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.
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