so soon to
be king, he was amazingly friendly.
William Phipps, for his part, needed but one introduction and no
recommendation. Above all things temporal, James reveled in naval
adventure. Blunt, gallant Captain Phipps appealed to him instantly. The
tale of the treasure-ship set him aflame with eagerness to go with this
adventurous company to the western Indies, where he could readily
picture himself, Phipps and Adam fighting their way to the rotting
strongholds of the Spanish galleon, sunk there half a century before.
With an alacrity which was of a highly complimentary character to Phipps
and Rust, the Prince procured a fine vessel, the “Rose-Algier,” with a
crew of ninety-five men and an armament of eighteen guns, and gave her
into the trust of his friends for their enterprise. It was agreed that
inasmuch as he thus found the ship and the expenses of the venture, he
should have ninety per cent. of whatsoever treasure should be recovered,
Phipps declaring for himself and Adam how contented they would be with
the remaining one-tenth.
Late in the year, which was 1684, the “Rose-Algier” bore away for
Hispaniola, Phipps, Adam, and the faithful beef-eaters, whom seasickness
nor peril could drive from Adam’s side, soon beginning to wonder what
manner of crew it was with which they had shipped. A few weeks later,
King Charles the Second died. James ascended the throne. Thus the
treasure-seekers were backed by the English monarch and his government.
A sunken ship has frequently proved to be a small thing, and the ocean a
large one, to the seeker, eager for its cargo. The “Rose-Algier” dipped
into all manner of harbors and her master asked all manner of people all
manner of questions, to no avail. The months slipped by, in this tedious
occupation, the crew grew weary of a voyage so profitless and so
entirely unpromising.
The grumblings of mutiny have a way of keeping below decks, where they
simmer volcanically. Nevertheless the beef-eaters heard something of the
discontent in the fo’castle, where the ruffians of the crew were for
seizing the vessel, running up the black flag and turning pirate
forthwith. The Rose was a swift, great bird upon the waves, she was
armed to the teeth, she was well provisioned. What more could be desired
for buccaneering? And piracy paid its disciples handsomely. Spain and
France, particularly, had a hundred argosies in constant flight between
the West Indies and home. Gold was the commonest burden of all. Your
pirate was a dare-devil, whose life was reputed to be one long round of
adventure, drinking and looting. All pirates either died happy or hung,
and anything was better than this pothering about in a good ship,
seeking for treasure that was sunk admittedly, while millions of
treasure was afloat and nearly all to be had for the asking. With
precious few exceptions the crew agreed that this was true enough for
every practical purpose.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XIX.
MUTINY.
FORTUNATELY mutinies frequently come to a head prematurely. On the
“Rose” a jealousy hatched between rival factions of the plotters, so
that before they were any of them in actual readiness, one faction, in
order to be ahead of and therefore in command over the other, rushed
upon the quarter-deck one night and made a sudden descent on Captain
Phipps, who happened for the moment to be there alone.
Phipps became renowned for his presence of mind and courage. On this
occasion he promptly knocked down three or four of the ruffians, and
then with a loaded revolver and a handy marlin spike, he awed the others
into submission before the alarm had even time to spread. The
malefactors being summarily placed in irons and thrown into the hold,
the insurrection below decks retired into the dark corners, to knit
itself anew into shape.
The sailors now recognized the necessity for uniting their forces.
Moreover, the faction which had been less precipitate, gained the
confidence of those half-coward, half-demon followers, or human jackals,
who were willing to urge the lions of the fo’castle on to strike the
blows of death, content if they could then sneak upon the scene for a
feast of remains. Thus a better plan was laid, while the mutineers
dissembled and lulled even the suspicious Phipps into a sense of
security that he had not possessed before the overt outbreak, which he
had been able to quell single-handed.
The plotters found no opportunity of effecting their designs for several
weeks. At length, however, Phipps steered his vessel into a tiny harbor,
bitten by the sea into the side of a small, uninhabited island, which
was even minus a name. This he did for the purpose of reshipping the
stores, in the hold, a recent storm having shifted this cargo until the
“Rose” listed to port dangerously, and leaked.
The crew, in silence and obediently enough, constructed a bridge to
shore and carried the stores to land, heaping them up in piles, on the
beach.
The unlading being accomplished, the crew desired permission to rest in
the shade of the near-by woods. This was granted. Once in retirement
here, they conceived a plan without delay whereby the ship should fall
into their hands that night.
Already they had managed to purloin a complement of arms. They had
knives, a few pistols, hatchets and several cutlasses. The stores being
ashore, the ship was at their mercy. Their plan was simple enough. They
would remain away from the shore until seven o’clock, when they would
proceed to the ship in a body, overpower Phipps, Rust, the beef-eaters
and the few other faithful souls on board, seize the “Rose” and leave
her captain and his friends on the island, to starve. There was but one
element lacking—the ship’s carpenter. The “Rose” having sprung a leak,
in the storm, was regarded by the sailors as no longer seaworthy, until
the carpenter should put her right. He therefore became a necessary
adjunct to their numbers.
The carpenter, on being summoned to appear among them by the crew,
listened to their plan with horror. However, he was not a coward and he
had his wits about him. He nodded as if in approval of the plan, the
more readily, perhaps, as he was threatened with death if he dared
refuse to become one of the murderous gang. Then he informed them that
some of his tools he would much require, to further the plot.
He was sent aboard the ship, with a guard beside him, who had undertaken
to see that he permitted no leakage of the crew’s little game into the
ears of the Captain. However, this carpenter was a man of resources. He
was suddenly overpowered by illness, on which pretense he went below.
Then, breaking into a run, he came to the Captain’s cabin, where Adam
was singing the song of his loves. Bidding Rust to continue, as if
nothing was happening, he swiftly communicated his news to William
Phipps.
“Go back at once and pretend to assist in their deviltry,” commanded
Phipps. “Make no sign of anything, save compliance with their wishes,
and leave the rest to me.”
The carpenter rejoined his guard so soon that they were entirely
satisfied. They conveyed him ashore, with his tools, and joining their
mates again, waited with what patience they could muster, for the
fateful hour of seven to arrive.
Phipps had now two hours in which to prepare to defend the ship.
Unfortunately some of the guns had been landed with the stores. Adam
volunteered to draw the loads from these, and this he accomplished, with
highly satisfactory speed. But it would have been the work of hours to
re-transfer the stores to the hold, hence they were left on shore to
themselves.
With close on ninety armed, desperate brutes against them, the handful
of men on the “Rose” were hardly in an enviable position. The first
thing they did was to remove the bridge which had been constructed
between the ship and the shore. The remaining guns on board were then
dragged and slewed around till they covered the approach from the woods,
by which the mutineers would be obliged to come. There was nothing to be
done, then, but to wait.
The crew were not disappointing. They appeared duly, their savagery
whetted to a fine edge by the burly ruffian who had assumed command of
their force. Phipps had prepared his speech. He hailed the men, in his
big, gruff voice and commanded them to halt where they were, on pain of
instant annihilation.
“Go near the stores,” he cried, “and I will blow you in splatters
against those trees!”
The cowed scoundrels edged back toward the woods. All the muttered
threats of their leader, of what he would do if they refused to charge,
were empty to the wretches who could look into the chasm-like mouths of
a dozen guns. There courage oozed out of their veins. They were already
defeated.
Phipps, aware that a similar number of dummies would be equally
dangerous, now, had his faithful followers run out the bridge again and
bring aboard the stores, without which it would have been madness to
sail. This work consumed no small amount of time. But it was finally
concluded.
“Now then,” said Phipps, when the situation was all in his favor, “I
shall pull up anchor and leave you rogues to the fate you had prepared
for me. You can stay here and starve and rot!”
This brought the mutineers to tears, and to pleading on their knees.
They were willing to come to any nameable terms, if only he would spare
them this terrible fate. They threw down their arms, in token of
absolute surrender, begging quarter of any description.
Inasmuch as so large a vessel could not have been sailed without a crew,
Phipps received them back, the ring-leaders in chains, and doubled the
vigor of his mastery.
“But, Adam,” he said, “it’s no use with these scoundrels. They will
drive me back to England yet, with none of the treasure.”
Distrustful of the brutes he had between decks, Phipps now sailed for
Jamaica, where he quickly discharged nearly every man Jack of his
mutinous crew and took on a new lot of sailors. This was not a matter of
a few days, it required nearly a fortnight of time, Phipps being
exceedingly particular as to the men he selected. In the meantime two
things occurred which gave no little anxiety to the treasure-seeking
captain. Rust fell ill, with an attack of tropical fever, and a letter
arrived from Goodwife Phipps in which she begged to know if her lord and
master were still alive, and if so, would he not speedily return to
Boston and give no further heed to fortune’s beckoning.
William Phipps had seen men sicken and die in these latitudes. Adam,
attended faithfully by the beef-eaters, took the fever lightly, as he
seemed to take everything of life. Nevertheless he was weak, when the
heat had somewhat abated in his body, and in no fit condition to remain
in the tropics.
“Adam,” said the Captain, gravely, having schooled himself for a day and
night together for this moment, “I have about concluded that the ‘Rose’
is no longer fit for this service. I shall return to Hispaniola, but
unless I shall make out the galleon in a few weeks, I shall sail again
to England, for a newer ship.”
“All right,” said Adam. “I shall be ready this afternoon.”
“Well,” said Phipps, hemming and hawing, “the fact is, Adam, you are
quite unfit to remain about these islands. Besides, I should be glad of
a messenger to send back to Mrs. Phipps in Boston. I would suggest,
therefore, that you return thither, on a frigate, sailing to-morrow
morning, and if it chance that I go to England and again return to
Hispaniola, you could meet me here and help me to find the treasure.”
Rust seemed to hesitate before making his reply. He was sure there was a
treasure for him in Boston, but he had begun to have his doubts as to
the sunken, or any other sort of available, gold in the Spanish Main.
Yet he did not wish to appear eager to abandon the quest, and his heart
was above all else loyal to Phipps.
“If I should, by great good fortune, discover the treasure,” continued
the Captain, “you shall suffer no loss for your absence, for your
services have been ten times over rendered already.”
Much as he was affected by the friendship which prompted Phipps to
assure him of this, Adam was not in the least concerned with thoughts of
the treasure, nor influenced by this generous plan which his friend had
formulated. But being a reasonable being, in some directions, and being
perhaps unreasonably inclined in others, as for instance, toward
Massachusetts, he saw the wisdom of the Captain’s arrangements, and
therefore bade his friend an affectionate farewell, on the following
day, and sailed for the north, with the beef-eaters close at his heels.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XX.
GARDE’S EXTREMITY.
HAD prayers been able to reach him and summon him back to Boston, Adam
would have been there long before the fever overtook him at Jamaica.
Garde, more alone than she had ever been in her life, had appealed to
the stars, to the wind, to the tides of the sea, to convey her yearnings
to Adam and to bid him hasten to her side. She was alone because she,
only, distrusted Randolph. She was alone because she felt no longer the
slightest companionship with her grandfather, because even Wainsworth
and Tootbaker respected the provisional betrothal she had made with
Randolph and because not to Prudence nor even to Goody Dune had she felt
she could confide her cares and the breaking of her heart, under the
present painful circumstances.
Her distrust of Randolph had grown, despite the fact that, in a measure,
the threats against the charter had ceased and a pseudo peace contented
the patriots with the thought that their difficulties had been finally
remedied by the alliance to which they all now looked forward with
abnormal interest and confidence.
Garde had maintained her right of immunity from the attentions of
Randolph, consistently and steadfastly. She had never given him the
single glance, at Meeting, or elsewhere, for which he was becoming
crazed. The light of malice that burned in his eyes was a thing that
Garde felt, occultly. It was a threat to break her will, some day; it
was tigerish in its animal hunger. No creature of prey ever lay in wait
for its victim more ready to pounce, to overpower and to drag away to
its den the coveted object of its greed and passion.
But the months had winged heavily away on their somber-colored pinions,
and the moment for which Garde had hoped, when she set the one year’s
time of probation had never come—the moment of Adam’s return. The second
Christmas, so joyless with the Puritans, was far off, with the other
departed days of winter. The snow had melted; the tender shoots of grass
were returning, in hordes, like little green armies; the first buds were
breaking the cold, dank soil and peeking forth, while still close
wrapped, as if to say: “Is it time?” And only Garde would have pushed
them back, only Garde, usually so joyous in the returning of warmth and
beauty, would have held to the edge of the mantle of snow, to retain it
where it lay.
Her heart was beating like a lead clapper, that tolled against the bell
of her soul, day and night, for the fear that was on her of the coming
week, when her year of respite would end. Already her grandfather looked
at her with fanatical eagerness in his eyes, and rubbed his shaking
hands with delight. He had no eyes to see that she was pale, that she
started at sounds as she had never done before, fearing that Randolph
had come a few days too soon, to claim and to carry her off. The old
man’s one idea was the safety of the charter. To secure this, no
sacrifice could have been too great. But as a matter of fact, David
Donner had no conception of the sacrifice which he was requiring. Such
zealots rarely have.
In despair, three days before her dreaded hour should arrive, Garde
hastened like a child, afraid of an ogre, to Goody Dune. The evening was
cold, for the sky was overcast, the wind was blowing from the north and
a few scattered speckles of snow flew spitefully through the air.
“B-u-h-h—it’s cold! B-u-h-h—it’s cold!” said the jackdaw, when Garde
came in at the door. The bird was echoing the past winter’s history of
what poor old Goody had suffered, alone in her hut.
“Well, dearie,” said the old woman, who was evidently making
preparations to go out, on some mission of her own, “you look as if you
too are in need of some of the simples you gathered in the summer.”
“It is nothing simple that I need,” said Garde. “I have come for wisdom
and help. Oh, Goody, I don’t know what I shall do. I wish so I had come
to you sooner!”
“You must stop trembling first,” said Goody. “Here, take this cup of
tea. It is going to be a bitter night.”
She had prepared the drink for herself, to fortify her meager warmth of
body against the wind, into which she expected to go on an errand,
presently.
“It is not from the cold; it is inside that I am trembling,” confessed
the girl. But she took the cup, obediently. “If you can do nothing to
help me, I could wish the cold would never let me go back to my home!”
“There, there, drink the tea,” said Goody, after giving her one
penetrative glance. For young women to feel that terrible demi-mania of
desiring self-destruction was not new to Goody Dune. She had gone
through the stages herself. She knew almost exactly the conditions which
universally promote the emotion in the young of her sex.
“I know that Adam has never returned,” she said, slowly. “You have had
no word, even. I have seen that in your eyes. But, dear me, have you no
abiding faith and hope, child? In the spring——”
“Oh it isn’t that, Goody!” broke in Garde. “I could wait—I could wait
for him fifty years, patiently—yes, patiently. I love him. But you don’t
know what has happened. I have never told you. What was the use! They
made me promise;—and if Adam knew—he might never come back. No—he would
not come back. And I love even the very places where his shadow fell, in
the forest—and the log he was sitting on. I love the gate where his
hands rested—I love everything he ever touched!” Her hands pressed upon
her bosom, where, beneath her frock, she wore the brooch from
Hispaniola.
Goody had never seen her in such a mood. She had never heard such
passion from her lips. But by the memory of her own heart-break, she
caught at the sinister cry of something promised.
“And have you given yourself in promise to somebody else?” she asked,
quietly, but somewhat severely.
“Grandther forced me. What could I do?” said Garde, feverishly. “What
could anybody do, with the charter being taken away? If I could save it,
I ought to save it! But he will never, never keep his word! He is
deceiving them all,—I feel it! I know it! He is a wicked man! But you
will tell me what to do. You must tell me what to do!”
“Sit down, dearie,” said the old woman, calmly. “You must tell me all
about it. I cannot prescribe, even simples, until you let me know what
you are driving at, you know. Now who is this he, through whom you are
to save the charter?”
“I don’t know how it ever happened,” said Garde. “He was always known to
be the enemy of the colony, but he did something to Grandther, who has
never been the same man since Mr. Randolph——”
“Edward Randolph!” interrupted Goody, with a sudden vehemence, the like
of which she had never before betrayed to Garde. “Did you say Edward
Randolph? Have you promised to marry him, to save the charter? There,
there, sit down and tell me your story, quietly. Only, do make haste.”
Garde wondered, momentarily, at the old woman’s abrupt outburst. It
served to give her a new hold on herself, for it broke her own morbid
thought and excitement. She told Goody what had happened to mar her
happiness almost before Adam’s kiss had ceased to burn on her fingers.
She told it brokenly, incoherently, for she knew all the details of the
story so vividly that she could not realize that Goody was not also in
possession of the entire fabric of thoughts and struggles which had
brought about her grandfather’s cherished end. However, Goody Dune was a
woman, and quick-minded and astute at that. She patched as rapidly as
Garde gave her the irregular fragments of the tale. She had shut her
mouth tightly at the end of her own outburst, and it seemed to Garde her
lips had grown harder since. Her eyes were certainly snapping crisply.
Goody was aroused.
“Come with me,” she presently said, interrupting Garde’s outpourings
again. “When you came I was starting to go where it would be well for
you to follow, before the hour grows later.”
“But, Goody, won’t you tell me what to do?” said Garde, in anguish.
“You will know what to do, when you go home,” said the old woman,
somewhat grimly. “I know Edward Randolph by his works.”
She led the way out into the gathering twilight without further delay.
Garde shivered a little, as the cold wind struck her again, but she
followed, eagerly, with wonder in her heart and a little awe of Goody,
in her tortured mind. What could the old woman mean? Where could she now
be hastening?
Goody proceeded with a straightness that argued familiarity with the
route, and fixity of purpose in her mind. She went by alleys that led
down toward the water, where fisher-folk had builded little shanties on
the rocks above the roar of the harbor breakers.
“I am taking you to see another young woman,” she said. “She was pretty
too, and she had no parents. Her mother died five years ago, and her
father, James Hodder, was lost in the storm, last spring. She was an
easy prey, you see. Poor Hester! and only fifteen.”
Garde looked at the old woman in wonder. All this half muttered preface
to something coming, served to make her heart beat so hard that she
could hear it, painfully.
“What is it about her?” she asked, breathlessly.
Goody made no answer. She had reached the door of one of the huts, and
pushing it open she entered, Garde, pale and large-eyed, close behind
her.
“Ned—oh Ned!” came a half sob, half chortle of joy from somewhere in the
darkness of the place. Garde felt shivers go down her entire form.
“Not Ned yet, my love,” said Goody, in a voice so cooing that Garde
hardly knew it. “Presently, dear, presently. He is sure to come back
to-night. Dear me, we must have a light and see how we’re doing.”
Garde had heard a little moan which Goody’s cooing had not sufficed to
smother. Then there had been the sound of a stifled sob. Goody went to
the dying embers in the chimney-place, to get a light for a tallow dip
on which she had put her hand with unerring familiarity with the
furnishings of the place. The voice, with tears and patience in its
syllables, came again:
“He will come—back, to-night? He—didn’t come—last night. He hasn’t—come
for a—week.”
“Oh yes, he will surely come to-night,” crooned Goody, at the fireplace.
“But how is the little dollie?” Garde was leaning back against the door,
heavily. Her eyes were staring into the utter darkness with which the
place was filled. She felt the presence of a woman on a bed of
motherhood. She was ready to sink on the floor, with terrible
apprehensions. The woman on the bed made some heroic effort to calm
herself, and to answer Goody’s question.
“She’s sleeping,” she said. “She was so cold, but I have got her warm
again.”
The tallow dip now flared. Goody shielded it cautiously as it sputtered
and then she arose to her feet. Between her fingers the light spread,
throwing great, grotesque shadows of her hand on the walls, in one
direction and a larger adumbration of her head in the other. Garde saw
the couch, which she had known was in the corner. She also saw a white
face, too thin to be pretty, and all of a soul’s being and anguish
concentrated in two great eyes. Her own eyes were blazing with the
emotions by which she was possessed. As if there had been some great
affinity between them, the young woman on the couch was looking at Garde
the moment the dip illumined the room.
“Who’s that?” said the startled Hester on the couch.
“A friend, a friend, dear,” said Goody. “I brought her to see you. She
knows Edward.”
“She—she knows Ned?” said the wasted young mother, raising herself up,
abruptly. “Let me see her. Oh, oh,—you are so pretty! But you won’t take
him away from me—you won’t take him, please? He does really love me—he
didn’t mean what he said. He must love me, now. He hasn’t seen our
little baby, or he would love me more than anything in the world. You
wouldn’t take him away from me—now?”
As Hester sat there, propped up by one thin, white arm, brushing her
hair from her face and leaning eagerly toward her visitor, Garde could
only put her hand to her cheek and shake her head. Her bosom rose and
fell in the agitation which was shaking her whole being.
“Oh, I am so glad—oh, I knew you wouldn’t,” said the girl on the couch.
“You couldn’t have the heart, could you? See—see!”
Weakened as she was, she made a great effort to rally her strength and
dragged a little bundle forth from between the blankets and her own
throbbing bosom, where she had kept it partially warm. She was stifling
sobs all the time she was speaking. Her nerveless fingers sought in the
folds with instinctive tenderness, to uncover a tiny face, as immobile
as marble. “It’s our little child,” said the mother. “She looks so like
him. He would have to love me now—you see he couldn’t help it.”
Goody took the babe in her arms. Garde saw everything. She saw the tidy
poverty of the hut. She saw the ghost of the girlish beauty, which this
abandoned mother had once possessed. She saw the young creature tuck in,
next her bosom, ecstatically, a worn-out stocking—a man’s stocking.
Garde wanted to flee, but Goody brought her the babe—a little doll
indeed. Goody took her hand, for Garde seemed stricken with
helplessness, and placed it lightly on the tiny, white face of the
child. The girl drew it away with a shudder. The babe was dead.
“Go home, dearie,” said Goody, in a croon. “You will know what to do.
God makes few of the marriages laid at His door, but He does make some
of these. Hester has a right to believe He made her a wife—else why a
mother?”
Garde opened the door and ran out, glad, oh so glad it was cold!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXI.
RANDOLPH’S COURTSHIP.
GARDE fled home as if some unthinkable fate were in pursuit. She was
haunted by the look she had seen in the eyes of that girl-mother, back
in the hut. She could hear the young thing still begging her not to rob
her of the man who had taken her all and given her an ineradicable shame
in exchange.
Yet beneath every other emotion, Garde felt a sense of exultation. The
estimate of her instinct was confirmed—Randolph was perfidy itself. Not
a soul among the Puritans, she believed, could do aught but support her
against this man. And if only she could wrench herself free, how gladly
would she welcome the penance of waiting years for Adam, in payment for
her act, which she felt was disloyalty, in consenting to the provisional
betrothal into which she had been forced!
Her grandfather now would have to be the first to protect her from the
dread fate which had come so near, she thought. To confuse politics and
the personal affairs of her narrow life is the privilege of the sex to
which Garde belonged. She planned, as she darted through the wind-swept
streets. She would tell it all to Grandfather Donner, and then he should
save her the ordeal of meeting Edward Randolph in any manner whatsoever.
She gave no thought to the charter, nor to what the man with the power
he wielded would do in revenge to their liberties, now that he would
find himself baffled, at the end of his term of waiting.
She yearned for Adam. She could tell him, now, what she had been driven
to do, whereas before this she had always wished him to come, yet had
shrunk from the thought of confessing what she had permitted to be done.
Yes, she could lay it all bare before him now, and fairly scourge
herself with her own reproaches, joyously. What an exquisite pleasure it
would be to ask his forgiveness thus, and not at first receive it, and
then at last be taken home to his arms and his love! For her thoughts,
her heart-beats, her soul’s longings had all been constant to him, and
to him alone. She would like to tell him all this. And she would let him
kiss her, now. For through what hours had she wished, when she had
thought they might never meet in that way again, that his kiss had been
placed upon her lips that day of their parting. She almost frightened
herself with the thought of how that one kiss on her fingers might have
been his only kiss. But the next moment she tingled with ecstasy, to
think she was free and that some day he would come back, and then she
would know how to love him and to cherish him as never before she could
have known.
Thus glowing one moment, with love’s own reveries, and chilling the
next, with sudden reminders of what had just been and what might still
be, she reached her grandfather’s house, where she had been staying with
the old man for the past year, with only rare visits to the Soams. She
went in by the kitchen door. This apartment being dark, she passed
through to the dining-room, which was lighted but unoccupied, hence she
continued on to the parlor, where she fancied she heard voices. Entering
here, she could have fallen to the floor in sheer astonishment and
fright.
She found herself confronting her grandfather and Edward Randolph
himself.
“Ah, here she is, you see,” said David Donner, rubbing his hands
together, delightedly. “I thought she couldn’t be far away. My child,
Mr. Randolph has come to have a little chat. Natural enough, I should
think.” He chuckled with pleasure, adding: “Dear me, I mustn’t forget to
cover my rose, on a night like this.” With fatuous smiles, that ill
suited his grim old visage, he quitted the room, in a sprightly, playful
manner, and left Garde facing Randolph, alone.
“Good evening, Mistress Merrill,” said the man, fastening the hungry
gaze of his deep-set eyes upon her face. “I am glad to see you looking
so well.”
“Good evening, sir, and thank you,” said Garde, in a voice scarcely
audible. She had become suddenly pale. She trembled. She looked at the
man as one fascinated by a baleful point of light.
“It seemed but reasonable that I should call and see you, since our
betrothal is so soon to end in our marriage,” said Randolph, moving
slowly toward her, as if to prolong his own anticipation of standing
where he could reach her at last. “I have been very patient, have I not,
my pretty sweetheart?”
“You—have been very—patient,” echoed Garde, helplessly and panting like
a spent doe, to catch her breath.
“And I have kept my word,” he went on, still slowly approaching.
“Massachusetts has her charter, and now—I have my wife.”
He put out his hand, like a talon, to clutch her fast.
One convulsive shiver seemed to break the spell which had held Garde
enthralled. She leaped away, her eyes blazing, her lips quivering, her
frame shaken with emotion.
“No!” she cried. “No! Don’t touch me! Keep away! I loathe you! I know
what you are! Keep away,—I can’t bear you!”
“What’s this?” said the man, scowling, till his great brow threw a
sinister shadow as far down as his cheek bones. “Have a care, my dear
Garde. We made our bargain a year ago. This is no time for kittenish
pranks. Come back here where you were.”
His tone was authoritative. The gleam in his eyes was a warning against
disobedience. But Garde could be no further frightened than he had made
her by his mere presence. She stood there, alert for the first sign
which would send her running, if need be, to jump through the window.
“I shall never touch you, nor go near you!” she said. “There is no
bargain between us. I would rather die than to be your wife! I know what
you are, I say. I have been to Hester Hodder’s, to-night! I have seen
her. I know what you are!”
Randolph took hold of his lip and pinched it viciously. He glared at the
girl in silence, for a moment. “This has nothing to do with me,” he
said. “You have made some mistake.”
“I made a terrible mistake when I first submitted to this loathsome
plan,” said Garde, gaining courage as she spoke. “I always distrusted
you, despised you. Do you think I would trust a man to save our charter
who wouldn’t save a woman’s honor—who would do what you have done? You
may go—you may go away! I loathe you! I scorn you! Oh, I have found you
out in time!”
“This is silly talk, Mistress Merrill,” said the man. “I know nothing of
your Hester Hodder.”
Garde made a gesture expressive of disgust and impatience.
“But all this has no bearing on anything one way or the other,” Randolph
continued. “You must not forget that I have as much power over the
charter and the colony as ever—in fact, more. I have become the friend
of these people, but you can make me their enemy with a very little of
your nonsense. Come, now, let us be two sensible beings and not begin
our union by quar——”
“If you have had any power to do us injury,” interrupted Garde, “we will
find it done. You wouldn’t dare to trust yourself. I have a fear, such
as I never had before, of the harm you have doubtless done this colony,
darkly, in the year just passed.”
Garde had a way, fairly uncanny, of saying terrible truths, as if from
some sort of inspiration, which came upon her unawares. Randolph had his
pockets full of documents, at that moment, which lay there like a mine
of explosives, ready to shatter the charter and government, almost at
his whisper of command. His mind could conceive of nothing so exquisite
in treachery, to these people that he hated, and in vengeance against
Garde, for the attitude she had always assumed toward him, as to marry
her first and then to destroy the charter afterward. This had been his
dream for more than the year. He had waited for its climax as patiently
as a cat will wait before a hole till the mouse shall reappear. Garde’s
words were as so many poignards, only that they failed to strike him in
a fatal spot. They stung him to greater fury than he had ever felt and
to a hotter determination to humble the girl and to reduce Massachusetts
to abject servility and despair.
The man saw that this was an ill time to threaten Garde. She was not
made of the wax which his sophistries had substituted for the metal once
in David Donner’s composition.
“You have entertained some strange ideas of me, Mistress Merrill, for
which I am at a loss to account,” he said, more quietly. “I feel sure we
merely misunderstand each other. Have I not shown, for a year, that my
one wish is to prove myself a staunch friend of these good people and
worthy of your esteem? I am willing to do anything further, if you can
think of anything you would like to suggest, before we are married.”
“We shall never be married,” said the girl, self-possessed, now, and
calm enough to be fairly judicial. “If you wish to win my respect, go
and marry Hester Hodder, and let your child not be buried in shame.”
The man winced, but not visibly. He took his lip in his fingers again
and pinched it till it was white. He realized that in her present frame
of mind, Garde was utterly incorrigible. He only made matters worse by
remaining where she was. He knew of a trick worth two of prolonging this
interview. Yet he must retire in good order.
“I must tell you once more,” he said, “that I know nothing about this
person of whom you speak. I regret that something has prejudiced your
mind against me, especially when you insist upon doing me this wrong.
Let me say good night, for I am sure I shall find you in an altered mood
to-morrow.”
“Good night,” said Garde, icily.
The man smiled and went out, closing the door as if it had been the bars
of a cage, which he had dared to enter, at the risk of frightening his
prey to death.
He went out into the garden and called to David Donner.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXII.
DAVID’S COERCION.
DAVID DONNER came in from that interview in the garden an angered
fanatic. The bitter cold of the night had entered into his soul, with
all the heaped-up threats which Randolph had hurled at his head.
These threats had not been fired at David loudly nor fiercely. Randolph
had told him of Garde’s insubordination, of her charges and of her
repudiation of her promise. He had shown that whether her allegations as
to Hester Hodder were true or false, they had nothing to do with
Massachusetts politics. He had then opened up with his main battery—a
recital of the power he had steadily accumulated, during the past year,
and of his intention to use it, immediately, if Donner and Garde now
failed in the slightest particular to keep their share of the bargain.
Donner became nearly crazed. For a year he had dwelt with fondness upon
the topic of the charter and of how he had saved it, until nothing else
could get foothold in his mind. Indeed he had become mildly insane upon
the subject. He had counted the days, and finally the hours waiting for
the final ratification of the contract with Randolph, whose influence
with King James had exceeded even that which he had exercised when
Charles sat upon the throne. To reflect that now, at the eleventh hour,
the mere whim of a silly girl could destroy this whole fabric and sweep
away their jealously guarded liberty and independence, at a single
breath, nearly made a maniac of the old man.
Hester Hodder was as nothing. A hundred such women, with their dead
babes, would have been as nothing, compared to the safety of the
charter. What had Garde been born for, if she was not to save the day,
when her promise was made and when she alone stood between ruin and the
colony? What was her girlish folly, that it should stand in the path
forbidding the colony its existence? What should be her very life, when
the matter against it weighed so ponderously?
Thinking what his compatriots would say, if they should learn of this
latest turn of affairs, Donner wrung his hands in agony, and then
clenched them in rage. For twenty years the charter had fluttered
between life and death. For the last year it had gained in strength till
it seemed that all danger had passed. No religious fanaticism, no zeal
of inquisitions ever possessed a man’s soul, heart and brain more
thoroughly than his patriotism possessed Grandfather Donner.
When he went into the house, his trembling, bony hands were as cold as
those of a skeleton. He was half crying, with his utter vexation and
fear for the charter, and yet he ground his teeth, in his anger and
stubborn determination to compel his grandchild to adhere to her
promise. When he came to where Garde was awaiting his return indoors,
she mistook the mad light in his eyes for righteous indignation at
Randolph’s perfidy, of which she believed he had become apprised.
“Oh, Grandther,” she said, running trustingly toward him and beginning
already to cry, from her stress of emotions. “I am so glad you have come
back to protect me!”
“Protect you? Protect you?” he almost screamed, clutching her by the
shoulders, so fiercely that the cold and the pain which he caused seemed
to penetrate her through and through. “What madness have you committed?
What have you done? The charter,—the charter—the charter!—you shall save
the charter! Do you hear me? You shall keep your promise and save the
colony!” He shook her till the girl was gasping. She could think of
nothing but a hideous nightmare.
“Oh, he hasn’t told you, Grandther,” she cried. “If you knew the truth
you would turn him from the door! I have seen poor Hester and her baby.
I cannot bear to think of him—I should die!”
“You—you—you traitor!” stammered the old man, in his mania. “You—you
betray the colony! You are mad, mad! You promised. You made your own
conditions. You have deceived me. You would play us false, now—now, when
our liberties are taking heart. But you shall not! What? You come home
here with this silly story, you—you, the daughter of a Donner—and ready
to tear up the charter for your silly notions. No—no! no! no!—you shall
marry this man! You shall keep this your bargain! The charter—you shall
save the charter!”
“Oh, but, Grandther, the story is true,” said Garde, wringing her hands.
“He is the one that is false. And I thought you would hold me too
precious for such a thing as——”
“Enough!” commanded the crazed old man. “My word—the colony’s word—has
been given. The bargain shall be kept. This has gone too far already. To
think that for one moment you would so jeopardize the charter! I am
stricken with shame at your want of honor at this crisis of our
liberties!”
Garde still failed to believe she heard her grandfather correctly. She
still hoped his impatience would abate sufficiently for her to tell of
what she had seen. It could not be possible that a Puritan, so
high-minded and strict for moral conduct, could know what she knew and
still insist upon this infamous marriage. To her, at that moment, it was
virtue and honor that were all important to be saved, the charter and
the colony that had become insignificant.
“If you had touched that little dead baby,” she said. “If you had heard
Hester begging, Grandther—oh, you would have kept your promise,—you
would never coerce me in this terrible——”
“Stop! stop!” cried Donner, madly, angered almost beyond control by this
appeal, which was so unbearably remindful of her mother. “I have not
coerced you, never! You made your promise freely. The honor of the
colony, and more than that, the safety of the charter, now hang upon
your faith in keeping your own agreement. And you shall keep it—for the
family pride—for the colony’s good name! This story—what is the
woman?—what is her child?—what is anything, when our liberty and
independence tremble in the balance? No more—I’ll hear no more of
this,—not a word!”
Garde brushed a wisp of her red-black hair from her forehead. Her great
brown eyes were fastened wide open by amazement. Her lips alone
contained any color. How red they seemed against the white of her oval
face! Her eyebrows seemed like two curved black brands on her brow. She
looked at her grandfather in silence. It was positively incredible that
he had said what she had heard, she thought. If Hester and her child and
“everything” were held of so little worth, why—what of herself? Had it
come to this? Was it admittedly and shamelessly a sacrifice of her very
soul, to a creature only waiting to have his way first before destroying
the charter later?
To the pure, natural mind of the girl, Randolph had become as
translucent as water, in his plotted perfidies. It appeared impossible
that any man could still believe in his lies. She would have spoken of
this, but the sight of the fanatical old man before her, sealed her
lips. She recognized the light in his eyes at last. At any other moment
her pity would have fluttered forth to him, yearningly, her little
mother instinct would have taken her on the wings of concern to smooth
the care-channeled wrinkles from his brow, but now all these tenderer
emotions had fled away, in fear and awe. She said nothing further. There
was nothing left to say, nothing that would have any weight against
mania. At length even her gaze fell before the wild look with which
David Donner confronted her, insanely.
“Now then,” said the old man, at length, in a voice made raucous by his
recent passions, “you may go to bed and prepare your mind for
obedience.”
“Good night, dear Grandther,” said Garde, by force of habit, and with
nothing more, she passed from the room.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXIII.
GOODY’S BOY.
THE right of Spring to exercise idiosyncrasies of weather was conceded,
doubtless, by the first man. Spring is well known to be female, for this
very proclivity of changing her mind as to what she will do next. Having
been a spitfire nearly all night, Spring smiled in the morning, as balmy
as if she had caught the fancy of some tropical zephyr, that hastened
rashly northward to catch her for a kiss.
The first ray of the sun found itself entangled in the hair of Mistress
Merrill. Garde had not slept during the night. She had not gone to bed,
nor had she prepared her mind for obedience to her grandfather’s
commands. She had spent the hours sitting at the window, waiting for the
morning.
She now sped swiftly through the unawakened streets, a prey to a sense
of fear that she was being pursued. From time to time she cast a quick
glance across her shoulder, but there was no one following. There was
hardly a sound, save that a few birds—hardy little scouts, ahead of the
northward-creeping caravan of summer—twittered and set up rival centers
of melody in the trees.
There was no hesitation in the girl’s footsteps. She knew where she was
going. Goody Dune’s was the only place where she could go, with her
present resolutions. She had come to a logical conclusion, as to what
was now to be done, shortly after leaving David Donner. Her mouth was
firmly set, where determination had come to abide.
As always, she found Goody stirring about, with her door wide open, when
she came to the tidy little home. Goody beheld her coming before she
reached the gate. Peering into her face knowingly, the old woman gave a
little shake to her head. She was adept at deciphering the hieroglyphics
which human emotions write upon brows and lips and eyes, especially in
the faces of the young.
“So your grandfather insists and you are going to run away?” she said,
as Garde came eagerly up the garden path to the door.
“Yes,” said Garde, in some awe of the wise old woman and her means of
acquiring knowledge, “and I want you to help me,—oh, you must help
me—just as fast as you can! How did you know?”
“I could see that you were deeply troubled, and I know exactly what a
girl like you would do,” said Goody. “I was the same kind of a girl,
once, myself. Now tell me, first, where are you going.”
“I don’t know,” said Garde, “I think to Plymouth, to my aunt Rosella.”
“You would do well to make up your mind on that point,” said Goody. “And
how are you going, shall you sail, or ride, or walk?”
“Oh, I shall run,” said Garde.
“If you walk it will last longer,” said the old woman, with just a
suspicion of a smile. “Then, those two points being settled, have you
brought anything to eat, in your pocket?”
“No—no, I didn’t wait for anything. I shan’t want anything to eat for
days. I don’t feel like eating, and I don’t know when I ever shall.”
“And no blankets to sleep in?”
“Oh no, Goody, how could I?” said Garde.
“Let me see; it is something like forty or fifty miles to Plymouth,”
Goody mused. “Have you thought how it would look if a young woman were
seen, running night and day for sixty miles? You know many people walk
from Plymouth here.”
“Yes,” said Garde, eagerly. “That is the only trouble. I want you to do
something for me, or tell me what to do. Everybody would see a girl and
if Grandther were told, he would have me caught and brought back—and I
would rather die!”
Goody laughed at her now, more than half gaily. Her own eyes twinkled
with delight over the venture. “What would be the good of all the things
my friends have given me, all these years, if I did not use them at such
a time as this?” she asked.
“Oh, have you got anything I could really use?” Garde responded. “What
is it? What can you do? I mustn’t wait,—they will catch me, just as sure
as the world!”
“Not if I make you invisible,” chucked Goody. She dived into a chest she
had opened and began to paw, in an orderly manner, at a heap of clothing
which the box contained. She presently drew forth a complete suit of
clothing for a boy. “There,” she continued, “go into the next room and
put those on, as fast as ever you are a mind to.”
“Those?” said the astonished Garde. “But these are——”
“Yes, I know. They will make you invisible—as a girl. Do you wish to be
seen? If not, go and put them on and let me get at something else. We
still have other fish to fry.”
“But——” started Garde, when Goody pushed her into the next apartment.
