WHEN A WITCH IS YOUNG WHEN A WITCH is YOUNG C c a I o fc e i B 419 R. F. FENNO & COMPANY 9 AND ii EAST i6TH STREET, New Tork 1901 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1901 By R. F. FENNO & COMPANY In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington ffb,n a. Witch It Tung CONTENTS. PART I. CHAPTER PAGE I. Le Eoi est Mort 9 II. A Friendship of Chance 14 III. The Germ of a Passion 22 PART II. I. A Rover and his Retinue , 27 II. An Ungodly Performance 36 III. 'Twixt Cup and Lip 45 IV. The Opening of a Vista 53 V. A Weighty Confidence 62 VI. Pan's Brother and the Nymph 71 VII. The Meeting in the Greenwood 78 VIII. Paying the Fiddler 86 IX. A Matter of State 94 X. To Foil a Spy 100 XI. Dangerous Tributes 105 XII. Hours that Grow Dark 110 XIII. A Kiss Deferred 121 XIV. Overtures from the Enemy 133 XV. Love's Inviting Light 140 iii ^8378 iv Contents. CHAPTER PAGE XVI. Garde's Lonely Vigil 149 XVII. A Night Attack 153 XVIII. The Glint of Treasure 160 XIX. Mutiny 164 XX. Garde's Extremity 171 XXI. Randolph's Courtship 180 XXII. David's Coercion 187 XXIII. Goody's Boy 193 XXIV. A Greenwood Meeting 200 XXV. Love's Traps for Confessions 213 XXVI. A Holiday Ended 221 XXVII. In Boston Town 228 XXVIII. Love's Garden 234 XXIX. The Enemy in Power 243 XXX. A Light at the Tavern 249 XXXI. A Refugee 255 XXXII. A Foster Parent 260 XXXIII. Repudiated Silver 269 XXXIV. Lodgings for the Retinue 275 XXXV. Garde Obtains the Jail Keys 280 XXXVI. Garde's Ordeal 287 XXXVII. Rats in the Armory 296 XXXVIII. Love's Long Good-by 303 XXXIX. Mutations 308 XL. Golden Oysters 314 XLI. Fate's Devious Ways 319 XLII. Little Ruses and Waiting 327 PART III. I. A Topic at Court 835 II. Illness in the Family 342 Contents. v CHAPTER PAGE III. Foiled Purposes 345 IV. Making History 350 V. Old Acquaintances 357 VI. Juggling with Fire 362 VII. A Beef -eater Passes 368 VIII. A Woman Scorned 371 IX. Revelations 382 X. After Six Years 392 XI. A Blow in the Dark 398 XII. Adam's Nurse 403 XIII. Goody in the Toils 407 XIV. Garde's Subterfuge 414 XV. Tho Midnight Trial 425 XVI. The Gauntlet Run 436 XVII. Bewitched.. .. 443 WHEN A WITCH IS YOUNG. PART I. CHAPTER I. LE KOI EST MORT. THE first, the last the only King the Americans ever had, was dead. It was the 13th day of August, in the year 1676. The human emotions of the Puritan people of Massachusetts tugged at the shackles of a long re- pression and broke them asunder, in the seemly town of Plymouth. King Philip, the mighty Sachem of the Wampanoag Indians, had been slain. His warriors were scattered and slaughtered. His war was ended. Through the streets of Plymouth poured a vast throng of people. Men, women and children, they ran and walked, surrounding a buff-colored army that filled the thoroughfares like a turgid flood. This was the regi- ment which Captain Benjamin Church had led to the final camp of King Philip, in the swamps at Mt. Hope and Pocasset, where the last scene in the sanguinary drama had been enacted. Here was a troop of sixty horse, with officers. They were well mounted, caparisoned with glittering back, breast and headpiece, and armed with clanking sword, 9 io When a Witch is Young. shouldered carbine, and great pistols, that flopped at the waist. Behind them were foot-soldiers, brown Puritans stern, mirth-denying, lusty at fighting. Some of these bore no weapon other than a pike. Another frequently had upon him sword, pistol and carbine. Above the heads of these men on foot waved a thin forest of pike-staves, on the tips of which bright steel threw back the dazzling rays of the sun. There was clatter of scabbards on the pavement, thud and thud of hoofs and feet in the roadway, and above all, shouts of men and gabble of children. There were hordes on either side of this human flood, pushing and crowding to gain the front of the column, while a similar aggregation hung back upon the flank of the regiment, hooting, craning necks and racing to keep pace with the steady, long strides of the soldiers. This division of interest was caused by the two counter attractions of the pageant. Thus at the front, a red Indian was leading the march with a wild, half-dancing step, while he contorted his body weirdly for the pur- pose of displaying to all beholders the ghastly proof of victory the head of the great King Philip. This In- dian ally might have stood for the mockery of a drum- major, heading a march of doom. The spectators, racing, crowding, following, took a crazed delight in beholding this gory head. Love, anger, joy, the daily emotions of man, were