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.
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