Goody continued to rummage in the chest, producing a hat, much the worse
for age, a pair of stout shoes, a stick and a large, red handkerchief.
Into this handkerchief she knotted a number of slices of bread, some
pickles and some cold meat. She then secured it on the end of the stick,
and dropped inside it a little wad of money, tied in a parcel by itself.
Garde now returned, blushing as red as a rose and bending her legs
inward at the knee most shyly, although anything prettier could hardly
be conceived, and there was no one present save the old woman to look,
anyway.
“Oh dear me!” said the jackdaw. “Oh dear me!”
“Stand up stiffly on your pins,” commanded Goody. “You are not invisible
as a girl at all. Come, now, be a man.”
“But—Goody——” gasped Garde. “I—I really can’t——”
“Yes, you can. You must,” corrected the old woman. “Or else you can give
up running away altogether.”
“Oh no, no!”
“Then do as I tell you. Feet more apart, knees stiff. That’s better.”
“But, I feel—I feel so—so cold.”
“Where, in your face? Nonsense. Now try on this hat.”
Goody adjusted the hat. It was much too small to cover all of Garde’s
glorious hair.
“This will have to come off,” said the old woman.
“Oh!” was all Garde could reply.
It did seem a pity, but the business in hand was altogether grim. The
scissors snipped briskly. The hat presently covered a quaint, pretty
head with close-cropped locks. Garde caught the gleam in Goody’s eyes,
for Goody could not but admire her for a most handsome and irresistible
boy, and again the blushes leaped into her cheeks, and those tell-tale
knees began to try to hide one another.
Goody shook her head. “Any one would still know you for Garde Merrill,”
she confessed, “whether they had ever known you before or not.”
“Then what shall I do? I might as well go back to my own clothes,” said
the girl eagerly.
“You remain where you are,” instructed her mentor. “If you are going to
run away successfully, you must muster up your courage. But perhaps you
prefer to go back to——”
“No! I’ll——do anything,” interrupted Garde. A sudden horror of the
thought of going back, or of being caught and taken back, to Randolph
and all the rest of it, put good steel into her shoulders and some also
into her legs. “Please make haste and let me be starting,” she added.
“They may be coming at any moment!”
Goody lost but little time in thinking. She produced a cup, from her
shelf of decoctions, and dabbling her finger into its contents she
proceeded to stain the girl’s face a rich brown color, which made her
more handsome than ever, if possible, but which masked her so completely
that her own reflection would not have known her. The brown stuff went
into her pretty ears and all around her plump pretty throat and even on
top of her eyelids as they were closed, for Goody was something of an
artist. When she had finished, she regarded her work critically.
“The angel Gabriel wouldn’t know you now, himself,” she said. “When you
wish to get it off, use vinegar. Take your stick and your little pack,
put it over your shoulder, so, and now you are ready. Would you like
something to eat before you go?”
“Oh no,” gasped the girl, frightened half out of her wits, at the
prospect of going forth into the world with two pretty, visible legs to
walk withal. “I—I couldn’t eat anything. I—wait a minute. I—I think I
would like a little drink of water.”
Goody gave her a dipper full, of which she took one miniature sip.
“Do I—do I look—terrible?” she faltered.
“You look like a farmer’s boy—a lout of a country lad,” said Goody. “So,
good-by, young man. My last word is, forget you have got any legs, or
you will surely be detected.”
“Legs!” said the jackdaw, glad of a new word. “Legs! Legs!”
“I couldn’t—wear anything—over them, could I?” said Garde, timidly,
having jumped when Rex croaked so suddenly.
“You can wear a wedding gown over them, if you prefer,” said the old
woman, grimly, and suggestively. “I really expected you to do better
than this.”
“Well—I will!” said the poor child, resolutely. “Good-by, dear Goody. I
shall always love you, more than ever, for this.”
Goody kissed her, as she bent affectionately forward, and patted her
motherly on the back. “That’s a good boy,” she said.
She opened the door and Garde went forth. The open air made her
conscious of her attire instantly. But she did her best, shy and
unboyish as the effort was.
“Oh, I forgot to ask,” she said, glad to get one more moment in which to
get ready. “How is Hester? How was she when you saw her last?”
Goody’s face darkened. “I saw her the first thing this morning,” she
said. “Some one must have called last night, after I left. Hester is
dead.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXIV.
A GREENWOOD MEETING.
ADAM RUST, sailing northward, grew more and more hearty once again with
every day, although his pulse-beat quickened almost hourly, with a fever
of impatience which began to fasten itself upon him. He was quite
himself again, long before the ship arrived at the port of New York. But
the beef-eaters were a sorry pair, for the sea still took its revenge
upon them for Adam’s total disregard of its powers, and the passage had
been exceptionally rough.
It was no more than natural that Pike and Halberd, on arriving as far as
New Amsterdam, should desire to have done with the boisterous Atlantic.
Adam, on the other hand, was in such a fever to go on to Boston that,
had no ships been available, and no other means possible, he would have
been tempted to swim. As it was, there was no vessel putting for the
north to any point beyond Plymouth for a week, so that Adam determined
to sail that far and either to catch another captain there, who would
convey him onward, or to walk the remaining distance alone.
The beef-eaters, seeming absolutely in need of a rest from their
adventures on the water, reluctantly saw the “Sachem” depart without
them, they in the meantime remaining with Captain William Kidd, at his
New York home, expecting to go on to Boston with him later. This had
been the first time that Rust had been more glad than otherwise to be
for a brief season without his faithful followers. But never before had
the conditions of his going to Boston been the same.
Thus, on a fine day in April, Adam found himself landed in the old town,
of which he had no pleasant memories. He would have confined his
inspection of and visit to Plymouth to the docks, had not a hurried tour
of inquiry elicited the information that no vessels were due to sail to
Boston for two or three days. To remain in the place for such a time as
that was not to be thought of on any account.
Providing himself with a small parcel of food, at one of the taverns,
Adam was soon striding through a street of the town, which he remembered
vividly as one wherein he had walked on a former occasion, as a captive
boy, in a procession of fanatical Puritans. The memory was far from
being pleasant.
He would have avoided the place, had he known his way sufficiently well,
but before he knew it was so very near, he had come to that square in
which the stake with King Philip’s head upon it had once been set.
He looked at the plain surroundings of the locality with a reminiscence
of melancholy stealing upon him. He fancied he saw the precise spot
where the stake had stood. It brought back a flood of memories, of his
days spent with the Wampanoags, his companionship with King Philip, the
war and then the end. The sequent thought was of his first glimpse of
Garde, held in her grandfather’s arms and looking across the bank of
merciless faces with a never-to-be-forgotten sympathy in her sweet,
brown eyes. Dwelling then in fondness upon the recollection of his first
meeting with William Phipps, the rover felt that, as his last sadness
here had been an augury of better times to come, so this present moment
might presage a happiness even greater. With this comforting thought to
spur him on to Boston, he quitted the square and was soon leaving the
outskirts of Plymouth behind him.
Spring seemed to be getting ready for some great event. She was trimming
herself with blossoms and virgin grass, and she was warm with all her
eagerness to make herself lovely. Adam opened his mouth to breathe in
the fragrance exhaled by flirt Nature. He walked swiftly, for there was
resilience under foot as well as in his being.
“If Garde were somewhere near, the day could hardly be lovelier,” he
said, half aloud. “She must be breathing in this direction.”
His glance was invited here and attracted there. Wherever it rested,
Nature met it with a smile. Adam felt like hugging a tree, yet no single
tree was that elusive spirit of Nature which he so longed to clasp and
to hold in his arms. But if he was mocked by the ethereal presence of
beauty too diffuse to be held, by a redolence too subtle to be defined,
and by bird notes too fleeting to be retained, yet he was charmed,
caressed, sublimated by the omnipresence of Nature’s loveliness.
At noon he was ten good miles from Plymouth and trailing his sword
through a wood, where one could feel that some goddess of intangible and
exquisite entity had just escaped being seen, by fleeing into the aisles
of the trees, leaving an aroma of warmth, pine-breath and incense to
baffle bees behind her. Where a little brook tinkled upon pebbles, for
cymbals, he got down on his knees and had a long drink. Hearing voices,
where some party seemed approaching, he arose and went forward,
presently coming to a cross-road in the forest, where he beheld a scene
that aroused his momentary indignation.
It amounted to little. Three young country clods had evidently been
pursuing a fourth young fellow, who was scarcely more than a boy, and
shorter than any in the group, and now, having come up to him, at the
cross-roads, had “cornered” him up against a tree and were executing
something like an Indian war-dance about him, as he stood attempting to
face all three at once.
They began to yell and to run in at their captive, who was striking at
them awkwardly and not more than half-heartedly with a stick, in order,
apparently, to prevent them from snatching away his hat. It was entirely
too unequal, this sham combat, to accord with Adam’s notions of fair
play. He started to run toward the group.
“Here!” he shouted. “Here, wait a bit,—I’ll take a hand, to make it
even.”
The youth against the tree saw him coming before the others were aware
of his presence. When Adam shouted, however, they turned about quickly
enough, and yelling in added delight at being chased, they made off
briskly, running back on the cross-road, the way they had come.
Adam strode more leisurely toward the boy who remained leaning, in
obvious confusion of emotions, against the tree. He saw a remarkably
handsome, brown-complexioned youth, with delicate features, large eyes,
that gazed upon him in wonder, and exquisitely rounded legs, one of
which was nervously bent inward at the knee.
It was Garde.
Fortunately she had seen him before he came close. Therefore the little
involuntary cry of gladness which had risen to her lips, had been too
faint for him to catch, at a distance. Then in the moment when her
persecutors had been scampering away, she had grasped at the opportunity
to control her emotions to the extent of deciding, in one second of
timid and maidenly thoughts, that never, never would she reveal herself
to Adam, if she could help it, while dressed in these awful garments.
She must act the boy now, or she would perish with mortification.
Luckily the blush that leaped to her cheeks was masked by Goody’s brown
stain. Nevertheless she panted with excitement and her bosom would not
be quiescent.
“Good morning,” said Adam, coming forward and doffing his hat, which he
felt that he must do to a youth so gentle and so handsome. “You were
making a very pretty fight, but it lacked somewhat of vigor. The next
time, slash this way, and that way; guard against assault with your
other arm, so, and do your cutting at their heads.” He had drawn his
sword with which to illustrate, and flourished it lustily at the
imaginary enemy, after which he added: “Now then, who are you any way,
and where are you bound?”
“Good—good morning,” faltered Garde, in a voice scarcely more than
audible. “I am—I am not used to fighting.”
“No, I should say not,” said Adam, trying to make his voice delicate and
sweet, in imitation of hers. “You must speak up, boy, the same as you
would fight, roaring thus: ‘What ho, varlets!’ on your right, and ‘Have
at you, knaves!’ on your left. Shatter my hilt! I haven’t seen so
girlish a boy since Will Shakspeare’s play. Stand out here and let us
get acquainted, for I think I shall like you, though you do fight and
roar so ill.”
Immensely relieved to find that he did not suspect her identity, Garde
summoned all the courage which ten days away from home had sprouted in
her being. Moreover, she knew that if the deception was to be made
successful, she must act her part with all her ability. She therefore
left the tree, against which she had continued to lean and stood forth,
with what bravery she could muster.
“And who may you be?” she managed to inquire.
“Ha, that’s better,” said Adam. “Don’t be afraid to speak up. A dog that
barks at once seldom has need to bite. And you have the making of a man
in you yet. You could be taller, but let that pass. You have fine,
sturdy legs; your eye is clear. Why, you have nothing to blush for. What
ails the lad?”
The red beneath the brown stain was too ardent to be hidden. Garde’s
gaze fell before his admiring look.
“You—haven’t told me your name,” she faltered, heroically striving to
stand stiffly and to conjure a voice to change the subject withal.
“So I haven’t,” Adam agreed. “I asked you for yours first, but no
matter. I am a mad lover, on my way to Boston. My name is Rust, with a
spice of the old Adam thrown in. If you are going in the same direction,
I shall be glad of your company.”
Garde was going in the same direction. She had never reached so far as
Plymouth. Footsore and weary, she had trudged along, going less than ten
miles a day, stopping at night with the farming people, the wives of
whom she had found most kind, and so at last had arrived at a farm near
by these cross-roads, unable to go any further. She had therefore rested
several days, and only this very morning she had learned, by word from
another traveler, that David Donner, suddenly afflicted by the double
woe of finding her gone and himself cursed by Randolph, who had
immediately set in motion his machinery for depriving Massachusetts of
its charter, was on his back, delirious and ill, perhaps unto death.
She was going back, all contritely, yearning over the old man, who had
taken the place of her parents for so many years, and weighted down with
a sense of the wretchedness attending life. It was not that her
resolution to escape Randolph had abated one particle of its stiffness,
that she was turning about to retrace her steps, it was merely that her
womanly love, her budding mother-instinct, her loyalty and gratitude for
her grandfather’s many years of kindness and patience,—that all these
made no other thought possible.
And now to learn that Adam was traveling to Boston also, that she should
have him for her strong protector and comrade, this filled her with such
a gush of delight that she with difficulty restrained herself from
crying, in joy, and the tendency to give up and lean upon his supporting
arm.
At sight of him, indeed, before her mortification had come upon her, for
the costume, in which it seemed to her she would rather be seen by any
other person in the world than Adam, she had nearly run to his arms and
sobbed out her gladness. It would have been so wholly sweet to obey this
impulse. Her love for the big, handsome fellow had leaped so exultantly
in her breast, again to see him and to hear his voice, when she had been
so beset with troubles. But she had denied herself splendidly, and now
every moment strengthened her determination to play her part to the end.
Yet what joy it would be to travel back to Boston, through the
greenwood, by his side.
And being not without her sense of humor, Garde conceived many
entertaining possibilities which might be elicited from the situation,
the standpoint of man to man being so wholly different from anything
heretofore presented to her ken.
“Yes,” she said, in answer to Adam’s last remark, “I am going to
Boston—or near there,—but you may find that I cannot walk fast, nor very
far, in a day. My walking will doubtless prove to be like my fighting.
So that if you are so mad with—with love, and so eager to hasten,
perhaps——” and she left the sentence unfinished.
“Well,” said Adam, pulling his mustache smartly, “I confess I am a bit
hot on foot, and so you would be, young man, if by any good fortune you
knew my sweetheart, yet I like you well enough, and my lady has such a
heart that she would counsel me to go slower, if need be, to lend any
comfort or companionship to a youth so gentle as yourself.”
“I am sure she would,” said Garde, readily enough.
“Are you, though? One would think you knew her,” said Adam. “Don’t plume
yourself on this matter so prematurely. Come, let us start.”
“One moment, please, till I can tie my shoe,” said Garde, who felt such
merriment bubbling up in her heart that she was constrained to bend
downward to the ground quickly, to hide her smiles.
Adam stood waiting, glancing around at the woods, wondering which way
his heart had flown, on its lightsome wings, in that temple of beauty.
Garde looked up at him slyly. He was dressed in great brown boots, that
came above his knees, brown velvet trousers, a wine-colored velvet coat,
with a leather jerkin over it, sleeveless and long enough to reach to
the tops of his boots, almost, and on his head he wore a large slouch
hat, becoming and finishing to his striking figure.
Garde was looking at the back of his head rapturously when he started to
turn, to see why she made the tying process so deliberate.
“I am ready,” she said, cheerily, springing to her feet. “Is this the
road?”
“By all the promptings of my heart, it is,” said Adam. “But, by the way,
you have not yet told me your name, my boy.”
“Oh,—why—why my name is—John Rosella.” She had thought of her aunt’s
first name, on the spur of the moment, and John had been the simplest
and first thing which had popped into her head.
“John Rosella,” repeated Adam. “It sounds like Spanish. That would
account for your dark complexion.” He looked at her critically. “Yes,
you are a nice, gentle boy. Have you ever been in love?”
“With—with a girl? never!” said Garde, trembling with delight and fear
of being detected, especially if she answered too many questions. “Do
tell me all about your lady—lady love.”
“That’s a bit too precious to tell to any man,” Adam assured her,
gravely. “And yet, you are so nearly like a girl that I can almost tell
you about her.”
“What is her name?” asked Garde, catching her breath in little quick
gasps.
“Her name? Ah, I hardly tell it to myself, often. But her name would
sound sweet in these woods. Her name is—now, mark you, don’t you ask me
to repeat it again. Never mind her name, anyway.... Well, it’s Garde.
You will have to be contented with that. Ah, but she is the sweetest,
most beautiful little woman in the world. Her loveliness goes all
through, the same as beauty is everywhere in these woods. It’s her
nature to be lovely.”
His voice became an utterance of melody. It seemed a part of the forest
tones. He had taken off his hat, for in his mind Garde stood before him,
a smiling dream, even as Garde actually walked beside him, a smiling
reality.
“Is she tall?” said Mistress Merrill.
“Yes, somewhat taller than you,” said Adam, “Being gentle and likeable
you might make one think upon her, but her voice is sweeter than yours,
and, well—she is a girl, and you are merely girlish.”
“Have you loved her long?” said Garde, again casting her gaze upon the
ground, as she walked.
“Years!” said Rust. “I have loved her all my life, for I never began to
live till I saw her first, and I loved her the moment I saw her.”
“And does she love you?”
“Ah, now you approach forbidden ground. It would be a sacrilege for me
to prate—even here in these woods—of her sweet thoughts. I have told you
too much already. You are a very devil of a boy, to have gotten so much
from me, touching on this subject. I’ll be sworn, I don’t know why I
have let you draw me out like this. But I stop you here. It is no
concern of yours whether she likes me or not.”
“Oh,” said Garde. Then she added slyly, “I should think she would.”
“I thank you and warn you, in a breath, young man,” Adam replied. “You
have gotten the best of me already. Let good enough alone.”
Garde loved him the more for the sacredness in which he held her name
and the inclination of her heart. She loved him for the modesty which
crept into his speech and deportment when least expected. Loving him
thus, so fully, and in this realm, so made for the growth of tender
passions, she found it difficult to cease her questions. It was so
wholly delightful to hear him repeat, again and again, how he loved her.
She was, however, obedient by nature, and now cautious by circumstance.
“Perhaps you will tell me of your travels,” she said, this subject being
next in importance to hearing of his great affection. “I am sure you
could relate much of interest, if you are so minded.”
“And how shall you know I have traveled?” said the man.
“Why—” Garde found herself confused, having thoughtlessly spoken on a
matter of which she did actually know, yet of which she must seem to be
in ignorance. “Why—I would know this from your appearance—your dress, to
which the young men here are not accustomed. Have you not recently come
from over sea?”
“I have,” said the rover, satisfied with her answer. “I went away
seeking my fortune—which still remains to be sought.”
“Oh, well, never mind,” said Garde, who for the moment was his partner,
to share all his disappointments. “I mean—I mean you don’t seem to
mind,” she added. “I should like to hear you tell about your
adventures.”
Adam, who felt that he could talk to this boy by the hour, was nothing
loath to narrate his wanderings, the more especially as he had always
found it difficult sufficiently to praise his friend William Phipps.
Therefore, as they walked onward together, Garde thrilling with her
love, and turning her eyes fondly upon him, whensoever he was unaware,
Adam told and retold of the fights, the hopes, the storms, the success
in England, and the illness which had finally given him his leave to go
home to his sweetheart.
No lover of Nature ever lingered more fondly over the sighs of trees,
the fanning by of fragrant zephyrs, or the love-tales sung by the birds,
than did Garde on his every word. And, inasmuch as she could not cling
to his arm, when he recited the perils through which he had come, she
artfully coaxed him back to declarations of love for his sweetheart,
from time to time, to give some satisfaction to her yearning.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXV.
LOVE’S TRAPS FOR CONFESSIONS.
SOME time before nightfall, the two having shared their luncheons
together and wandered on, through the delightful patches of sunlight,
slanting through the trees, they came upon one of the farms where Garde
had already tested the hospitality of the good people residing by the
highway.
Here, by a little dexterity, and through Adam’s generosity toward the
delicate boy, to whom he had taken such a fancy, Garde occupied the
spare apartment she had made her own when headed in the other direction,
and Adam contented himself in the hay-loft of the barn.
In the morning they were up betimes, to greet another smiling sun, and
so resumed their leisurely journey toward the north. At noon they halted
as before, and made a meal of the stock of bread and other provisions
they had been able to secure at the farm-house.
Garde sat upon a mossy bank, while Adam reclined on a stone, somewhat
below her woodland throne. Adam looked at her so long and so steadfastly
that she grew most uneasy, lest he were about to pierce her disguise.
“What are you looking at?” she said, with an attempt to be boyishly
pert.
“I was looking at your legs,” said Adam, frankly. “They are uncommonly
symmetrical, but a shade too pretty for a boy.”
Garde immediately bent the plump objects of interest underneath her and
sat on her heels.
“You find a great deal of fault with me,” she said, a little vexed.
“It’s because you have faults, as a boy,” Adam told her, honestly. “You
know, my lad, you could be a bit sturdier and none the worse. And yet, I
like you immensely as you are. Perhaps if you were changed, you would
lose some charm and spoil it all. I shall have to let you be, and
content myself with you as you are.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Garde, already smiling at him again, to herself.
“Then please make no more remarks about me.”
“About your legs? Well, I won’t, since you appear so sensitive about
them. Mind you, they will do well enough, after all.”
“Shall we go on?” Garde asked him. She was a little weary and would have
been glad of further rest, but she found she was much more comfortable
when they were walking side by side.
Adam was up at once, for walk they never so fast, he felt he could by no
means come up with his thoughts and desires, which had run so far ahead
of them always.
“Never mind what I say,” said he, as they resumed the onward march. “I
have to have my say out, when I think it. And you know you do puzzle me
constantly.”
“I don’t see why, or how,” said Garde.
“It’s because I seem to think I have seen you somewhere before. And yet
I know that is impossible, hence I am driven to think of your
girlishness, for an explanation.”
Garde said: “I think this is very much in your imagination, Adam Rust.”
“Not a bit of it,” corrected her comrade. “You were patterned for a
girl, my boy, depend upon it. There was some mistake, or some bit of
trickery, when you became one of us. Why, a man couldn’t even think a
little oath, in your presence.”
“Then is it not better that I was raised somewhat after the manner of
girls?” said Garde, complimented as much by the reverent tone in his
voice as by what he had said. “Does not the rearing I have known serve
some good purpose, if what you say is so?”
“By my faith, yes. But then you do admit that you were treated in your
younger days, somewhat as a girl?”
“I hope it is no shame to confess this is so,” she answered, looking
down on the ground to hide the dancing of her eyes. “I was treated
somewhat in this manner and I was even dressed as a girl, at times.”
“Ah, that accounts for your bashfulness and so forth. But you need not
blush for this. Bless your heart, a man’s the better for it, if he has
something of the woman in his heart—and even in his hand.”
“I am glad to hear you say so,” murmured the girl.
“Oh, yes, it’s all right,” said Adam magnanimously. He looked at her
with frank admiration. “Only it is something of a pity you were not a
girl, you know.”
“Oh. But why?”
“Because you would be such an one as a man could love.”
“But not you, Adam Rust. You have said you love a sweetheart already.”
“I do—mightily! But if you were a girl I would enjoy finding a man
worthy to love you.”
“But this is unseemly. You forget that I am a boy.”
“Yes, for some reason or other, it is easy to forget that. But I was
merely supposing. Say that a man had come along when you were dressed as
a girl—why, what then?”
“What then indeed,” said she, with some spirit, “would you have talked
like this to me, of—of love?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” said Rust, stoutly enough. “It would then have been
quite another matter. As it is, you play the deuce with my brain and
fancy. I start in to talk to you as man to man, and then I think you are
almost better fitted to be a girl—and you admit you were raised somewhat
in that manner, so what can one expect?”
“Well, what if your sweetheart heard you speaking thus?” said Garde, who
was enjoying the situation the more for the very danger of it. “Should
you like to have her hear you telling me I should have made a girl that
a man could—could love?”
“You being a boy, why not?” Adam made answer. “Ah, she is too present in
my thought and feeling for me to say anything I would be loth for her to
hear.”
They had arrived at the edge of a brook which was somewhat swelled by
the snow, back on the hills, melting in the genial warmth of the sun. It
was nothing for Adam to stride across, stepping from rock to rock, but
Garde hesitated, her femininity uppermost in a moment, despite her
utmost efforts to be boyish.
“Here, give us your hand,” said big Adam, turning back to help her over.
“Now, then, jump!”
Thrilling with the delight of his warm, strong fingers closing so firmly
on her own, Garde came across the brook in safety and then reluctantly
released her grip from his.
Adam had not escaped unscathed from this contact of love, with which she
was fairly thrilling. He looked at her oddly, when they were safe again
on the further side. Garde caught her breath, in fear that she had
betrayed herself at last, in that moment of weakness.
“You are too much for me, John,” Adam admitted, shaking his head in
puzzlement. “You are a strange boy.”
“I thought it was all explained,” Garde replied, anxious to get him
quieted on the subject. “How far should you say it is to Boston?”
“I think I begin to work it out a little,” the man went on, musingly.
“It’s because you remind me of some one I have known.”
“Do I?” said Garde, half afraid of her question. “Of whom?”
“I don’t quite know,” he confessed, looking at her earnestly. “And yet I
ought to be able to tell. It was some one I liked, I am sure.”
“As much as you did your sweetheart?”
Adam seemed not to hear this question. “Your complexion,” he resumed,
“makes me think of a sweet maid I knew at Jamaica.”
“Oh!”
“And yet your eyes are like those of a lovely French damsel that I met,
one time.” Here he sighed. “Your hands bring back a memory of a charming
Countess at the court of Charles. Some of your ways make me think of a
nice little Indian Princess I once knew; while your ankles—but you don’t
care to hear about your ankles.”
Garde was duly shocked. She knew not what to think of Adam, who was
revealing such astonishing epochs in his life. This was terrible. Yet
she wished, or almost wished, he had gone on, just a little further,
though she dared not encourage him to do so, right as it might be for
her to know it if his heart had strayed elsewhere, at any time during
his absence. She was alarmed, curious, piqued. She forgot that she was a
boy to whom he had spoken.
“It seems to me,” she presently answered, “that I remind you of nothing
but the ladies and maids of these countries where you have traveled.”
“Well, you don’t remind me of the lads, that I admit,” said Adam.
Garde made up her mind to profit by the occasion. She piled her little
courage up to the top-most mark.
“And who was the little maid of Jamaica?” she asked.
“Oh, she was as sweet a little thing as ever prattled Spanish,” Rust
replied, with a reminiscent look in his eyes. “You would have liked her,
I know.”
Garde entertained and reserved her own opinion on that point. “Well—did
she like you?” she asked, indifferently.
“Oh yes, she said she did, and I am sure you could depend upon her to
tell the truth. She used to like to sit on my knee, dear little thing!”
Garde gasped. It was fortunate that Adam’s mind was occupied with
memories. His perfidy was coming forth finely. She knew not whether she
wished to cry or to stamp her foot in anger. She controlled her impulses
heroically.
“About how old was she?” was her next question.
“Three, I should say,” said Adam. “She was a pitiful little thing, more
than pretty. In a way she made me think of Garde, so I couldn’t help but
like her.”
Garde was flooded, all through her being, with feelings of love and
penitence. To think that she had entertained for a moment a notion that
Adam—and yet, stay, there were the others,—dames and countesses. They
could not all have been mere tots of children. Then she wondered if it
were fair, thus to try to trap the poor fellow and take advantage of
him, to make him confess these subjects as to another man. Of course for
his own good it might be better to let him tell. And she would
understand him so much more thoroughly.
“Was the French damsel only three also?” she summoned courage to
inquire.
“Oh dear, no. She was three and ninety, but still sprightly in the
minuet and with eyes that could easily have lighted the sun again, had
he chanced to go out. I shouldn’t have been sorry to have her for a
mother—except that I flatter myself I had a better one—once upon a
time.”
Garde would have felt like a coward indeed, had she desired to ask him
of any of the others. Having done him a little measure of injustice, she
made it up to him by loving him the more, now that she found him so
innocent. Nevertheless she had ears to listen with when he volunteered
some information about the countess he had seen and admired at the court
of Charles.
It turned out, however, that he had merely seen her safely married to
one of his royal friends, for whose happiness he had the most sincere of
wishes.
Garde felt her spirit of daring and merriment return. It was so tempting
to play around the point of her identity that she could not altogether
resist the impulse of her nature, to keep him talking.
“I seem to be happy in reminding you of many persons,” she said. “But I
think I would rather remind you of some one else. Since you claim to be
so much in love, it would compliment me more if I could remind you of
your Mistress Garde.”
“Maybe you would,” said Adam, “only that I am getting so near to Boston
that such a reminiscence, in a boy, would be sheer impertinence.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXVI.
A HOLIDAY ENDED.
HAVING the fortune to be overtaken by a good-natured farmer, who was
trotting his horses northward, along their road, from a trip to market,
the travelers got the benefit of a lift that landed them within a few
hours’ walk of Boston. However, as the farmer’s journey ended where
there were no accommodations, and there was still another hour of light,
which would suffice to bring them to a small hostelry, where Garde knew
she could make such arrangements as she desired, they tramped onward as
before.
With every step that brought them further toward their destination Adam
waxed more and more impatient to hurry, while Garde found her courage
and her footsteps lagging.
She had momentarily forgotten her troubles, in the joy of being with
Adam, strolling for hours through the vales of peace and loveliness, but
now her tribulations returned, with compound interest. She yearned over
her smitten grandfather, yet she feared for what he might do, when he
should see her again within his reach, for if he had been well-nigh
insane when she saw him last, how much more violent he might now have
become.
She trembled likewise at the thought of Randolph, and the measures of
revenge which he might adopt, backed by the power which was sufficient
to uphold or to overthrow the charter. From these meditations she was
tempted to fly to Adam’s arms and implore his protection. It afforded
her infinite relief to think that he would at least be near. If the
worst came of her returning, she would manage to go to him, by some
means, she was certain, and under the stress of circumstances she would
not be deemed immodest in beseeching his protection, for which purpose
she would consent immediately to become his wife.
Eager to justify herself in what she had done, refusing to believe that
honor had been as nothing and Randolph’s promises all important, she
framed many introductions to the subject, before she could finally begin
to question her fellow-traveler upon it.
She then began by reciting to him somewhat of the news of Boston town.
She told of the fear for the charter, which had become a mania with the
older patriots, of the baleful power of Randolph and of the culminations
which at last he was beginning to work against the colony. Adam waxed so
wroth against Randolph, whom he remembered distinctly, that she was much
encouraged to go on with a hypothetical case which she soon invented.
She dared not connect the name of Randolph directly with her story and
questions, lest Adam, when he arrived in Boston, should learn more,
concerning the whole wretched business, and know it was she who had
undergone the ordeal. Also it required a great concentration of her
courage, backed by repeated assurances to herself that Adam thought her
a youth, before she could approach the subject in any manner whatsoever.
Yet she knew she would have no such opportunity to speak to him again
with anything like the freedom which was now possible, and Goody Dune
had made her a sensible young woman.
“Suppose,” she finally said, “that a man who had influence with the King
threatened to use all his power against the colony and its charter, if
some young girl should refuse to become his wife. Would it be her duty
to marry the man?”
“That would depend on her spirit of patriotism,” said Adam. “If she
believed she could save the colony from a grave danger, it seems to me
she ought to do so.”
“Yes—I think so too,” said Garde, honestly. “But suppose she found out
that the man had been very false.”
“In what manner?”
“Well,—that he had deceived another young woman.”
“Do you mean betrayed some other young woman?” said Adam bluntly.
Garde averted her gaze and answered: “Yes.”
“Well, suppose this was so, then what is your question?”
“The question is, what do you think the first young woman should do
then—after she found out that—that this was true?”
“That would depend again on the particular young woman,” said Rust, who
believed he was speaking as man to man, and who knew that when women are
betrayed it is not always the fault wholly of the male-being in the
case. “If she wanted to save the charter, or anything of that sort, I
don’t see how this would alter the case particularly.”
“You wouldn’t excuse the man?” said Garde, turning pale under her brown
stain.
Adam had in mind a painful incident which had occurred in the life of a
friend of his in England. “I might,” he answered. “Possibly a great deal
could be said in defense of the poor devil, in some way or another.”
“But,” insisted Garde, somewhat desperately, “if you were a girl you
wouldn’t marry such a man?”
“If I were a girl and I loved him,” said Rust, still thinking of the
case of his friend, “why—I think perhaps I should.”
“But if you hated and loathed him?” Garde almost cried.
“Oh, that is quite a different matter. If hate entered in, I should
welcome any excuse to get away. In the actual case of which I was
thinking, it seems to me the girl ought to forgive——But I had forgotten
all about the element of the charter, which we were supposing was to
figure in the case.”
Garde cared for nothing further about the discussion. He had justified
her, at least partially. She had always felt that Randolph would have
betrayed the colony, even had she sacrificed herself and Adam, to marry
him, as her grandfather had desired. She was now a little troubled that
Adam could think so nearly as her grandfather had done; that he could
really condone such a terrible dishonor in a fellow-man. Had it not been
that, under cover of her present disguise she had proved how true and
good her Adam was, she would have been pained and perhaps worried by his
latitude of thought. She had to finish the subject, so she said:
“If she—this girl—not only hated the man, but felt sure he would not
keep his promise to do good for the charter, but would deceive her and
every one else, just as he had deceived the other girl—then what ought
she to do?”
“It would be high time, under those circumstances,” replied her
companion, “to refuse absolutely, or to ship on the first departing
vessel, or to do anything else that would be quick and to the point.”
“That is just what I think,” said Garde, now well satisfied.
“It’s more important for us, my boy, to think of what we shall do when
we arrive in Boston, to-morrow,” Adam now remarked. “By the way, do you
know anybody there?”
Garde hesitated before answering. She had to be clever. “Nobody there
will know me when I get there,” she said, “unless it is some one I might
once have known.”
Rust did not analyze the ambiguity of this reply. He was engrossed with
other reflections.
“Have you got any money?” he asked her next. “Because if you haven’t you
can have the half of mine,—not much to speak of, but enough to feed you
and put you to bed. I hope to get into some better tavern than the Crow
and Arrow.”
“Thank you,” said Garde, looking at him slyly with a tender light of
love in her eyes, “I think I have enough for a time.”
“If we stop at the same tavern, and have our meals served together, it
will cost you less,” Adam informed her practically, “and besides, I have
grown so fond of you, my boy, that I should be sorry to lose sight of
you, in the town.”
“But the sooner you lose sight of me, the sooner you will see your
sweetheart,” said Garde, with difficulty restraining her lips from
curving in a smile.
“Ah, but I shall wish her to know you,” said Adam, generously. “For to
no one else save you have I ever been able to talk of my love for her
sweet self, and this is something of a miracle. As I think upon it, you
do remind me of her often, by your voice, though it is not so sweet as
hers, as I may have said before, and by other tokens, which I am at a
loss to define. But because of these things, I would fight for you, and
with her sweet approval.”
“I am sure of it,” said Garde. “I trust you will have great joy when you
find her again. And you may tell her for me, if you will, that——well,
that she should love you with her whole soul,——but she does already, I
am sure.”
“You are a kind as well as a gentle boy,” said Adam to her gravely. “I
am glad it could be no matter to her for me to like you so exceedingly,
you being a boy,——but, boy, you do bedevil my brain with your girlish
ways. I shall never explain you, I’ll be sworn.”
“Here is where we turn, for the night’s rest,” Garde replied, avoiding
the puzzled look which Rust directed to her face. “We have had a
pleasant journey of it together. I shall never forget it.”
“Let’s wait till it’s finished before we sum it up,” said Adam.
“To-morrow we have a few more hours, ere we reach the town, and these
may be the pleasantest of all.”
Yet when the boy said good night to him, after their supper, he felt a
strange sense of loss for which he was wholly unable to account.
In the morning the matter was somewhat explained. The boy had arisen
before the sun and gone on her way without him.
It was not without a little pang in his heart that the rover trudged
onward, alone.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXVII.
IN BOSTON TOWN.
GARDE fairly ran, when she made her early morning start. She had not
been able to think of any other solution of the problem of getting back
to her own proper sphere without permitting Adam to become aware of the
whole situation. She had not come to her resolution to cope with the
difficulty thus without many little sighs of regret and a few little
fears of what might be the consequences. Nevertheless, she had seen the
necessity of prompt action, after which she had felt a desire only for
haste. She was, however, buoyed up by the glad thought that Adam would
not be long behind her, in his march to town, hence she would soon be
seeing him there, under circumstances which would make it possible to
accept his love and to lean upon his strong, protecting arm.
The sun was no more than an hour up in the sky when she came to the
outskirts of Boston and ran quickly on to Goody Dune’s. Goody was not at
all surprised to see her thus returning. Indeed she had looked to see
her back at least a week earlier. The old woman, preparing against this
moment, had plaited the long locks of hair which Garde had been obliged
to leave behind, and these she helped the truant to wind upon her head,
with some semblance of natural growth, an effect which she heightened by
providing a small lace cap, which made of Mistress Merrill a very
demure-appearing little person.
The brown stain rapidly succumbed to Goody’s treatment with vinegar.
Garde emerged from the mask as rosy and cream white as an apple, for the
open air and the days with Adam had wrought such evidence of health and
happiness upon her that not the dread of what she might discover at
home, nor any excitement of being in the land of her enemy, could make
any paleness in her face of more than a moment’s duration. She was too
excited to eat, although Goody tried to urge her to take even a cup of
tea, and so she went on to her grandfather’s house, and let herself in,
at the rear.
As Granther Donner’s sister had passed away a number of years before, he
had been left quite to himself when Garde decamped. But when his illness
came so suddenly upon him, Mrs. Soam and Prudence, both persuaded that
Garde was almost, if not entirely, in the right, appeared dutifully at
his bedside as ministering angels.
Thus Garde, upon entering the kitchen, found her Aunt Gertrude engaged
in preparing a breakfast. The good lady was startled.
“Why—Garde!” she gasped. “Oh, dear me, is it really you? Child, where
have you been? Oh, David is very ill indeed. I am so glad you have come
home!”
“I came because I heard he was ill,” said Garde, who was more calm than
might have been expected. “I didn’t know you were here. It was real good
of you to come, dear aunty. I suppose you will scold me.”
“It was all a terrible thing,” said her aunt, “but John says he thinks
Mr. Randolph meant to take away our charter anyway.”
“Oh, I am sure of it!” cried Garde, so glad to hear of a partisan. “If I
hadn’t believed that, I don’t think I should ever have run away. Oh,
thank you, so much, dear aunty! I am so glad. God bless Uncle John! I
knew I was right!”
“But your uncle and all of us are very sad,” her aunt proceeded to add.
“They don’t think we will have the charter through the summer. It is a
terrible time, but they all say that Randolph must have been getting
ready, or he couldn’t have done so much so quickly. It is a sad day for
Massachusetts. But, there, run in and see David, do,—but, dearie, don’t
be surprised if he doesn’t seem to know you.”
In the dining-room Garde and Prudence met, a moment later.
“Good morning, Garde,” said the cousin, without the slightest sign of
emotion.
Garde kissed her, impulsively. “Oh, I am so glad to see you, dear!” she
said. Indeed love had so wrought upon her that she felt she had never so
cared for any one before as she did for all these dear ones now.
She hastened on to her grandfather, and Prudence was left there, looking
where her cousin had gone and solemnly wishing she also might do
something emotional and startling.
But a few hours only sufficed to reduce the spirit of wildness and
youthful exhilaration which Garde had brought with her back from the
road in the forest. To hear the old patriot raving, childishly, and
crying and praying over the charter and over Garde as a baby, which was
the way he seemed to remember his grandchild, was a thing that rent her
heart and drove all joy from the life of care into which she came, in
her mood of penitence and quiet.
The days slipped by and became weeks. Prudence returned to her father at
once. Goodwife Soam remained to help Garde over the crisis, and then she
too left the girl with the stricken old man, who had become a prattling
child, on whom the word “Charter” acted like a shock to make him
instantly insane against his daughter’s child.