habitually so repressed by these serious people that now it seemed as if they reveled as in an orgie of shuddering and gasping, to give vent to their pent-up natures. They laughed, they skipped on nimble feet, they sang praises. The young men and women snatched the occasion, with Le Roi est Mort. n its looseness of deportment, to look unbridled feelings into one another's eyes. The other attraction, in the rear, was a captive, a mere boy, as white as any in the multitude, and paler than the palest. Tall and lithe as he was, his age was scarcely a whit above fourteen. He was dressed as an Indian ; he bore himself like a sullen brave. At his side was old Annawon, the last of King Philip's coun- cilors, who, having surrendered under a promise of ''good quarter" was even now being led to his execu- tion. The interest centered, however, in the boy. Through the stoicism which he labored to hold as a mask upon his face, the signs of anguish played like an under- current. In all the throng he had but a single friend, the Red-man with whom he was marching. He looked about at the pitiless embankment of faces. Near him a score of nimble boys were running, a frantic desire to strike him depicted in their eyes. Further away a tall man was moving, perforce, with the tide. On his shoulder he bore a little Puritan maiden, who might have been crushed had he placed her on her feet. She was looking at the boy-captive with eyes that seemed a deeper brown for their very compassion. She clung to the man who held her, with a tense little fist. Her other tiny hand was pressed upon her cheek till all about each small finger was white, in the bonny apple- blush of her color. It seemed as if she must cry out to the young prisoner, in sympathy. While the boy was gazing back his answer to the child a quiver in consequence almost loosening his lip an urchin near him abruptly cast a stone that 12 When a Witch is Young. struck him smartly in the side. With a panther-like motion the captive launched himself upon his assailant and bore him to earth in a second. The old coun- cillor, Annawon, spoke some soft, quick word at which the lad in buckskin immediately abandoned his over- thrown antagonist and regained his place in the march. His eyes blinked swiftly, but in vain, for tears, of anger and pain, forced their way between his lids and so to his cheeks, when he dashed them swiftly away on his sleeve. The foot-soldiers scurried forward and closed in about their dangerous charge. The bawling youths of Plym- outh seemed to multiply by magic. But their oppor- tunities for committing further mischief were presently destroyed. The pageant was passing Plymouth jail. An officer hustled ten of his men about the boy -prisoner and wedged them through the press of people toward this place of gloom. Above the clamor then rose a voice, and in the Indian tongue the boy-captive heard the words : " Farewell, Little-Standing-Panther." It was old Annawon, who had divined that there would be no other parting with the lad, who was the only creature which the war had left on earth for him to love. The boy cried : " Farewell," and the passage through the people closed behind him. Those who looked beheld old Annawon smile faintly and sadly. It was the only expression which had played across his face since his surrender, and there was never another. Through nearly every street the glad procession Le Roi est Mort. 13 wound. At length, the head of the butchered King Philip was thrust upon an iron stake, which was planted deeply in the ground. Governor Winslow then re- quested that the people disperse to their several homes. The night at length came down night the benefi- cent, that cloaks the tokens of men's barbarisms. Then the moon arose, casting a pale, cold light, lest remorse lose her way. What a passionless calm settled upon the sleeping village ! At last, with a tread as silent as that of death itself, an active figure crept from shadow to shadow, in the streets which the moon had silver-plated. The lone human being came to the square wherein was planted the stake with the moon-softened head upon it. The visitor was the white boy-captive, dressed in his Indian toggery. He had escaped from the jail. In the moonlight he came forward slowly. He halted and extended his arms toward the stake with its motion- less burden. He approached in reverence, murmuring brokenly in the Indian tongue : "Metacomet Metacomet, my foster-father, I have come." He knelt upon the ground and clasping the cold iron stake in his arms, he sobbed and sobbed, as if his heart would