CHAPTER XXVII.
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.