In the meantime Adam Rust, having come to Boston in a moment when
excitement, despair and bitter feeling, such as the town nor the colony
had ever known before, and which completely altered the Puritan people,
had heard a garbled story of Randolph’s perfidy and his attempt to marry
Garde which made his blood boil. Fortunately the fact that Garde had run
away had been kept so close a secret, that more persons had heard how
devotedly she was attending David Donner than knew any hint of her
escapade. Adam having first paid his respects to Mrs. Phipps, to whom he
delivered the Captain’s messages and letters, had found himself
apartments in a tavern quite removed from the Crow and Arrow, where he
had been able easily to avoid all his former acquaintances of Boston. He
might have desired to search out Wainsworth, but Henry was away at
Salem. Randolph, of whom Adam naturally thought, had betaken himself to
New York, there to conclude some details of snatching the charter from
the colony of Massachusetts.
Once settled, Adam lost no time in searching for Garde. Thus he was soon
made aware of the state of the Donner household, into the affairs of
which it would have been anything but thoughtful and kind to obtrude his
presence. With a courteous patience he set himself to wait for a seemly
moment in which to apprise Garde of his reappearance. He told himself
that, as she had no intimation that he had returned to Boston, it would
be a greater kindness to keep himself in the background, until her
trials should be lessened.
Naturally all these various matters had somewhat obliterated from his
mind the thoughts of the youth with whom he had traveled from the
environs of Plymouth. While he was curbing his spirit and his too
impatient love, a message arrived, in care of Goodwife Phipps, from
Captain William Kidd, to the effect that the beef-eaters, far from
recuperating after their voyage, had become seriously ill, and were
begging each day for the “Sachem.”
Rust had been contemplating the acceptance of an offer from Mrs. Phipps
to assume command at the ship-yard, the foreman in charge being then
arrogating powers unto himself which were not at all quieting. Adam
reflected that if he took this place he could settle down, marry his
sweetheart presently, and become a sober citizen.
With the advent of the message from the beef-eaters, he was completely
at a loss to know what to do. He yearned over these faithful companions,
whose affection had been repeatedly demonstrated, under circumstances
the most trying. If they should die while he remained away, selfishly
denying them so little a thing as his presence, he would never obtain
his own forgiveness. Yet he could not go to New York, or any other where
on earth, without first having at least seen Garde. Indeed he reflected
now that mayhap it had been a mistaken kindness for him to remain away
from her side so long. Should he not have gone to her long before, and
offered what service he could render in her trial?
As a matter of fact he had been kind as it was, for Garde had hardly
enjoyed a moment in which to do so much as to think of love and her
lover. Her grandfather had occupied her attention day and night. She had
stinted him in nothing, else with her spirit of penitence upon her—for
all that she had helped to hasten upon him—she could never have had any
peace of mind nor contentment in her soul.
But at last, when the old man was out of danger, sitting in his chair by
the hour, she had time to think of Adam again and to wonder why it was
that he had never attempted to see her. She answered herself by saying
it was better that he had not done so, but then, when she suddenly
thought that he might have heard all manner of wild stories, and might
indeed have gone away, angered and not understanding the truth, she
yearned for him feverishly.
As if the message of her love flew unerringly to him, Adam suddenly, in
the midst of thinking of going to the beef-eaters, determined to see his
sweetheart, cost what it might.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXVIII.
LOVE’S GARDEN.
AFTER nearly a week of rain and dull, gray skies, the weather was again
entrancing. The warm, soporific breeze which played through the house
lulled Grandther Donner off to sleep, as he sat in his chair, staring at
vacancy and rubbing his thumb across the ends of his fingers.
Garde, responding to the mood of coming summer, could not resist the
impulse to go out into the garden, which to her would always be
associated with her childish meeting with Adam Rust, and which therefore
now made of her yearning to see him a positive force.
Thus it doubtless appeared to her as an answer to her longing when she
felt a presence and glanced up at the gate, to see him standing there,
as he had so many years before, with two of the pickets clasped in his
big, strong hands.
Her heart gave a leap that almost hurt, so suddenly did it send the
ecstasy bounding through her veins. Yet so sublimated was the look on
Adam’s face, as, with parted lips and visible color rising and falling
in his face, he gazed at her, steadfastly, and as one entranced, that
she went toward him as slowly as if walking might disturb the spell.
One of her hands, like a homing dove, came up to press on her bosom
above her heart. She was pale, for the cares of those weeks had bleached
the rose-tints from her cheeks. Nevertheless, the moment painted them
with vestal flames of love’s own lamp, as she looked into Adam’s eyes
and saw the tender passion abiding there.
“Adam, I prithee come in,” she said, in a soft murmur, unconsciously
repeating what she had said when first he had leaned upon this gate.
As one approaching something sacred, Adam came in and took her two hands
in his. He raised them slowly to his lips, and then pressed them
together against his breast.
“Garde,” he said, almost whispering. “Garde. My little Garde.”
“Oh, Adam,” she answered.
They looked at one another and smiled, she through shining tears. Then
they laughed, for there were no words, there was nothing which could
absolutely express their overflowing joy, but their laughing, which was
wholly spontaneous, came the nearest.
“Oh, I have been so afraid this moment would never come,” said Garde,
presently, when she could trust herself to speak. “It has been such a
long, long time to wait.”
“I love you. Garde, dearest, I love you,” said Adam. “I love to say that
I love you. I could say it all day: ‘Garde, I love you. Garde, I love
you, dear, and love you.’ I have told every star in the heavens to tell
you how I love you, dear. But I would rather tell you myself. Let me see
you. Let me look at you, sweetheart.” He still held her hands, but at
arms’ length away, and looked at her blushing face with such an
adoration in his eyes as she had never beheld.
Indeed, Adam’s passion had swept her from her feet. It possessed her,
enveloped her form, held her enthralled in an ecstasy so profound that
she gasped to catch her breath, while her heart leaped as if it were
pealing out her happiness.
They were standing thus, oblivions of everything, when a sour-visaged
Puritan, passing by the gate, halted a moment to look at them
malignantly. It was none other than Isaiah Pinchbecker, the scolding
hypocrite who had danced to Adam’s fiddling, several years before. He
suddenly gave himself a nudge in the ribs. His eyes lighted up with grim
satisfaction. He had recognized the rover, and with news in his narrow
head he hastened away, prodding himself assiduously as he went.
In the meantime, Grandther Donner, whose naps lasted hardly as long as
forty winks, had awakened. He started from his sleep as if he had
suddenly caught himself neglecting to watch the charter. Glancing
hastily about the room, he missed Garde at once. In his brain, two cells
had broken their walls so that their substance commingled, till Garde
and the charter seemed at times the same, and always so interlinked that
he dared not let her go a yard from his sight.
He tottered to his feet, and rubbing his thumb diligently across the
ends of his fingers, went out at the open door, toward his grandchild,
guided by some sense which in an animal is often highly developed. He
came upon the scene in the garden just as Adam, after looking his heart
full, nearly to bursting, had drawn Garde close again, to kiss her hands
in uncontainable joy.
At sight of Adam’s costume, which was not a great departure from that of
the Royalists of the day, in contradistinction from that of the
Puritans, David Donner flew into a violent rage. He raised his two
palsied hands above his head and screamed.
“Garde!” he cried, “Garde! Kill that man—Kill him!—kill him! The
charter! The King’s devil! Kill him! He’s ripping the charter to pieces
with his teeth!”
He came running toward them, clawing his nails down across his face till
he made his pale cheeks bleed, and tore out little waving filaments,
like gossamer, from his snow-white hair. Almost at their feet he fell
full length, where he struck at the soil and dug in his finger nails,
frantically, all the while making terrible sounds in his paroxysm, most
dreadful to hear.
Adam and Garde had started, he merely alert in the presence of the
unexpected, she in a fear that sent the color from her face so abruptly
that it seemed she must swoon at once. She uttered one little cry, clung
galvanically to Adam’s fingers for a second, and then bent quickly down
to place her hand on the old man’s head.
His delirious fury lasted but a moment. It then subsided as quickly as
it had come, leaving him limp, exhausted, dull-eyed and panting like
some run-down animal. A more pitiable sight than he then became, as he
began to weep, shaken by the convulsive sobs which sometimes possess the
frame of a man, Adam hoped he should never be obliged to witness.
Well as he understood that the sight of himself had precipitated this
painful episode, Adam was also now aware that the old man, for the
moment, saw and comprehended nothing. He therefore lifted him tenderly
up in his arms and carried him into the house, placing him gently down
on a lounge which he readily saw had been recently employed for the old
man’s couch.
Garde had followed, her hands clasped together, the look of a tired
mother in her face, making it infinitely sweet and patient.
“Garde, dear, forgive me,” said Adam. “I came too soon to see you.”
“Oh Adam!” she said, sadly. “In a few days, a week, dear, he is sure to
be better.”
“Is there anything I can do?” said Adam, from the depths of his distress
and sympathy and love.
“Oh, he is coming back to himself. Go, Adam, please,” said Garde, “don’t
wait, dear, please. Come back to the gate, this evening.”
Adam went without so much as waiting to say good-by, for Garde had
turned to her grandfather quickly, and anything further he might have
said he abandoned, when David feebly spoke.
Depressed by the whole affair immeasurably, Adam was still too exalted
by love’s great flight to dwell for long upon old Donner’s mania. His
worries for Garde, in her tribulations, however, were strewn like sad
flowers of thought through his reverie. He longed to help her, yet he
knew how utterly impossible such a thing would be.
Walking aimlessly, he came before long to the harbor shore. The melted
emerald and sapphire, which the sea was rolling against the rocks, with
sparkles of captured sunlight glinting endlessly through and upon the
lazy billows, gave him the greatest possible sense of delight. He sat
down on a rock where the green velvet moss had dried like fur, after a
wetting.
No king on a throne ever detected more evidences of the world’s gladness
than did the rover, thinking away the hours of that balmy afternoon. He
forgot all about dinner, when the sun went down, and he had nearly
forgotten old man Donner, when at length he started to his feet, in the
twilight, in love with the evening for having come so soon, although
half an hour before he had been thinking the day would never end.
He was soon at the gate in front of Donner’s house, listening, watching
the darkened windows, holding his breath as every fragrant zephyr
trailed its perfumes by, thinking Garde was coming, preceded by the
redolence attendant on her loveliness.
But he had many such breathless moments of suspense, in vain. Evening
glided into the arms of night. The hours winged by, on raven wings, and
still no Garde appeared. Adam paced up and down, restoring, time after
time, the picture of Garde as he had seen her, during those precious few
moments before the interruption.
He was not conscious of the flight of time. He was well content to be
near where his lady was and to wait there, knowing that she knew he was
waiting, thinking of her, as he knew she was thinking of him. He clasped
his hands back of his head; then he folded his arms, the better to press
on his heart; then he stopped and tossed kisses to the silent house,
after which he again walked back and forth, pausing to listen, and then
going on as before.
At length, near midnight, he stood looking up at the stars, completely
absorbed in a dream he was fashioning to suit himself.
There was a faint flutter.
“Adam—oh, are you there?” said a sweet voice, subdued and a bit
tremulous. “Oh, I am so glad you didn’t go away, discouraged.”
Adam had turned about instantly, a glad sound upon his lips. In one
stride he reached the gate and caught her two trembling hands where they
rested on the pickets.
“Dearest!” he murmured to her joyously. “At last!”
“I can only stop a minute, Adam,” said Garde, who was quaking a little,
lest her grandfather wake and come again into the garden. “He has been
very restless, and he wouldn’t go to sleep, and he wakes up so easily!
But I couldn’t let you go away like that. And I have tried to come out
five times, but he woke up every time, and now I must say good night,
Adam, and run right back at once.”
“Oh, but I love you so,” said Adam, illogically. “If you must go,
though, you must. I know I can never tell you how much I love you,
dearest.”
“Oh, Adam!” she said, expressing more than he did, poor fellow, in all
his protestations. “Oh, dear! I really must go, Adam. But in about a
week I am sure he will be much better.”
“Shan’t I see you for a week?” said he.
“It might be better not,” she answered, “if we could wait.”
“I could go down to see my poor old beef-eaters, I suppose,” Adam mused.
In relating his travels, on the road, he had told Garde of the
beef-eaters, so that now, although she said nothing to betray herself,
she understood what he meant.
“And then you’ll come back, as soon as you can, in a few days, or a
week?” she asked. “Oh, dear—it is too bad. But, Adam, I must not remain
another single minute. I must say good night, dear, and run.”
Adam had remained on his own side of the gate, retaining her hands,
which he had kissed repeatedly, till they fairly burned with their
tingling. He now reached over the gate and took her sweet face between
his two big palms.
“Good night, dearest little love,” he said, and slowly leaning forward,
he kissed her, once—then he kissed her three times more.
She started slowly away, looking back at him lovingly.
“Oh, Garde!” he whispered.
She stopped and came fluttering back to meet him. He had let himself in
at the gate with one quick movement. He took her home to his arms and
held her in breathless joy against his throbbing heart. With love in her
eyes her face was turned upward to his own.
“My Adam!” she said, with all the fervor of her nature.
“My love! My darling!” he responded.
He kissed her again. It was a warm, sweet kiss that brought their very
souls to their lips. Then he dropped down on his knee and kissed her
hands and pressed their fragrant palms against his face.
“My love!” he said. “My own love!”
She nestled in his arms yet once again. She gave him the one more kiss
that burned on her lips to be taken, and then she fled swiftly to the
house.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE ENEMY IN POWER.
ADAM found his faithful beef-eaters on the verge of the grave. The
miserable old rogues had no better sense than to be pining to death like
two masterless dogs. They had been ill enough, in all conscience, and
even somewhat mentally disordered, but there had been no sufficient
grounds for the pair to believe themselves abandoned by their “Sachem,”
and there had been absolutely no excuse for them to refuse to eat.
However, the rascals nearly “wagged” themselves to pieces when Rust was
finally beside them, and the way they laughed was most suggestively like
the glad whimpering of two dumbly loving animals expressing their joy.
Adam would have scolded the two for having brought themselves to such a
condition of weakness and bones, only that he had not the heart to do
this justice to the case.
There was, however, no such thing as getting the old fellows back on
their pins in a week, nor yet in two, nor three. They even hesitated,
after he had come, between running backward toward their long sleep and
coming along with him to vales of renewed health. They were like
affectionate creatures divided between two masters. The grim visitor had
come so near to winning them both, with his beckoning, that they
appeared to think it their duty to die.
Adam, however, was a persuasive force. He had won them away from
themselves before; he won them again on this occasion. Captain Kidd, a
braw Scotsman, who ordinarily dropped his native dialect, having little
affection for his country, his father having suffered tortures for
becoming a non-conformist clergyman, felt he must needs relapse into
something barbaric to express himself on the beef-eaters.
“Of all the twas that ere twad,” said he, “you’re muckle the strangest
twa.”
By this he meant to convey that of all the couples that ever mated, the
two old rascals were the oddest pair.
The convalescence being a slow affair, Adam was obliged to give up all
thought of returning immediately to Boston. Yet so hopeful was he that
every day would perform some miracle of restoring the strength to the
muscles and the meat to the bones of his retinue, that it was not until
he had been away from Garde for more than three weeks that he finally
wrote to tell her of why he had failed to return. But the letter, for
some unknown reason, was never delivered.
At length, however, what with the fulness of summer come upon them and
the hope which Adam had inspired in their breasts, the beef-eaters
became padded out to the fulness of their old-time grandeur, and once
more swaggered about and bragged of their prowess.
Adam’s money had, by this time, dwindled down to a sum which was not at
all difficult to transport from place to place, nor even from pocket to
pocket. Having no heart to put the retinue on shipboard, to convey them
to Massachusetts, he sacrificed nearly his last bit of coin to secure
them passage, by coach and wagon, from Manhattan to Boston. This left
him either one of two expedients for himself. He could walk, or he could
make shift to secure a passage by vessel, giving work as payment for the
favor. He argued that once in Boston he would accept the position
offered by Goodwife Phipps at the ship-yard, and hither also would he
take his followers, so that by honest toil they might all be happy and
continue their time-sealed companionship, and desert the rolling-stone
business as an occupation.
It was not without misgivings that the beef-eaters accepted this
arrangement. But being obedient things that would willingly have gone
into fire, or the sea itself, at Adam’s command or wish, they meekly
bade him a temporary adieu and saw him depart before them, a ship being
several days ahead of the coach in point of time for departing.
In the meantime, history had been making fast in Boston. The crafty
Randolph, whose coup had long been prepared, had returned from New
Amsterdam, bearing a commission from the King of England declaring the
charter null and void and delegating upon him power to form a new
provisional government for the colony of Massachusetts. Great tracts of
territory, comprising New Hampshire, Maine and other areas, were lopped
off from the province at one fell blow. Randolph created Joseph Dudley
provisional governor, Dudley having long been seeking his favor, against
this final moment of changes. The courts fell into the hands of the
newly-elected power. The soldiers, constabulary, everything assumed an
ultra-English tone and arrogance. The people clenched their fists and
wrought their passions up to a point where rebellions are lighted in a
night.
Yet Boston was a loyal town, obedient to its liege lord and nearly as
eager to serve him and to do him homage as it was to preserve its
liberties and the independence, which gradual development had created
and long usage had confirmed as inalienable, in the belief of all the
patriotic citizens. Stoughton and Bradstreet, beholding the
revolutionary tendency, which would have plunged the colony most
unwisely into a sea of trouble, submitted to the new order of things,
which for long they had seen coming, inevitably, out of the malignant
spirit in which the Stuart dynasty had always desired to govern these
non-conformist hard-heads.
There were many creatures in Boston swift to join the Tory party, under
Randolph, for the plums of official recognition. Thus this party rapidly
assumed considerable dimensions, and therefore power, to add to that of
which the King himself was the fountain-head.
Boston at that time was a prosperous town of something more than six
thousand souls. It was substantially built, if crookedly, for the most
part of wood. Yet there was a fair sprinkling of brick houses along its
cow-path streets, and a few were of stone, which, in several instances,
had been brought to this undeveloped land from England. The town was
distinctly English, both as to customs and thoughts, but the seeds which
hardihood had sown, were to grow the pillars of Americanism—synonymous
with a spirit of Democracy sufficient to inspire the world!
Naturally Isaiah Pinchbecker became a master-jackal under the new
régime. Psalms Higgler, the lesser light of lick-spittling, became, by
the same token, a lesser carnivora, but no less hungry to be feeding on
the foe-masters of the recent past. And Pinchbecker, having found Adam
in the town, was alert to find him again.
Yet not even Pinchbecker, with his knife-edge mind, devoted to evolving
schemes of vengeance, could have comprehended the tigerish joy with
which Randolph remembered Adam Rust, from that morning in the Crow and
Arrow, and with which he now put two and two together, to arrive at
Adam’s relationship with Garde Merrill.
Randolph was a subtle schemer, never fathomed by the Puritans, against
whom he displayed such an implacable hatred. He was far too wise ever to
appear as the point, when a thrust of revenge was to be delivered. He
never for a moment relaxed his obsequious demeanor, nor his air of
injured guiltlessness. Like all men of power, he had much material,
self-offered, from which to choose his henchmen. He had chosen
Pinchbecker wisely, for a hypocrite, a fawner, and an arrant knave who
could work endless harm, in an underhanded fashion. But for his more
aggressive employment he attached to his service a great, burly brute,
with a face like a mastiff’s, an intelligence like a sloth’s, and a
courage like that of a badger. This masterpiece of human animalism
responded to the name of “Gallows,” for once a man had been hanged on
his back, as in early English-Irish usage, and of this he was
matchlessly proud.
Adam arrived in the midst of that first elation of Randolph and his
following, the like of which is frequently the cause of reaction so
violent as to quite reverse the fates themselves. But although the
Puritans hated Dudley, almost more than Randolph, for traitorously
joining the party of destruction, their growlings checked nothing of the
all-importance which the creatures in power felt and made their
fellow-beings feel. A spirit of sullen brooding settled on the people.
Unaware that Rust had been away from Boston, since he had seen him that
day in Donner’s garden with Mistress Merrill, Pinchbecker had been
seeking for him diligently, ever since Randolph’s return. But believing
that his quarry would be found eventually in the vicinity of the Crow
and Arrow, his field of investigations was narrow.
It had naturally happened, however, that Adam had quite forgotten to
tell the beef-eaters of his change of abode in Boston. They would
therefore proceed to the old tavern immediately upon their arrival. He
thought of this before he landed. Having come ashore at twilight, he
made it his duty to stroll to the Crow and Arrow, for the purpose of
leaving a message for Pike and Halberd, when at last they should come to
the town.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXX.
A FIGHT AT THE TAVERN.
IT was a quiet time of the day, in a quiet part of the city. Adam
discerned one or two individuals only and was not concerned with noting
that he was suddenly preceded by a noiseless person, who hastened ahead
of him to the tavern. The rover was much more occupied in observing the
beauties of a horse that stood hitched to a post across the way from the
public house.
The animal, a fine bay, imported from England, was the property of one
of Randolph’s followers, a drinking young dandy with questionable
ambitions and many extravagant tastes. Charmed by the horse’s
impatience, as evinced by his pawing at the ground, Adam was tempted to
get astride his back for a gallop.
However, after standing for a moment on the sidewalk, while his gaze
caressed the champing animal, he turned and passed on into the tavern.
Desiring to conclude his business as speedily as possible, he was
somewhat annoyed to find the way to the bar, in front of the landlord,
completely blocked by a great hulk of a creature, with a sword loosely
girt about his loins, and two or three others, of whom the rover took
less notice.
“By your leave,” he said, politely, not yet suspicious of the odd
silence which had fallen on the company at his entrance, “I would like
to get to the——”
“What!” roared the big lout, whom he had slightly touched upon the arm.
“Who the devil are you? Keep your hands off of me, you fool!”
The person on whom Adam looked was Gallows, whose face, florid almost to
being purple, was so savagely contorted as to comprise an insult in
itself.
“My cross-eyed friend,” retorted Adam, whose temper had risen without
delay, “have done looking at yourself, if you would see no fool. If you
will tell me which hand I put on you, I’ll cut it off, else I may live
to see it rot!”
The company had turned about at once. Pinchbecker was there, with his
satellite, Psalms Higgler, the little white-eyed scamp that Adam had
once dropped from the near-by window. The foppish young Englishman, who
owned the horse outside, was likewise in the party. They all saw the
burly Gallows turn to them hopelessly, befuddled by Adam’s answer.
“You be a fool!” he roared again, his eyes bulging out of their sockets
in his wrath, “and I be the fool-killer!”
The company guffawed at this, the monster’s solitary sally of wit.
“You are a liar by the fact that you live,” said Rust. “Bah, you disgust
me with the thought of having the duties, which you have so patently and
outrageously neglected, thrust upon me. Begone. There’s no fire to roast
a barbecue, if I should be minded to spit you!”
The creature looked again at his fellows, who had obviously egged him
on.
“He insults you right prettily, good Gallows,” said the dandy, who was
himself a rascal banished from his own country. “But he dare not fight
you, we can see it plainly.”
“With you thrown in, I dare say there might be a moment’s sport in a
most unsavory blood-letting,” said Rust, whose hand went to his
sword-hilt calmly. “I should want some fresh air if I stuck either one
of you carrion-fed buzzards.”
Gallows knew by this that it was time to draw his blade. “You be a fool
and I be the fool-killer,” he roared as before, this being his best hold
on language to suit the occasion. Only now he came for Adam like a
butcher.
“Outside—go outside, gentlemen!” cried the landlord excitedly.
“Go outside!” said the voice of some one who was not visible. It was
Randolph, concealed in the adjoining room and watching the proceedings
through a narrow crack, where he had opened the door.
“Go on out, and I’ll fight you!” bellowed Gallows.
“After you,” said Rust, whose blade was out and being swiftly passed
under his exacting eye. “Go out first. You will need one more breath
than I.”
The brute obeyed, as if he had to do so and knew it, receiving Adam’s
order like the clod he was.
The other creatures made such a scrambling to see the show, and
otherwise evinced such an abnormal interest in the coming fight, that
Adam had no trouble in divining that the whole affair had been
prearranged, and that if he did not get killed, he would be arrested,
should he slay his opponent. He concluded he was something of a match
for the whole outfit.
“Have at you, mountain of foul meat,” he said, as he tossed down his
hat. “What a mess you will make, done in slices!”
The young dandy laughed, despite himself, from his place by the door.
Gallows needed no further exasperations. He came marching up to Rust and
made a hack at him, mighty enough and vicious enough to break down the
stoutest guard and cleave through a man’s whole body as well.
Rust had expected no less than such a stroke. He spared his steel the
task of parrying the Gallows’ slash. Nimbly leaping aside, he made a
motion that had something debonair in its execution, and cut a ghastly
big flap, like a steak, from the monster’s cheek.
The fellow let out an awful bellow and ran at his opponent, striking at
him like a mad Hercules.
“Spare yourself, fool-killer,” said Adam. He dared to bow, as he dodged
a mighty onslaught, in which Gallows used his sword like a hatchet, and
then he flicked the giant’s ear away, bodily, taking something also of
his jowl, for good measure.
The great hulk stamped about there like an ox, the blood hastening down
from his face and being flung in spatters about him. Adam next cut him
deeply in the muscle of his great left arm.
“I warm to my work,” he said, as he darted actively away and back.
“Gentlemen, is your choice for a wing or a leg of the ill-smelling
bird?”
The dandy, fresh from England, guffawed and cried “Bravo!” He had been
born a gentleman, in spite of himself.
The fight was a travesty on equality. The monster was absolutely
helpless. He was simply a vast machine for butchery, but he must needs
first catch his victim before he could perform his offices. He was a
terrible sight, with his great sword raised on high, or ripping downward
through the air, as he ran, half blinded by his own gore, to catch the
rover, who played with him, slicing him handily, determined not to kill
the beast and so to incur a penalty for murder.
The creatures inside the tavern, appalled by the exhibition they had
brought about, saw that their monster was soon to be a staggering tower
of blood and wounds.
“Don’t let him get away! Kill him! Kill him!” said the voice of
Randolph, from behind the others.
Adam heard him. He saw Pinchbecker shrink back at once. Psalms Higgler,
however, glad of an excuse and ready to take advantage of a man already
sufficiently beset, came scrambling out. The foppish gentleman was too
much of a sport to take a hand against such a single swordsman as he
found in Rust.
Aware that he was to have no chance, and convinced abruptly that these
wretches had plotted to kill him, Adam deftly avoided Gallows, as the
dreadful brute came again upon him, and slashing the fellow’s leg behind
the knee, ham-strung him instantly.
Roaring like a wounded bull, the creature dropped down on his side, and
then got upon his hands and knees and commenced to crawl, wiping out his
eyes with his reddened hands.
Unable to restrain his rage, and fearing his intended victim would yet
avoid him, Higgler being already at bay and disarmed, Randolph came
abruptly out from the tavern himself, pistol in hand, to perform the
task which otherwise was doomed to failure.
“Call the guard!” he cried. “Call the guard!”
Adam had been waiting for some such treachery. He cut at the pistol the
second it rose, knocking it endways and slicing Randolph’s arm,
superficially, from near the wrist to the elbow. He waited then for
nothing more.
Across the road, before any one guessed his intention, he was up on the
back of the horse, before the yelled protest of the English gentleman
came to his ears.
“Gentlemen all,” he called to the group, “good evening.”
Clapping his heels to the ribs of the restive animal, he rode madly
away, just as Isaiah Pinchbecker, with half a dozen constables came
running frantically upon the scene.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXXI.
A REFUGEE.
IRRESPONSIBLY joyous, thus to be in a saddle, on a spirited horse, Rust
was soon dashing across the common and turning about like a centaur, for
ease and grace, glanced back to see who might be joining in the race.
His naked sword was still in his hand. It was red from point to hilt. He
wiped it on the horse, thereby causing the animal to plunge and to run
in a frenzy of nervousness.
Adam chortled. The affair from beginning to end, from his present
standpoint, appealed to his sense of humor. The consequences of his
adventure would be presented to his mind soon enough. He merely knew now
that he had won out of a tight corner, as a gentleman should, that a
glorious animal was bounding beneath him and, that sweet night air came
rushing upon him as if it opened its arms to receive him.
Aware that he would soon be pursued, and mentally acknowledging that the
horse was not his own, he rode to a farm-house about a mile or so out
from the town, and there dismounted. Reluctantly he said farewell to the
charger, bidding the farmer have the animal returned to Boston in the
morning, with his thanks and compliments. For the service he presented
the wondering man with a piece of silver, the last he had of the small
amount left him after paying the fares of the beef-eaters up to
Massachusetts.
Coolly inviting himself to have a bite of the farmer’s scanty supper, he
bade the man good night, about five minutes before the mounted
constables came riding hotly to the place. He even heard them, when they
left the farm and began to scour the woods to jump him up. At this he
smiled with rare good humor, confident of the powers of superior
wood-craft to baffle anybody or anything in all Massachusetts, save
alone an Indian.
Understanding all the delighted chucklings of the forest as he did, he
felt at once secure among the trees, as one of the family. Moreover he
loved to be wandering in the woods at night. He continued to walk, on
and on, beginning to wonder at last what he really intended to do. Then,
at the thought of Garde, who might be expecting to see him, and whom he
very much desired again to see, he waxed somewhat impatient with this
enforced flight from the town where she was.
The more he thought upon it, then, the more impossible it seemed for him
to return. Against Randolph, enthroned in power, and against all his
wretched disciples, he could not expect to breathe a word which would
avail to get him justice. It would be sheer madness to make the attempt.
The creatures would charge him with all the crimes on the calendar, and,
swearing all to one statement, would convict him of anything they chose.
The whole affair had been planned to beat him, or worse, and to a
galling extent it had quite succeeded. He was balked, completely and
absolutely, in whatsoever direction his meditations turned. To try to
see Garde would be fairly suicidal. Not to see her, especially after his
promises, would be, to a man so much in love as he, a living death.
And again, the beef-eaters. What was to become of his faithful retinue?
They would arrive there, only to find that he had again deserted them,
leaving them wholly at the mercy of Randolph and his jackals. These
demons would not be slow at recognizing who and what Pike and Halberd
were, from episodes of the past. The two would go straight into the
lion’s mouth, at the Crow and Arrow.
He thought at first of going to Plymouth. He could write to Garde from
there, he reflected, and also to Halberd and Pike. But he soon concluded
that this would be to walk merely into the other end of the enemy’s
trap, for no good or comforting purpose. New York presented itself as a
jurisdiction where Randolph’s arm would have no power to do him harm.
But New York was a long way off. If he went there, not only would he
miss seeing Garde, but he could not warn his retinue in time to keep
them out of Randolph’s clutches.
The business was maddening. He began to think, as a consequence of
dwelling on the hopelessness of his own situation, that Randolph would
be aiming next at Garde herself, in wreaking his dastardly vengeance for
his past defeats. This was intolerable. He halted, there in the dark
woods, swaying between the good sense of hiding and the nonsense of
going straight back to the town, to carry Garde away from the harpies,
bodily.
A picture of old David Donner, stricken, helpless, a child, arose in his
mind, to confront him and to mock his Quixotic scheme. He could not
carry both Garde and her grandfather away to New York, nor even to the
woods. He was penniless. This was not the only obstacle, even supposing
Donner would consent so to flee, which was not at all likely.
It was also certain that Garde would not permit him to carry her off and
leave the old man behind. But at least, he finally thought, he could go
back to the town and be near, to protect her, if occasion should require
a sword and a ready wit. Could he but manage to do this—to go there
secretly and remain there unknown—he could gather his beef-eaters about
him and together they could and would combat an army!
But how to go back and be undetected, that was the question. In the
first place he despised the idea of doing anything that did not smack of
absolute boldness and fearlessness. Yet Boston was a seething whirlpool
of Randolph’s power, at this time. Simply to be caught like a rat and
killed like a pest would add nothing of glory to his name, nor could it
materially add to Garde’s happiness and safety.
Driven into a corner of his brain, as it were, by all these moves and
counter-moves on the chess-board of the situation, he presently
conceived a plan which made him hug himself in sheer delight.
He would simply disguise himself as an Indian and go to town to make a
treaty with Randolph, the Big-man-afraid-to-be-chief.
This so tickled his fancy that, had an Indian settlement been near at
hand, he would have been inside his buckskins and war-paint and back to
Boston ahead of the constables themselves. In such a guise, he told
himself, he could manage to see his sweetheart, he could get his
beef-eaters clear of danger, baffle his foes, and arrange to carry both
Garde and her grandfather away to safety.
But the first consideration was, where should he find an Indian? He was
aware that the Red men had been pushed backward and westward miles from
the towns of the whites. It was years since he had roamed through the
forests and mountains——years since he had known where his old-time, red
brothers built their lodges. There could be but one means of finding a
camp, namely: to walk onward, to penetrate fairly to the edge of the
wilderness beyond.
Nothing daunted by the thought of distance, he struck out for the west.
Like the Indians themselves, he could smell the points of the sunrise
and sunset, unerringly. With boyish joy in his thoughts, and in the
dreams he fashioned of the hair-breadth events that would happen when he
arrived in the town in his toggery, he plodded along all night, happy
once more and contented.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXXII.
A FOSTER PARENT.
ADAM covered many a mile before the morning. Mindless of his hunger,
spurred by the thought that he must soon be back in Boston, he felt that
the further he went the more he must hasten. Thus he marched straight on
till noon.
He rested briefly at this time, filled his craving stomach with water,
and again made a start. In fifteen minutes he came upon a clearing, at
the edge of a little valley where up-jutting rocks were as plentiful as
houses in a city. Pausing for a moment, to ascertain the nature of the
place, and to prepare himself against possible surprise, he presently
approached a small log hut, of more than usually rude construction.
There appeared to be no signs whatsoever of life about the place. No
smoke ascended from the chimney; there was no animal in sight, not even
so much as a dog.
Adam glanced hurriedly about the acre or so of land, beholding evidences
of recent work. A tree had been felled, not far away, within the week.
In a neat little patch of tilled soil, green corn stood two feet high
and growing promisingly.
Going to the cabin-door he knocked first and gave it a push afterward,
for it was not latched, although it was nearly closed. There being no
response from the inside, he entered. The light entered with him. It
revealed a strange and dreadful scene.
On the floor lay a man, dressed, half raised on his elbow, looking up at
the visitor with staring eyes, while he moved his lips without making a
sound. A few feet away sat a little brown baby-boy, clothed only in a
tiny shirt. He looked up at big Adam wistfully. Strewn about were a few
utensils for cooking, a bag which had once contained flour, the dust of
which was in patches everywhere, and an empty water-bucket and dipper,
with all the bedding and blankets from a rude wooden bunk, built against
the wall.
In amazement Adam stood looking at the man. In the haggard face, with
its unkempt beard and glassy eyes he fancied he saw something familiar.
Memory knocked to enter his brain. Then, with a suddenness that gave him
a shock, he recognized a man he had known in England—an elder brother of
Henry Wainsworth, supposed to have died years before—drowned while
attempting to escape from an unjust sentence of imprisonment for
treason.
“Wainsworth!” he said, “good faith! what is the meaning of this?”
The man sank back on the floor, a ghost of a smile passing across his
face. He moved his lips again, but Adam heard not a word.
Bending quickly down, he became aware that the man was begging for
water. He caught up the bucket and hastened forth, presently finding the
spring, to which a little path had been worn in the grass.
Back at once, he placed the dipper to the dried-out lips and saw this
fellow-being drink with an evidence of joy such as can only come to the
dying. Wainsworth shivered a little, as the dipper left his teeth, and
jerked his hand toward the silent child, sitting so near, on the floor.
Adam comprehended. He gave more of the water to the small, brown baby.
It patted the dipper with its tiny hands and looked up at him dumbly.
“What in the world has happened here?” said Rust.
Making a mighty effort, the man on the floor partially raised his head
and arms. He looked at Adam with a hungering light in his eyes.
“I’m—done—for,” he said, thickly and feebly.
Adam hustled together the blankets on the floor and made a pillow, which
he placed for Wainsworth to lie on. “Shall I put you into the bed?” he
asked.
The man shook his head. “I’m crushed,” he said, winking from his eyes
the already gathering film that tells of the coming end.
“Tree—fell—killed the—wife. I—crawled—here.”
Adam looked at him helplessly. He knew the man was dying. He felt what
agonies the man must have suffered. “Man!” he said, “can’t I get you
something to eat?”
Wainsworth waved his hand toward the wreckage strewed on the floor.
“Nothing—here,” he said. Then he made a great effort, the obvious rally
of his strength. “Save the—boy,” he implored. “Give him a—chance....
Don’t—tell—about me. I married—his mother—Narragansett—God bless—her....
Give—him—a—chance.... Thanks.”
As he mentioned the child’s mother, his eyes gave up two tears—crystals,
which might have represented his soul, for it had quietly escaped from
his broken body.
Adam, kneeling above him, looked for a moment at his still face, on
which the shadow of a smile rested. Then he looked at the little, brown
youngster, half Narragansett Indian, gazing up in his countenance with a
timid, questioning look, winking his big black eyes slowly, and quite as
deliberately moving his tiny toes.
It was not a situation to be thought out nor coped with easily. To have
found any human being in this terrible plight would have been enough,
but to have found Henry Wainsworth’s brother thus, and to have him tell
such a brief, shocking story, and make of his visitor all the things
which Adam would have to become at once, was enough to make him stand
there wondering and wondering upon it all.
“You poor little rascal,” he said to the child, at last.
He selected a shovel and a pick, from some tools which he noted, in a
corner, and laying aside his sword, he went to work, on the preface to
his duties, out by the patch of corn where he found the pretty, young
Indian mother, clasped and held down to earth in an all too ardent
embrace, by an arm of the fallen tree.
When he had padded up the mound over the two closed human volumes, he
was faint with hunger. He carried the tools again to the house, and
stood as before, looking at the baby-boy, who still sat where he had
left him, on the floor.
“Well, I suppose you are hungry, you little brown man,” he said. “I must
see what there is to be had.”
There was little opportunity for extended explorations. The one room had
contained the all of Wainsworth and his Narragansett partner. Rust soon
found himself wondering what the two had lived upon. What flour and meal
there had been, the man, despite his two crushed legs, had pulled down,
from a box-like cupboard, on the wall, together with a bit of dried
meat. Of the latter only a dry fragment remained, still tied to a
string, while of the meal and flour, only the empty bags gave evidence
that they once had existed.
There was no way possible for Adam to know that in the forest, not far
away, the lone woodsman had set his traps, for squirrels and rabbits,
nor that fifteen minutes’ walk from the door a trout stream had
furnished its quota to the daily fare. He only knew that there was
nothing edible to be found here now. There was salt, a bit of grease, on
a clean white chip of pine, and a half gourd, filled with broken-up
leaves, which had doubtless been steeped for some manner of tea or
drink.
“Partner,” he said, to the child, “someone has been enforcing sumptuary
laws upon us. I hesitate in deciding whether we shall take our water
salted or fresh.”
With his hand on the hilt of his sword he regarded the youngster
earnestly. Nothing prettier than the little naked fellow could have been
imagined, howbeit he was not so plump as a child of his age should be,
for the lack of nourishment had already told upon him markedly. Adam
felt convinced, from various indications, that the tree which had done
its deadly work had fallen about a week before, and that Wainsworth had
not been able to do anything more than to crawl to the cabin, to die,
neither for himself or the child.
For a time the rover wondered what he must do. His own plans had nearly
disappeared from his mind. He reflected that a child so brown as this,
so obviously half a little Narragansett, would be ill received by the
whites. The Indians would be far more likely to cherish the small man,
according to his worth. He therefore believed the best thing he could do
would be to push onward, in the hope of finding an Indian settlement
soon. There were several reasons, still remaining unaltered, why it
would be wiser not to take the child to Boston.