break. CHAPTER II. A FRIENDSHIP OF CHAHCE. THROUGH the gray mist of Plymouth's dawn there came a sound of footsteps, and then a murmur of melo- dious humming, somewhat controlled and yet too sturdy and joyous to be readily accounted for in the strict Puritan village. Presently, looming out of the uncertain light, appeared the roughly-hewn figure of a young man of five and twenty. He was singing to him- self, as he hastened with big strides through the deserted streets. On the point of passing the place where the gibbeted head of King Philip made a rude exclamation point in the calm of gray Plymouth, the early riser suddenly noted the curled-up form of a human being on the ground, his arm loosely bent about the iron stake, his head resting loosely against it, his eyes fast closed in the sleep of exhaustion. The man started slightly, halted and ceased his singing. He blinked his eyes for a moment, shifted his feet uneasily and rubbed stoutly at his jaw, as he gazed in perplexity at the picture before him. He then tip- toed as if to go on, quietly, about his own business. He glanced at the head, then back to the boy, from whoso lips, in his sleep, a little moan escaped. The visitor noted the traces where tears had channeled down 14 A Friendship of Chance. 15 the lad's pale cheeks. There was something unescap- able in the attitude of the bare golden head against the stake. The man stopped and laid his big hand gently on the half-curled locks. Instantly the boy awoke, leaped to his feet and fell down again, from sheer stiffness, staring at the man with eyes somewhat wild. He arose again at once, more steadily, overcoming the cramps in his muscles doggedly, never ceasing for a second to watch the man who had waked him. " I give you good morrow," said the man. " It seems to me you have need of a friend, since you have clearly lost one that you much esteemed." There was persuasion and honesty in the stranger's warm-blue eyes, good nature in his broad, smooth face and a large capacity for affection denoted in his some- what sensuous mouth. Such a look of friendship and utter sincerity as he bestowed on the startled and defi- ant boy before him could not have been easily counter- feited. The youthful know sincerity by intuition. "Who are you ?" said the boy, his voice hoarse and weakened. " What would anybody want with me ?" "My name is William Phipps," said the stranger, simply. " I am a ship-builder of Boston. If you have no better friend, perhaps I would do till you can find one. I am on my way to Boston now. If you need a friend and would like to leave Plymouth, you may come with me, unless you feel yon cannot trust any one about this village." He paused a moment and then added, " I think you must be the boy I heard of, Adam Eust, brought in with the captured Indians." " My name is Adam Eust," the boy admitted. "I 1 6 When a Witch is Young. have no friends left. If you have been helping to kill the Wampanoags I would rather not try to be your friend. But I know I would like you and I should be glad to go to Boston, or any place away from here." In the daylight he could not bear to look up at the head above him. "I have been too busy to fight," said William Phipps, employing the same excuse he had used for friends with recruiting proclivities. " And I have been too happy," he added, as if involuntarily. " So, you see, there is no reason why I should not be your friend. Have you had any breakfast ? " He put out his hand to shake. "No," said Adam. He lost his hand in the big fist which Phipps presented, and restrained himself from crying by making a mighty effort. He had gone with- out eating for two days, but he said nothing about it. " Then," said Phipps heartily, " the sooner we start the better. We can get something hot on the brig." He began his long striding again. Adam hesitated a moment. He looked up at the features above him, his heart gushing full of emotion. Some inarticulate farewell, in the Indian tongue, he breathed through his quivering lips. His eyes grew dimmed. He fancied he saw a smile of farewell and of encouragement play intangibly on those still, saddened lineaments, and so he held forth his arms for a second and then turned away to join his new-found protector. William Phipps, having thought the boy to be follow- ing more closely than he was, stopped to let him catch up. Thus he noted the look of anguish with which the lad was leaving that grirn remnant of King Philip behind. Phipps was one of Nature's " motherly men " A Friendship of Chance. 