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.
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