“Well, our faces are dirty, partner,” he said, at the end of a long
cogitation, in which the baby had never ceased to look up in his
countenance and wink his big eyes, wistfully. “Let’s go out and have a
bath.”
He took the tiny chap up in his arms and carried him forth to the
spring. Here, in the warm sunlight, he got down on his knees in the
grass, bathed his protégé, over and over again, for the pleasure it
seemed to give the child and the joy it was to himself, to feel the
little wet, naked fellow in his hands.
The sun performed the offices of a towel. Without putting his tiny shirt
back upon him, Adam rolled the small bronze bit of humanity about his
back, patting his velvety arms and thighs and laughing like the grown-up
boy he was, till the little chap gurgled and crowed in tremendous
delight. But it having been only the freshness of the water, air and
sunlight which had somewhat invigorated the baby, he presently appeared
to grow a little dull and weary. Adam became aware that it was time to
be moving. He washed out the child’s wee shirt and hung it through his
belt to dry as they went. Then taking a light blanket from the cabin,
for the child’s use at night, he left the cabin behind and proceeded
onward as before.
He walked till late in the afternoon without discovering so much as a
sign of the Indian settlement he was seeking. By this time his own pangs
of hunger had become excruciating. It was still too early in the summer
for berries or nuts to be ripe, and the half green things which he found
where the sun shone the warmest were in no manner fit to be offered to
the child, as food.
Arriving at another small valley, as the sun was dipping into the
western tree-tops, the rover sat down for a rest, and to plan something
better than this random wandering toward the sunset. He had chuckled
encouragement to the child from time to time, laughing in the little
fellow’s face, but hardly had he caught at the subtle signs on the small
face, at which a mother-parent would have stared wild-eyed in agony.
Now, however, as he sat the tiny man on the grass before him, he saw in
the baby’s eyes such a look as pierced him to the quick. For a moment
the infinite wistfulness, the dumb questioning, the uncomplaining
silence of it, made him think, or hope, the child was only sad. He got
down on all fours at once.
“Partner,” said he, jovially, “you are disappointed in me. I make poor
shift as a mother. Do you want to be cuddled, or would you rather be
tickled?”
He laid the little chap gently on his back and tried to repeat the
frolic of the earlier hours. He rolled the small bronze body in the
grass, as before, and petted him fondly. But the baby merely winked his
eyes. He seemed about to cry, but he made no sound. Adam’s fingers
ceased their play, for the joy departed from them swiftly.
“Maybe you’re tired and sleepy,” he crooned. “Shall I put on your shirt
and sing you a little Indian lullaby? Yes? That’s what he wants, little
tired scamp.”
He adjusted the abbreviated shirt, awkwardly, but tenderly, after which
he held his partner in his arms and hummed and sang the words of a
Wampanoag song, which he had heard in his boyhood, times without number.
The song started with addresses to some of the elements, thus:
“Little Brook, it is night,
Be quiet, and let my baby sleep.
“Little wind, it is night,
Go away, and let my baby sleep.
“Little storm, it is night,
Be still, and let my baby sleep.
“Little wolf, it is night,
Howl not, and let my baby sleep.”
and after many verses monotonously soothing, came an incantation:
“Great Spirit, I place my babe
Upon the soft fur of thy breast,
Knowing Thou wilt protect,
As I cannot protect;
And therefore, oh Great Spirit,
Guard my child in slumber.”
Adam sang this song like a pleading. But his little partner could not
sleep, or feared to sleep. Then the rover looked at the tiny face and
realized that the child would soon be dying of starvation. At this he
started to his feet, abruptly.
He had undergone the pains of hunger often, himself; he was not
impatient now with the pangs in his stomach, nor the weakness in his
muscles. But he could not bear the thought of the child so perishing,
here in the wilderness.
He saw poor Wainsworth again, and heard him beg that the child be given
a chance. He thought of the man’s shattered life, his escape from
persecution, his isolation, in which he had preferred the society of his
Indian wife and child to association with his kind. Then he blamed
himself for coming further into this deserted region, when he knew that
by going back, at least he could find something for the child to
eat—something that would save its life!
But he could not forget that he himself was a refugee. Wrongly or
rightly, Randolph was still on his track. Nothing in his own case had
been altered, but the case was no longer one concerning himself alone.
He took the child on his arm, where he had carried him already many
miles, and faced about.
“Partner, let them take me,” he said. “I wish them joy of it.”
He started back for Boston, for in the child’s present extremity, the
nearest place where he could be sure of finding food was the only one
worthy a thought.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXXIII.
REPUDIATED SILVER.
SOMETIME, along toward the middle of the night, Adam tripped, on a root
which lay in his path, and in catching himself so that his small partner
should not be injured, he sprained his foot. He proceeded onward without
sparing the member, however, for he had begun to feel a fever of
impatience.
His foot swelled. It finally pained him excessively, so that he limped.
He wore away the night, but when the morning came, he was obliged to
snatch an hour of sleep, so great was the sense of exhaustion come upon
him.
His face had become pale. With his hair unkempt, his eyes expressive of
the fever in his veins and his mouth somewhat drawn, he was not a little
haggard, as he resumed his lame, onward march. The child in his arms was
no burden to his enduring strength, but as a load on his heart the
little chap was heavy indeed. Sleeping, the miniature man appeared to be
sinking in a final rest, so wan had his tiny face become. Waking, he
gazed at Adam with such a dumb inquiry ever present in his great,
wistful eyes, that Rust began to wish he would complain—would cry, would
make some little sound to break his baby silence.
They were obliged to rest frequently, throughout the day. Try as he
might, Adam could not cover the ground rapidly. Whenever he resumed
walking, after sitting for a moment on a log, or a rock, he found his
foot had become so bad that, in the late afternoon, he gave up halting
thus altogether.
The twilight came upon him, then the night-fall. At last, with a
smothered cry of delight on his lips, he saw the gleam of a light. He
had come to the farm-house where he had stopped to return the English
dandy’s horse and to eat his last supper. Thinking thereby to disguise
himself, even if only slightly, he halted, threw off his leather jerkin,
sword and coat, turned the latter inside out and concealed his weapon
and outside garment in the brush. Thus altered in appearance, he dragged
his aching foot across the space between the woods and the house, where
he knocked upon the door and entered.
“Who’s there?” cried the farmer, in a fright which recent events had
instilled in his being. He was a shaking old bachelor, suspected by many
who knew him of being a miser with a great horde of gold on his
premises.
Adam was confronted by the man, as soon as he stepped across the
threshold.
“Food, man,” he said, hoarsely. “Food, or this child will die!”
The man recognized him instantly. He fairly quaked with dread.
“Go out! Go out!” he cried. “I’ve no food here—I’ve nothing here!”
“Peace!” commanded Adam. “Bring me forth something to eat for the child,
you knave, or I shall find it for myself.”
He looked terrible enough to execute a much more dreadful threat. The
farmer retreated before him, cringing and whining.
“I have nothing, or you should have it,” he said, with a whimper. “My
neighbors—ten minutes’ walk up the clearing—go to them. They have
plenty, and I have nothing.”
Adam remembered the scantiness of the fare he had tasted here before.
Nevertheless it had been food, and anything now might save his little
partner’s life.
“Then you go, friend,” he ordered. “Make haste and bring me what you
can, from your neighbors’!”
The man seemed about to refuse. He changed his mind abruptly.
“I’ll go. I’ll go!” he hastened to say, and without his hat, or waiting
for anything further, he hobbled out at the door and was gone.
Rust lost no time in ransacking the cupboard. To his unspeakable
disappointment he found that the man had not spoken wide of the truth.
There was as little here, in the way of a few gnawed crusts of bread and
a rind of cheese, as might well stand between nothing and something to
eat and to feed to a starving child. His heart sank within him. But then
he thought that inasmuch as the farmer had told the truth about his
larder, he would be the more likely to have spoken correctly about the
neighbors. He would soon be back with something fit for the wee
Narragansett.
Adam looked at the baby-boy compassionately. The little fellow was
awake, looking up, winking slowly, asking his dumb, wistful question
with his eyes.
Adam patted him softly while he waited. “I’m a wretched mother, little
partner,” he said. “But we’ll soon have you banqueting, now. Can’t you
speak up a little bit? Don’t you want to give old Adam just one little
smile? No? Well, never mind. Little man is tired.”
He had placed his charge in a chair. Soon growing impatient, he limped
about the room, crunching a crust of bread in his teeth, abstractedly.
Unable to endure the suspense, he went again to the cupboard and threw
everything down, in his search for something fit for the child. There
was nothing more than he had seen before. He went to the water pail and
drank, for his mouth had found the crust a poor substitute for food.
Yet no sooner had he sipped the water than a sense of the deliciousness
of the dry bread pervaded his being. He ran to gather up the other
crusts at once and limped to the child in a frenzy of gladness.
“Here, little man,” he said, kneeling down on the floor. “If you can
only chew that up and then take a sip of water, you will think the
King’s kitchen has opened.”
He gently thrust a small piece of the rock-hard bread between the little
chap’s lips, where, to his intense disappointment, it remained.
“Can’t you chew it?” he said. “Just try, for old Adam.”
The child was too weak to do anything but wink. Its appealing gaze was
more than Adam could stand.
“What can Adam do for the little man?” he said.
He limped painfully back and forth again. The farmer should have
returned before this. What could be keeping the wretch? The rover saw
that the little life was fluttering, uncertainly, not yet sure of its
wings on which to fly away.
“I have it!” he cried, in sudden exultation. “Bread and water!”
He hobbled across the room, snatched up a cup, crunched a fistful of
crusts in his hand, put them in his cup and filled it half to the top
with water. Then he stirred the hard pieces with his finger and crushed
them smaller and padded them up against the side of the vessel, working
the mass softer in feverish haste. Impatient to get results, he put the
cup to the baby’s lips.
“Drink,” he coaxed. “Take a little, like a good partner. Can’t you take
a little weeny bit?”
Groaning, thus to find the small Narragansett so weak, he hobbled about
to find a spoon, with which he came hastily limping back. To his joy
then, he saw a little of the slightly nutritious water disappear between
the silent lips. He crooned with delight, hitched himself closer and
plied his spoon clumsily, but with all the patience of a woman.
The child began to take the nourishment with interest.
Adam was happy in the midst of this new-found expedient, when the door
behind him was suddenly thrown open, violently, and in burst half a
dozen constables, armed to the teeth and panting wildly.
“Give up! I arrest you in the name of the King!” cried the foremost of
the men. He presented a pistol at the head of the kneeling man. “Take
him!” he screamed to his following, and before Rust could so much as
rise, on his wounded foot, he was suddenly struggling in a mass of men
who had fallen upon him.
He got to his feet. He knocked three of the constables endways. But his
strength was gone quickly, so long had he been famished, and so far had
he taxed his endurance. They overpowered him, making a noise of mad
confusion. They threw him toward a chair. He made one cry of anguish and
protest. Three of the scrambling clods fell together upon the little
partner, and when they arose, his little heart had ceased to beat.
The farmer-miser now came worming his way through the door. He was
laughing like a wolf.
“You’ve got him!” he cried. “I told you! I told you! Heh, heh, heh. I’m
not in league with thieves and murderers. Here, here, take your silver!
I’ll none of your silver!”
He took from his pocket the coin which the rover had paid him to take
back the Englishman’s horse and threw it hysterically down at Adam’s
feet.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXXIV.
LODGINGS FOR THE RETINUE.
THE beef-eaters arrived in the afternoon of the same day that Adam was
arrested. Alighting from the coach, they did exactly what he had feared
they would. They wended their way promptly to the Crow and Arrow.
Randolph and his henchmen, having missed their intended prey, at their
first attempt, were engaged elsewhere in the town, attempting to make
good their failure. Believing Rust would return and attempt to see
Mistress Merrill, Randolph kept one or two of his creatures in the
vicinity of David Donner’s house day and night. But Gallows, being for
the time totally disabled, had been domiciled at the tavern, in a small
apartment off the tap-room, where he spent many hours of the day roaring
out his exceeding displeasure at the turn of events and the consequences
thereof, into which his friends had brought him.
Pike and Halberd appeared at the inn when the place was all but
deserted. Naturally the tavern had become popular with the Royalists,
but it had been gradually falling into disfavor with sailors and dock
hands for several years.
Striding haughtily into the place, the beef-eaters accosted the landlord
familiarly.
“My good fellow,” said little Pike, “be kind enough to let the Sachem
know that we have arrived and wait upon his pleasure.”
“And assure him of the excellence of our health,” said Halberd.
“I don’t know what you mean,” said the landlord, eying the pair
suspiciously and cudgeling his brains to remember where and when he had
seen them before. “I have no Mr. Sachem in the house.”
“He has no Mr. Sachem in the house,” said the beef-eaters, in chorus,
turning to one another with raised eyebrows and indulgent smiles.
“This surpasses belief,” said Halberd.
“My good friend, you mistook what we said,” added Pike. “We are
inquiring for The Sachem—not Mr. Sachem, but The Sachem.”
“I don’t know the Sachem,” said the landlord, frowning upon the guests.
“What do you want?”
“He don’t know the Sachem!” said the comrades, again in chorus. They
looked perfectly incredulous.
“Then I pity you for your loss,” Pike remarked.
“But if he is not at this house, where is he?” asked Halberd.
“Tell us where to find him and we will burden you with wealth,” Pike
added, grandly.
The landlord began to be certain they were crazy. “How should I know who
it is you seek?” he asked.
“Water! fetch me water!” roared Gallows, from the adjoining room.
“What disturbance is this?” Halberd wanted to know. He strode to the
door and looked in at the mountain of meat, propped up in bed, poulticed
and patched past all semblance to himself. “Friend,” Halberd said to
him, boldly, “your voice needs bleeding.”
“Ha!” bellowed Gallows, “you be a fool and I be the fool-killer! Let me
get——Howtch!” He made this latter exclamation on attempting to rise from
his lair.
Halberd and Pike both fell to the rear a step, at the awful voice of the
brute, but no sooner did they see him sink helplessly down on the couch
than they laughed in eloquent scorn.
“I should enjoy nothing better than to slay something large, before
dinner,” little Pike remarked.
“Tut. This is my recreation,” said Halberd. “Come forth, friend, till I
warm some cold steel in your belly.”
“Leave be!” commanded the landlord, coming forward to shut the door
between the rooms, and flapping his apron at the belligerent
beef-eaters. “Let me know your wants, if you have them, and if not, be
off about your business.”
“Sensibly spoken,” said Halberd. “All we desire of you is that you let
the Sachem know we are come.”
“But I said I didn’t know this Sachem!” cried the exasperated boniface.
“True, true,” said Pike. “But it seems too monstrous to be so.”
“But,” put in Halberd, “you must remember that wealthy young nobleman,
who paved our way with gold, when we were with you a number of years
ago. Surely you cannot yet have spent what we scattered in your house?”
“And you will certainly remember the drubbing we gave those varlets,
with the flat of our swords, here in this very room—some dozen of the
fellows there were in all,” added the other of the pair. “They dared to
insinuate that we were beggars—aye, beggars, forsooth!”
The landlord remembered them now, clearly enough. He restrained himself
from calling them vile names, by making an effort truly heroic.
“Oh, to be sure, I do recall it now,” he said, cunningly. “I believe
your Sachem did even call here, to ask if you had come. Yes, yes. I
think he said he meant to return here this afternoon again. Was he not a
tall, noble-looking gentleman?”
“Like a king,” said Pike.
“With a manner like this,” added Halberd, strutting and swaggering
across the room. “He should have walked in over several prostrate forms,
in the manner of a prince and our associate.”
“The same, the very same,” agreed the landlord. “He is certain to be
here within the hour. Sit down, gentlemen, and let me serve you, and
then I shall be honored to have a look about, myself, to see if I may
not find him.”
“Said like a scholar,” Halberd assured him.
“We do this honor to your house for his sake,” Pike added.
The two sat them down and the landlord hustled them out the vilest drink
he could draw, tampered with, as it was, to add some crude substance,
the effect of which on the brain was overpowering. The fellow saw the
beef-eaters drinking and waited for nothing more. He scampered away from
the rear of his place, as fast as his limbs could convey him.
Fifteen minutes later a small army of constables arrived, captured the
two brain-fuddled beef-eaters without the slightest resistance and
carried them off to the sumptuous apartments of the city jail. There,
with aching heads and crestfallen countenances, they discovered
themselves to be, when the baleful effects of their drink had somewhat
abated.
“By my fighting hand!” said Halberd, “I’d not be sworn that we have not
been tricked.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXXV.
GARDE OBTAINS THE JAIL KEYS.
UNBEKNOWN to his retinue, Adam was accommodated in the same jail where
Pike and Halberd had been landed while the evening was still
comparatively young. The body of the little Narragansett, brutally
snatched from Adam’s arms, had likewise been brought into Boston.
Randolph had lost no time in having Rust examined and declared a
prisoner of the state, charged with a whole category of crimes against
the peace and dignity of the King. To all of this, and to nearly all of
their questions, Rust had made no reply whatsoever. He realized the
uselessness of pitting his one voice against those of half a dozen
perjured rascals, who came about him the moment it was known he had
finally been taken, ready to swear to anything which would be likeliest
to jeopardize his life.
Thus, before half-past eight that night, the whole of Boston was wagging
its tongue over an astonishing story, instigated at once by Edward
Randolph. This dangerous, blood-thirsty rascal, Rust, had been taken in
the forest, whither he had fled to join his Indian wife, and in his
struggles to avoid arrest he had slain his half-Indian child.
This was the indictment, mildly expressed, that reached the ears of
Garde Merrill concerning her lover. She was simply appalled. It was
unbelievable, it was monstrous. She scorned to think it could possibly
be true. And yet, if he had been in Boston several days before, as the
story had it, why had she known nothing about it? The whole thing had
been a gross fabrication. He could not have been in the town and going
to a tavern to mix in a horrid brawl. He would certainly have come to
see her immediately on his arrival. He had promised to return in about a
week from a visit to the beef-eaters.
When she got as far as that, she suddenly tried to stop thinking. He had
been gone many weeks instead of the one; the beef-eaters had not been
with him when he had the alleged fight, nor when he was captured, and he
had mentioned to her, on their walk from Plymouth, that he had once
stopped at the Crow and Arrow, where the brawl was reported to have
taken place.
Nearly frantic with the terrible thoughts in her head, Garde hastened to
John Soam’s to get what she could of sober truth, which John would have
as no one else might in the town.
She was mentally distraught when she came to her uncle’s. She had
carried a dish belonging to her aunt Gertrude, to make an excuse for her
late evening visit. She was more glad than she could have said that
Prudence was away, for her cousin knew something of her feeling for
Adam.
Garde, having been made welcome, had no need to ask questions. John Soam
was telling the story of the night with countless repetitions. His wife
cross-examined him in every direction which her womanly ingenuity could
suggest.
Thus Garde discovered that it was undeniably true that Adam had been in
town several days before; that he had been engaged in a terrible fight,
in which he had inflicted grave injuries on Randolph and one of his
“peaceable officers”; that he had then escaped back to the woods, from
which, it was alleged, he had emerged solely for this fighting, and
that, when captured, he had a half-Indian child in his possession.
John Soam had seen the body of the child himself. He had heard the
examination, in his capacity of clerk to the court and magistrates. Rust
was lame, he said, and he was a sullen man, who had returned no answers
but such as cut wittily. He had not denied that the child was his own.
He had absolutely refused to say whose it was and how he came to have
it. He had come to the farmer’s house, at the edge of the woods, for
purposes of robbery. There was every reason to believe that he had
consorted with the Indians, and that the child was his. It was a pretty
child, but many thought it looked as if it had been shockingly abused.
There could be no doubt that, when he had found himself being taken, he
had profited by the confusion to slay the little half-Indian boy.
Garde’s horror grew as she listened. She remembered terrible things that
Adam had told her when he believed her a youth. He had excused
Randolph’s conduct with Hester Hodder, hinting broadly that, in a case
he had in mind, he thought another young woman—in this instance Garde
herself—ought to forgive such a treachery to honor. He had even
mentioned that she, when dressed as a boy and browned, reminded him of a
young Indian woman whom he had known and liked. He had lived with the
Indians as a boy; he had gone back to them as a man.
All those other dreadful half-confessions, in this new light, looked no
longer innocent—the French damsel, the Countess, and the others. He had
deceived her about going to New York to see the beef-eaters, she told
herself, in agony. He had gone to the forest instead. And God only knew
what things he had done in those silent woods! Had he abandoned the
mother of his child, as Randolph had done——or had he committed something
worse? for Hester, in the similar instance, had died so strangely.
At least it was plain that before Adam could marry again he would be
obliged to abandon that Indian woman. And what if she were Indian? Was
she less a woman? Would she suffer less agony? Garde thought of Hester,
and of how the wild young thing had begged her not to take away the man
who had so cruelly wronged her. The picture was almost more than she
could bear. The whole affair fell upon her heart with a weight that
crushed her happiness into a shapeless, dying thing. In whatsoever
direction she turned, Adam’s own actions and words confronted her with
the blank wall of hideous truth.
She knew now why, after he had walked all the way to Boston at her side,
he had failed to appear at Grandther Donner’s, for days and days. She
saw it all, plainly—horribly plainly. It was so absolutely unescapable.
And yet, he had seemed so honest; he had spoken so of love; he had so
convinced her heart and her soul of his purity, nobility and worth! She
loved him still. She could not avoid this. It had grown up with her; it
had become a part of her very being. She would love him always, but—she
could not become his wife—not after this—never! The thought of such a
thing made her shiver. His perfidy was almost greater than Randolph’s—as
an Indian woman would have been so much more innocent and trustful than
even Hester.
Her heart cried. “Oh!” and yet again, “Oh!” in its anguish. If he had
only left some little loophole for doubt—if he had only denied their
accusations—if only he had not said those terrible things to her, upon
the highway, perhaps——“No, no, no, no,” she cried, in her soul; this was
compromising with loathsome dishonor. Far better it was that the awful
truth was so indisputably established! It left her no ground for
excusing his deeds, at the dictates of her unreasoning love! Yet, oh, it
had been so sweet to believe in him, to love him without reserve, to
trust her very soul in his keeping! She wrung her hands under the table,
as she listened, with ears that seemed traitors to her love, to all that
her uncle could add to the story.
She soon learned that Adam was Randolph’s particular prisoner; that
there had been some old-time grudge between them, and that the crafty
man of power would undoubtedly make an effort to hang his captive.
At this her womanly inconsequence was suddenly aroused. He might be
guilty, but she had always thought him noble and good. She would never
marry him, after this, but she would love him forever. He had been her
idol, her king. He must live, for at least she had a right to keep
enshrined in her heart the thought of him, pulsating heart to heart with
her, as once he had. No! He must not be permitted to die—not like
this—not in infamy—not at the hands of this monster of iniquity—this
Randolph!
It was not that she had the slightest hope that he could ever be the
same to her again, or that she should ever wish to see him again, but at
least he had a right to live, to redeem himself, partially, perhaps to
suffer and to sorrow for his deeds. Indeed he must so live—he must so
redeem himself for her sake—to justify the love and the trust she had
given him out of her heart!
She felt that she should choke if she did not soon get out in the air.
She wanted to run to the prison, hammer with her fist on the gate,
demand admittance and set him free—free from Randolph’s clutches. But
she knew this was madness. Her mouth grew parched and dry with her
excitement, so tremendously held in control. How could she manage to get
him free? Oh, if only she dared to tell her uncle John and get him to
help her!
He had the duplicate keys to every door in the jail. He brought them
home night after night and hung them up on—There they were, now! They
hung there within reach of her hand! Her heart knocked and beat in her
bosom, as if it were hammering down the barriers to Adam’s cell. She
weaved dizzily, with the possibilities of the moment. Just to take those
keys and run—that was all, and the trick would be done. He could go—and
their love would be a thing of living death!
She meant to take those keys. The impulse swayed her whole being. She
felt she would die rather than miss her opportunity. With clenched hands
and with set jaws she arose to her feet.
“I must be going home,” she said, with apparent calm. “Oh, what was
that?”
“What was what?” said her aunt and uncle together.
“Why—some noise, in the other room,” she said with a tremor easily
simulated, in her excited state. “I am sure I heard something in there,
moving!”
“Hum—let’s see,” said John.
“It might be that I left the window open,” said Goodwife Soam.
The man took the lamp, opened the door to the adjoining apartment, and
went in, followed by his wife. Garde, with a gasp, and a clutching at
her heart, lifted the keys from their nail and dropped them into her
pocket with a barely audible jingle. She followed her aunt a second
later.
“Why, it was—nothing, after all,” she said, weaving a trifle in her
stress of emotion and nervousness. “But the window was up, as you said.
I’m glad that was all. Good night.”
“Good night,” said John Soam and his wife, from the window which John
was pushing down, and without waiting another minute, Garde let herself
out and sped away in the darkness.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXXVI.
GARDE’S ORDEAL.
HOW to get the keys into Adam’s possession, now that she had them in her
own, was the first question that presented itself to the mind of Garde.
Her ruse at her uncle’s had been so quickly and easily planned and
executed that she had almost fancied Adam freed already. Yet as she
hastened homeward, filled with conflicting emotions of excitement, grief
and despair, she soon comprehended that her task had not as yet really
begun.
Could she only ascertain in what portion of the prison the rover was
incarcerated, she thought it might be possible to convey him the keys
through the window, provided he had one in his cell. Thinking of this,
she naturally remembered the jailer’s wife, a poor ailing creature, who
lived in the building, with her husband, and to whom Goody Dune had
ministered, times without number, frequently sending Garde with simples
to relieve her of multitudinous aches and pains. This was her cue. She
could take her some of the herbs of which a plentiful stock had been
collected in the Donner household, for the use of her grandfather.
Fortunately David Donner had so far progressed, if not toward recovery,
then at least toward change, that he slept for hours, like a weary
child, waking after dreamless slumber all pink and prattling. He was
thus asleep when she came to the house. She was therefore soon on her
way to the prison, her simples in a small basket, hung on her arm.
The hour was unusual for any one thus to be visiting the jailer’s wife,
so that the good woman, when Garde came in, after knocking, was
obviously surprised at the honor.
“Oh, Mrs. Weaver,” said the girl, hurriedly, “I heard you had been
having trouble here to-day, and I knew how it always upsets you, and
Goody had given me all these simples to bring, three days ago, so I
thought I had better bring them to you the moment I knew you were being
so worried.”
It was a fact that the jailer’s wife was invariably very much distressed
when guests were thrust upon their hospitality. She always feared at
first that they would get away, and afterward that they would not, as
her abhorrence and then her sympathy came respectively into play. She
also conjectured all manner of terrible things that might at any moment
happen to Blessedness Weaver, her worthy husband. To-night she was
particularly nervous, owing to the sudden increase in the jail’s
population and the blood-freezing details and rumors afloat as to the
nature of the company assembled under the roof of the building.
“Dear me, lassie,” she said, in answer to Garde’s well-chosen speech,
“do come in directly. I am that fidgety and poorly, the night! Lauk,
lassie, but you are a dear, thoughtful heart, and I shall never forget
you for this. And we have such terrible gentlemen, the night!”
She always called the guests gentlemen, till she found out which way lay
the sympathies of a given visitor, when they all became rogues,
forthwith, if she found herself encouraged to this violent language.
Later on, again, when her sympathies for their plight were aroused, they
were restored to their former social appellations.
“Oh, I am so sorry for you!” said Garde. “I had heard of one prisoner;
but could you have had more than one?”
“Lauk, yes,” said the woman rolling her eyes heavenward. “They took the
principal rogue in the woods, I believe, but they captured his two
brutal companions at the Crow and Arrow in the afternoon.”
This was news to Garde. She recognized the beef-eaters from this vivid
description. If Adam had his friends at his side, he must be much more
contented, and they would all be planning to escape.
“And so all three are under lock and key, safely together?” she said,
innocently. “How fortunate!”
“Oh dear me, no,” corrected Mrs. Weaver. “The two taken by daylight are
together in the southern exposure, while the last one was thrust in the
dungeon. Oh Lauk, Mistress, but he is a terrible man!”
Garde felt her heart sink, even though it never ceased for a moment to
beat so hard that it pained her. Adam in a dungeon! How in the world
could she ever manage to get the keys to him now? Dungeons, she knew,
were under the ground; they were dank, death-dealing places, with moldy
straw in one corner and with slimy rocks for walls. She could have cried
in her sudden wretchedness of spirit, although it could never mean
anything to her, whether Adam lived or died, in prison or out. However,
she mastered herself splendidly.
“A dungeon?” she said. “Oh, I didn’t know you had a dungeon here. It
must be very deep down in the earth.”
“It’s a creepy place; oh lauk, it’s that creepy!” said the woman. “But
it’s not so deep, dearie. It’s nine steps down. I’ve counted the steps
many’s the time. But it is where we puts the monstrously wicked rogues,
such as this bloodthirsty man! And it’s that dark, my dear—oh lauk, what
a place to spend the night!”
“Of course it must be dark,” said Garde, suppressing her eagerness.
“They couldn’t have a window in such a place as that.”
“Indeed we have, though; we’ve a window in every room in the place,”
corrected the jailer’s wife, with commendable pride in the architectural
arrangements. “Oh yes, it has its window, no bigger than my hand,
lassie, and slanting up through the rock, but it’s a rare little light
it lets in to the poor gentlemen down below!”
“I’m glad he—the prisoners here have some light,” said Garde, honestly,
“but I don’t see where such a window could be.”
“It’s on the dark side of the house, night and day the same,” explained
Mrs. Weaver. “It’s around on the dark side, where no one would find it
in a month of Sundays, just about the length of my foot above the
ground. Such a small thing it is, and the light it lets in is that
little! Oh lauk, I’m feeling worse to be thinking upon it!”
“Then you mustn’t talk about it any more,” Garde assured her,
sympathetically. “And I must be going home. I do hope the simples will
make you better, and I’m so glad I came. I must say good night, for I
suppose you will all be going to bed very soon.”
“I shall be there directly,” Mrs. Weaver informed her, “but dear me,
Blessedness won’t be touching a pillow for an hour, and then he’ll sleep
with his stockings on. He always does the first night with new rogues in
the house. Good night, dearie, and God bless you for a sweet child.”
Garde went out and walked slowly toward Grandther Donner’s. She had an
hour to wear away, for she would not dare to be searching about the jail
before the jailer at least retired to his couch.
The time was one of dread and chills. Her teeth chattered, not from any
suggestion of cold in the night air, but from the nervous strain of this
time of suspense. She had never been so frightened of any action in her
life, as she was when at length she crept back to the prison, through
the dark, deserted streets, and began to search about to find the tiny
window of which Mrs. Weaver had spoken.
There were two dark sides to the building. One was constantly in the
shadow of a tavern, which almost abutted against it, while the other was
on the northern face of the building, in a narrow street. Garde went
first to the northern exposure, for in order to get at the other shaded
side, she would have been obliged to climb a low, brick wall.
Scarcely had she more than come to her destination, and begun her
feverish search, before she heard the sound of distant footsteps, which
rapidly approached. She crouched in a black little niche, in fear, with
a violent commotion in her breast which threatened to drop her down in a
swoon. Almost stepping on her toes, some pedestrian passed, leaving the
girl so horribly weak that she shut her eyes and leaned against the
wall, laboring to get her breath.
Nerved again by the things Mrs. Weaver had told her, she came out of her
hiding-place, after several minutes, and feeling the cold rock-wall she
passed eagerly along, shaking with her chill and fearing to breathe too
loud, in the silence.
She was doomed here to bitter disappointment. The window was not to be
found. She searched again and again, unwilling to give it up, but it was
not there. She realized that she must climb the brick barrier, and try
on the other side of the building.
She found the wall not difficult to surmount, but when she jumped down,
on the further side, she struck on a heap of broken crockery, thrown out
from the tavern.
She crouched down instantly, for the noise she had made attracted the
notice of some one in the public house. A door at the rear of the
hostelry was thrown open and a man looked out. He appeared to be looking
straight at her and listening.
“Must have been a cat,” he said, to somebody back in the house, and he
disappeared and closed the door.
Garde could not have been any more wrought upon than the whole affair
had made her already. She could not become calm. She could merely wait
for moments of partial relief from overwhelming emotions.
Thus in time she was creeping along again, feeling the dark stone as
before and peering vainly and desperately into the shadows which lay so
densely upon the whole enclosure. Hastily she traversed the whole length
of the wall. She arrived at the far end, ready to sink down and cry in
anguish. She had not discovered the window.
Back again she went, choking back hysterical sobs and bruising her
delicate hands on the rough rocks, as she played with her fingers along
that grim, dark pile. She failed again.
Sitting where she was, in the grass, which was growing rank in the
place, she clasped her hands in despair. She would have to give it up.
There was some mistake. There was no window.
Yet once more she would try. She could not give it up. The dungeon’s
horrors and the terrible character of Edward Randolph made her fear that
if the morning came before Adam was free, he would no longer have need
for freedom, nor light.
Slowly, this time, and digging at the base of the stone-wall that rose
above her, she felt down to the very roots of the grass, for the
aperture which represented a window. To her unspeakable joy, her fingers
suddenly ran into an absolute hole in the solid rock, in a matted growth
of roots and grass, which had grown up about it!
She sank down, momentarily overcome with this discovery. It was too much
to believe. She felt she was almost dying, so insupportable was the
agitation of her heart. But she presently clutched at the grass and tore
it away in a mad fever of haste. She dug, with her fingers and her
finger nails. She could smell the odor of the bruised grass, and then
the wholesome fragrance of earth. She had soon uncovered a small square
opening, no larger, as the jailer’s wife had said, than a good-sized
hand.
On her knees as she was, she bent her head down to a level with the hole
and put her lips close to the opening. She tried to speak, but such a
faintness came upon her that she could not utter a sound. She had worked
with a tremendous resolution toward this end, and now the flood of
thoughts of everything said and done that evening, came upon her and
rendered her dumb, with emotion and dread.
Making a great effort she essayed to speak again. Once more she failed.
But she waited doggedly, for the power she knew would not desert her in
the end. Thus for the third time she mustered all her strength and
leaned down to the window.
“Adam,” she said, faintly, and then she waited, breathlessly.
There was no response. There was not a sound from that tomb, the
dankness of which she now began to detect in her nostrils.
“Adam!” she repeated, this time more strongly.
Some subterranean rustling then came to her ears.
“Adam! Oh, Adam!” she said, in a voice that trembled uncontrollably.
“Who’s that? Who’s speaking? Is it you, John Rosella?” came in a rumble
from the dungeon.
She failed to recognize his voice, so altered did the passage from his
place of imprisonment make it.
“Oh, is that you, Adam—Mr. Rust?” she asked, trembling violently.
“Garde!” he said, joyously. “Garde! Oh, my darling! Yes, it’s I. Where
are you? What have you done?”
Garde felt her strength leave her treacherously. Thus to hear the
endearing names leap upward to her from that terrible place was too much
to bear, after all she had learned.
“Here—here are the keys,” she whispered down to him, haltingly. “And
your friends—your two companions—they are also in the prison. I hope—I
hope you can find your way out. I am dropping them down—the keys. Here
they come.” She tossed the bunch, which she had taken from her pocket
with nerveless fingers, and now she heard the metallic clink, as they
struck the floor, come faintly up through the aperture.
Adam was starting to say something. She dared not wait to listen. Now
that her task was done, she knew she would absolutely collapse, if she
did not at once bestir herself to flee.
“I mustn’t stop!” she said to him, a little wildly. “Be careful.
Good-by,” and without even waiting to hear him answer, she arose, thrust
a bunch of grass back into place over the opening, and hastened away.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXXVII.
RATS IN THE ARMORY.
ADAM’S disappointment, when he got no more responses to the eager
questions and blessings he breathed upward to his unseen sweetheart, was
keener than all the anguish he had felt at being so foully imprisoned.
He had caught up the keys, quickly enough, but when he failed to catch
any more of her trembling words he felt more deserted and surrounded by
the blackness than he had been in all this new experience. However, his
heart was soon tripping with gladness.
At least it was Garde who had come to save him. Love was his guardian
angel. He could face the world full of foes, after this. He grew
impatient, abruptly, to get out of the dungeon at once and go to
Garde—his brave, darling Garde!
Then he thought of the beef-eaters. He had fancied he heard their
voices, as Randolph’s men had been taking him into the prison corridor.
It had seemed impossible that they had already arrived and been
apprehended till he remembered how many days it had been since last he
had seen them.
Having been asleep when Garde first called down to him, through the tiny
air-passage, the rover was a little refreshed. But he was still nearly
famished for something to eat, having been provided only with a dry
chunk of bread, as large as his fist, and a jug of water. He was also
quite lame, for he had not been able to do anything for his wounded
foot.
Nevertheless he was alert, now, for his slumber of an hour had been
profoundly deep and his constitution was one of great elasticity,
rapidly responding to the most inconsiderable restorative influence. He
hobbled about in his small den, finding the door without difficulty,
after which he tried the lock with key after key, on the bunch, until he
thought he had rejected all, when his high hopes came swiftly tumbling
down.
The key to the dungeon had not been found among the lot on the ring!
In his weakened condition this apparent discovery was prostrating in its
dire effect. He suffered more than he would have done had there been no
attempt made to free him at all. He felt cold beads of perspiration
break out on his brow. Hope for himself and the beef-eaters, snatched
away almost as soon as given, unnerved him. Nevertheless he pulled
himself together, to try every key in the bunch again.
The first one he handled entered the lock and threw back the bolt.
Cautiously swinging the door open, he suddenly started, at the sound of
some one approaching in the corridor. In a second he was back in the
dark hole and had locked the door again upon himself. Weaver, the
jailer, making an unusual round of the premises, came down the
dungeon-steps and tried the door. Satisfied that all was well, he
proceeded onward to his bed.
Adam lost little time in again starting forth. This time he locked the
dungeon and took his bunch of keys with him. He climbed the nine steps,
which the jailer’s wife had so frequently counted, and found himself in
the corridor, which was lighted by a single lamp, which was small and
odorous. Noting his bearings, he limped along toward the cell where he
thought he had heard the beef-eaters talking.
There was no sound to give him guidance now, and there were several
doors confronting him, behind any one of which his retinue might be
locked. It was a matter presenting necessities for nicety in judgment.
If he were to open the door on some wrong prisoner, the ensuing
disturbance would be most unfortunate. Moreover, he did not know but
what there might be guards galore in some of the jail-apartments. It
would not do to call, or to whisper, for the sake of attracting the
beef-eaters’ attention, for obvious reasons.
There was nothing for it but to open door after door till he found the
faithful pair. Luckily the doors were numbered, and he found there were
corresponding numbers on the keys. There being no choice, he unlocked
the first door he saw. Shifting the bolt cautiously, he was presently
able to listen for anything like a sound inside the cell.
He could hear nothing. The room was empty. To the next door he went, and
repeated his simple experiment. This apartment proved to be, not a cell,
but a place in which all manner of rubbish had been thrown. It also
contained swords, pistols, some blunderbusses and other arms. The room,
indeed, was the prison armory. Adam nodded at this discovery as being
good, but it left him as far as before from his friends. Leaving this
door unlocked, he went back in the other direction and tried again.
Listening now, as before, upon opening a second cell, he heard snoring.
Better than this, it was snoring that he knew. He went in and nudged the
retinue with his foot.
“What, ho! Who knocks?” said Halberd, in a sleepy growl.
“Be quiet,” said Adam. “Get up, the two of you, quickly. We are about to
seek more commodious apartments.”
“The Sachem!” said Pike.
“Who else,” answered Halberd. “Sire, I have been expecting this kindness
these three hours.”
“You may expect to be hanged, in the morning, if you do not shut your
mouth and come with me instantly,” said Rust.
“I was dreaming of my wedding with a fair princess,” said Pike. “These
are no days of chivalry, when a man will leave so sweet a damsel in so
vile a place.”