17 hardly ever more numerous than rocs' eggs on the earth. He felt his heart go forth to Adam Rust. There- fore it was that he looked down in the boy's face, time after time, as they walked along together. Thus they came to the water-front and wharves, at the end of one of which the brig " Captain Spencer " was swinging. 'This ship belongs to me and I made her," said Phipps, with candid pride in his achievement. " You shall see that she sails right merrily." They went aboard. A few sailors scrubbing down the deck, barefooted and with sleeves at elbow, now abandoned their task temporarily, at the command of the mate, who had seen his captain coming, to hoist sail and let go the hawsers. The chuckle in the blocks, as the sailors heaved and hauled at the ropes, gave Adam Rust a pleasure he had never before experienced. Breakfast being not yet prepared for service, Phipps conducted his foundling about the craft for a look at her beauties. When Adam had pntted the muzzle of the brig's gun and felt the weight of a naked sword in his fist, in the armory, the buoyancy of his youth put new color in his cheeks and a sparkle in his eyes. He was a bright-natured, companionable lad, who grew friendly and smiled his way into one's affections rapidly, but naturally. When he and Phipps had come up again to the deck, after breakfast, they felt as if they had always been friends. The brig was under way. Shorewards the gray old Atlantic was wrinkled under the fretful annoyance of a brisk, salty breeze. The ship was slipping prettily up the coast, with stately courtesies to the stern rocks that stood like guardians to the land. 1 8 When a Witch is Young. " I think we shall find you were born for a sailor, Adam," said the master of the craft. " I can give you my word it is more joy and life to sail a ship than to make one. And someday "but he halted. The modest boasts, with which he warmed the heart of his well beloved wife, were a bit too sacred for repetition, even to a boy so winning. " But," he concluded, " per- haps you would like to tell me something of yourself." Thus encouraged Adam related his story. He was the son of John Kust, a chivalrous gentleman, an affec- tionate husband and a serious man, with a light heart and a ready wit. John Kust had been the friend of the Indians and the mediator between them and the whites until the sheer perfidy of the Puritans had rendered him hopeless of retaining the confidence of the Red-men, when he had abandoned the office. Adam's mother had been dead for something more than four years. Af- flicted by his sense of loss, John Rust had become a strange man, a restless soul hopelessly searching for that other self, as knights of old once sought the holy grail. He went forth alone into the trackless wilderness that led endlessly into the west. Although the father and son had been knit together in their affections by long talks, long ranges together in the forests and by the lessons which the man had imparted, yet when John Rust had gone on his unearthly quest, he could not bear the thought of taking young Adam with him into the wilds. He had therefore left the boy with his friends, the lad's natural guardians, the honorable nation of Wam- panoags. " Keep him here, teach him of your wisdom, A Friendship of Chance. 19 make him one of your young warriors/' he bad said when he went, " so that when I return I may know him for his worth." King Philip, the mighty Sachem of the tribe, had thereafter been as a foster-father to the boy. For more than two years the Red-man had believed John Rust to have found his final lodge, and this was the truth. And perhaps he had also found his holy grail. He perished alone in the trackless forest. Adam had learned his wood-lore of his red brothers. He was stout, lithe, wiry and nimble. He rode a horse like the torso of a centaur. He was a bit of a boaster, in a frank and healthy way. King Philip's war, ascribed, as to causes, to " the passion of the English for territory ; their confidence that God had opened up America for their exclusive occupancy ; their contempt for the Indians and their ntter disregard for their rights," had come inexorably upon the Wampanoags. In its vortex of action, move- ment, success and failure at last for the Indians, Adam Rust had been whirled along with Metacomet. He had never been permitted by King Philip to fight against his " white brothers," but he had assisted to plan for the safety of the old men, women and children, in procur- ing game and in constructing shelters. He had learned to love these silently suffering people with all his heart. The