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.