“What have you done with your swords and side arms?” the Sachem
demanded, in a whisper. “Did they take them from you?”
“They did. Else we had slain the whole score of rascals that took us,”
said Halberd.
“Make haste, then, till we arm anew,” instructed the rover.
He locked the door behind them and led the way to the armory at once.
They had gone half the distance to the place when there came a clanking
of opening doors, a rattle of scabbards, a rumble of muffled voices and
the tramp of many feet, around in the angle of the corridor, leading to
the outside world.
“Quick! Quick!” commanded Adam, and darting forward, lame foot and all,
to the armory-door, he opened it, thrust in the beef-eaters, with a word
of admonition to beware of making a noise, and closed the barrier, only
as Randolph and six of his creatures came tiptoeing down the passage and
stopped fairly opposite where Adam was standing.
The rover reached out in the dark of the room they were in, as he braced
silently against the door, and felt his hand come in contact with a
sword, which he had noted when first he peered into the room. He could
hear the men outside, whispering.
Weaver was with them, pale and frightened at what he knew these midnight
visitors contemplated doing. He dared not make the slightest protest;
his master stood before him.
“Here, is this the room above the dungeon?” said Randolph. He laid his
hand on the knob, the inside mate of which Adam was holding.
“No, sir, this is the room, here upon the other side,” said Weaver.
“It’s a few steps further along.”
The private executioners, with their chief, were moving away, when one
of the beef-eaters stepped upon something on the floor of the armory,
making a sound that seemed terrific.
“What was that?” demanded Randolph, quickly.
“We have rats in the property chamber,” said Weaver, honestly.
“It sounded too big for rats,” said the voice of Psalms Higgler, whom
Adam readily identified.
“We may look there if you like,” said the jailer.
“Never mind the rats at present,” dictated Randolph. “Show us the room
above the cellar.”
The other door could then be heard to open and to close behind the
visitors. Adam snatched up swords for three on the instant.
“Here, take it—and not a word,” he breathed, thrusting a weapon upon
each of his trembling companions. “If they come for us—fight!”
Silently and slowly he reopened the door, having buckled a sword upon
him. There came a light patter of footsteps on the corridor floor. Just
as the rover was stepping forth, Psalms Higgler, who had not been
satisfied with the theory of the rats, came gliding to the spot. He and
Adam suddenly faced one another, a foot apart. The startled little
monster stared wildly for the briefest part of a second and then would
have fallen back, yelling like a demon to raise the alarm.
Pouncing upon him, without a sound, yet with the terrible strength and
nimbleness of a tiger, Adam clutched him fiercely by the neck, with both
his powerful hands, and choking back the yell already starting to the
creature’s lips, lifted him bodily off the floor, to prevent him from
kicking upon it, to raise a disturbance, and carried him, squirming and
writhing, to the door by which the visitors had so recently entered.
“Open the door! Open the door and get out!” ordered Rust of his
followers, sternly, never for a moment relaxing his grip or his lift on
Higgler. “Lift the bar! Lift it! There!”
The door swung open. The beef-eaters sprang outside, trying both to go
at once. The commotion they made rang through the building. Adam was
after them swiftly, forgetting to limp, as he felt the outside air in
his face.
Higgler by this was becoming absolutely limp. Adam dropped him on the
ground, where he lay, barely left alive and unable to move or to speak.
Adam had the keys in his pocket, the largest one uppermost. This was the
one to this outside door. He could hear the men inside running toward
the spot and already shouting the alarm. He dared to lock the door,
deliberately, and to pull out the key and put it again in his pocket.
Then he calmly drew the borrowed sword from its scabbard, rammed its end
smartly home, in the key-hole and snapped it off short, spiking the
aperture completely.
Already the beef-eaters were running up the street. Psalms Higgler was
drawing his breath in awful gasps, where he lay.
“Good friend, farewell,” said Rust to him, cheerfully. “I shall be
pleased to report you an excellent rat-catcher, at the earliest
opportunity afforded.”
He disappeared from Higgler’s ken in a twinkling and soon overtook his
retinue, making good time for the country.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
LOVE’S LONG GOOD-BY.
AWARE that his ruse in locking the jail upon his jailers would hold them
only till they could think of taking off the lock and knocking out the
sword-end, Adam was nevertheless determined upon going to David Donner’s
residence, for the purpose of seeing Mistress Garde.
With this purpose in view, and expecting his pursuers to be soon on a
keen race for the open flats, which he had been known to cross before,
in his successful escape to the woods, he led his retinue straight off
at right angles from such a course, and brought them in fifteen minutes
to the silent ship-yard of William Phipps.
Here, with small ado, they climbed the fence and struck across the
enclosure, past the gaunt skeleton of a ship, growing on the ways, and
so came to a quiet bit of water, at the private landing, where three
small boats were moored in safety.
The trio were soon aboard the lightest skiff and rowing her westward,
with silent, effectual strokes. Guided by the rover, the beef-eaters
steered for the shore, and after a ten-minute pull Adam landed near the
spot where he had sat upon a rock, waiting for night, on the occasion of
his last meeting with his sweetheart.
“Wait for me here,” he said. “I shall not be long.”
He was soon at the gate and then in the garden. There was not a sound to
be heard. The house was dark. He raised a little whistle, as he slowly
walked about the place, watching the windows intently.
Garde heard him. She was up. She had not had a moment of peace or
freedom from dreadful suspense since arriving at the house, while
waiting, listening, starting at all those uncanny sounds of stretching,
in which a building will indulge itself at night. Greater unhappiness or
despair she had never known, nor greater worry, fearing that Adam would
come, and then fearing more that he would not.
When she heard him whistle, her heart seemed suddenly dislodged in her
bosom. Her breath came laboredly. She opened the window in the kitchen,
this room being furthest from her grandfather’s apartment, and saw Adam
limp eagerly toward her.
“Garde!—Sweetheart!” he said.
“Oh—oh, you—you got away,” she faltered, faintly. “Here, I have—tied you
up—a luncheon. Take it, please, and—and you had better go—at once.”
“God bless you!” said Adam, stuffing the parcel she gave him inside his
coat. “I have brought you back the keys. My Garde! My own blessed
sweetheart. Oh, Garde, dearest, come out to me, just for a moment—just
for one little good-by.”
“I—I cannot,” Garde said, fighting heroically against the greatest
temptation she had ever known. “We must say——good-by, now, and I must——”
“Yes, I know, dear,” he broke in impetuously, “but just for a moment,
just——”
He was at the window. He tried to take her hands, to draw her toward
him. She shrank away with an action so strange that his sentence died on
his lips. “Why, Garde,” he said, “can’t I even touch your hands?”
She shook her head. He could barely see her, in the pale light which the
stars diffused.
“I—I must never see—never see you—again,” she stammered, painfully, “we
must say—say good-by.”
“You must never——Garde—why—we must say—But, Garde, dear,—I don’t
understand you. What does all this mean?”
“Oh, please go—now,” she said. “That is all—all I can say. It must be
good-by.”
Adam was made dumb for a moment. He stared at her unbelievingly. He
passed his hand across his brow, as if he feared his fasting and
long-endured labors had weakened his mind.
“What in heaven’s name has happened?” he said, as if partially to
himself. “Am I Adam Rust? Are you Garde? Say good-by?——Dearest, has
anything happened?”
She nodded to him, forcing back the sob that arose in her throat.
“Something—something has happened,” she repeated. For maidenly shame she
could not broach the subject of the Indian child.
He was silent for a moment before replying.
“But you came to-night and gave me the keys, an hour or so ago,” he
said, in wonderment and confusion. “You did that?”
“I—couldn’t—do less,” she answered, mastering her love and anguish by a
mighty resolution.
“Do you mean—you would have done the same for anybody?” he asked. And
seeing her nod an affirmative he gave a little laugh. “I am crazy now,
or I have been crazy before,” he told himself. “Something has happened.
Something—Of course—it couldn’t help happening, in time. Some one has
told you——I might have known it would happen.... And yet—you once said
you could wait for me fifty years. And I believed it.... Well, I thank
you. I have been amused.”
His broken sentences seemed to Garde to fill in the possible gaps of the
story—to make his confession complete. But Adam had, in reality, stopped
himself on the verge of accusing her of listening to the love-making of
some one other than himself, in his absence.
She made no reply to what he had said. She felt there was absolutely
nothing she could say. Her heart would have cried out to him wildly.
When he spoke so lightly of the fifty years which she could have waited,
she swayed where she stood, ready to drop. Almost one atom more of
impulse and she would have thrown herself in his arms, crying out her
love passionately, in defiance of the story of his perfidy. But her
honor, her maidenly resolution, steeled her in the nick of time. Though
her heart should break, she could not accept the gilded offer of such a
love.
“Oh, Garde—sweetheart, forgive me,” said Adam, after a moment of
terrible silence. “I have wronged you. Forgive me and tell me it is all
some nightmare—some dreadful——”
The night stillness was broken by the sound of men running swiftly up
the street. Randolph had thought of the possibility of Adam’s visit to
Mistress Merrill.
Garde heard and comprehended. Rust heard and was careless.
“Oh, go, Ad—Mr. Rust, please go at once,” pleaded the girl already
closing down the window.
“Garde! Garde!—not forever?” cried the man in a last despair.
“Forever,” she answered, so faintly that he barely heard, and then the
window came down to its place.
Limping back into the shadow, at the rear of the garden, Adam lay out
full length on the ground, as two tiptoeing figures entered the gate and
came sneaking silently about the somber house. He saw them make a
circuit of the garden. One of them walked to within a rod of where he
lay—therefore within a rod of death,—and then turned uncertainly away
and retired from the place with his fellow-hound.
The rover heard them go on up the street, hurriedly making toward the
woods. He came back to the place by the window, at last, and whistled
softly once again, unable to believe that what he had heard could be so.
There must be some explanation, if only he could get it.
There was no response, partially for the reason that Garde had sunk down
upon the floor, on the other side of the window, in a dead faint.
His lameness fully upon him again, Adam hobbled a few steps away, halted
to look back, yearningly, and then once more dragged himself off, to
join the faithful beef-eaters, waiting in patience with the boat.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXXIX.
MUTATIONS.
WHILE Garde, heart-broken, pale and ill, was restoring her uncle’s keys
to their accustomed hook, in the morning, Adam and his retinue were
taking a much-needed sleep in the woods.
Having recovered his own good sword and his leather jerkin, from the
place where he had concealed them, on the evening of his capture, he had
led the beef-eaters into a maze of trees where no one in Boston could
have found them, and here he was doing his best to prove himself a
cheerful and worthy companion, to share their natural distresses.
Refusing at first to eat of the luncheon provided by Garde, the rover
finally yielded to the importunities of his companions, and thereby got
much-needed refreshment. By noon they were far on their way toward New
Amsterdam, their only safe destination. They kept close to the edge of
the woods, as they went, remaining thereby in touch with the farms, on
which they depended, in their penniless condition, for something to eat.
By sheer perversity, Adam wore away his lameness. He bathed his foot
often and he also wrapped it in leaves, the beneficent qualities of
which he had learned from the Indians, years before, and this did as
much, or more, than his doggedness to make repairs in the injured
tendons.
They were many days on this wearisome march which contrasted, for Adam,
so harshly with that other stroll, to Boston, from Plymouth. On many
occasions they went hungry for a day and a night together. But what with
cheer and good water, they lost nothing of their health.
With boots beginning to gape at the toes, and with raiment dusty and
faded, they arrived, at last, at the modest house, at the corner of
Cedar and William streets, in New Amsterdam, where Captain William Kidd
resided with his wife. Here they were made welcome. On behalf of himself
and his comrades, Adam presently secured a working passage to
Hispaniola, where he meant to rejoin William Phipps, in the search for
the sunken treasure. He could think of nothing else to do, and he had no
longer the slightest desire to remain on American soil.
Prior to sailing, however, he wrote a long, detailed account of his
finding the man and his Indian child, with all the incidents related
thereto, which he forwarded straight to Henry Wainsworth. This concluded
his duties. He only regretted, he said in his letter to Henry, that he
could not apprise him of what disposition had been made of the body of
the little man, Henry’s nephew, when the minions of Randolph took it in
their charge.
This letter came duly into Henry Wainsworth’s possession. Having been
aware, as no other man in Massachusetts was, that his refugee brother
was living his isolated life in the woods, Henry was much overcome by
this sad intelligence. He made what cautious inquiries he dared, with
the purpose of ascertaining what had become of the little body. He then
made a pilgrimage into the woods, stood above the grave which Adam had
made, and then, taking a few worthless trinkets, as mementoes, from the
deserted cabin, he came sadly away.
But not Henry’s sadness, nor yet that of Garde, served to do more than
to signalize the sense of affliction which the citizens of the colony
felt had come upon them. They had been a joyless people, with their
minds and their bodies dressed in the somber hues suggested by a morbid
condition of religious meditation, but at least they had enjoyed the
freedom for which they had come so far and fought so persistently. With
their charter gone, and the swift descent upon them of the many things
which they had found intolerable in England, they were a melancholy,
hopeless people indeed.
But even as Garde’s sorrow typified that of her fellow-beings, so did
the fortitude and uncomplaining courage, with which she endured her
burden, typify the stolid suffering of the citizens of Massachusetts, in
this hour of their first great “national” woe.
The summer ripened and passed. The autumn heralded the ermine-robed King
Winter, with glorious pageantry. The trees put on their cloth of gold
and crimson, and when the hoary monarch came, the millions of leaves
strewed his path, and, prostrate before his march, laid their matchless
tapestry beneath his merciless feet.
During all this time Randolph had made no sign toward his revenge upon
Garde, for the scorn with which she had cast him from her side. No petty
vengeance would gratify his malignant spirit. The whole colony must
suffer for this indignity, and Garde and her grandfather should feel his
hand mightily, when all was ready. He prepared his way with extreme
caution. He was never hurried. He laid wires to perform his mischief far
ahead. Indeed he lingered almost too long, in his greed to prolong his
own anticipation of what was to be.
Thus in December of that year, 1686, the frigate “Kingfisher,” from
England, brought to the colony their newly-appointed Governor, Sir
Edmund Andros, who assumed the reins of power with an absolute
thoroughness which left Randolph somewhat shorn of his capacity for
working evil.
Andros, who had formerly been Governor for New York, for a matter of
three years, was a person of commendable character, in many respects,
but the policy which he had come to put into being and force was stupid,
oppressive and offensive to the people he had to govern. Being the
thorough Tory that he was, he enforced the policy with a vigor which
brought upon him the detestation of the Puritans, who visited the errors
he was ordered to commit upon his own less guilty head.
The Puritans, in the extremes to which they had fled, in their
separation from the English forms of worship, had adopted a rigid
simplicity in which the whole fabric of ceremonials had been swept away
bodily. They rang no bells for their divine service; they regarded
marriage as a civil contract, purely; they observed no festivals nor
holidays of the church; they buried their dead in stolid silence. They
abhorred the English rites.
Governor Andros inaugurated countless ceremonies. That very Christmas
the English party of Boston held high revel in the city. The Puritans
refused to close their shops, or to join either in rites or merriment.
They brought in their fire-wood and went about their business,
grim-faced and scowling darkly upon the innovations come among them,
with their fascinations for the young and their enchantment of the
frivolous.
The offenses against their rigid notions increased rapidly. In February
they beheld, with horror, the introduction of a new invention of the
devil. One Joseph Mayhem paraded in the main street of Boston with a
rooster fastened on his back,—where it flapped its wings
frantically,—while in his hand the fellow carried a bell, on which he
made a dreadful din as he walked. Behind him came a number of ruffians,
blindfolded and armed with cart-whips. Under pretense of striking at
Mayhem and the chanticleer, they cut at the passers-by, roaring with
laughter and otherwise increasing the attention which their conduct
attracted. This exhibition was thought to smack of Papacy and the hated
days of Laud.
The church itself was invaded. There was as yet no Church of England in
the town. Governor Andros therefore attended with the Puritans, at their
own house of meeting, but to their unnameable horror, he compelled
Goodman Needham, the sexton, to ring the bell, according to English
usage.
Rebellion being impossible, the Puritans nursed their grievances in
sullen stolidity. They were powerless, but never hopeless of their
opportunity still to come.
Taxation came as a consequence of the pomp in which the new Governor
conceived it to be his right to exist, as well as the natural result of
his glowing reports to England that the people could be made to disgorge
and would not resist.
To crown their heritage of woe, Edward Randolph, profiting by their
already established fanaticism and ripeness for the folly, subtly
introduced and finally fastened upon them that curse of superstitious
ignorance, which was doomed to become such a blot upon their page of
history—the “detection” of and persecutions for witchcraft.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XL.
GOLDEN OYSTERS.
CAPTAIN WILLIAM PHIPPS, when Adam left him at Jamaica, had returned, as
he had said he intended, to the waters wherein the old Spanish galleon,
with her golden treasure, was supposed to have sunk. He had met with a
small measure of luck, for an old sailor had pointed out what he alleged
to be the exact reef of rocks on which the galleon had split, half a
century before. This spot was a few leagues to the north of Port de la
Plata.
Having examined the place without success, Phipps had then discovered
that his crew was not reliable and the ship not much better, in point of
soundness. He had therefore headed for England, coming in due season to
anchor in the Thames.
Undaunted by the failure which his enterprise had been, he sought out
the King, reported what he had done, and requested the use of another
ship and a better lot of men.
James was amused and entertained. He commended the bold skipper on his
courage and his tenacity of purpose; he believed his story. But he shook
his head at the thought of furnishing funds and a new ship and crew for
further adventures with pirates and mutineers in the Spanish Main.
However, at the Court, Captain Phipps had made influential friends. He
was admired for his manly qualities; he was trusted as a man of
exceptional integrity. The Duke of Albemarle, with several friends,
agreed again to back the doughty Captain for the venture. They secured a
new charter for the business from the King; they found a good staunch
ship. Away went Phipps, with a hope so high that nothing could have
served to suppress it.
It was when the captain arrived once more at Port de la Plata that Adam
Rust and the beef-eaters joined him. The meeting was one in which the
demonstration of a great and enduring affection between the two big men
was the more affecting because of its utter simplicity and quietness.
Adam was welcomed to his share in the new promise with that great spirit
of generosity and justice which characterized everything that Phipps was
ever known to do.
The preparations for a careful search were pushed ahead rapidly. A
small, stout boat was built and launched, near the fatal reef, while the
ship was anchored at some distance away, in less treacherous water.
Daily the small boat put forth and the reef was examined, but to no
avail. It was found that the shelf of rock, which had broken the old
galleon, ended so abruptly as to form a sheer drop of many fathoms,
whereas a few feet away it was only a ship’s-hold distance from the
surface. It was conjectured then that the galleon had struck, had filled
with water and so had fallen over the edge of the submerged precipice,
where she would lay forever, undisturbed by prodding man.
The search was at length abandoned as being futile. The small boat,
being slowly rowed away, Adam beheld a plant, of many colors and rare
beauty, growing on the reef below them, in the clear, emerald water. He
requested a diver to fetch it up. The boat was halted and overboard went
the man. He was soon seen spraddling like some singular creature, back
up through the brine. He had fetched the plant and he told of having
seen on the bottom the encrusted gun of some sunken vessel.
At Adam’s eager command he returned again to the spot and presently
arose to the surface with an ingot of silver, slimy and dark, clutched
firmly in his hands. The treasure was found!
Putting for the ship at once, where Captain Phipps was somewhat
laboriously writing a long report of the second failure, the rover gave
the almost incredible news, that set the whole ship afire with amazement
and joy.
The entire crew were speedily pressed into service. The work was
prosecuted with vigor. Adam looked upon this treasure, coming so late
into his sight and life, with a grim smile upon his lips and with scorn
in his eyes. He saw the divers fetch up masses of bullion, first, then
golden oysters, encrusted with calcareous matter, then broken bags
bursting with their largess of Spanish doubloons, and finally precious
stones, shimmering, untarnished, in the sunlight.
It was a feverish time. Day after day went by and the boats were filled
with fortunes. It seemed as if the more they took, the more they found.
The gold on top hid gold underneath.
An old shipmate of Captain Phipps’ whose imagination the ship-builder
had fired, months before, arrived from Providence. He was able so easily
to fill his boat with gold that he went raving crazy and died in a
lunatic asylum at Bermuda.
The provisions on the ship began to run low, before the examination of
the sunken wreck was complete. Moreover the sailors, their
avariciousness aroused by the sight of all these riches, which daily
they were snatching from the sea, for other men to enjoy, grew restive
and threatened to take a contagion of mutiny.
Treasure to the value of three hundred thousand pounds had been
recovered, and much still remained untouched. Phipps determined to sail
with what he had, planning to return to the field in the future. He
enjoined silence and secrecy on all the sailors, but the word leaked out
and adventurers gathering from far and near, the rotting galleon was
despoiled of everything she had hoarded so jealously and successfully
throughout the years.
Phipps brought his vessel in safety to England. The enormous success
which had attended his efforts so aroused the cupidity of certain of the
King’s retainers that they advised James to confiscate the entire
treasure, on the ground that Phipps had withheld such information, on
his former return, as would have induced the crown to finance the second
enterprise, had the truth been told.
King James, however, was too honorable a monarch to resort to trickery
so infamous. Instead he commended the captain in the highest terms, made
him an intimate of his court, knighted him Sir William Phipps and
invited him to become an Englishman and reside with them there for the
remainder of his life.
Phipps received his honors modestly. He was too patriotic to desert
America and bluntly said so to his King. He and Adam received, as their
share of the treasure, the one tenth agreed upon, amounting to thirty
thousand pounds, of which sum all that the Captain could prevail upon
Rust to accept was a third, a sum, the rover said, far in excess of the
needs of his retinue and himself.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XLI.
FATE’S DEVIOUS WAYS.
AT Boston it was not a matter of many months before Henry Wainsworth and
piety Tootbaker, having been made aware that Garde was no longer
provisionally betrothed to Randolph, resumed their former hopes and
attentions, as to attending Meeting and paying sundry little visits to
the Soams, when Garde could be expected to be seen.
Garde had become a subdued little person, wishing only that she might
not be seen by any one as she came and went on her simple rounds of
daily life. Her grandfather had recovered so that once more he pothered
about in his garden and read in his Bible and busied himself with
prattle, more childish than wise.
The old man saw little of his compatriots. He lived as one only
partially awake from a recent dread. He never discussed the colony’s
politics, for his friends, when they came to see him, spared him the
ordeal which invariably resulted from a mention of the word charter. On
this topic he was quite mad. Almost galvanically, the word produced in
his brain a mania, half fear, half fury, in which he seemed to conceive
that Garde was the author of woes to which nothing could ever give
expression. In such a mood, he was savagery itself, toward the patient
girl.
Gradually, so gradually that she could not have said when the impression
commenced to grow upon her, Garde discovered that Henry Wainsworth was
exceedingly kind, thoughtful and soothing, in her joyless existence.
There was something kindred in his own isolation, and in his very
bashfulness, or timidity, for it kept him so often silent, when he was
with her alone. She had always respected Henry. His patient devotion
could not but touch her at length. It was not so much a flattery as it
was a faithfulness, through all the discouragements she had given him
always.
This line of thought having been awakened in her breast, she noted more
of the little, insignificant signs which go to make up the sum of a
man’s real regard—the regard on which a woman can safely rely as one to
endure and to grow.
In the soreness of her heart, it was almost sweet to think of Henry’s
quiet attentions. It was calming. It lent a little spot of warmth and
color to her otherwise cheerless life. She could never love him, as she
had loved Adam—nay, as she loved him still,—but the dreariness of her
present days might find relief in a new sort of life. Out of the duties,
which as a housewife she would experience daily, surely a trust, an
esteem for Henry, great enough almost to be called a love, would come,
with the years.
She yearned to bury her sorrow. It was not a healthy, wholesome thing
for any young woman to foster. She had enjoyed her day of love, yes—her
years of love. She had felt like a widowed bride. To her, Adam’s kisses
had been like the first sacred emblems of their marriage. She had not
been able to conceive of permitting such caresses until she should feel
that their souls were mated and their hearts already wedded. But it
could never be the duty of a woman to mourn such a loss till she died.
And then—this newly contemplated union would make her forget.
But, if she could encourage Henry toward this possibility of a union
such as she thought upon, it would be her duty to be more cheerful, more
living in the every-day hours that were, instead of dreaming sadly and
morbidly upon her heart-break of the past.
It was not with a sense of gratifying her own longing for happiness that
she finally thought a marriage with Henry possible; there was a sense of
combating her own selfishness in it. It was a selfishness, it was
pampering the morbid in her nature, she felt, to continue indefinitely
in a “widowhood” of Adam’s love. It must also be admitted that Garde was
human, wherefore the element of pique was not absolutely lacking in her
being. No woman would ever wish a man she had rejected to believe that
she could not, or would not, marry elsewhere. She would wish to show
that other opportunities were not lacking, as well as she would desire
to have him know that her heart was not broken beyond repair.
Having spent at least a month upon these introspective and other
meditations, Garde appeared to Wainsworth so much more bright and
beautiful that there was no containing his emotions. The poor fellow
nearly broke his neck, metaphorically speaking, in a vain attempt to ask
her to become his wife, on the first occasion afforded, after he made
his discovery of her alteration in moods and appearance.
It was of no use to screw up his courage. It would not stick. He
determined to write what he could not utter, and then, when a moment
should be propitious, to deliver his written declaration into her hand,
to be read when he had fled the scene. To this end he composed an
elegant and eloquent epistle.
To avoid any possibility of making mistakes, Henry carefully deposited
his letter in the pocket of the coat he always wore to Meeting. This
pocket had been heretofore employed as a receptacle for things precious
over which he desired to exercise particular care.
Having without difficulty obtained permission from Garde to walk at her
side to church and back, poor Wainsworth lost appetite and sleep, while
waiting for the fateful day. When it came, he was in a nervous plight
which revealed to Garde the whole state of his mind. She felt her
sympathy for him expand in her bosom till she hoped it would burgeon
into love. Had he gone with her into her aunt Gertrude’s home, after the
service, Garde would doubtless have helped to simplify what she was well
aware he wished to say, but, alas for the timid lover, he dared not, on
this occasion, so jeopardize his courage.
He knew that if ever he got inside the house and faced her, alone, he
would not be able even to deliver his letter. But out of doors his nerve
was steadier. Therefore, at the gate having fortified himself against
the moment, he nervously drew from his pocket a good-sized packet of
paper and put it shakingly into her hand.
“I wish—I wish you would read—this letter,” he stammered. “Good-by. I—I
hope you will read it quite through.”
Garde looked at him compassionately. He was only made the more confused.
He bowed himself away with a nervousness painful to see.
“Poor Henry!” said Garde, with a little smile to herself. She knew what
to expect in the document and vaguely she wondered if she would not feel
more at peace when she had consented to become his wife. Her memory of
words and looks, behind which the figure of Adam, the sad boy-captive,
the love-irradiated champion of her cat, and then the melancholy
violinist in the woods—this had all, of late, been more than usually
strong upon her.
Garde’s cat had died within the week just passed. This event had served
to open up old tombs, containing her dead dreams. She had almost caught
herself wishing she had taken less to heart the story of Adam’s perfidy,
or at least that she might never have heard the story at all. But when
she had shaken off the spell which this past would persist in weaving
about her, she was resolved to accept Henry Wainsworth, so that her duty
might compel her to forget.
With a half melancholy sense of sealing her own sentence of banishment
from her land of bitter-sweet memories, she delayed the moment of
unfolding Henry’s letter. When she found herself alone, she laid it down
before her, on the table, and looked at it with lackluster eyes. But
presently, then, having tossed off the reverie which was stealing upon
her, she sighed once, heavily, and took up the papers with a resolute
hand.
She opened the stiff sheets and bent them straight. She read “Dear
friend,” and thought Henry’s writing had altered. Her eyes then sped
along a number of lines and she started with a new, tense interest in
the document.
The letter she held in her hands was the one which Adam Rust had penned
to Wainsworth, concerning his brother.
“Why!” she presently said, aloud, “why—he couldn’t have meant—” yet
Henry, she recalled, had asked her particularly to read all the pages
through.
She had only made a start into Adam’s narrative, yet her heart had begun
to leap till she could barely endure its commotion. She spread the
sheets out before her on the table, with nervous fingers. She read
swiftly, greedily. Her bosom heaved with the tumult of suddenly stirred
emotions. She made a glad little noise, as she read, for the
undercurrent of her thought was of a wild exultation to find that Adam
was innocent, that she was justified in loving him now, as she had been
justified always—that her instinct had guided her rightly when she had
helped him to break from the prison.
Her eyes were widely dilated. Her pent-up emotions swayed her till she
suddenly clutched up the sheets and crumpled them in joy against her
bounding heart.
“Adam!” she said, half aloud. “Oh, Adam! My Adam!”
She bent above the letter again, crooning involuntarily, in the
revelation of Adam made again his noble self by the lines he had written
so simply and innocently here upon the paper. She was reading, but
having, almost in the first few lines, discovered so much that her
intuition had far out-raced her eyes, she was hardly comprehending the
sentences that ran so swiftly beneath her gaze, so abandoned were her
senses to the sudden hope and the overwhelming joy which the revelation
compelled. She kissed the papers. She laid her cheek upon them, she
surrounded them warmly with her arms.
She felt so glad that she had loved him in spite of that horrible story!
Her soul leaped with exultation. She would not be obliged to marry
Wainsworth, to forget. She would never forget! She would wait for Adam
now—if need be till Judgment Day itself!
She kissed Adam’s writing again. She fondled it lovingly. It restored
him. It gave her back her right to love him. It was too much to think
upon or to try to express.
She had only half read it; the sense of the story had escaped her grasp.
It had been enough that Adam was guiltless. Her breath came fast; the
color had flamed to her cheeks. Her eyes were glowing with the love
which she had welcomed home to her throbbing heart.
She had risen, unable to control herself, so abruptly and unexpectedly
had the discovery come upon her. Now she sat down again at the table and
read the letter more carefully. It was such a sad little story.
“Unfortunately I sprained my ankle, and this delayed me,” she read,
where Adam had written. She pictured him now, limping through the
forest, with the little brown child, and her heart yearned over his
suffering, his patience and his self-sacrifice in coming back to the
cruel fate in store for him, there in Boston.
She thought of him then in the prison. She blessed the instinct of love
which had made her go to his aid. He was not an outlaw. He was not a
renegade. He was her own Adam.
Then she thought of the moment in which she had sent him away. After all
the heart-breaking trials he had already endured, she had added the
final cruelty. She remembered how he had limped, when she saw him
starting off, just before she had fainted at the window, that terrible
night. Longing to call him back, now, and to cry out her love,—that had
never died,—her trust, which should now endure for ever, and her plea to
be forgiven, she fancied she heard him again saying: “Garde! Garde!—not
forever?” and she felt a great sob rising in her throat.
“Oh, Adam!” she said, as if from the depths of her heart.
The hot tears, of joy and sadness blended, suddenly gave vent to the
pent-up emotions within her. They rolled swiftly down across her face
and splashed in great blots on the writing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XLII.
LITTLE RUSES, AND WAITING.
WHEN she had recovered somewhat of her calm again, Garde found herself
confronted by several difficulties with which she would be obliged to
cope. In the first place she had ruined Adam’s letter to Henry
Wainsworth, crumpling the sheets and permitting her tears to fall upon
their surfaces, till no one save herself, aided by love, could have
deciphered some of the sentences at all.
In the second place, if Henry had really intended to ask her hand in
marriage, as she could not avoid believing, there might be complications
in that direction at an early date. She could only resolve, upon this
point, that she must not, under any circumstances, permit Henry to make
his proposal, either orally or through the medium of another letter.
As to this letter, from Adam to Henry, it was certainly of a private
character, but Henry had asked her to read it, and now she could not
have disguised the fact that she had done so. She could not see how she
could possibly return it to Henry at all, under the circumstances. She
could not bear to think of letting him see the evidence of her emotions,
wrought upon it. Moreover, it was precious to her. She felt entitled to
own it. To her it meant far more than it possibly could to any other
person in the world. She resolved to make a fair copy of it, for Henry,
while she herself would retain the original—in Adam’s own writing.
Her third proposition was the most vital of them all. She could not
think of what she should do to repair the harm which she alone, after
all, had done, when she sent Adam away with that little word “Forever!”
How should she let him know of the infamous story which she had been
made to believe? How should she convince him, even supposing she could
reach him with a word, that the story had left no room in her mind for
doubt of its truth? How could she manage to persuade him that she had
loved him always; that she knew at last of the wrong she had done him;
that she begged his forgiveness; that she should wait for him even
longer than the fifty years of which he had spoken on that last
agonizing night?
He might not forgive her, she told herself. It might be too late
already. She knew not where he had gone, or what he had done. He too
might have thought of marriage with somebody else—to try to forget.
As a result of her brain cudgeling, to know what she would do to make
Adam aware that she had made a great mistake and desired his
forgiveness, she determined to write him a letter. Having decided, she
wrote at once. Had she waited a little longer, her letter might have
been more quiet in its reserve, but it could not then have been so
utterly spontaneous, nor expressive of the great love she bore him, kept
alive during all those months of doubt and agony.
As it was, the little outburst was sufficiently dignified; and it was
sweet, and frank. She told him that she had read his letter to Henry,
and that suddenly she had known of the great wrong she had done him. She
mentioned that a dreadful story had been fastened upon him, with all too
terrible semblances of truth and justice. She begged his forgiveness in
a hundred runes. Finally, when she had finished, she signed it
“Garde—John Rosella,” in memory of her walk with him through the woods,
from near Plymouth to Boston.
Not without blushes and little involuntary thrills of delight did she
add the name which confessed the tale of that wonderful walk, but she
felt that Adam would know, by this very confession, how deep for him
must be her love and trust and how contrite was the spirit in which she
desired his forgiveness.
This epistle having at length been disposed of to her satisfaction, she
made the fair copy of Adam’s letter to Henry and sent it to Wainsworth
at once, with a short note of explanation that some moisture having
fallen upon the original, making it quite illegible and indeed
destroying it utterly, for his use, she felt she could do no less than
to make this reparation. She likewise expressed the compliment she felt
it was to herself that Henry had desired her to know of this sad affair
in the life of his brother, but that she had been so affected by the
tale that she must beg him not to permit her to read any further letters
for some time to come.
This was a masterly composition, for poor Wainsworth destroyed the
proposing epistle he had written at such infinite pains, and for a time,
wholly abandoned any thought of speaking of marriage. He was exceedingly
mortified to think he had made such a blunder as to give her the letter
which he had guarded so cautiously. Timidity settled upon him,
especially as he noted another, altogether incomprehensible change in
Garde’s demeanor, when next they met.
Having despatched her letter to Adam, Garde felt a happiness grow and
expand in her bosom daily. She expected the wait to be a long one, till
a letter, or some other manner of a reply, could come from Adam.
Goodwife Phipps, of whom she had artfully contrived to get the rover’s
address, had assured her of the very great number of weeks that elapsed
between communications from William, in answer to the fond little flock
of letters which she was constantly launching forth to the distant
island across the sea. But when weeks became months, and time fled
onward inexorably, with never a sign or a word in return for what she
had written, she had many moments in which sad, vain regrets and
confirmed despair took possession of her thoughts.
She was a resigned, patient girl, however, with her impulses curbed, for
the sadness of the times, aside from her own little affairs, cast a
gloom upon the colony which seemed to deepen rather than to promise ever
to dissolve.
Her heart felt that the fifty years had passed many times over her head,
when, after a longer time than Mrs. Phipps had mentioned as sufficient
to bring even a delayed reply had passed, and nothing had come from Adam
Rust. Garde watched for the ships to come, one by one, her hopes rising
always as the white sails appeared, and then falling invariably, when no
small messenger came to her hand. She lived from ship to ship, and sent
her own little argosies of thought traveling wistfully across the seas,
hoping they might come to harbor in Adam’s heart at last and so convey
to him her yearning to hear just a word, or to see him just once again.
In the meantime, she could not endure the thought that either Henry
Wainsworth or Piety Tootbaker should even so much as think of her as if
they stood in Adam’s place. She therefore went to work with all her
maidenly arts, to render such a situation impossible, in the case of
either of the would-be suitors.
Thus she contrived to tell the faithful Henry that Prudence Soam was
very fond of him indeed. For this she had a ground work of fact. She
then conveyed to Prudence the intelligence that Henry was thinking upon
her most fondly. This also began soon to be true enough, for Henry had
been flattered, not a little, by the news he heard and did look at
Prudence with a new and wondering interest. He likewise underwent a
process of added intelligence in which he realized that Garde was not
for him, howsoever much he might have dreamed, or would be able to dream
in the future. It was remarkable, then, how soon the timid Henry and the
diffident Prudence began to understand one another. Prudence, who had
never had a sweetheart before, blossomed out with pretty little ways and
with catching blushes and looks of brightness in her eyes that made her
a revelation, not only to Henry but to Garde herself. And Henry became
really happy and almost bold.
For Piety, alas, there was no Prudence available. Garde racked her
brains for a plan to fit the case of Tootbaker’s state of mind. At
length, when John Soam began to talk to his wife about the colony
patriots again desiring that money which had never been used to send
David Donner abroad, for the purpose of sending somebody else, in the
spring, Garde knew exactly what to do.
She would manage to send Piety Tootbaker away to England. She went to
work in this direction without delay. Her success was not a thing of
sudden growth. It took no little time and persuasion to fire Piety with
an ambition to serve his country by going so far from his comfortable
home and his equally comfortable wooing, in which he believed he was
making actual progress.
For their agent extraordinary, to plead their cause at the Court of King
James, the colonists selected Increase Mather, a man at once astute,
agreeable and afflicted with religious convictions which had every
barnacle of superstition that ever lived, attached upon them. Piety
Tootbaker was to go as his clerk and secretary.
The preparations for sending Mather abroad were conducted with no small
degree of secrecy. Nevertheless Edward Randolph became aware of what was
being contemplated, for his hypocritical Puritan agents were everywhere
and in all affairs of state, or even of private business.
Permitting the scheme to ripen, Randolph waited until almost the moment
for Mather’s sailing. He then swooped down upon the enterprise and
attempted to arrest Mather, on the process of some sham prosecution. The
patriots, incensed almost to the point of rebellion, played cunning for
cunning. They delayed the departure of the ship, the captain of which
was a staunch “American,” and then hustled Mather aboard under cover of
darkness, and so sent him off on his mission.
For a week after Piety had gone, Garde felt such a sense of relief that
she almost persuaded herself she was happy in her long wait for Adam, or
for a word which might finally come. But the months again began their
dreary procession, and her fear that Adam was lost to her forever
deepened and laid its burden more and more upon her heart.
Yet there came a day when, a ship having arrived in the harbor, and her
hope having greeted it wistfully, only to flutter back to her own
patient bosom again, a letter did actually come to her hand.
It was not particularly neat; it looked as if it might have been opened
before it came to her possession, but her heart bounded wildly when she
saw it, and her fingers trembled as she broke it open to read its
contents.
Then her joy vanished. The letter was from Piety Tootbaker. He
announced, as if to break the intelligence to her frankly, that the
voyage had made him so exceedingly ill that he had determined never to
trust himself upon the billows again. He would therefore reside
hereafter in England, which was “a pleasing countrie and much more
merrie than Boston.”
“I shall never, never get an answer to my letter,” said Garde to
herself, made sadder by the arrival of Piety’s letter, which proved that
letters could actually come from over the sea. “He will never, never
reply, I know.”
She was not far mistaken, for Adam had never received her letter. It had
fallen into the hands of Edward Randolph, who had constituted himself
censor of communications sent abroad from Massachusetts. Malignantly he
was keeping those love-scented sheets, against the day of his vengeance.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART III.
CHAPTER I.
A TOPIC AT COURT.
IN the midst of a gay throng, in the production of which the Court of
King James lagged little, if any, behind that of his brother, Charles,
Adam Rust and Captain Phipps were prime favorites. Sir William, who had
adopted a cane, gave no promise that he would ever be at home with the
disciples of the minuet and the hunt, while Adam seemed a very part of
the social mechanism.