fights, the hardships, the doom, coming inevitably upon the hopeless Wampanoags, had made the boy a man, in some of the innermost recesses of a heart's suf- fering. He had seen the last sad remnants of the Wampanoags, the Pocassets and the Narragansetts scatter, to perish in the dismal swamps. He had wit- 20 When a Witch is Young. nessed the death of King Philip, brought upon him by a treacherous fellow Ked-man. And then he had marched in that grim procession. Adam made no attempt to convey an idea of the mag- nitude of his loss. It would not have been possible. There is something in human nature which can never be convinced that death has utterly stilled a beloved voice and quenched the fire of the soul showing through a pair of eyes endeared by companionship. This in Adam made him feel, even as he told his tale to William Phipps, that he was somehow deserting his faithful friends. Bareheaded on the sun-lit deck as he told his story, lithe in his gestures, splendidly scornful when he imi- tated the great chieftains of the tribes, and then like a young Viking as at last he finished his narrative and looked far and wide on the sparkling sea, in joyousness at the newer chapter which seemed to open to the very horizons themselves before him, Adam awakened the lusty youth and daring in "William Phipps and the dreams of a world's career always present in his brain. The man's eyes sparkled, as he spun the wheel that guided the brig, bounding beneath their feet. A rest- lessness seized upon the spirit in his breast. ''Adam," he said, "do you like this ship ?" " Yes ! oh, it makes me feel like shouting ! " the boy exclaimed. " I wish I could straddle it, like a horse, and make it go faster and wilder, 'way off there and everywhere ! Oh, don't it make you breathe ! " " Then," said Phipps, repressing his own love of such a madness as Adam had voiced, " let us go for a long sail together. I have long had in mind a voyage for trad- A Friendship of Chance. 21 ing to Hispaniola. If you would like to go with me, I will get the brig ready in a week." For his answer young Adam leaped as if he would spur the ship in the ribs arid ride her to the end of the earth forthwith. CHAPTER III. THE GERM OP A PASSION. A BONNIE little Puritan maid, Mistress Garde Mer- rill, stood in the open doorway at her home, fervently hugging her kitten. The sunlight seemed almost like beaten gold, so tangibly did it lay upon the house, the vines that climbed the wall, and the garden full of old- fashioned flowers. A few leaves, which had escaped from the trees, in a longing to extend their field of romping, were being whirled about in a brisk zephyr that spun in a corner. A sense of warmth and fragrance made all the world seem wantoning in its own loveliness. Little Garde, watching the frolic of the leaves, and thinking them pretty elves and fairies, dancing, pres- ently looked up into the solemn visage of a passing citizen, who had paused at the gate. " Mistress Merrill, "he said, gravely, after a moment's inspection of the bright, enchanting little face, "your eyes have not the Puritan spirit of meekness." There- upon he departed on his way, sadly shaking his head. Garde's eyes, in all truth, were dancing right joy- ously ; and dancing was not accounted a Puritan de- votion. Such brown, light-qnsnaring eyes could not, 2? The Germ of a Passion. 23 however, constrain themselves to melancholy. ^o more could the apple-red of her smooth, round cheeks retreat from the ardor of the sun. As for her hair, like strands on strands of spun mahogany, no power on earth could have disentangled its nets wherein the rays of golden light had meshed and intermeshed them- selves. In her brightness of color, with her black and white kitten on her arm, the child was a dainty little human jewel. She was watching a bee and a butterfly when a shadow fell again into the yard, among the flowers, at the ex- trance. Garde felt her attention drawn and centered at once. She found herself looking not so much at a bareheaded boy, as fairly into the depths of his very blue and steadfast eyes. The visitor stood there with his hands clasping two of the pickets of which the gate was fashioned. He had seen everything in the garden at one glance, but he was looking at Garde. His eyes began laughingly, then seriously, but always frankly, to ask a favor. " I prithee come in," said Garde, as one a little struck with wonder. The boy came in. Garde met him in the path and gave him her kitten. He took it, apparently because she gave it, and not because he was inordinately fond of cats. It seemed to Garde that she knew this boy, and yet he had on a suit that suggested a young sailor, and she had never made the acquaintance of any sail- ors whatsoever. If he would only look elsewhere than at her face, she thought, perhaps she could remember. " See them," she said, and she pointed to where the leaves were once more capering in the corner. 