CHAPTER XXVI.
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.