Richly dressed, ready with his wit and his sword, handsome, wealthy
enough to attract the soft glances of dames of all ages and degrees, he
was a puzzle to the blunt captain, who had marked a change that had come
upon him between going home from Jamaica and coming back again to help
in recovering the treasure.
Whitehall was ablaze with light and warmth, which were reflected from
myriad sparkling jewels and from rosy cheeks. The King had disappointed
his guests, nevertheless they were not at a loss to find amusement.
Ready as ever to entertain, either with a song for the ladies or a duel
with the men, Adam was pressed for a roundel to fit the merry hour. He
had found a glass which responded with a particularly musical tinkle to
the tap of his finger. He held it up before the admiring company and
rang it crisply. Catching the key from its mellifluous tintinnabulation
he began his song:
“Oh your jolliest girl is your cup of sack,
Your Mistress Sack, with her warm, brown eyes;
She’ll love you, and never she’ll turn her back,
Nor leave you a thought
In her meshes uncaught,
And never you’ll know if she lies.
“Then it’s drink, drink, drink,
And you’ll never have need to think;
And it’s fol de rol,
And who has use for a brain?
With your cup that loves your lip,
You need fear no faithless slip,
And your heart will never know the stabs of pain.
“Oh your languorous maid is your glass of wine,
Your Lady Amour, with her ruby kiss.
She suffers no rivals, or thinking—in fine,
She owns all your soul
And she takes for her toll
A payment in dull-witted bliss.
“Then drink, drink, drink, etc.
“Oh, your mistress for faith is your poison cup.
Your poison cup, with its juice of death.
She’ll hold you, ha! ha! till the Doomsday’s up,
In her passion’s embrace,
And so close to her face
That you’ll never get time for a breath.
“Then it’s drink, drink, drink,
And you never of love need think;
And it’s fol de rol,
For who has use for a heart?
With a cup that loves your lip,
You need fear no faithless slip,
Nor feel the pangs of any pains that dart.”
Not being at all certain that they knew what he meant, the company
applauded with great enthusiasm.
“But, my dear sir,” said a nobleman, with a head on him hardly bigger
nor less wrinkled than a last winter’s apple, and a stomach as big as a
tun, “you have not tasted a drink to-night. Demme, look at me, sir. I
love my sack and my wine. I know nothing of your poison cup, and I have
no wish to, demme. But, sir, I think you have no bowels for drinking.”
“My lord, you furnish the bowels and I will furnish the brains to know
about drinking,” said Adam. “By my faith, no drink ever yet went to your
head.”
“No, sir! I’m proud of it, demme,” said his lordship. “I have drunk up a
fortune, and where is it?—It’s gone.”
“Distill your breath and get it back,” suggested Rust.
“What’s that? Demme, you are laughing at me, sir.”
“Never!” said Adam, decisively. “Above all persons you make me sober.
Breathe toward our friend the Viscount. He has ever wished fortune to
wing in his direction.”
“The Viscount? Where? Demme, yes. My dear old chap, how are you?” and
turning, inconsequently, to a friend whose little eyes seemed to swim
around in the florid sea of his face, his lordship was deserted by the
rover. Sauntering through a cluster of friends who would have detained
him, Adam approached a window, where he sat himself down on a miniature
divan.
Here he had but a second to himself, for while somebody else was
preparing to sing to the company, a beautiful little lady, with eyes
that were fairly purple in their depths of blue, came and took the seat
beside him.
“Oh, Mr. Rust,” she said, “what a strange song that was. Why, but you
know nothing of wine and sack, and poison. Oh, why did you say poison?
That was dreadful. And why should you wish never to think of love? What
has poor little love ever done to you?”
“You must remember, Lady Violet,” said Adam, “that before I sang I had
not seen you, to speak a word, during the entire evening.”
Lady Violet blushed. “That hasn’t anything to do with anything,” she
said.
Adam replied: “That makes me equivalent to nothing.”
“It doesn’t,” the lady protested. “You mix me all up. I don’t believe
you know anything more about love than you do about drinking.”
“Do you counsel me to learn of these arts?”
“No, not of drinking—certainly not, Mr. Rust.”
“If we eliminate the drinking, that only leaves the love.”
“Oh, but I—I didn’t say that I—I don’t wish to counsel you at all. You
twist about everything I say.”
“And you twist about every man you meet,” retorted Adam.
“Oh, I do not!” she objected. “How rude you are to say so. I don’t even
like all the men I meet, and if I did——”
“You mean, then, that you twist only the ones like myself, that you
like.”
“I don’t! I——You make me say things I don’t want to say.”
“Then I shall make you say that you love me desperately,” said Adam,
complacently.
“Mr. Rust!” she gasped. “I—I—I——”
“If you are going to say it now, let me know,” Adam interrupted.
She was blushing furiously. She did love him, just about as Rust had
described, but he had never guessed it and was merely toying with the
one absorbing and universal topic of the court.
“I—I am not going to say anything of the kind!” she stammered.
“Then that proves my case,” Adam announced, judicially. “I cannot compel
you to say anything at all that is not already at the point of your
tongue.”
“You—you are very rude,” she said, helplessly.
“So I have been told by Lady Margaret,” Adam confessed. “Here she is
herself. Lady Margaret, we are having quite a discussion. Tell us, if a
man tries to make a lady say she loves him desperately, is he
necessarily rude?”
A superb young widow, who was gradually emerging from her mourning
black, and who had come to the gathering with her father, halted in
front of the two on the small divan and looked them over.
“Dear Lady Violet,” said the new comer, “your brother and Lord
Kilkrankie are looking for you everywhere.”
“Oh, thank you, so much,” said the confused little lady, and without
waiting for anything further she jumped up and fled from the scene. She
was vexed at and distrustful of Lady Margaret; but she could not remain
and give her battle.
The second lady took Violet’s seat, calmly. “What have you been saying
of love to that little, brainless child?” she said. “You haven’t been
making love to her, surely?”
“Oh no,” said Adam, “I was occupying my time till you should come along
and make love to me.”
“You wretch,” she said, with perfect calm. “You wouldn’t know love if
you saw it.”
“Is it so rare at Court?” he inquired. “Perhaps I should spend my time
better in looking at you.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “But tell me, what is your opinion, really,
of love.”
“It makes a poor fare for dinner, a poor coat in the winter, and a poor
comfort when you are dead,” said Rust. “It tricks the clever; it’s the
wandering Jew of emotions. If you wish me to do you an injury, bid me to
love you forthwith.”
“Where have you learned, that you speak with such wisdom?” said Lady
Margaret. “Surely not such a child as Violet——”
“You do yourself an injustice,” Adam interrupted.
“Adam,” she said, “this is the sort of thing you say to all the women.”
“And which of your friends would you ask me to neglect?” he asked. “A
woman’s judgment is the one thing I lack.”
“You are a heartless wretch!” she announced.
“On the contrary, I am a wretch of a thousand hearts,” he corrected.
“How long would you continue to love me if I had any less?”
“Adam! I don’t love you, and you know it.”
“That leaves a vacancy in my life which I shall fill at once,” he told
her. “Wait—perhaps I can catch the eye of the Countess.”
The Countess had one of the most catchable eyes imaginable. She came up
immediately.
“Margaret says she no longer loves me,” said the incorrigible Rust, “I
shall give her place to you.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II.
ILLNESS IN THE FAMILY.
SICK of the women, to all of whom he made love, openly, to avoid being
thought serious by any; weary of the specious show, which failed to
bring him the forgetfulness he craved, Adam left the assemblage early
and went to search out the beef-eaters, at their humble quarters.
Improvidents that they were, Pike and Halberd had soon dispersed the not
inconsiderable sum of money which Adam had divided between them, since
which time he had provided the pair with their lodgings, keep, clothing
and amusements.
The night being fine and the air soon reviving the rover’s livelier
moods of delight in sheer existence, he found himself loitering along,
stopping to look in the windows of the scattered shops still open for
the tag-ends of the day’s trading. It was only the little knick-knack
shops, old curio dens and lesser establishments that still had their
lights aglow, but it happened that these were the particular ones in
which Adam took an interest.
He stopped before one of the dingiest for fifteen minutes, carefully
scanning a considerable collection of violins which the window
contained. At length his eye lighted, he muttered something half
exclamatory and went into the shop at once. The dealer knew him and
nodded delightedly, glad to have him again in his place, as he had fully
expected when he placed the rare old fiddle which Rust had seen, in his
window.
Adam bought the instrument with all the eagerness of the confirmed
connoisseur and went his way contented.
When he came to the tavern where the beef-eaters made their abode, he
found little Pike dangerously ill with pleurisy and thinking of
shuffling off forlornly into his next existence.
The one thing which alone could transform Adam Rust into the cheerful
fellow he had been before his veneer of cynicism came upon him, was
illness in his family. He refused to let his beef-eaters think of dying.
They were his tie to everything he still held dear.
He pulled off his coat and went to work on Pike, whose spirits he raised
with songs, raillery and cheer, and whose fever he lowered with teas and
bitter drinks, which he steeped himself, from various herbs and roots,
the specific qualities of which he had known from the Indians.
The Court saw no more of the reckless Adam for a week. At the end of
this time he had coaxed the faithful Pike to something like his former
health again, when he announced his intention of going to Spain, to add
to his growing collection of violins. He therefore said good-by to Sir
William Phipps and went off with his beef-eaters both in charge.
Having learned that the Pyrenees afforded splendid possibilities for
building up depleted health and strength, the rover domiciled himself
and companions in a spot that was charmingly lonely. And William Phipps,
when Adam’s first letter arrived, wondered vaguely what manner of
violins his comrade was finding in the mountains.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER III.
FOILED PURPOSES.
INCREASE MATHER met with a dignified and polite reception at the Court
of the King, for Sir William Phipps, with all his influence and
persuasiveness, prepared the way for the envoy extraordinary to approach
the master of the colonies.
Sir William even constituted himself another champion of downtrodden
Massachusetts, and added his importunities to those of Mather, to induce
James to re-establish the rights and territory of the colony and to give
it back its beloved charter.
“We love you much, Sir William,” said the King, with a firmness which
was never to be shaken, “but we cannot accede to your wishes. Anything
but this that you will ask shall be granted.”
Disappointed, but never disconcerted, Sir William conferred with Mather,
whom he was obliged to assure that nothing that either of them could say
to him now would beget an alteration of King James’s decision. Mather,
persistent, suave and convinced of the justice of his cause, determined
to remain in touch with the Court and the King’s retainers, until sheer
patience and persistence should win what persuasion could not.
Phipps, knowing only too well the disposition of the King, when once his
word was passed, determined that he could do more for his country if
present in the colony than he could by remaining in London. Reminding
the King that he had already granted him any other favor than the
restoration of the colony’s charter, he announced his desire to be
appointed Sheriff of New England.
Regretting to lose the hearty Captain from his company, James
nevertheless kept his word by complying with Sir William’s request. The
appointment was duly made and confirmed. Leaving Mather behind him,
Phipps returned to Boston and set about the administration of his
new-made duties, with more ardor than cunning, with more honesty than
diplomacy.
It is doubtful if William Phipps ever had a more aggravating experience,
in all his adventures, with mutineers and pirates, than he underwent at
the hands of Randolph and Governor Andros. He was not a man of finished
education. Born in Maine, in a family of twenty-one children, he had
been obliged to commence the round of shifting for himself at an early
age. He had apprenticed himself to a ship-carpenter at eighteen and then
had come to Boston four years later, when he went to work and taught
himself to read and to write.
Hampered now, by this lack of early opportunities, insulted, and finding
his most sincere efforts nullified and his plans constantly frustrated,
by the delays and artifices of the council under Andros, he was made
heartily sick of the whole situation.
His return to Boston, however, was not marked entirely by chagrin and
discouragement. He had his wife with him, and herein lay the greatest
happiness which ever came into his eventful life. He built her the “fair
brick house, in the Green Lane,” which he had promised, years before,
and he endeared many of the staunch patriots, who beheld his efforts to
help them, sadly, though with admiration.
Although Garde had never known how very intimate indeed had been the
relations of Captain Phipps and Adam, yet she was aware that they had
been much together. She had naturally learned, in common with all the
inhabitants of Boston, that Sir William had found the treasure he had
spent so many years in seeking, but she had never known that when she
sent Adam away he had gone to Hispaniola to join the searching
expedition. Therefore she was in ignorance of the fact that Adam was
wealthy.
But, after all, she was only concerned with Adam’s present whereabouts,
and the reasons why, after all these months and months of waiting—it
being now two full years since that last tragic meeting—he had never
relented sufficiently to write, or to send her a word.
As time had gone on, she had become more and more convinced, either that
Adam intended never to forgive her, or that he had married some one else
and therefore could not, in honor, think longer upon her. Her belief
inclined toward the first explanation. She confessed that she had done
him a great wrong, especially as she had never even so much as permitted
him to deny the story of the Indian child, but she argued that had she
been in his place and forgiveness had been so earnestly implored, she
could not have had the heart to refuse.
It was the one little sad privilege left her, to make up her mind she
would wait, till death, if need be, patiently, lovingly, till Adam
should one day know she loved him and that she was keeping herself
sacred for his claiming. And if he never did come to claim her, still
she would love him. If death came to take her, she would go to death as
a bride would go to church, to wait the coming of her love.
In the frame of mind which her vigil had begotten, fortified by her
sense of maidenly pride and diffidence, it was utterly impossible for
her to think of going either to Sir William Phipps, or to his wife, to
ask for information concerning Adam. She was aware that the Captain
doubtless knew of Adam’s whereabouts, his position in life and whether
or not he was married, but if Adam chose to remain silent, disdainful
and unforgiving, she would rather die than go to a stranger to ask about
him, or to send him anything further, in the way of a word or a letter.
As a matter of fact, Garde had attempted to send another little letter,
a year after the first one had gone, but it too had fallen into the
clutches of Randolph. The creature had destroyed it, as containing
nothing of importance to any of his machinations, for it merely asked
the rover if he had received the first epistle.
Thus Garde’s golden opportunity slipped away unused, and her life
narrowed down, more and more, to the simple duties of taking what care
she could of the white-haired old man, her grandfather, who rubbed his
thumb across the ends of his fingers endlessly, although he was slowly
being restored to his old-time activity of mind and body.
Utterly disheartened, by the futility of his desires and efforts to
serve his country in his capacity of Sheriff, Sir William Phipps was
glad to receive a letter that came from Increase Mather, informing him
that the time was drawing near for renewed labors to be attempted in
England. Responding to this, he deserted his useless office and sailed
for London in the midst of the winter season.
The opportunity of which Garde might have availed herself, to learn
something of Adam, was gone. She knew not what she had done, or what she
had lost.
Phipps came to England at a moment when epochs were fairly in the
process of crystalization.
King James, the last of Britain’s Roman Catholic monarchs, had been
obliged to abdicate his throne and to flee to Ireland for his life.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IV.
MAKING HISTORY.
UNTHRONED and uncrowned as he was, James, for some inexplicable reason,
still entertained a wild idea that the colonies, the patriots of which
he had taken no pains to endear to his cause or himself, would still
remain loyal and contented to acquiesce in his dominion. He made all
haste to communicate with Sir William Phipps, as a representative of New
England whom he had always honored and esteemed. He offered to appoint
the Captain his Governor of all New England, with plenary powers, in
almost any direction, concerning the old charter and all.
Promptly and with the blunt wisdom which marked his course through life,
Phipps refused the honor. Catholicism had never appealed to his sense of
good government, and loyalty to the English throne, from which the
colonies had their being, was deeply ingrained in his nature. Gratitude
to James for past favors, to which he felt he was somewhat entitled, was
a large quality in Sir William, but between gratitude and folly he drew
a sturdy line.
With Increase Mather, Phipps went to work at once at the Court of
William of Orange, who with Mary ascended the British throne early in
1689. Intelligence as to the sinister machinations of Randolph and
Andros leaked through the censorship, and came to Mather and the
Captain. Their case was strengthened. The Prince of Orange was bound, by
all the faith of his Protestant principles, to grant what release he
might to the American colonies from the oppressors placed in power by
the Stuarts.
The new King’s declaration of his sway was conveyed in haste to the
American shores. It was taken overland from Virginia to Massachusetts.
The spirit of the Puritans, which had simmered so long, began to make
the sounds of boiling.
Andros, mighty in his sovereignty, arrested the messenger who had
fetched the news, but the news had leaped from lip to lip, and the torch
had been applied to combustible thought.
In March, John Winslow confirmed the declaration of the new monarchs.
The people now gathered together their all-but-forgotten muskets and
pikes. Against the flood-tide coming toward him, Governor Andros reared
a barricade of threats. The frigate “Rose” was lying in the harbor,
bristling with guns that showed like so many sinister, black fangs. Her
decks were alive with soldiers. The Governor demanded the submission and
disarmament of the people, on pain of death. He declared his intention
of employing the cannon and arsenal of the frigate forthwith, if the
angry disturbances did not immediately cease.
On the 18th of April the patriots were prepared with their answer. The
captain of the frigate, with nearly all of his officers, had come
ashore, to hold a conference with Andros and Randolph. The Puritans
suddenly swooped down upon them and captured every Jack of the lot. The
frigate was thus put out of action at one clever stroke.
Now rolled the alarm of beaten drums through the martial city of Boston.
In their old Indian-fighting regalia, the citizens swarmed from their
houses into the streets. They set up their ensign on Beacon Hill, at the
edge of the Common, they fired a signal gun for action, and falling upon
Randolph and many of the council, which Andros had collected about him,
they rushed them to jail and took possession of the town.
The proclamation of King William was read, with loud acclaim. The
excited populace surged in the narrow, crooked highways. The leaders
demanded of Andros that he surrender both his office and himself. The
man refused and fled to his stronghold, whence he defied the patriots
and continued to the last to declare his power, though like water now
fast escaping from his grasp.
Surrounding their ex-master they made him a prisoner, not a refugee, and
at length he gave in and was captured and sent to confinement, along
with the others of his recent government.
With an instinct for conventions, the citizens were soon assembled.
Howsoever great had been their heat in their moment of rebellion and
triumph, they were calm enough to be wise when the time arrived to
declare for themselves. They reinstated Bradstreet and the Council of
’86. They declared the old Government in force and their former charter
_ipso facto_ restored, unimpaired by the interim of nearly three years
of maladministration.
William and Mary received the report of all these swiftly terminated
proceedings with a favor which was not unblended with astonishment.
Admiring the Protestant spirit, which it had become their own special
province to uphold, they lost no time in confirming the entire course of
actions, even to the temporary resumption of their old charter
privileges and powers, by the patriots across the sea. And there, for a
time, they were contented to permit the matter to rest. The affairs of
England they had found so completely engrossing that they had no time to
spare toward regranting a specific charter to Massachusetts.
Increase Mather, suspicions of privileges and liberties not absolutely
signed, sealed and delivered, remained at his post, working continuously
and sedulously to obtain that monarchical support and confirmation of
the colony’s prerogatives which his many compatriots had sent him to
secure.
Sir William Phipps, on the other hand, realized the busy state of mind
in which William and Mary had been so abruptly plunged, and he therefore
deferred further work with Mather for a time more suitable. Then, when
he learned that the French Catholics in America had formed alliances
with the Indians and were already overrunning the Protestant territory
and committing daily depredations, he made up his mind once more to
return to the field of action, in which he might be able to render more
effective service than he could by remaining in England.
He arrived in the summer of that fateful year, ’89, and offered himself
to Bradstreet at once. The period of warfare in which he thereupon
engaged was one of great length and of much bitterness.
Alternating defeat and victory left the advantages with the French and
Indians, so far as hopes of ultimate success were concerned. The
colonists had to make such long, tedious marches that decisive victories
for their arms were almost impossible. The enemy gained in confidence,
audacity and numbers.
In despair the General Court finally offered two sloops of war, free,
together with all the profits of plunder which might result from the
enterprise, to any man who would undertake to reduce to ashes Penobscot,
St. John’s and Port Royal, the seats of the French and Indian power. The
offer attracted Phipps, who foresaw, in the execution of the task, an
infinite amount of adventure and action.
He enlisted men for the undertaking. Yet matters grew worse with such
alarming rapidity that before the enterprise could be placed in
readiness for work, it became necessary to raise a small fleet of
vessels prepared for war-like operations. Thus seven sloops and seven
hundred men, under command of Sir William, sailed away to the North on
their sinister errand.
Port Royal, secure and arrogant, in her fancied isolation from attack,
was surprised and taken. The French were routed with great loss. The
town was looted until hardly so much as a sauce-pan was left by the
thorough-going warriors of New England. The plunder, while not
enormously valuable, nevertheless was sufficient to help materially in
meeting the expenses of the venture. But its indirect effect on the
colonists was not so happy. Cupidity is so often the jackal that follows
righteous indignation.
The Puritans foresaw opportunities to punish the enemy, at the enemy’s
own expense. A second expedition, to go against Quebec, was planned, the
patriots expecting in confidence that, like the first, it would surely
succeed, if Phipps were at its head, and that the plunder would more
than repay the initial expenses of the expedition.
Sir William, having expressed his doubts of the wisdom of this
over-ambitious scheme, nevertheless commanded the fleet once more as it
sailed away, eager for further conquest.
The enterprise was doomed to failure from the first. It dragged out
interminably, it developed jealousies, it was ill-planned. Such a
bedraggled, failure-smitten lot of lame-duck sloops returned to Boston
that the council were simply appalled. They had expended so much of
their meager hoard of funds on the venture, that the treasury was
practically bankrupted.
Blame rained upon the head of Phipps, for not having succeeded against
impossible conditions. Driven to extremities, by the woeful lack of
plunder, the colony-fathers were obliged, for the first time in their
history, to issue paper currency. The notes ranged in value from
denominations of two shillings up to ten pounds.
Still an undimmed patriot, ready to serve his country in whatsoever
direction an opportunity was afforded, Williams Phipps gave his gold for
the colony’s bills, absorbing thus a very considerable sum. His example
induced investments in the paper from all directions. Nevertheless the
currency soon came tumbling down in value, till a pound in paper was
worth less than three-fourths of its face.
The sailors, and other working people, lost heavily, in these times of
trouble and weakened confidence. Yet eventually the money was all
redeemed at par by the Massachusetts government.
Sir William, weary of being reviled for his pains, returned to England
once again and resumed his labors with Increase Mather, to secure to the
colony a definite charter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER V.
OLD ACQUAINTANCES.
ADAM RUST failed, even in the intricacies of collecting violins and the
pursuit of health for the old beef-eaters, to find the depths of
forgetfulness she sought, but which could not come to a nature such as
his had always been. Indeed seclusion, away from the gaiety of Court and
his fellow-beings seemed rather to develop the old, half-forgotten
memories in his brain, whereon had once been shadowed the sufferings of
King Philip, his Indian foster-father, and all his race of hunted
people.
The beef-eaters, also, were not absolutely contented, away from their
own country and the haunts wherein they were wont to brag, to drink and
to swagger. Yielding at last to their importunities, Adam returned with
the pair to London.
Once in the foggy capital again, he was soon pounced upon, by old
associates, with whom he found it exhilarating once again to consort. A
treatise on rare violins and their makers, over which he had labored and
pondered for months, or even years, was now neglected.
He sharpened his wits, had a look at his sword and brightened up his
disused tinsel of conversation. He soon began to believe the greatest
forgetfulness, after all, is where the Babel of tongues is loudest, and
that the most absolute solitude is to be found in the midst of the
largest throng.
The social functions of the new King were fewer, less brilliant and not
to be compared, in point of popularity, with those of James. The Dukes,
the Marchionesses and lesser lights were therefore constrained to make
the more of their private parties. There was, in consequence, no stint
of hunting, drinking and dancing—all as condiments poured about the
omniprevalent piece de resistance—making love.
At the Duchess of Kindlen’s, Adam found the set he had known
particularly well. He was welcomed back to their circle as a long-lost
fixture without whose presence no one was at all able to explain how
they had managed to go on existing. They fitted him back in his niche
with a promptness which might have been flattering, had he not been
aware that they wished merely to feed upon him as a new entertainer, or
an old one refurbished.
He was not surprised to learn that Lady Violet had been married in his
absence. He was duly informed of this event, which he described as an
irreparable calamity in his life, by Lady Margaret, who was more of a
brilliant blossom of feminine charm and enticements than even before.
“But you, my dear Lady Margaret,” he said, “you have been true to my
memory? You have never learned to love another?”
“I never learned to love you, Adam,” she said.
“Then it must have been a matter of spontaneous combustion,” he
concluded. “You always did manage your compliments adroitly.”
“Confirmed villain,” she answered, “a woman would be mad who loved such
a bubble of flattering reflections as you have always been.”
“I was not accusing you of sanity,” he told her frankly. “I was merely
inquiring whether or not you have learned to love somebody else, in my
absence.”
“And if I had, what then?”
“I should wish to pause for reflection, before determining whether I
should be more sorry for the other fellow or for myself.”
“Fiend!” she said, mildly, “you shall never know.”
“Know what?—know where to place my sympathy?”
“You shall never know whether I have learned to love another, or not.”
“Well, neither will you—that one’s consolation.”
“But at least I shall know how I feel toward you, Adam Rust.”
“So shall I,” said the cheerful Adam. “I have always known. If you
should say you were dying, I should know you were dying to run away with
me, forthwith. It’s not your fault, you can’t help it.”
“I never dreamed of such a thing in my life!” she said.
“Then you ought at once to consult a physician for a bad case of
insomnia. I thought your eyes looked a bit weary.”
“You vile thing!” she answered. “Ted never said such a thing as that in
his life.”
“Then you have been trying to learn to love Ted? I thought you had a
faithless look about you—all except about your eyes. Alas, from the way
you talk I know you must be married already to this Ted.”
“I’m not!” she said, unguardedly. “I refused only to-night to set the
day.”
“This was a thoughtfulness toward me I had not expected,” said Rust,
complacently. “But you are betrothed, and this was unkind.”
“Unkind to whom?” she demanded.
“To Ted—and to me.”
“You will like Ted,” she told him, more artfully.
“At the other end of a duel, yes—immensely.”
“He’s a terrible swordsman,” she said, to urge him on.
“Yet how poorly he fenced with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You won. You got him—poor devil.”
“Wretch! Ted at least would never pick on a woman.”
“If it’s Ted Suffle,” said Rust, “I saw him pick on his teeth, to-night,
and that is worse——in company.”
“His tooth aches terribly!” said Lady Margaret, defending poor Suffle
gallantly.
“He indulges in too much sweets,” Adam remarked, unmoved. “Treat him the
way you do me and he’ll soon be better.”
“I wish Ted could hear the way you talk to me,” she said.
“If he could hear the things you say to me, he would demand that duel
quicker,” Rust responded. “Tell me something outrageous to say to the
fellow, so that he will be obliged to challenge.”
“Nonsense,” she said, looking at him slyly, “don’t be silly. You
wouldn’t fight a duel over me.”
“Ah, but think what a lot of ladies would think me a hero,” he replied
with enthusiasm. “And I might also be banished from the country. You can
never tell where luck and lightning will strike next.”
“Go away, Adam,” she said. “You are perfectly monstrous.”
“I’ll go and have a look at Ted,” he answered, calmly. “If he is a
gentleman he will probably insult me without delay.”
To Lady Margaret’s utter dismay and astonishment, he sauntered off at
once and actually went to where Suffle was standing, and had himself
presented.
“I have asked for this honor,” he said, “the sooner to offer my best
congratulations on your betrothal. Lady Margaret has told me a little
about it. She is the happiest girl I have ever seen in all my life.”
“You are a good chap to say so,” said Suffle. “Do you know, I fancied I
should like you, Mr. Rust, the moment I saw you.”
“I should like to give you my friendship as a wedding present,” Adam
told him, honestly, knowing at once that Suffle was a fellow he could
really somewhat like. Then he added, more equivocally: “I have known
Lady Margaret so long that I shall take great happiness in seeing the
consummation of this happy event.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VI.
JUGGLING WITH FIRE.
LADY MARGARET was a beautiful woman. The next time he met her, Adam
realized that this was true. He stood looking down upon her, where she
sat on a low divan which was made to throw two persons very close
together, and into which he had avoided squeezing. The young woman
looked up at him winningly, a slumberous passion in her garnet-brown
eyes. Her creamy white bosom rose and fell in a calm voluptuousness, the
twin beauties of which were more than suggested.
Rust could not recall that he had ever seen shoulders more superb, nor a
throat more delightfully round and built upward in curves to the perfect
chin at the top. In contrast with her lustrously dark eyes and her
almost black eyebrows, spanning her forehead with their dainty arches,
her old-gold hair was an amazing crown of loveliness.
She had led him away from the company, “to look for Ted,” with an art
which had for once deceived the crafty rover completely. Now, as he
looked upon her, assuming a coldness it was utterly impossible to feel,
and be a man, he noted a beauty in her bare arms which made him think of
the perfect lines of a tiger’s paw. He could have suggested nothing to
make them more splendid.
Indeed she was well-nigh matchless as a creation of nature and polite
society. Her shimmering satin gown clung to her form as if ardently. Her
pretty gold-slippered feet and her slender ankles, in red silk,
open-work stockings, defied a glance to ignore them.
“Adam,” she said, smiling up at him archly, “I wish you were a girl—just
for a few moments, you know.”
“You would suffer by the contrast between us,” said Rust.
“You would know what a—what a bore he is,” she went on, regardless of
his comment. “And it would serve you right.”
“You doubtless mean the King,” he replied. “Your expedients are cruel.
Make anything out of me—a camel, if you like,—but not a girl.”
“I mean Ted,” she said, a little desperately. “You know I mean Ted. You
know what a bore he is.”
“Then you have spoiled him since morning.”
“You have no right to be the only man who isn’t a bore,” she went on.
“You’ll be telling me I am the only man you ever loved, in a moment,” he
answered. “I can feel it coming.”
“And if I did,” she said with a passionate glance, “what then?”
Adam was frightened, as he had never been before in his life. He took
out his handkerchief and flecked a bit of dust from his boot,
nonchalantly.
“I should advise you to be bled for fever,” he said. “And I should know
the old affection you had for me once had departed forever. Couldn’t you
break my heart in some simpler way, dear Lady Margaret?”
“It was all your fault for going away,” she told him. “You knew I liked
you before you went away.”
“Oh yes,” he responded gaily, “but I saw that your passionate love for
me was waning, so I went away to kindle it over again.”
“Do be serious for a moment,” she murmured, vexed with his calmness and
his raillery. “You know Ted is a dreadful bore.”
“Then since you have given him the love that once was mine, my cue is to
become a bore instanter.”
“You would never know it, if I loved you madly,” she said, looking up
into his face with her declaration centered in her eyes.
“Yes, I would,” he corrected, placidly. “If you loved me madly you would
tell me about it; you know you would.”
Her breath came fast. Her bosom rose and fell rapidly. “You wouldn’t
believe me if I did,” she said.
“If you told me you loved me madly,” said Adam, “I should know you
didn’t. So please let me go on with my fond delusions.”
She was silent a moment. He could feel her burning gaze on his face.
“Adam,” she said presently, “do sit down.” She moved to make half room
enough for him on the divan.
“What, and make you stand?” he replied. “Never!”
She placed her hand on the arm of the seat, where she knew his fingers
would return when he had finished scratching at a tiny white speck on
his coat-lappel. He observed her motion and thrust his fist in his
pocket.
“Oh, I am dying,” she presently whispered, after another silence.
“How interesting,” Adam cheerfully commented. “What are you dying for, a
glass of water, or a new set of diamonds?”
“You know what I am dying for,” she said, tremulously, in a voice hardly
above a whisper. “You said if I were dying, you—you would know what
for.”
“Oh, did I?” Adam mused. He was pale behind his calm. His hands were
perspiring, coldly. “Yes, of course. I said you would be dying to run
away with me. And now you would try to prove that this was all wrong. My
dear Lady Margaret, this is unkind.”
She arose from her seat. She was driven to her wits’ end for anything to
say.
“Silly boy,” she answered, as she came toward him, and then she quickly
added: “Oh, Adam, would you mind just clasping this strap?”
The strap was a narrow bit of finery which crossed her bare shoulder.
She had artfully loosened the golden clasp and now came to present
shoulder, strap, clasp and all for re-arrangement.
“There is nothing I can do with greater ease,” said Rust, “There you
are,—done already.” He had performed his office with amazing dexterity
and with a touch so fleeting that she would never have known when it
alighted.
“Oh, you haven’t done it right, my dear foolish Adam,” she said, with a
delicious little chuckle. “I’ll put my arm across your shoulder, so.
Now, make it right, do, Adam, please.”
She dropped her exquisite arm on his shoulder as she spoke and edged
closer. She turned so that her face was so near to his that he could
feel how glowing warm she was. Her breath fanned against his cheek,
hotly. The man felt a sense of intoxication stealing upon him. Yet he
was fixing the clasp as briefly as before, when she made a movement with
her slipper.
“Oh, I am falling,” she said in a little cry, and throwing both arms
about him, to support herself, she was clasped close to his breast, for
a moment, before he could seem to re-establish her balance. In that
brief time a mad horde of thoughts ran riotously through his brain. She
was beautiful; she loved him; she had fascinated something in him
always. Could he not be happy, loving her and having her love in return?
Why not run away with her—to the Continent—anywhere—and fill the aching
void in his nature with love and caresses!
His heart was beating furiously. He trembled. A fever leaped into his
brain. Through his arms shot a galvanic contraction, as they halted in
the act of closing about the superb, slender figure he was holding. It
seemed as if he must kiss her, on her lips, her throat—her shoulder!
“Adam, I am dying!” she whispered to him again, as he held her.
“Don’t die standing up,” he said, with a sudden recovery of the mastery
over himself. “Sit down and do it calmly.”
He swayed her aside, and there was nothing she could do but to take the
seat she had occupied before.
“How provoking of me to trip on my gown,” she said, looking up at him
sullenly. “Do you think we shall have snow to-morrow?”
“I shall pray against a precipitation of icebergs,” said Adam. “There is
nothing suggestive of love in ice.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VII.
A BEEF-EATER PASSES.
THE rigors of the London winter pursued the beef-eaters relentlessly,
tapping them remindfully on the shoulder, now and again, with a cold, or
a spell of bronchitis, and then, under cover of a fog, some deadly
affliction fastened upon the pair all at once. The rover found them,
after an absence from their quarters of two days, so ill that first one
and then the other was crawling from his bed to minister to his comrade,
so that both grew rapidly worse.
Adam looked at the two of them ruefully, when at length he came to where
they were. He had never known them ill in this manner before. They cared
nothing for eating; they slept but little. Their eyes were bright. They
were perfectly cheerful, in a feeble sort of way. After the Sachem had
come they declared they wanted for nothing, provided he would talk to
them, sing a little and let them lie there and see him, or hear him play
on his favorite violin.
He brought them every comfort which money could buy. He cooked for them,
served them and ate at their board—which was a board indeed, reaching
from one bed to the other, where they could easily get at what he spread
on its surface for their pleasure. But the choice wines he fetched, and
the fruits and the delicate bits of game and fish, remained almost
wholly untasted.
Adam was soon at a loss to know what to do. He tried to get at their
symptoms.
“Pike, you rogue,” he said, “I want to know where you feel bad. You are
ill, you know; now where is the pain?”
“By my sword-stroke,” said Pike, in a worn-down voice, “I have no pain.
I may be tired, to-day, but to-morrow, bring me a pirate and I shall eat
him without the trouble of slicing him first.”
“Tired, that’s it,” agreed Halberd. “I’m a bit tired myself, this
afternoon, but by cock’s crow to-morrow I could enjoy pulling the tail
out of a lion and beating the beast to death with the bloody end of it.”
“Well, doesn’t your stomach ache, or your head hurt you?” insisted Adam.
“When you cough like that, doesn’t it hurt your chest?”
“No, I like it, for the tickling,” said Halberd.
The two old scamps were afraid of being taken across the channel to
Spain again, or down into France, or perhaps across to Morocco. After
three days of his “tinkering” unsuccessfully, with his faithful
companions, Adam called in a doctor.
The worthy physician promptly bled the two patients. Little Pike became
quieter, if possible, than before. Halberd, on the contrary, was
somewhat wrought up in his feelings.
“By my steel!” said he, when the doctor had departed, “this puny Sir
Nostrum has let more of my juice with his nonsense than ever was taken
by swordsman out of my carcass. Faith! I’ll pulp the fellow, and he
comes again!”
Adam laughed, for Halberd suddenly got back a monstrous appetite. He
likewise abounded in pains, which he permitted the Sachem to soothe; and
he otherwise improved past all belief. He had been a little ill, and his
sympathy with Pike had made his ailment mischievous.
Pike, however, had no such rally in him. He put in his time smoothing
the coverlet with slow, feeble movements, while he lay there looking at
Adam with dumb affection until one could almost fancy he was wagging a
tail, with weak, joyful jerks.
He got the Sachem to sing him the love song of the many seas, for Pike
had once had a heart full of love for a maiden himself, and while the
experience was nothing jollier than a funeral on the day set for the
wedding, nevertheless he liked the lively song, with all its various
maids and misses mentioned, for he conceived them all to be the
self-same girl, after all, simply transported to different climes.
While Adam was singing and playing, with the merriest spirit he could
conjure, the wistful old Pike had the impudence to close his eyes and
die.
A faint smile lingered on his face; whether as a result of his joke on
Adam and Halberd, or his pleasure derived from the song, could never be
known.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VIII.
A WOMAN SCORNED.
SIR WILLIAM PHIPPS and Increase Mather, together with the other Puritan
patriots who made up the small band of charter-hunters at the Court of
William and Mary, worked consistently, if not harmoniously, toward their
end.
They found their monarch disposed to permit them to do about as they
pleased, when at length he comprehended their situation and the needs of
Massachusetts. His attorney-general was ordered to draw up a charter, on
the broad lines suggested by the American council. No sooner did they
get it into their hands, however, than they fell into heated discussions
over trifling divergencies which they found between it and the older
charter, which they had come to regard with almost idolatrous awe and
reverence.
The new charter granted them many liberties and privileges which the old
one had not contained. Time even proved the new one to be the better
document for the colony, but despite these facts, and the further fact
that it restored to their dominion the provinces of Maine, New
Hampshire, and Nova Scotia, to the St. Lawrence River, they found much
at which to grumble.
However, they finally accepted what they had, with what show of
gratitude they were able to simulate. Their disaffection doubtless had
its purpose, and it might have been fruitful of the further concession
which they gained, namely, the privilege of nominating their own next
Governor.
Here, for once, they were quite unanimous. They requested that Sir
William Phipps be appointed. They knew that without the priceless
services which he had rendered the cause, during all his sojourn in
England, they might never have received a tithe of what was now secured
to their country with all possible stability.
The nomination of Captain Phipps was made complete by the King without
delay. He was constituted Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of the
Province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England, and likewise
Captain-General of the Colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Weighted down with these new responsibilities, he went seeking for Adam
Rust, at the gay salon of the Duchess of Kindlen, noted in its day for
its scope and the liberties acceded to the guests who assembled in its
spacious halls.
Having heard from a mutual friend that Sir William would be looking him
up at the Duchess’, Adam repaired to the scene rather more early than
was his custom. He had seen but little of the captain for a matter of
several years. He was chiding himself upon the negligence by which this
had been made possible, when he arrived at the house.
The funeral of the faithful Pike, and the plight of the lorn old
Halberd, since losing his comrade, had depressed Adam’s spirits
immeasurably. Halberd had been following him about, dumbly, ever since
the dire event in the family. He said but little; he made no complaints
of his loneliness. He simply hung on Adam’s footsteps, like a homeless
old dog, whose one remaining instinct is faithfulness and undying
affection, waiting for his master when he came from the brightly-lighted
houses, pleased and excited whenever he could have the Sachem to talk
with on the topic of Pike’s many virtues and traits of character that
confirmed him in his fellow’s affections.