24 When a Witch is Young. The boy looked, but his gaze would swing back to its North, which it found in two brown eyes. " I saw you that day in Plymouth," he said. ''And I got out of their old jail, and I didn't see anybody else that looked kind or nice among all those people." " Oh ! " said Garde, suddenly remembering every- thing, " oh, you were that boy marching with the old Indian. I was so sorry. And I am so glad that you got away. I am real glad you came to see me. Grand- father and I were down there for a visit so I saw you. Oh dear me ! " She looked at her young visitor with eyes open wide by amazement. It seemed almost too much to believe that the very boy she had seen and so pitied and liked, in that terrible procession at Plymouth, should actually be standing here before her in her grandfather's garden ! " Oh dear me ! " she presently said again. "I hate Plymouth!" said the boy, "but I like Boston." "I am so glad," said Garde. "Will you tell me your name ? Mine is Garde Merrill." The boy said : " My name is Adam Bust." " I was named for all my aunts," the maid imparted, as if eager to set a troublesome matter straight at once, " Gertrude, Abigail, Eosella, Dorothy and Elizabeth. The first letters of their names spell G-A-R-D-E, Garde." Her visitor was rendered speechless for a moment. "Metacornet and all the Indians used to call me Little- Standing-Panther," he then said, boyishly, not to be outdone in the matter of names. "Metacomet King Philip ? Oh, then you are the The Germ of a Passion. 25 boy that used to live with the Indians, and that was how they got you ! " gasped the little maid. " Grand- father told auntie all about it. Oh, I wish I could live with the Indians ! I am very, very sorry they got you \" But I am glad you came to see me." Adam flushed with innocent and modest pride, thus to impress his small admirer, who was named so for- midably. He thought that nothing so pleasant had ever happened in all his life. " It is too sad to live with Indians," he answered. A mist seemed to obscure the light in his eyes and to cast a shadow between them and the sweet face at which he was looking with frank admiration. The cloud passed, however, as clouds will in the summer, and his gaze was again one of illuminated smiles. " I am a sailor now," he said, with a little boast in his voipe. " To-morrow morning we are going to start for Hispaniola." " Oh dear me ! " said Garde, in sheer despair of an adequate expression of her many emotions. Then she added contritely : "I mustn't say 'Oh dear me !' but oil dear I wish I might." "I shan't mind," said Adam. " I wish I could go to Hispaniola, too," said Garde, honestly. " I hate to be kept here as quiet as a clock that doesn't go. I suppose you couldn't take me ? Let's sit down with the kitten and think it over together." "I don't think we could take any girls," said Adam, seating himself at her side on the porch, " but I could bring you back something when I come." "Oh, let's talk all about what we would rather have most," Garde responded. 26 When a Witch is Young. So their fingers mingled in the fur of the kitten and they talked of fabulous things with which the West Indies were reported to abound. His golden hair, and her hair so darkly red, made the picture in the sunlight a thing complete in its brightness and beauty. The wind floated a few stray filaments, richly red as mahog- any, from the masses on Garde's pretty brow, across to the ringlets on Adam's temple. To and fro, over these delicate copper wires, stretched for its purpose, the sweet love that comes first to a lad and a maid, danced with electrical activity. " If you are going to-morrow," said Garde, " you must see all the flowers and everything now." She there- fore took him by the hand and led him about the gar- den, first she, then he, and then she once more carrying the kitten. They were still in the midst of their explorations of the garden, which required that each part should be visited several times, when the gate opened and in walked Garde's tall, stern-looking grandfather. David Donner rubbed his eyes in amazement, hardly believing that his senses could actually be recording a picture of his granddaughter, hand in hand with some utter stranger of a boy, in his own precincts. He came quickly toward the pair, making a sound that came within an ell of being a shout. Garde looked up in sudden affright. Adam regarded the visitor calmly and without emotion. Having first dropped the young sailor's hand. Garde now resolutely screwed her little warm fingers back into the boy's fist. " Grandfather," she said boldly, " I shall sail to- morrow for Hispaniola." The Germ of a Passion. 