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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------