Adam had taken the lorn beef-eater into his own apartments, where he
could keep a more careful watch over his health and his negative
happiness. No friend among all his noble acquaintances had such a hold
on Adam’s heart as had this bragging old remnant of his retinue, and to
none did he drop the mask of frivolity as he did before this companion,
whom nothing could discourage nor alter.
Thus he had been glad to think of going no more where the Duchess, Lady
Margaret and the others assembled, with their tinsel show, their
thinly-plated talk, their gambling and amours, but had contemplated
going away with Halberd, into Nature’s simpler walks and profounder
beauties.
The garish glitter struck inharmoniously upon him, as he walked
impatiently through the brilliant rooms, in a search for Sir William
Phipps, who had not yet arrived. He presently found himself confronted
by Suffle, who, in turn, had been looking about for Lady Margaret.
“How do you do?” said Suffle, at once. “My dear Rust, I am charmed to
see you again. I have been wanting to see you, ’pon my word. Would you
mind just giving me a few minutes’ talk?”
“One of my greatest delights is derived from listening to a brilliant
conversationalist,” said Rust. “Where shall we go?”
“There is no one as yet in the dice-box,” said the other. “If you don’t
mind, we might stroll in there by ourselves.”
Saying, “I am yours to command,” Adam followed leisurely behind his
friend to the now empty room employed nightly for gambling.
“It’s rather a delicate business—what I have to say,” confessed Suffle,
by way of a preface, “but you are a frank, decent fellow, that a man can
talk to, well—openly—don’t you know.”
“Thanks,” said Adam. “If it is anything about Lady Margaret, let us be
sensible, by all means.”
“That’s devilish clever of you, old chap,” responded Suffle, evidently
much relieved already. “Of course you know how matters stand.”
“I would never be sure of where anything stood, that had a woman for an
element in its make-up.”
“Yes, I know. That’s clever, too—deucedly clever. Perhaps I had better
put it plainly.”
“Do, I beg of you.”
“Now—you are a frank, sensible man. Now—do you really like—you
know—love, you know—Lady Margaret,—just speaking as man to man,
sensibly, as you so cleverly said?”
“Would you force me to become either ungallant or a traitor?”
“Not at all, I——”
“Well, let us say that I am ungallant, since we are to be frank,” said
Rust. “I will even admit that I am ungallant.”
“Good,” said Suffle. “That’s what I thought—I mean, you know——”
“Yes, I know what you mean. Proceed.”
“Well, I feel very much relieved. You are a decent sort, Rust—a deucedly
decent sort. Now I am very fond of Lady Margaret. I have learned to be,
you know. My uncle requires me to marry her, don’t you see, or be cut
off with a brass farthing. So I have learned to be deucedly fond of her,
you know.”
“Very reasonable and like a man,” said Adam.
“Yes, I fancy so myself. I am coming to the point.”
“Then there is a point?”
“Oh dear me, yes. You see, as you don’t care for Lady Margaret, that
way, and I do——”
“Why then, to be sure, take her and let me give you my blessing,” Rust
interrupted. “I will do this with all my heart.”
“Thanks, old chap, but that is not quite the point,” Suffle assured him.
“The fact of the matter is, she rather likes you, Rust, you know. I’m
bound to admit she does, though God knows why, and we are two sensible
men, you know, and that is what I wanted to talk about.”
“You do me too great an honor,” Adam assured him. “But what would you
have me do?”
“Why—that’s just the point. Of course I wouldn’t like to ask you to
clear out of the country——”
“Don’t let modesty stand in your way, my dear Suffle. This favor would
be nothing—a mere trifle.”
“Oh no, now, I wouldn’t permit it,” said Suffle, magnanimously. “But you
are such a deucedly clever fellow, don’t you know, that I thought you
might be able to devise something, something to—well, you know.”
“Yes, oh yes,” said Adam, pulling calmly at his long golden mustache. He
meditated for a moment and idly picked up a dice-box, placed in
readiness for the evening’s play upon the table. “Do you ever fripper
away your time with these? If you do, perhaps we might arrange a little
harmless device without much trouble.”
At one of the doors, the figure of Lady Margaret appeared and
disappeared as Suffle expressed his eagerness to know what the plan in
Adam’s head might be. Although she had glided swiftly from room to room
in search of Rust, Lady Margaret had frowned when she saw him in company
with her fiancé, and petulantly beating her fan in her fragrant little
palm, she had gone back around toward a secondary entrance, in which a
heavy curtain hung. She was vaguely wondering what the two could find to
talk about together, and to what extent they were gambling, that they
went at the dice thus early.
She now met Sir William Phipps, Governor-elect of New England, who had
finally arrived and who was scanning the gathering company for a sight
of Adam Rust.
“Oh, how well you are looking, Sir William,” she cried to Phipps,
delightedly.
“I am looking for a friend,” said the captain, with his customary
bluntness. “But thank you, Lady Margaret, thank you, heartily.”
“If you are looking for a friend, why, look over my head?” she said to
him, prettily. “Oh, you dear Colonial Governors are such delightfully
honest people. We all have to like you, really.”
“I have found some honest men in England,” said the Captain, with
conviction. “The Puritans are growing numerous among your people.”
Lady Margaret laughed, spontaneously enough. “And what about our women?”
she said. “Do you find them at all—well, charming?”
“Some are as bold as a pirate,” he said, without intending anything
personal. He could see many ropes and clusters of jewels, gleaming from
afar. “And some of them must have plundered many a good ship of her
treasure,” he added. “If I don’t put about and do some cruising, I shall
never speak that boy to-night.”
He bowed, somewhat jerkily, and sauntered off. Lady Margaret continued
on her way around toward that curtained door, on the other side of which
she had seen Rust and Suffle with the dice.
William Phipps spent no further time in conversing with the women,
beyond a word as he passed, so that finally he came to the gambling
apartment, where he found his protégé. Knitting his brows for a second,
in an ill-concealed annoyance, to see Adam Rust engaged in such a
pursuit as this, he stood there in the doorway, hoping to catch Adam’s
eye and so to admonish him silently for indulging even a moment’s whim
at this vice.
“One thousand more,” said Adam, somewhat hotly.
Sir William pricked up his ears in amazement.
“Lost again!” Rust exclaimed. “The devil is in the dice!” His back was
toward the curtained door. There was a mirror, however, directly across
the room. Watching the glass he presently beheld the reflection of a
movement, where the tapestry swayed behind him. “Three thousand now, or
nothing!” he added, desperately.
The dice rattled out of the box in the silence that followed.
“It’s luck,” said Suffle, scooping up the dice to throw again.
“It’s sorcery!” exclaimed the rover, in evident heat. “Come, sir, I have
two thousand left. I’ll stake it all on a single throw!”
Phipps would have interfered, had it been in any place but a private
house, where the scandal would spread so swiftly. He twitched in
nervousness, as he gripped the cane with which he would have liked to
knock the dice-box endways.
The throw was completed.
“I’m done!” said Rust. “I’ve nothing more to stake!”
“Oh, come,” said Suffle, tauntingly, “play your sword, your—surely you
must have something you prize. What, no resources? Must we cease the
play so soon?”
“My sword? No!” said Adam, with temper. “But stay; since you speak so
slightingly of my sword, I have one more stake to offer.”
“By all means name it and play.”
“My stake, sir, is the Lady Margaret,” Adam growled at him, angrily.
“Betrothed to you, she loves me more. Come, sir, stake me a thousand
against my chances to win her and take her away from you, heart and
soul. A thousand, sir, and if you can win it—your field shall be open,
you shall hear nor fear no more from me!”
“By my faith,” said Suffle, rising, as Adam had done, “you hold this
lady lightly, that you prattle of her name like this. Better I should
run you through, for an arrant knave.”
“Bah!” said Rust, “you think more of your winnings than you do of your
lady. You hesitate and scold over a paltry thousand. Stake it, man, or
by my troth I shall tell her what valuation you put upon her worth.”
Lady Margaret’s face appeared for a second at the curtain. It was white
with rage.
“You insult this lady with your monstrous proposition,” cried Suffle.
“And you insult her worse, with your parsimony!” came the swift retort.
“It is calumny for you to say she loves you!” Suffle growled.
“Yet stake me, sir, or you shall see me get her and laugh at your
stinginess,” Rust flung at him banteringly. “Come, sir, one more moment
and I withdraw the offer.”
“Done!” said Suffle, “for by ’sdeath, my fortune shall prove you a liar!
Throw the dice.”
Adam threw and counted. “My luck has changed at last,” he said, in
triumph.
“We shall see,” retorted Suffle, and flinging the dice he sat down and
roared with laughter.
“Lost!” said Adam, tragically. “So be it. To the devil with you, sir;
and I wish you joy of your winnings.”
He strode from the table, met Sir William Phipps at the door, winked at
him merrily and so drew him out in the hall.
“What’s this? What’s this?” said the Governor, excitedly. “I come here
to see you, with news on my tongue, and find you—like this!”
“Tush, William,” said Adam, laughing boyishly, and as cool as a fish. “I
was betting in farthings. I must have lost a hundred. Did you think the
luck was all with Suffle?”
“But, sir, this—this lady?”
“There is more than one way to cure a woman of a heart’s distemper,”
said the young man, cheerfully. “Lady Margaret was just there, behind
the curtain. But this is wasting time. What is your news?”
Phipps looked at him in wonder, for a moment, then shaking his head,
sadly, he presently drew his hand down across his face, to his double
chin, as if to wipe out a smile, which had come out of his eyes and
traveled all over his countenance.
“Adam,” he said, “they have made me Governor of the colony, and I want
you to go home with me to Boston.”
Adam said nothing, for a moment, then he answered: “Let’s get out of
this. I want some fresher air to think it over in.”
They were soon walking out at the gate, arm in arm. The air was not only
fresh, it was bitter cold. When they turned to go down the street, Adam
having first looked about, without seeing what he sought, old Halberd
issued from a niche, where he had been dancing to keep himself warm, and
followed along behind his master.
“Well, now that you have thought it over,” said Phipps, at last, “what
do you say?”
Adam had thought it over, from a thousand standpoints. The magnet at
Boston had drawn him and drawn him so long that he felt his whole soul
was already across the Atlantic. Why fight his longing any further? Why
not at least go home, look the proposition in the face and perhaps be
disillusionized?
“I’m your man,” he said, as if to catch himself before he should alter
his mind. “When are you sailing?”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IX.
REVELATIONS.
WHEN the Andros government came to an end, Edward Randolph had
languished in jail for a brief time only. The Puritans were chiefly
angered at his master, whom they had finally put aboard a ship and sent
away from the country. Thus the more mischievous spirit, and author of
many of their wrongs, escaped to work his malignant will upon them for
years.
Randolph was so crafty, so insidious, and willing to remain so in the
background, that until it was quite too late to redeem their position,
the Puritans failed even to suspect him of the monstrous iniquities he
induced them to commit upon one another. The witchcraft persecutions,
which he fastened upon them, had not originated in his brain, fertile as
that organ was for the growth of things diabolical. He got his cue from
England, where thousands of persons perished, at the stake and
otherwise, convicted on fantastic testimony of practising arts that were
black and mysterious.
Randolph, realizing that Boston had been made too warm for active
operations, began his work in Salem. That center offered him exceptional
opportunities. The growth of the dread disease was appalling. History
which would convey an adequate idea of this criminal fanaticism should
be bound in charred human skin.
Boston was duly afflicted with the scourge. Randolph then returned,
quietly, and so manipulated his work and his dupes, from behind his own
scenes, that scores of old women were charged with and convicted of
witchcraft, in Randolph’s hope of wreaking his vengeance thus on
whatsoever old woman it might have been who had told Garde Merrill of
his affair with Hester Hodder. Having never been able to ascertain that
this person was Goody Dune, he was sweeping his net in all waters, to
make sure of his prey, in the same merciless spirit that Herod slew all
the male infants, to accomplish his terrible purpose.
When Governor Phipps, with Adam Rust and Increase Mather, arrived at
Boston, in the frigate “Nonsuch,” in May, 1692, the prisons were crowded
full of witches, for the smell of whose burning or rotting flesh scores
of fanatical maniacs were clamoring.
All Massachusetts had known that William Phipps, the Governor who had
risen so mightily from the ranks of the working men among them, was
coming. The name of the lane wherein his house had been built was
altered to Charter street, in his honor; the citizens beat their drums;
the disciples of gladness in the stomach arranged for a banquet; the
hordes marched in joy and with pomp and Puritan splendor, which lacked
nothing in ceremony, as Sir William was conducted to his house and then
to the public dinner. Even the fanatics waxed enthusiastic and developed
symptoms of being yet more greatly pursued and bewitched by the witches
whose incarceration they had already procured.
In the madness, confusion and excess of glee, two persons were more
inwardly stirred than all the others, not by the arrival of William
Phipps, but by that of Adam Rust. One was Garde, to whose ears and heart
the story of Adam’s return came swiftly flying. The other was Edward
Randolph, who saw an opportunity for deviltry for which he had waited so
long that he had almost despaired of ever tasting its bitter-sweet. With
his own eyes he beheld Adam Rust, and he grinned.
At the end of that long, fatiguing day, Rust retired to the privacy of
his tavern apartments, secured haphazard, during one of the moments less
filled than the others with pressing events. Here he sat him down for
the purpose of thinking. He wondered why he had come to Boston again,
and what he would do, now that at last he lived under the same sky with
Garde, hearing the same sounds she was hearing, breathing the same
fragrance of the Spring that stole to her. Should he try to see her?
Perhaps. But to speak to her—no, he thought he could make no advance in
this direction. But he could learn whether she had married, as of course
she must have done, long before, and then—well, something in him ought
to be satisfied—that something which had urged him so inexorably to
return and to make this moment possible.
In the midst of his reveries, he heard a knock upon his door. It was
poor old Halberd, doubtless, who had been so forlorn and so ill on the
ocean. He had left him asleep, but, no matter, he would be glad to see
him, privacy of thought notwithstanding.
“Come in,” he said. “Come in.”
The door opened, not as Halberd was wont to perform an act so simple,
and Adam was conscious that a stranger had intruded upon him. He looked
up, winked his eyes and looked more intently, as if absolutely
incredulous that he was awake and sane.
His visitor was Edward Randolph.
“Mr. Rust, I am glad to see you again in Boston,” said the man, coming
forward in a tentative manner and smiling by sheer force of effort. “You
didn’t expect me, but I have taken this early opportunity of calling, to
say I know what a great wrong I did you in the past, and to make what
reparation I can.”
“The devil could do no more,” said Adam, looking him over calmly. “And I
doubt if the devil ever had your impertinence.”
“You do me wrong,” Randolph assured him, meekly. “I could do no less
than to come here and tender what apologies I may, and to do you a small
favor. I was grossly misled, concerning your worth and your courage, by
spiteful persons who had, as I now understand, some personal grudge.”
“As I knew but two men in the town, when first I had the honor of
appraising you for a rascal,” said Adam, “your tale pleases me but
indifferently well. As for favors, I have none to ask of you, and none
to grant.”
“Yet, if only in a Christian spirit,” the fellow insisted, “you must
permit me to beg your pardon for my errors of the past. I have long
regretted my grievous mistake of judgment, and for that long I have
desired an opportunity of showing my mortification and doing you the one
kindness in my power.”
“In the spirit of the Christian crusaders,” said Rust, “I feel that I
could deny you little. You would do well, sir, to retire in good order
while my indisposition to throw you through the window is still upon
me.”
“But, my dear Mr. Rust, you don’t know what an injury you are doing to
yourself,” the visitor went on. “If you knew how cruelly we were both
wronged, almost at the same time and by the same person, you would
listen, if only for that one compassion.”
“I have been wronged in Boston,” Adam agreed, ominously, “and shatter my
hilt if I know why I hesitate to redress myself while I may.”
“But I did you no wrong to your heart, sir. Our injuries were both of
the heart,” Randolph reiterated, persistently. “Look, sir, I had a
heart, six years ago, and I felt it cruelly trampled under foot—the same
foot that trampled upon yours, and here——”
“Beware!” Adam growled. “I shall cut out your tongue, for little more.
Begone, sir, and thank your God at every step you take, that you still
live—if you value your life at all; and this I am driven to doubt.”
“Here, here!” replied Randolph, nervously, and with shaking fingers he
drew from his pocket a packet of paper folded in the form of a letter.
“You will never believe me till I show you this. But I lay my heart
open—I expose my wounds, to prove how you wrong me. Read it, read it—the
letter she sent me—and then I shall be willing to bide by your answer.”
Adam could not fail to be impressed by the man’s tenacity of purpose.
Being a just man, he had a faint suspicion dart through his head that,
after all, the man might not have known what he was doing when he
committed all his fiendish acts, years before. There had never been any
sufficient reason for what he had done, that Adam knew. He took the
letter, briefly to see what it was the fellow meant and wanted.
He began to read, and then to feel that the man had obviously undergone
some trial, severe and not readily to be forgotten. It was Garde’s own
letter to himself he was reading.
“She sent me that and then broke my heart after,” said Randolph,
speaking in a low, emotional voice, while Adam looked at the letter. “As
if she had not shattered my life sufficiently before.”
“I’m sorry for you,” said Rust, after a moment. “Here, I don’t care to
pry into your letter. Take it, and go in peace.”
“But read it, read it. You don’t know who wrote it,” said Randolph, who
was white with excitement. “I shouldn’t have come to you here with my
mortifying apologies, if there had not been a bond between us.”
Adam gave him a look, as of one baffled by an inscrutable mystery. He
could not comprehend his visitor’s meaning. Then suddenly a flush leaped
into his face, as he remembered something he had heard in those by-gone
days, when he walked with that youth, whose very name he could not
recall, from Plymouth to Boston.
He read the letter again with a new interest, a terrible interest. He
had gone away from Garde—sent away—with a stab in his heart, from which
he had never been able to recover. He had thought at first she sent him
away as a renegade, a fugitive from pseudo-justice, whom to have loved
openly would be a disgrace. He had thought then that perhaps she loved
Wainsworth, or even this Randolph. He had thought till he nearly went
crazy, for circumstances had compelled him to flee from Boston for his
life, and therefore to flee from all explanations which might have been
made. Garde having released him from jail, he had been driven to think
she believed him innocent. She had said she could do no less. Then he
had been left no belief to stand on but that of her loving some one else
more than she did himself. She had admitted that something had happened.
Cornered thus, he had found the case hopeless, and thoughts of return to
Boston then had seemed to him madness.
This letter, now in his hand, confirmed all those more terrible thoughts
and beliefs. She had done some wrong to Randolph, too, as she here
confessed in her letter. She had believed some infamous story against
him, and now prayed his forgiveness. And what, in God’s name, had she
then added to this first wrong to the man, that Randolph now was so
bitter?
Terribly stirred, he raced his glance over the pages and so to the
little quaintly affectionate ending. Then he read her signature,
“Garde—John Rosella.”
John Rosella!—the name of that youth! She! Garde!
He felt he should suddenly go mad. That boy he had so learned to
love—had been Garde! She had written this letter—she had signed that
name, which meant so much to him and to her, and so little to any one
else!
He made a strange little sound, and then he began to read the letter
over again, from the first, letting every word, every syllable, sink
into his soul with its comfort and its fragrance of love. He forgot that
Randolph stood there before him. He was oblivious of everything. He was
on that highroad again. He was standing with Garde in the garden at
midnight, her kisses still warm on his lips.
“You see there is a bond between us,” said Randolph.
Adam ceased reading, galvanically. But for a second he did not raise his
eyes. He folded the letter and held it in his hand. He arose to his feet
and slowly moved between Randolph and the door.
“There is a bond between us,” he agreed, speaking with nice
deliberation. “It is something more than a bond. It’s a tie of blood and
bone and suffering.”
“I thought you would see it,” said Randolph. “This was all I came to
tell you,—this, and my sense of having done you wrong.”
“Oh yes, I see it,” said Adam, turning the key in the lock and putting
it calmly in his pocket, “I see it all clearly. By the way, sir, who is
John Rosella, if I may ask?”
Randolph had become pale. His eyes were growing wild. He had watched
Rust lock the door with quaking dread.
“John Rosella?” he repeated, with a sickening sense of having overlooked
something important, which he had thought an insignificant trifle; “why,
that is merely the—her middle names. Her full name is Garde John Rosella
Merrill.”
“I trust you are gentleman enough to fight,” said Rust, placing the
letter in his pocket, “for I shall tell you, sir, that you are a liar, a
scoundrel, a murderous blackguard.”
Walking up to the staring wretch, calmly, Adam slapped his face till the
blow resounded in the room and Halberd came hastening to the door to
know what could be the matter.
“I rang the bell,” said Rust, who opened the door with great
deliberation. “Bring a sword for one. The gentleman wishes to fight.”
“What do you mean, sir?” said the trembling coward. “Give me back my
letter. I shall leave this place at once!”
“Will you jump through the window?” Adam inquired, with mock concern.
“Don’t call that letter yours again, or I may not let you off with a
mere killing.”
Halberd came with his sword. Adam drew his own good blade from the
battered scabbard he had always retained, and looked at the edge and the
point, critically.
“I refuse to fight you!” said Randolph, who had once seen that terrible
length of steel at play. “I demand to be released from this place!”
Rust went up and slapped him again. “Get up just manhood enough to raise
that sword,” Adam implored. “Take it and strike any sort of a foul blow
at me—one of your foulest—do! you dog.”
The craven tried to make a run at the door. Adam pushed him back and
kicked him again toward the center of the room.
“This is murder! I refuse to fight with such a villain!” cried the
fellow. “Let me out, or I shall call for help.”
“You wouldn’t dare to let anybody know you are in town,” said Rust,
contemptuously. “Howl, do howl, and let me tell the public what you are.
Halberd, alas, there is no manhood in it. Therefore fetch me the whip I
saw in your apartments, for a sad bit of business.”
To all of Randolph’s protests and wild chatterings of fear and hatred,
Rust was deaf. He took the whip, which Halberd presently brought, and
proceeded to cut Randolph across the face, the legs, the shoulders and
the hands till the craven smarted with a score of purple welts.
“Halberd, you may clean your boots afterward,” Adam said at last. “Be
good enough to kick the dog from the room.”
Halberd placed but two of his aids to departure, and then, Rust opening
the door, the craven flew madly out and away, a maniac in appearance, an
assassin in his state of mind.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER X.
AFTER SIX YEARS.
AT Grandther Donner’s house, Garde had passed the day with her heart so
fluttering between hope and fear that she was all unstrung by the time
the evening arrived. She could bear it no longer, then, and with a shawl
on her head she started out to go to the Soams’ to learn what she might
of the many events of the hour.
In the garden she paused. The stillness, the calm, the redolence of
Spring, burgeoning into maidenly summer, brought back to her mind that
similar time, six long years before, when she and Adam had met here
among the flowers, for that brief time of joy.
The fire of love, kept so sacred by the vestal virgin spirit of her
nature, burned upward in her cheeks, as warm, as ardent as ever, after
these years of her lonely vigil.
But would he ever stand there again, in the garden? Would he ever more
clasp her hands on the pickets of the gate? Or would he now prove
disdainful, proud of his friendship with the new Governor, aloof and
silent, as he had been since she sent him her letter?
No matter what might be, she so hungered to hear some word of his
coming, some meager description of how he looked, some mere hearsay of
how he bore himself, that it seemed as if she must consume herself with
impatience on her way to her uncle’s.
In the dusk which was swiftly descending on the face of the world, she
closed the gate behind her and started along the road, her face so pale
and yet so eager, in her yearning, that it was almost luminous. She was
presently conscious that some one, dimly visible, ahead, was rapidly
approaching. She drew her shawl a little more closely about her face and
quickened her footsteps, the sooner to pass this pedestrian.
A metallic tinkle came to her ears and made her heart give an extra
bound, she knew not why. It had simply sounded like a scabbard, beating
its small accompaniment to sturdy strides. She looked up, timidly, to
see who it was that carried a sword into such a quiet part of Boston.
Then she halted and suddenly placed her hand out, to the near-by fence,
for a moment’s support.
The man was almost passing her by, where she stood. He halted. He made
some odd little sound, and then he remained there, looking upon her, his
hand coming involuntarily up to his heart.
Garde looked up in his face, without fear, but not without sadness,
wistfully—with the inquiry of six long years in her steadfast eyes.
“Garde,” said Adam, in a voice she barely heard, “Garde—I have—come
home. I never got your letter till to-night.”
She could not answer, for a moment.
“I—have been waiting,” she then said, and striving to hold her lips from
trembling, she let two great tears trickle slowly across her face as she
still looked up in his eyes.
There was nothing he could say. He read her whole story of faithfulness
and of suffering, her epic of a love that could not die, in that one
long look. Slowly he went up to her and taking her face in his hands he
kissed away the tears from her cheeks. He put her head gently against
his breast and let her cry.
She still held to the fence, as if she dared not too suddenly lean on
his love, without which she had learned to live so long. But gradually,
as he held her there, saying nothing, but softly kissing her hair and
the one little hand he had taken in his own, her arms crept upward about
his shoulders and her heart beat against his, in a peace surpassing
anything of earth.
“My Garde,” he finally began to whisper, over and over again, “my own
Garde—my darling, precious Garde.”
“Oh, this may all be wrong, Adam,” she answered him, after a time. “I
don’t understand it. We don’t know what has happened, in all these
years. Oh, how did you happen to come?”
“You drew me, sweetheart,” he said, in a voice made tremulous with
emotion. “I have had no peace till now. I have loved you so! I have
dreamed of you so! But I never knew—till to-night, when I got your
letter.”
“You—never got it till to-night? Oh Adam,” she said. “Oh, Adam, I have
been so punished for the wrong I did. Oh, you can never, never forgive
me!”
“There, there, sweetheart,” he said to her soothingly, letting her cry
out the sobs she had stifled so vainly. “Forgive you, dear? You had no
need to ask for forgiveness—you who came to me there in that jail—you,
whose sweet little motherly spirit so provided for my poor old
beef-eaters, when they were hungry and fleeing for their lives. Dearest,
I don’t see how you did it, when I was a hunted renegade, a fugitive,
with doubled infamies piled upon my head. Oh, forgive me, dear, that
ever I doubted my own little mate.”
“No, I should never have believed them—not all the world!” she
protested. “My Adam. My Adam.”
With his strong arm about her, and her head leaned in confidence and
love on his shoulder, he led her back to the garden, at once the scene
of their joys and tragedies.
He enthroned her on the steps of the porch, where as a child she had
been enthroned, when he as her boy-lover had sat, as now, at her feet
and listened to the dainty caresses of her voice. Only now he held her
hand in his and placed it on his cheek and kissed it fondly, as he
listened and told her of how he had come at last to receive the letter.
At this she was frightened. She wanted to cradle his head upon her
bosom, now, and hold forth a hand to shield him from danger. She felt
that the perils for them both were clustered about his fearless head and
that hers was the right to protect.
“Oh, please be careful, Adam, dear,” she implored. “That man is a
terrible man. Oh, I wish you had let him go. You will be careful, dear.
You must be careful, and watchful, every moment.”
His reply was a kiss and a boyish laugh. Now that he had her once more,
he said, and now that nothing should ever part them again, his world was
complete, and there were no dangers, nor evils, nor sorrows.
Then he begged her to tell him of the years that had passed. He petted
her fondly, as she spoke of her long, long wait. She seemed to him
thrice more beautiful, in the calm and dignity of her womanhood, which
had laid not so much as a faded petal on her beauty and her endless
youth.
He exchanged a history of heart-aches, matching with one of his own
every pang she had ever endured. There was something ecstatic, now, in
the light of their new-found rapture, in recounting those long days of
sadness and despair. Every pain thus rehearsed drew them the closer,
till their love took on a sacredness, as if suffering and constancy had
wedded them long before. Like parents who have buried the children they
loved, they were made subdued and yet more truly fervent, more absolute
in the divine passion which held them heart to heart.
And so, at last, when Garde was sure that Adam ought to go, they walked
hand in hand to the gate together.
“Sweetheart, let me go outside, for a moment,” said Adam, quickly
shutting the barrier between them. “Now, with your two dear hands in
mine, it is just as it was six years ago. The night is the same, your
beauty is the same, our hearts and love are the same as before, and
nothing has ever come between us—except this gate.”
He kissed her hands and her sweet face, as he had done on that other
happy night.
“And we can open the gate,” said Garde, in a little croon of delight.
Adam laughed, like the boy he was. He flung open the gate and went
inside and took her in his arms, kissing her upon the lips, rapturously,
time after time.
“Oh Garde, I love you so!” he said. “I love you! I adore you, my own
little mate!”
“I could have waited fifty years,” she answered him, nestling close and
patting his hand as she held it, in excess of joy, to her heart. “Oh
Adam! My Adam!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XI.
A BLOW IN THE DARK.
THE rover, so lost in exalted happiness that he hardly knew where he was
going, when at length he said his final good night to Garde, was not
aware that the faithful old Halberd finally fell into his tracks behind
him and followed him off toward the tavern.
Immensely relieved again to see his master, whom he had not been able to
locate before, the old beef-eater was soon convinced that Adam was in a
mood the like of which had not appeared in the family for many a day. He
therefore glided silently after the dreamer, a rod or so to the rear,
waiting until Adam should turn about, as was his wont, to bid him walk
at his side.
But to-night the Sachem was so thoroughly engrossed with his love and
his forming plans, that he completely forgot to think of his lorn
retinue, and therefore the beef-eater felt more alone and sad than
usual. There was nothing in Boston, save Adam, with which he could
associate any thoughts of jollier days. There was nothing but Adam left
in the world, to which to devote the great fund of affection and
devotion in his simple breast.
But he was making no complaint, not even to himself. Whatever the Sachem
did was right. Nothing that Adam could have done would have driven him
away, nor have altered his love by so much as one jot. All he desired
was the privilege of loving his master, at whose heels he would have
followed, though the path led to Hell itself, and this with never so
much as a question, nor a murmur of hesitation.
The moon had been silvering the roofs of the houses for some time, and
Adam and Halberd wended their way, in their short procession, through
the deserted business streets of the town. Masses of shadow lay upon the
sidewalk, where Adam was striding buoyantly along.
Within fifteen feet of him, and between him and Adam, suddenly Halberd
heard a sound that made him halt where he stood. Three figures, their
faces masked with black cloth, ran out from a deep doorway, where they
had crowded back, for concealment, and darted upon the rover, walking
unconsciously onward.
“Sachem! Sachem!” cried the beef-eater, wildly.
He darted forward, in time to see Adam turn to receive a stab in the
neck and a blow on the head that sent him to earth before he could even
so much as raise a hand to ward off his murderous assailants.
Dragging his sword from his scabbard as he ran, old Halberd leaped
frantically into the midst of the three asassins, ready to battle
against any odds conceivable, in this the climax-moment of his loyalty.
He struck but a single blow, which fell upon one of the bludgeons held
by the masked ruffians. He screamed out his terrible tocsin of anguish
and rage. Then a blow from behind him crushed in his skull and he fell
across the master he had striven to serve, a corpse.
Waiting for nothing further, the three figures sped away, down the
street, dived into the darkness of an alley and were gone, past all
finding, when a few startled citizens opened their windows or doors and
looked out on the street to see what the awful cries of Halberd had
betokened.
“I see something—down on the sidewalk,” said the voice of one of the
men. “The lantern, wife, the lantern!”
“What is it? What is it?” called another, from across the way.
And others answering, that they knew not what it meant, or that it had
sounded like some terrible deed being done, there were presently half a
dozen awed men coming forth, when their neighbor appeared at his door
with his light.
The black, still heap which had been seen from a window smote them all
with horror. A dark stream, from which the light was suggestively
reflected, already trickled to the gutter. They lifted Halberd from the
second prostrate form and found that Adam was swiftly bleeding to death
from a ghastly wound in the neck, from which the life-fluid was leaping
out in gushes.
“Turn him over, turn him over!” commanded the man with the lantern. “Run
to my house and ask the wife for everything to tie up an
artery—bandages, too!”
He knelt down in the red stream. Digging his fingers into the gaping,
red mouth of the wound, he clutched upon the severed artery with a skill
at once brutal and sure. The gushes ceased, almost entirely.
Adam’s face, already deathly white, had been turned upward.
“Saints preserve us!” said one of the citizens. “It’s the bosom friend
of the Governor!”
“Then we know where to take him, if he doesn’t die in spite of me,” said
the skilful surgeon who had pounced upon the wound. “Look to the other
man and see if he too, is bleeding.”
One of the other men had already loosened the collar about old Halberd’s
neck. Another came to assist him.
“He’s bleeding a little, from the back of his head,” said he. “O Lord!
He’s dead!”
The doctor’s wife came running to the place herself, with her husband’s
case in which he had a score of cunning tools and the needs of his
craft.
The good woman pushed the men aside and with an assurance and a courage
almost totally unknown in her sex, at the time, in such a case as this,
bent down above the wounded man and lent to her husband the nimble
fingers and the quick comprehension without which he might easily have
failed to prevent that deadly loss of blood.
As it was, Rust was at the door of death. The turn he had made, when
Halberd called out in alarm, had saved him from inevitable death. The
steel driven so viciously into his neck, would have severed the jugular
vein completely had he turned the fraction of a second less soon than he
did, or an inch less far.
The blow on his temple had glanced, so that half the power, which in the
case of Halberd had crushed in the skull instantly, had been lost,
nevertheless it had served to render him wholly unconscious. Therefore,
two hours later, when brave little Mrs. Phipps got him laid in a clean,
sweet couch, he looked like death, and his heart-beat was feeble and
faintly fluttering between mere life and the Great Stillness.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XII.
ADAM’S NURSE.
WHEN the intelligence of the almost unparalleled crime spread with
terror and awe in its wake through Boston, in the morning, Garde heard
it like a knell—a fatality almost to have been expected, when she and
Adam had been at last so happy. She did not faint. Not even a moan
escaped her lips. She turned white and remained white.
“Grandther,” she said to the old man who owed his restoration to health
and almost complete soundness of mind to her ministrations, “I am
betrothed to this friend of our new Governor’s. I shall go to attend
him.”
She left her grandfather staring at her in wonder, and with only her
shawl on her head, she went to the “fair brick house” which William
Phipps had built for his wife at the corner of Salem and Charter streets
in the town.
“I am betrothed to Adam Rust,” she repeated, simply. “I have come to
attend him.”
As if poor Garde had not already, in six years of waiting and hoping and
vain regrets, sufficiently suffered for a moment’s lack of faith in her
lover, the anguish now came upon her in a flood tide. Adam no sooner
recovered a heart-beat strong enough to give promise of renewed
steadiness, than he lapsed from his unconscious condition into one of
delirium.
Had Garde been wholly in ignorance of his past and his life of many
tragedies, she would have been doomed to learn of all of it now. He
lived it all over, a hundred times, and told of it, brokenly, excitedly,
at times with sallies of witty sentences, but for the most part in the
sighs with which his life had filled his heart to overflowing, but to
which he had never before given utterance.
She knew now what the boy had suffered when King Philip, the Sachem of
the Wampanoags, was slain, with the people of his nation. She felt the
pangs he had felt when, on first returning to Boston, he had believed
himself supplanted in Garde’s affections by his friend Henry Wainsworth.
She heard him croon to the little Narragansett child, as he limped again
through the forest. And then she sounded the depths of a man’s despair
when the whole world and the woman he loves drive him forth, abased.
Yet much as she suffered with him in this long rehearsal of his
heartaches, there was still one little consolation to her soul.
The one name only that he spoke, and spoke again and again, in murmurs
of love and in heart-cries of agony, was—Garde.
Having acquired her skill in the harsh school where her grandfather’s
illness had been the master, Garde could almost have rejoiced in this
reparation she was making to Adam for what she had contributed to his
pangs in the past, had it not been that his hovering so at the edge of
death frightened all other emotions than alarm from her breast.
Nevertheless she believed he would live. He could not die, she insisted
to herself, while she gave him a love so vast and so sustaining.
This feeling was fairly an instinct. And the truth in which it was
grounded came struggling to the fore, one morning, when Adam opened his
eyes, after his first refreshing sleep, and laughed at her gayly, if a
little weakly, to see her there, bending down above him.
“John Rosella,” he said, “I have been dreaming of you—the sweetest boy
that ever lived.”
“Oh, Adam,” said Garde, suddenly crimsoning. “Oh—now you—you mustn’t
talk. You must go back to sleep at once.”
Adam was drowsy, despite himself. “I remember—every word—we said,” he
murmured, “and every—look of your sweet—sweet face.” And then he fell
again into peaceful slumber.
Arrived so far as this toward recovery, he made rapid progress. Healthy
and wholesome as he was, sound, from habits of clean, right living, he
mended almost too fast, according to Garde’s ideas of convalescence, for
she feared he would rise in revolt, over soon, and do himself an injury
by abandoning care and comfort before she could pronounce him quite
himself.
In reality there had been but little more than his loss of blood to
contend with, save that his state of mind had engendered a fever, as a
result of all he had undergone, so that when this latter was allayed and
the wound in his neck was healing with astonishing rapidity, his
strength came back to his muscles and limbs by leaps and bounds.
Therefore, despite her solicitude, Garde was soon happy to see him again
on his feet and making his way about the house, his face a little wan
and white, but the twinkle in his eye as merry as the light in a jewel.
He could furnish no accurate or reliable information as to whom his
murderous assailants had been. He could only conjecture that Randolph
had been at the bottom of the affair, from motives of vengeance. This
was the truth. But the disappearance of Randolph from Boston was
reckoned so variously, as having taken place anywhere from two days to
three years before, that nothing could be reliably determined.
Moreover, it sufficed for Adam and Garde that they were here, in the
land of the living, together, and though it made the rover feel sad to
think of the loss of his last beef-eater, the faithful old Halberd.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XIII.
GOODY IN THE TOILS.
THE worthy Puritan citizens of Boston fêted Governor Phipps in one
breath and asked him to make concessions of his powers to his council in
the next. They worked themselves weary with enthusiasm over his advent
and then they wore him out with exactions, with their epidemic of
persecuting witches and with the faults they found with his methods of
life and government.
Sir William had not been long in his new harness, when he was heard to
wish he again had his broadax in hand and were building a ship of less
dimensions than one of state. A little of his old love for his calling
and the men it had gathered about him was expressed in a dinner which he
gave to ship-carpenters, from whose ranks he was proud to have risen, as
he told them and told the world. He had a hasty temper, as a result of
having been so long a captain on the sea, accustomed to absolute
obedience at the word of command. Yet his squalls of anger were soon
blown over, leaving him merry, honest and lovable as before.
Unfortunately Governor Phipps was largely under the influence of
Increase Mather and his son, the Reverend Cotton Mather, who were both
as mad fanatics on the topic of religion and witchcraft as one could
have found in a day’s walk. The influence over Phipps had been gained by
the elder Mather in England, where he and Sir William were so long
associated in their efforts to right their colony and its charter.
Witchcraft persecutions, having fairly run amuck in England, Increase
Mather had enjoyed exceptional opportunities for observing the various
phenomena developed by this dreadful disease. He arrived in Boston after
Randolph had succeeded far beyond the dreams of his own malice in
starting the madness on its terrible career. The field offered an
attraction not to be withstood, by either of the Mathers. They were soon
fairly gorging themselves on the wonders of the invisible world,
testimonies and barbarous punishments.
Lieutenant-Governor Stoughton was an active figure in all this
lamentable business. Phipps was dragged into the maelstrom bodily. He
pitied the frightened wretches in the prisons and secretly instructed
his jailers to be remiss in their duties of chaining, ironing and
otherwise inflicting needless punishment on these helpless mortals.