27 David Donner, at this, Avas so suddenly filled with steam pressure, which he felt constrained to repress, that his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. " Go away, boy," he said to Adam. " Mistress Mer- rill, your conduct is quite uncalled for." Having divined that his sister had deserted her post and gone, as was her wont, to the nearest neighbor's, for a snack of gossip, he glared at Adam, swooped down upon Garde and caught her up in his arms abruptly, kitten and all. Her hold on Adam's hand being rudely wrenched asunder, Garde felt her heart break incontinently. She began to weep without restraint, in fact, furiously. She also kicked, and was also deporting herself when the door was slammed behind the forms of herself, her kit- ten and her grandfather, a moment later. Adam looked once where she had gone. His face had assumed a stolidity which he was far from feeling. He walked to the gate and went away, without once turn- ing to look back at the house. Mistress Garde, confronted by David Donner at close quarters, soon regained her maidenly composure and wept surreptitiously on the stomach of the kitten. At length she looked up in defiance at the silent old man. "I have changed the name of my kitten," she said. "His name is Little-Standing-Panther !" Her grandfather, to whom this outbreak seemed something of an indication of mental disorder, on her part, stared at the child dumbly. Not without some justification for her deductions, Garde thought him quelled. In a spirit of reckless defiance, and likewise to give some vent to her feelings, she suddenly threw 28 When a Witch is Young. her arms about the bedewed kitten, on its pillow, pressed her face against its fur and said to it, fervently: " Little-Standing-Panther, I love you, and love you and love you ! " Grandfather Donner looked up in alarm. " Tut, tut, my child," said he, " love is a passion." PART II. CHAPTEE I. A KOVER AND HIS RETINUE. His only gold was in his hair ; He had no silver hoard ; But steel he had, enow to spare In his thews and in his sword ! TOWARD the close of a glorious day in September, 1683, William Phipps beheld a smart brig nose her way up the harbor of Boston, and drop in her anchor in the field of water wherein his ship-yard thrust its toes. A small boat then presently put forth and made straight for the ship-yard landing, where three men calmly alighted, throwing ashore a small heap of shabby-gen- teel-looking baggage. Somewhat annoyed, thus to have his precincts em- ployed by any Tom, Dick and Harry of chance, Phipps stepped from between the ribs of a ship's skeleton, which was being daily articulated, and strode toward the intruders. Then a rumble, which ought to have been a shout, broke from his lips, about the same second that a roar of joy appeared to leap out of the foremost of the strangers, who had landed and who were coming boldly forward. 29 3o When a Witch is Young. William Phipps and the loader of the invading trio then rushed hotly together and collided, giving each other a hear-like hug from which the ship-builder pres- ently extricated himself at a thoughfrof how he might be shocking all or any good Puritans who might chance to be witnessing the scene. " Well, shatter my hilt ! and God bless you ! if it isn't your same old beloved self ! " said the stranger, heartily. " My boy ! Bless your eyes, Adam, I never thought to see you again ! " said bluff William Phipps. "You big young rascal ! You full-rigged ship ! Where have you come from ? What do you mean by making me swear myself into purgatory at your carelessness in get- ting yourself killed ? You twenty-gun frigate you you big " He left off for very constraint, for his throat blocked up, despite his most heroic efforts. He and Adam Bust began to roar with laughter, the tears in their eyes needing some excuse. Meantime the two com- panions who had come with the young rover, stood gazing about them, in patience, and likewise looking in wonder on the two men before them. There was reason enough to look, for Adam and Phipps were a pair to command attention. It seemed as if a founder had used the big ship-builder as a pat- tern on which to refine his art in casting the younger man. Adam's back was a trifle narrower ; his chest was a bit wider ; he was trimmer at the waist, neater at the thigh, longer-armed. His hands were smaller, just as his movements were quicker and lighter. Although Adam's hair crowned him with tawny A Rover and his Retinue. 