The more effectually and quietly to turn the fearful tide, so
appallingly engulfing the minds of the wrought-up populace, Phipps
organized a court of Oyer and Terminer, wherein he sat himself, with
seven magistrates, to try the wretched old women, dragged screaming to
the farcical examinations. At these trials, devilish children swore away
the lives of fellow-creatures, abandoned alike by their kind and by
their God. In this court of his own making, William Phipps was slowly
and surely putting a stop to the mania, for the horrors of some of the
executions sent a thrill of fright and dread through the whole of
Boston.
Exercising his power of pardoning, and then expending his own money to
assist them to flee from the state, William Phipps saved so many
defenseless women that he fairly broke the fabric of the awful mania in
twain. Early after his arrival, however, he was called away to Plymouth.
No sooner was his back turned than the zealots pounced, tooth and nail,
upon a new crop of witches and hailed them before the court, on trial
for their lives, in haste before the Governor should return to work his
leniency upon them.
Thus it came about that Garde, having exhausted the small supply of
simples possessed by herself and Goodwife Phipps, went to Goody Dune’s
and there witnessed the work of a witch-hunting mob.
It was a warm, summery morning, fit jewel for the year’s diadem of
things beautiful. Cries, yells, of pretended fear, and harsh, discordant
prayers, screamed into the air, assailed Garde’s ears before she could
yet see the little flower-surrounded hut where Goody lived. She felt a
sudden misgiving strike through her heart as she hastened onward.
She came upon the scene in a moment. Nearly fifty men and boys, with a
sprinkling of mere girls and one or two women, were storming the small
stronghold of the old wise woman, who had done so much for those
afflicted by ailments and troubles. Indeed in the crowd there were many
citizens who had blessed her name and the wisdom by which she had mended
their bodily woes. But all now were mad with excitement. Some were
purposely frothing at the mouth. A dozen leaped frantically about,
declaring they were being pinched and bitten by the demons that Goody
was actuating to malice. Young boys slily put nails and pins in their
mouths and then spat them forth, to show what evils were then and there
being perpetrated upon them.
The tidy little garden was trampled to pitiable wreckage of flowers and
vines. The house was being boldly entered by a few lusty knaves, with
Psalms Higgler and Isaiah Pinchbecker in their midst. Sounds of wild
beating, upon the pans and kettles inside, made half the assembled
people turn pale with self-induced fear, which they loved to experience.
Suddenly Goody’s old black cat came bounding forth. The men, boys and
women fell down in affright, screaming that the devil was upon them. To
add to their horror and superstitious dismay, the jackdaw, Rex, came
flying out. He perched for a moment on the ridge and then circled once
or twice about the house. He was wounded, for the ruffians in the
cottage had beaten him savagely, with sticks and whips. He was
bedraggled; for they had thrown water upon him. His feathers were all
awry. He was altogether a sorry spectacle.
“B-u-h-h—it’s cold,” called the bird. “Fools, fools, fools!” and
flapping his ragged wings so that they clapped against his sides as he
flew, he started straight for the woods and was soon out of sight.
If the witch-hunters had been smitten with delightful fear before, they
were appalled by this terrible bird. They fell down upon their knees and
wept and prayed and made a thousand and one mysterious signs by which
evil could be averted. Those who knew in their hearts that the whole
thing, up to this, had been humbug and fraud, now quaked with a fear
that was genuine. The devil himself had said some horrible, unthinkable
rigmarole which would doubtless cast a spell upon them such as they
would never be rid of again in their lives. Their children would be born
with fishes’ tails, with asses’ legs, with seven heads. Above the wails
of anguish, which arose on the air, came the shouts of the captors of
Goody Dune. They were now seen dragging her forth with hooks, which were
supposed to insulate the operator from the evils which a witch could
otherwise pronounce upon her enemies with dire and withering effect. And
then it was seen what the shouting of triumph was.
Each of the captors bore a Bible in his hand from which he read,
haphazard, at the top of his voice as he walked, thus disinfecting
himself, or fumigating himself, as it were, to prevent him from catching
the evil which was hovering about the witch, like an aureole of
dangerous microbes of the devil’s own breeding.
No sooner did old Goody’s well-known form appear than the fanatics in
the garden fled in a panic for the gate, howling and wailing their
prayers more loudly than before, but pushing and jostling one another
and falling endways, as they tried to run and to look behind them at the
same time. They must see everything, whatever the cost.
The men were seen to be armed with pitchforks. There is nothing in the
way of a weapon which your devil so abhors as a pitchfork, in the hands
of any one save himself.
This noisy, mad procession moved in great disorder out into the highway,
where Garde had paused, dismayed and concerned for Goody. She saw the
wise old woman walking calmly along with her captors, for Goody, unlike
the witches of lesser wisdom, knew too much to cry out wild protests
against this infamy, and so to convict herself of uttering curses,
spells and blasphemies on the public roads. She looked about her, at men
and women she had relieved of pains, and at children whose early
ailments she had exorcised with her simples.
They were all now possessed of the devil, in good faith, for the mad
capers they cut to show that Goody was all potent to produce the most
fiendish and heinous results upon them could only have been invented out
of the sheer deviltry which is one of the component parts of the human
animal.
Helpless, terrified by these maniacs about her, Garde could only lean
against the fence and hold her place while the running, neck-twisting
people went by.
“Oh, poor dear Goody,” she murmured to herself, involuntarily.
The old wise woman looked across the bank of bobbing heads about her and
half smiled, in a weary, hopeless manner that sent a pang straight to
Garde’s heart. She knew that Goody was saying, “Never mind me, dear,”
and this only made it all the more unendurable.
Goody had been hustled by in a moment. The dust arose from the scurrying
feet. The hobble-de-hoy pageant went rapidly toward the town, its
numbers being momentarily augumented, as fresh persons heard the
disturbance rising and coming near, on the summer air, and joined the
throng.
Unwilling to let her friend be conveyed thus away without her even
knowing where she was now to be taken, Garde followed the last of the
stragglers, and so saw the crowd become a mob, in the more populous
streets of the town, and finally beheld Goody hurried to one of the
prisons and shut out of sight behind the doors.
The jail was the one into which, six years before, Adam Rust had been so
infamously thrown.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XIV.
GARDE’S SUBTERFUGE.
NEARLY as strong and well as ever, Adam Rust heard Garde’s excited and
desperate tale of Goody’s capture with an indignation which far outran
her own. He failed to realize, at first, the full import of Goody’s
position. Then, as Garde made him understand the almost inevitable
execution, staring this old woman-friend in the face, at the end of a
trial from which Truth would fly moaning, with her hands to her ears,
the rover would have buckled on his sword and gone to batter down the
jail to set the old wise woman free, had his sweetheart not restrained
him with all her powers of dissuasion.
“Oh, we have got to be far more clever than that,” she said. “We have
got to get her out of there quietly—so quietly that we can get her
away—a long way off, before the awful crowds shall find it out. Help me
to do this. Help me to get her out cunningly, or we shall fail—and
to-night it will all be too late.”
“Couldn’t the Governor pardon her out?” said Adam. “Why has he gone away
at such a time? Here, couldn’t Mrs. Phipps write a pardon? We could take
it to the jailer, and try him. If he then refused to release our friend,
we could try with a little gold in his hand. Mrs. Phipps—Mrs. Phipps,”
he called to the Captain’s wife.
The plump little woman would have done anything on earth for Adam—her
boy—and for Garde, whom she loved no less, but she shook her head at
this new proposal. The potentialities of the position in which William’s
sudden elevation had placed her still gave her a little fright to
contemplate. She knew nothing of the powers of a Governor, still less of
those of a Governor’s wife.
“I would be glad to do this thing, dear Adam,” she said, “for your sake,
or Garde’s, or even for old Goody herself, but can I? Would I dare? I
fear you hardly know the temper of these people on this question of
witches. They are mad.”
“Try it,” said Adam. “We can do no less than to give it a trial. The
jailer will know of no reason for limiting the Governor’s prerogatives,
nor even those of his good wife. Write what I shall dictate, and let us
make the attempt. A bit of boldness is often as good as an army.”
Never able to resist when Adam begged or even suggested, Goodwife Phipps
wrote, as he directed, one of the most sweeping and imperious pardons
ever reduced to cold language. This being duly sanded, and approved,
Rust folded it up and placed it safely in his pocket.
“Now then, John Rosella,” he said to Garde, who blushed prettily, in
spite of her many conflicting emotions, “even supposing this works its
charm, we have only then made a good beginning. I must have a horse on
which to convey old Goody out of the reach of harm, when they find she
has slipped between their fingers. And the horse must be my own. No more
borrowed horses will do for me. Therefore content your mind, sweetheart,
while I go forth to make my needed purchases.”
He kissed her, while Goodwife Phipps bustled off importantly about her
duties, and reassuring her that all should yet be well for Goody, he
went out into the glorious sunlight, and felt his old-time vigor spring
forward—from the warmth and the joyousness of Nature—to meet him.
But the matter of finding a horse in Boston was not one to be disposed
of lightly. He hunted far and wide, for of those which were offered for
sale, many were old, a few were lame and others were vicious. These
latter he would have liked, for himself, since they challenged him,
their spirit against his, but foregoing the pleasant anticipation of a
battle royal, he rejected offers right and left, until he had used up
the morning completely, and at length felt obliged to be satisfied with
a somewhat undersized bay, who nevertheless seemed strong and otherwise
fit for the business in hand.
Garde in the meantime had grown nervous with impatience, afraid as she
was, of one of those swift, inhuman trials of Goody which so often were
the subterfuges of the fanatics for rushing a person pre-condemned, to
the death from which there was no escape.
“I have thought the matter over calmly,” said Adam, who knew nothing of
real calmness in a moment of daring, “and I feel certain we shall double
our chances of success by waiting till dark, or near it, when the jailer
might be persuaded to think we could get her away unnoticed noticed by
the rabble, and so might consent to the plan, when otherwise he would
think he must refuse.”
There was reason in this, as Garde could see. Making Adam promise to
take a rest, before the time should be ripe for their enterprise, she
went home to David Donner, to set things to rights, and otherwise to
keep abreast of her little housewifely duties. She found the old man
excited, by a call which had come for his services, at noon.
One of the seven magistrates who sat in the court of Oyer and Terminer,
to try the witches, had fallen ill. David had been requested to assume
his place. At this wholly unexpected news, Garde felt her heart leap
with a sudden rejoicing. If the worst came, Goody would have at least
one friend at the trial, to whose words of wisdom the Council had so
frequently listened. She ran to the old man and gave him a kiss.
“Oh, I am so glad, dear Grandther,” she said. “They know how wise you
are and just!”
“Thankee, child, thankee,” said the white-haired old man, smiling with
the pleasure which the whole transaction had excited in his hungering
breast. “They recognize me—a little—at last.”
Yet so eager had the girl become, and so frightened of what the results
were almost certain to be, if Goody ever came to her trial, during the
absence of Governor Phipps, that she and Adam were hastening off to the
jail the moment the twilight began to descend on the town.
“Jailer Weaver owes me some little favor,” she said as they came to the
place, “and he really owes a great deal to Goody.” Her voice was
shaking, her teeth felt inclined to chatter, so excited was all this
business making her feel.
Vivid recollections of those terrible moments in which she had come to
see Mrs. Weaver and then had hovered about the prison, to liberate Adam,
made her cling to his arm in terror of what they were now about to
attempt.
Adam himself, wondering if the jailer would by any chance remember his
face, and the break he and the poor old beef-eaters had made, had the
boldness and the love of adventure come surging up in his heart, till he
petted the hilt of his sword with a clenching fist.
They entered at the door of that portion of the prison building where
the Weavers made their residence, as this would excite no suspicion on
the part of the few pedestrians in the street. The nature of their
business being partially secret, they chose to interview the jailer in
the room which answered for his parlor.
Weaver was a man who constantly raised and lowered his eyebrows—a habit
he had gained through years of alternately scowling at his guests and
then looking puzzled or surprised that, being so innocent as they always
were, they should still be brought to such a place. He listened to
Adam’s flowery and courtly address, in which he announced the advent of
Goody’s pardon, with at least a hundred of these eyebrow contortions.
“But the Governor never pardons before a trial,” he said. “Else, how
should he know but what he was pardoning a very guilty person indeed? If
he had pardoned her, or if he will pardon her, after the trial, I shall
be glad to give her freedom, poor soul. But you see she hasn’t even been
tried, and moreover this pardon comes from the Governor’s good lady.”
Garde’s heart sank. The man was so unanswerably logical.
“But, my good man,” said Adam, “I tell you this would be the Governor’s
pleasure. And the Governor stands in the shoes of the King, in matters
of grave importance. Now call in any one and ask if I am not the
Governor’s friend—his secretary, indeed.”
“I know your face,” said Weaver, who remembered Adam well enough, as a
former guest of the house, but who chose to say nothing on delicate
subjects. “I saw you with Sir William the day he landed. Oh, aye, you
are his friend, I know that well. But——”
“Good!” Adam interrupted. “Then, the Governor—who stands, mind you, in
the King’s shoes, in this matter, is away. I, being his friend, for the
moment take his place. Therefore I stand in the King’s shoes myself, and
I desire this woman’s pardon! Bring forth your ink, and I shall add my
signature to the document, in the King’s name.”
Weaver was bewildered. This reasoning was as clear as a bell, yet he
knew what the angry mobs would soon be demanding from his stronghold.
“But—but there can be no pardon, as I said, till after trial,” he
stammered.
“What!” said Rust striding back and forth, while Garde looked on and
trembled, “do you refuse to obey your King?”
“Oh, sir, alas, no,” said the jailer. “But what can I do?”
“Do? Do? My friend, do you value your daily bread? Do you wish to retain
your office? Or shall the Governor grant your dismissal?”
This was touching the man on a spot where he could endure no pressure.
He quailed, for he found himself between the devil—as represented by the
fanatical spirit of the mob—and the deep sea into which the loss of his
place would plunge him at once.
“Oh, don’t turn me out!” he begged, convinced well enough of Adam’s
power with the Governor. “I would do anything to please you, sir, and I
have done much already to please the Governor. I am an old man, sir, and
we have saved nothing, and we know no other trade, and many people hate
us. There would be no place for me and mine. Do not turn us away for
this.”
“I don’t wish to turn you away,” said Adam. “I merely ask you to release
this woman.”
“She has never done any harm,” put in Garde. “She has been very good to
your wife and you. Surely you could spare her this.”
“I would, Miss, I would,” said the wretched man. “I am sick to death of
this terrible craze of witches, but what can I do? If I do not release
her, I shall lose my place and starve. If I do let her go, I shall have
all the mobs down upon me, when they find there is no witch for trial.
How can I show them a paper, instead of a prisoner? My life might pay
the forfeit.”
“Oh, Adam, this is terrible,” said Garde. “What can we do?”
“After trial, you can surely get her pardoned,” the man insisted. “You
have the power. You can save her then.”
“Oh, they will never wait!” cried the girl. “They may try her to-night,
and find her guilty and hang her the first thing in the morning!”
Weaver turned pale. He knew that what she said might in all probability
be true.
“But I cannot give them a bit of paper instead of a prisoner,” he
repeated. “If you will bring me some one else, who will vouch for the
mob’s respect of your pardon, as you vouch for the Governor——”
“We’ve got to have her,” interrupted Adam. “You can say she escaped, by
her power of witchcraft. Release her, or look your last on these
cheerful walls.”
“Oh, but, Adam,” said Garde, “why should we make such misery and trouble
for one person—for two persons, indeed with Mrs. Weaver—in trying to
save another? I like these good people. They are very kind to their
prisoners. They have spent much of their own money to give them little
comforts. Can we not think of some other way, as good as this, to get
poor Goody out and do no harm to innocent people?”
Weaver was ready to break into tears. He started to repeat, “Bring me
some one to——”
“Oh! Oh, I know! I know what to do!” cried Garde, interrupting. “All you
need is some one else to blame, when they find she is gone! It would
never be your fault if some one took her place. It would be a trick on
you, when they found it out. I’ll take her place. I’ll take her place,
because when they find out they are starting to try only me, they will
have to laugh it off as a joke. And Grandther is one of the
magistrates—appointed to-day—so they will have to let me go—and Goody
will be far away, by then—and no one will get into trouble!”
“So one could blame me—nor they wouldn’t,” said Weaver, slowly, “but as
for you, Miss——”
“Then we can do it!” Garde broke in, a little wildly. “Oh, hurry! we
might he too late. You can put me wherever Goody is, and I can change
clothes with her, and then, Adam——”
“Yes, but——” started Adam.
“Oh, let me, dear. I shan’t mind it a bit. And in the morning it will
all be over, and Goody will be safe, and no one harmed—and there is no
other way. And I want to! Oh, Goody has been like a mother to me! I must
do it. Please don’t say anything more. Mr. Weaver, take me to Goody
now!”
“You brave little woman!” said Adam, his own courage leaping to greet
this intrepid spirit in his sweetheart. “I believe you can do it! We
shall win!”
“Come back as early as you can,” said Garde, on whom a thought of the
lonely part of the business was suddenly impressed. “It won’t seem long.
And when it is over, I shall feel so glad I could do a little thing for
Goody. We must hurry. Every moment may be precious!”
“But, lassie——” the jailer tried to insist once more, “you——”
“Please don’t talk any more,” said Garde. “Take me to her now. And when
somebody looking like me comes back, let her go out by Mrs. Weaver’s
door with Mr. Rust.”
“Yes, I, but——”
“In the King’s name, no more talk,” interrupted Adam. Then he turned to
Garde. “You won’t be timid, little mate?” he said. “I shall not be gone
past midnight at the most.”
“I shall be so glad to think I am leaving Goody in your strong, dear
hands,” said Garde, with a smile of love in her eyes. “Good-by,
dear,—good night, till the morning.”
She kissed him, and smiling at him bravely, followed the jailer, who saw
that his place in the jail depended now on compliance with Adam’s and
Garde’s demand. The tremulous pressure of her little hand in his
remained with Adam when she had gone. He wondered if he were doing well,
thus to let his sweetheart assume poor Goody’s place. Then his own
boldness of spirit rebuked him and he laughed at the imaginary scene of
the magistrates, when they should finally discover their trial to be
nothing but a farce.
Weaver meantime took a candle in his hand and led the way down the
corridor of the prison. Garde hesitated when she saw him descending the
steps.
“Why—where is she?” she asked, timidly.
“In the dungeon, lass,” said the jailer. “I was over sorry, but it could
not be helped. We are full everywhere else. But I shall leave you the
light, and anything you like for comfort. Only, if you hear any one
coming, blow out the candle straightway, or I shall be in a peck of
troubles.”
Quelling her sense of terror, and thinking of Goody, alone in that
darkness, with such dreadful fates awaiting her reappearance among the
people, she promised herself again it would soon be over, and so
followed resolutely down into the hole where Adam had once been locked,
in those long-past days of despair.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XV.
THE MIDNIGHT TRIAL.
GOODY DUNE was a frightened and pitiable spectacle, with her age and the
terrors of the dungeon and coming execution upon her. She struggled in
an effort to maintain a show of composure, at sight of Garde and the
jailer. Nevertheless she would not, at first, listen to a word of the
plan of substitution, to get her away from the prison.
When at last she had fairly overridden Goody’s objections, and had made
her complete the exchange of garments, Garde kissed her with all the
affection of a daughter, and sent her forth to Adam’s protection. She
then heard the lock in the dungeon-door shoot squeakingly into place
with a little thrill of fear, which nothing human and womanly could have
escaped.
She listened to the footfalls receding down the corridor, and then the
utter silence of the place began to make itself ring in her ears. She
looked about her, by the aid of the flickering light which the tallow
dip was furnishing, at the barren walls, the shadows, and the heap of
straw in the corner. At all this she gave a little shiver of dread.
All the excitement which had buoyed her up to make this moment possible
escaped from her rapidly. She began to think how Goody must have felt,
till her moment of deliverance came. Then she thought of what Adam had
endured when, lame, hungry, exhausted and defamed, he had been thrown
with violence into this horrible hole, from which he could have had no
thought of being rescued.
She took the candle in hand and went in search of the tiny window, down
through which she had dropped him the keys. When she saw it, she gave a
little shudder, to note how small it was, and how it permitted no light
to enter the place.
Returning then to a paper, filled with bread and butter, pie, cake and
cold meat, which Weaver had fetched her, while she and Goody had been
exchanging garments, she tried to eat a little, to occupy her time and
her thoughts. But she could only take a sip of the milk, which stood
beside the paper, and a nibble at the bread. To eat, while in her
present state of mind, was out of the question.
The stillness seemed to increase. She felt little creeps of chill
running down her shoulders. What a terrible thing it would be to have no
hope of leaving this fearful cellar! Suppose anything should happen to
Adam, to prevent him from returning! How long would it be till morning?
Surely she must have been there nearly an hour already. She clasped her
hands, that were cold as ice. She almost wished she had not tried this
solution of the difficulty. Then she remembered the wise old woman, who
had made her neighbors’ children her own care—as she had no sons nor
daughters of her own—and who had been sister, mother and friend to
Hester Hodder, and guardian angel, teacher and kindly spirit over
herself. This made her calmer, for a time, and again courageous.
When once more the dread of the place and the ringing silence and the
doubts that seemed to lurk in the shadows, came stealing back, she
thought of Adam, rehearsing every incident in every time they had ever
met. And thus she lingered long over that walk from Plymouth to Boston.
In the midst of sweet reveries which really did much to dissipate her
qualms and chills, she heard someone walking heavily along in the
corridor above her. Swiftly calling to mind what the jailer had said
about the light, she blew it out and stood trembling with nervousness,
waiting for the door to open before her.
But the sounds of heavy boots on the upper floor presently halted. Then
they retreated. She breathed more freely. And then—she suddenly felt the
darkness all about her.
Fear that some one had been about to enter had, for the moment, made her
oblivious of the curtain of gloom which closed in so thickly when she
blew out the candle. Now, when she realized that she could not again
ignite that wick, a horror spread through her, till she closed her eyes
and sank on the floor in despair.
The time that passed was interminable. She had not thought of how
terrible the dungeon would be without the candle. She could almost have
screamed, thus to be so deprived of the kindly light which had made the
place comparatively cheerful. But she pulled up her resolution once
again, thinking how Goody and Adam had endured nothing but darkness, and
with no hope of succor such as she could see illuminating her hours of
dread.
Midnight came at last and found Garde unstrung. When the tramp of many
feet rang above her, at last, she welcomed the thought that some one was
near. She hoped it was morning and that Adam had returned. But then she
heard a jangle of keys, and footfalls on the steps leading down to where
she was, and her heart stood still.
In the natural consternation which the hour, the darkness and the
suspense had brought upon her, she hastily hid her head and face in
Goody’s shawl, and bending over, to represent the older woman, she
tremblingly saw the door swing open and heard the jailer command her to
come forth.
With her heart beating violently and her knees quaking beneath her,
Garde came out, relieved in some ways to flee from that awful hole of
darkness, but frightened, when she saw the array of stern-faced men, who
had come, as she instantly comprehended, to take her away to a trial.
There was not one among the five or six men that she knew. She
remembered the faces of Pinchbecker and Higgler, having seen them in the
morning, when Goody was taken, but the others were witnesses that
Randolph had sent from Salem, experts in swearing away the lives of
witches. They too had been present at the capture of Goody.
Undetected as she was, Garde was surrounded by this sinister group of
men, and was marched away, out of the jail, into the sweet summer’s
night air, and so down a deserted street, to a building she had never
entered before in her life.
Hardly had the prison been left behind when Adam Rust, swiftly
returning, after having readily provided for the safe escape of Goody
Dune, came galloping into Boston, his brain on fire with a scheme of
boldness.
He had made up his mind to ride straight to the prison, demand
admittance, compel the jailer to deliver Garde up at once, carry her
straight to a parson’s, marry his sweetheart forthwith, and then take
her off to New Amsterdam. Weaver could blame the rescue of the witch to
him and be welcome. He could even permit Adam to tie him and gag him, to
make the story more complete, but submit he should, or Rust would know
the reason. His wild ride had begotten the scheme in his
adventure-hungry mind.
He knew the residence of the parson who had married Henry Wainsworth and
Prudence Soam, the week before he and Phipps had returned to
Massachusetts, for Garde had told him all the particulars, time after
time—having marriage in her own sweet thought, as indeed she should. He
therefore went first to this parson’s, knocked hotly on the door, to get
him out of bed, and bade him be prepared to perform the ceremony within
the hour.
The parson had readily agreed, being a man amenable to sense and to the
luster of gold in the palm, wherefore Adam had gone swiftly off to work
the _tour de force_ on which all else depended. He arrived at the jail
when Garde had been gone for fifteen minutes. Here he learned with
amazement of the midnight trial to which she had been so summarily led.
Trembling like a leaf, Garde was conducted into a chamber adjoining the
room wherein the dread magistrates were sitting, with their minds
already convinced that this was a case so flagrant that to permit the
witch to live through the night would be to impair the heavenly heritage
of every soul in Boston.
Here the girl was left, in charge of Gallows and two other ruffianly
brutes, whose immunity from the evil powers of witches had been
thoroughly established in former cases. In the meantime her accusers had
gone before the magistrates, ahead of herself, to relate the unspeakable
things of which Goody Dune had been guilty.
Shaking, not daring to look up, nor to utter a sound, Garde had tried to
summon the courage to throw off the whole disguise, laugh at her captors
and declare who she was, but before she should arrive in the presence of
Grandther Donner, who would protect her and verify her story, at least
as to who she was, she could not possibly make the attempt.
Terribly wrought upon by the suspense of waiting to be summoned before
that stern tribunal of injustice, Garde began to think of the anger
which these unmirthful men might show, when she revealed the joke before
their astounded eyes. She swayed, weakly, almost ready to swoon, so
great became her alarm.
She could hear the high voices of Psalms Higgler and Isaiah Pinchbecker,
penetrating through the door. They were giving their testimony, in which
they had been so well coached by Edward Randolph, who was even now in
there among the witnesses, disguised, and keeping as much as possible in
the background.
The door presently opened and Garde was bidden to enter. Her heart
pounded with tumultuous strokes in her breast. She could barely put one
foot before the other. She caught at the door-frame to prop herself up
as she entered the dimly-lighted, shadow-haunted room.
Then her gaze leaped swiftly up where the magistrates were sitting. She
saw strangers only—men she knew in the town, but not David Donner. She
felt she should faint, when one of the men turned about, and she
recognized her grandfather, looking feverish, wild-eyed and hardly sane.
This was why she had not known him sooner.
“Oh, Grandther!” she suddenly cried. “It’s I! It’s Garde! Oh, save me!
Oh, take me home!”
She flung off Goody’s shawl, and darting forward ran to her
grandfather’s side and threw her arms like a child about his neck, where
she sobbed hysterically and laughed and begged him to take her away.
The court was smitten with astonishment from which no one could, for the
moment, recover.
Randolph had pressed quickly forward. But he now retired again into the
shadow.
“What’s this? What’s this?” demanded the chief of the magistrates,
sternly. “What business is this? What does this mean? Where is——”
“Witchcraft! A young witch! Cheated! We are cheated! The young witch has
cheated us of the old witch!” cried Pinchbecker, shrilly.
“My child! My child!” said David Donner. “This is no witch,
fellow-magistrates and friends.”
“She has cheated us of the old witch!” repeated Pinchbecker wildly. “She
has daily consorted with a notorious witch. She has aided a witch to
escape. She is a witch herself! We know them thus! She is a dangerous
witch! She is a terrible young witch!”
“How comes this?” said the chief again, excitedly. His associates also
demanded to know how this business came to be possible, and what was its
meaning. The room was filled with the shrill cries of the men denouncing
Garde more stridently than before, and with the exclamations of
astonishment and shouts to know what had become of the witch they had
come there to try.
During all this confusion, Garde was clinging to her grandfather and
begging him to take her home.
“Have the girl stand forth,” commanded the chief magistrate. “We must
know how this business has happened.”
Three of the men laid hold of Garde and took her from her wondering
grandfather’s side. She regained her composure by making a mighty
effort.
“Goody Dune was no witch!” she cried. “You all know what a good, kind
woman she has been among you for years—till this madness came upon us!
She is a good woman—and I love her, for all she has done. She is not a
witch—you know she is not a witch!”
The witnesses, who knew all the ways in which witches were to be
detected, raised their voices at once, in protest.
“Order in the Court!” commanded the magistrate. “Young woman, have you
connived to let this Goody Dune escape?”
“She was no witch!” repeated Garde, courageously now. “I knew you would
try to send her to the gallows. I knew she was fore-condemned! I could
do no less—and you men could have done no less, had you been less mad!”
“Blasphemy!” cried Higgler. “She is convicted out of her own mouth!”
“When a witch is young,” cried Pinchbecker, “she can work ten times more
awful evils and arts!”
One of the magistrates spoke: “No woman ever yet was beautiful and
clever both at one time. If she be the one, she cannot be the other.
This young woman, being both, is clearly a witch!”
“She’s a witch—worse than the other!” screamed another of the witnesses.
“Condemn her! Condemn her!”
“Oh, Grandther,” cried Garde, “take me away from these terrible men!”
Randolph now came sneaking forth, out of the shadow.
“This is that same young woman,” he cried, “who lost the colony its
charter!”
“The charter!” screamed David Donner, instantly a maniac. “The charter!
She lost us the charter! Witch! The charter! Condemn her! Kill her! The
charter! She! She! She! Kill her!—Where is she? The charter! The
charter! The charter!”
With his two bony, palsied hands raised high above his head, like
fearful talons, with his white hair awry over his brow, with his eyes
blazing with maniacal fire, the old man had suddenly stood up and now he
came staggering forward, screaming in a blood-chilling voice and making
such an apparition of horror that the men fell backward from his path.
“Oh Grandther! Grandther!” cried Garde, holding forth her arms and going
toward him, to catch him as she saw him come stumbling toward her.
“Witch!” screamed the old man shrilly. “Kill her! Kill her! I never
coerced her! The charter! Witch! Witch! The charter!”
He suddenly choked. He clutched at his heart in a wild, spasmodic
manner, and with froth bursting from his lips, he fell headlong to the
floor and was dead.
“She has killed him!” cried Higgler. “She has killed him with her
hellish power!”
“Witch! A murderous young witch!”
“Condemn her! Condemn her!” came in a terrible chorus.
“To the gallows! Hale her to the gallows!” Randolph added from the rear.
The man called Gallows thought this referred to him. He grinned. He and
the two brutes who had handled many defenseless witches before, came
toward the girl, who stood as if petrified, her hand pressed against her
heart in dumb anguish.
Suddenly the door was thrown open and in there came Governor Phipps,
cane in hand, periwig adjusted, cloak of office on his shoulders. He was
blowing his nose as he entered, so that no one saw his face plainly, yet
all knew the tall, commanding figure and the dress.
“What, a trial, at night, and without me?” he roared, in a towering
rage, which many present had already learned to fear. “Is this your
province, you magistrates, assembled to deal out justice? Do you heckle
a defenseless woman like this? Disperse!—the whole of you, instantly. I
command it! If you have condemned, I pardon. The prisoner will leave the
court with me!”
The men, craven that they were, he could deceive, but Garde knew the
voice, the gait, the bearing of her lover. She sprang to his side with a
little cry of gladness and clung to him wildly, as his strong arm swung
boldly about her waist. She could hardly more than stand, so tremendous
had been the stress of her fearful emotions.
Scorning to expend further scolding or shaming upon them, and
comprehending that delay had no part in his game, Adam turned his back
on the slinking company and strode away, half supporting Garde, who hung
so limply in his hold.
Randolph, baffled, afraid to reveal himself by denouncing the imposture
which he had been only a second behind Garde in detecting, stole close
to his henchmen and whispered the truth in their ears.
Higgler and Pinchbecker, conscious of the blood of Adam on their hands,
felt their knees knock suddenly together. The man must be the very devil
himself.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XVI.
THE GAUNTLET RUN.
WITH his bride up behind him on his horse, the rover spurred swiftly
away from the parson’s, still within the hour, in which he had promised
to return to his wedding. Unafraid of whatsoever the world, before or
behind, might contain, while her lover-husband lived at her side, Garde
felt a sense of exhilaration, at leaving Boston, such as she had never
known in all her life.
With her grandfather dead and Goody no longer at the little cottage on
the skirts of town, she had no ties remaining, save those at the houses
of Soam and Phipps. And what were these, when weighed in the balance
against Adam Rust—her Adam,—her mighty lord?
Trembling and clinging as she was, he had carried her off. Gladly she
had gone to the parson’s. Her heart now rejoiced, as he told her that
Massachusetts was behind them forever. For its people, with their harsh,
mirthless lives of austerity and fanaticism, she had only love enough to
give them her pity. But her life was life indeed, when, ever and anon,
Adam halted the horse, lest she fear a fall, and twisted about to give
her a kiss and a chuckle of love and to tell of the way he had cheated
the mob and the court of their witches.
“Make no doubt of it, you are a witch—one of the sweetest, cleverest,
bravest, most adorable little witches that ever lived,” he said, “and I
love you and love you for it, my darling wife!”
They had left the town early in the morning. By break of day they were
not so far from Boston as Adam could have wished. The horse had been
wearied by carrying double, when he conveyed Goody Dune to a place of
safety,—so that the old woman could subsequently join himself and Garde
in New Amsterdam,—and therefore he had halted the animal humanely, from
time to time, as the load under which the good beast was now working was
not a trifle.
Having avoided the main road, for the greater part of the remaining
hours of darkness, Adam deemed it safe at last to return to the highway,
as he thought it unlikely they had been pursued under any circumstances.
Thus the sun came up as they were quietly jogging along toward a copse
of trees through which the road went winding with many an invitation of
beauty to beckon them on.
Crossing a noisy little brook, the rover permitted the horse to stop for
a drink. Not to be wasting the precious time, Adam turned himself half
way around in the saddle, as he had done so frequently before, and gave
his bride a fair morning salute.
He had then barely ridden the horse a rod from the stream, when, without
the slightest warning, the figure of Gallows, mounted on a great black
steed, suddenly broke from cover among the trees and bore down upon
them.
The great hulk, sword in hand, made a quick dash toward the defenceless
two, and slashed at Garde with all his fearful might.
Jerking his horse nearly out of the road, Adam swung from the line of
the brute’s cowardly stroke, yet before he could do aught to prevent it,
Gallows righted, flung out his leaden fist and dragged the girl fairly
off from her seat, till she struck on the back of her head, among the
rocks of the road, and lay there unconscious, and almost beneath the
tread of the horse’s prancing feet.
Then the monster spurred at his horse and turning him back, rode to
drive him madly over the prostrate form in the dust.
Making a short, sharp cry of anger, Adam whipped out his sword and
dashed upon the murderous butcher before he could get within fifteen
feet of Garde, where she lay in the sunlight.
Gallows had plenty of time to see him coming. The two met in a
tremendous collision of steel on steel that sounded a clangor through
the woods and sent the two swords flying from their owners’ grips.
Disarmed, the pair thudded together in a swift and hot embrace, sawing
their horses close in, the more firmly and straight erect to hold their
seats.
“You be a fool and I be the fool-killer!” roared Gallows, hoarsely. He
tugged with his giant strength, to drag Adam fairly across to his own
big saddle, where he could either break his back or beat him to death
with the butt of a pistol, which he was trying to draw with the hand
that held the reins.
Slipping his wrist under the chin and his hand around to the fellow’s
massive shoulder, Adam tilted back the heavy head with a force so great
that Gallows was glad to release his hold, else he would surely have
toppled from his perch.
The horses leaped a little apart. Back their riders jerked them. Again
the two big human forms shot together, and clung in a fierce embrace,
like two massive chunks of iron, welded together by their impact. Once
more Gallows used his great brute strength, while Rust employed his wit
and got his same terrible leverage on the monster’s neck.
For a moment Gallows fought to try to break the hold, and to drag his
opponent headlong from his horse, by kicking Adam’s animal stoutly in
the flank. But Adam was inflicting such an agony upon him as he could
not endure. They broke away, only to rush for the third time, back to
this giant wrestling.
“The fool will never learn. I shall kill him yet!” cried Rust to
himself, for he went for Gallows’s neck as before and got it again in
his hold.
He threw a tremendous strength into the struggle. Gallows let out a
bellow. Releasing the reins, he threw both his arms about his foe and
deliberately fell from his seat, with the intention of crushing Rust
beneath his weight, on the ground.
Adam’s turn in the air was the work of the expert wrestler. The horses
shied nervously away.
The two were up on their feet and telescoped abruptly in one compact,
struggling mass, as if two malleable statues of heroic size had suddenly
been bent and intertwisted together.
With his ox-like force Gallows began to force Adam backward. Adam let
him expend himself in this manner for a moment. He then discovered the
great hulk’s design. He meant to force the rover to where Garde was
still lying, and so to trample upon her till the life should be stamped
and ground from her helpless form.
Randolph had sent him to commit this final infamy.
The rage that leaped up in Adam’s breast was a terrible thing. He
feinted to drop as if in exhaustion. Gallows loosened his hold to snatch
a better one, at once. In that second Adam dealt him a blow in the
stomach that all but felled him where he stood.
Before he could straighten to recover, Rust was upon him like a tiger.
Getting around the great brute’s side, he threw both hands around the
short, thick neck and twisted himself into position so that he and
Gallows were placed nearly back to back. Then with one movement he
lifted at the man’s whole weight, with the monster’s head as a lever,
hauled fiercely backward. Into the action he threw such a mighty rush of
strength that Gallows was hoisted bodily off the ground, for a second,
and then his neck gave forth a tremendous snap and was broken so
fearfully that one of the jagged ends of a vertebra stabbed outward
through the flesh, and dripped with red.
The whole dead weight of the fellow’s carcass rested for a second on
Rust’s back and shoulder, and then Adam let him fall to the ground,
where, like a slain hog, he rolled heavily over and moved no more.
Panting, fierce-eyed, ready to slay him again, Adam stood above the body
for a moment, his jaws set, his fists clenched hard in the rage still
upon him.
Then he heard a little moan, and turning about saw Garde, attempting to
raise herself upward, in the road. He ran to her instantly and propped
her up on his knee.
“Dearest, dearest,” he said, “are you badly hurt? Garde, let me help
you. Don’t look—don’t look there. It’s all right. Here, let me get you
back to the shade.”
He took her up tenderly in his arms and carried her out of the road to a
near-by bank of moss. Here he sat her down, with her back to a tree, and
ran to fill his hat with water from the stream.
The two horses, having stopped to take a supplementary drink, and a
nibble at the grass, were easily caught. The rover secured them both and
tied them quickly to a bush, with the dragging reins. Then back to Garde
he ran with the water.
“Oh, thank you, dear,” she said, “I don’t think I am hurt. But with the
fright, and the fall, I think I must have fainted.”
“Thank God!” said Adam, as she drank from his hat and smiled in his
face, a little faintly, but with an infinite love in her two brown eyes.
“Thank God, for this delivery. There will be no more trouble. I feel it!
I know it. At last we have run the gauntlet.”
* * * * *
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XVII.
BEWITCHED.
IN his tidy little house in New Amsterdam, Adam sat reading a letter
from Governor William Phipps, written at Boston.
“I forgyve you y^r merrie empersonashun and all ye other things
alsoe, save y^e going away without goode-bye,” he read, “but let
it pass. I w^d write to say God Blesse you bothe. And as I have
never known such a goode blade as y^{rs} in fight, I w^d offer
you to make you my commander of ye forces to goe in war against
ye French, where they do threat to harasse our peeple as of
yore——”
Adam halted here and looked up at the battered old sword on the wall.
His thought went truant, to his helpmate, away for a few minutes’ walk
to Goody Dune’s. He shook his head at the Governor’s generous offer.
“Well, well, William,” he said aloud, “I don’t know. I don’t know what
may be the matter, but—no more fighting for me, old comrade. I think it
must be that I—am bewitched.”
THE END.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that:
was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
○ The use of a caret (^) before a letter, or letters, shows that the
following letter or letters was intended to be a superscript, as
in S^t Bartholomew or 10^{th} Century.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "When a witch is young" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.