31 ringlets of gold, while that of Phipps was browner, and though the young fellow wore a small mustache, in contrast, to the smooth-shaved face of his friend, it might yet be said that the two men looked alike. Both were bronzed by weather, both had steadfast eyes with the same frank expression, the same blue tint and the same integrity about them. In their dress the two men differed. "William Phipps, whatsoever he might indulge himself in doing when away on the sea, conformed to the dark-brown sim- plicity of the Puritans when in Boston. Adam, on the other hand, wore a brown velvet coat which, though at present somewhat faded and moulting, had once been fine feathers in England. His waistcoat had been of royal purple, before its nap fled before the onslaughts of the clothes-brush, while his breeches were of a time- tanned forest green which disappeared into the maw of his wide-topped leather boots. He wore at his hip a veteran blade of steel, in a scabbard as battered as the outer gate of a stronghold. When not in his fight- ing fist, the hilt of this weapon contented itself with caresses from his softer hand, the left. The two men having shaken hands for the third time, and having looked each other over from head to foot, and laughed and asked each other a dozen questions, to which neither had returned any answers, Adam sud- denly remembered his comrades, waiting in the back- ground. He turned to them now, not without affec- tion. " Here, Pike and Halberd," he said, " you must meet my third father, Captain William Phipps, a noble man to whom you will owe allegiance all your miserable 32 When a Witch is Young. lives. William, these are my beef-eaters.- Don't ask me where I got them. They are neither out of jail nor heaven. But they have let me save their lives and feed them and clothe them, and they are valiant, faithful rascals. To know them is to love them, and not to know them is to be snubbed by Satan. They have been my double shadow for a year, sharing my prosperous condition like two peers of the realm." The beef-eaters grinned as they exchanged saluta- tions with Phipps. Pike was a short individual, in- clined to be fat, even when on the slimmest of rations. The pupils of his eyes were like two suns that had risen above the horizon of his lower lids, only to obscure themselves under the cloud-like lids above. Their ex- pression, especially when he gazed upward into Adam's face, was something too appealingly saint-like and be- seeching for anything mortal to possess. Halberd was a ladder of a man up which everything, save success, had clambered to paint expressions on his face, which was grave and melancholy to the verge of the ludicrous. He had two little bunches of muscle, each of which stuck out like half a walnut, at the corners of his jaws, where they had grown and developed as a result of his clamping his molars together, in a determination to do or to be something which had, apparently, never as yet transpired. The two looked about as much like beef-eaters as a mouse looks like a man-eater. They were ragged, where not fantastic, in their apparel ; they were ob- viously fitter for a feast than a fight, for the sea had depleted both of their hoardings of vigor and courage. "Sire," said Halberd, theatrically, "we have had A Rover and his Retinue. 33 nothing but good reports of you for a year." Whether he placed his hand on his heart or his stomach, as he said this, and what he meant to convey as his meaning, could never be wholly clear. " We shall be honored to fight for you, if need arise," said Pike, who panted somewhat, on all occasions, " while there is a breath in our bodies." "It is a privilege to know you both," said Phipps, whose gravity was as dry as tinder. "Any friend of the Sachem's is a friend of ours," responded Halberd. He said this grandly and made a profound bow. " The ' Sachem ' ? " repeated Phipps, and he looked at Adam, inquiringly. Adam had the grace to blush a trifle, thus to be caught in one of the harmless little boasts in which he had indulged himself, over sea. " Just a foolish habit the two have gotten into," he murmured. " Ah," said William Phipps. " Well, then, Sachem, it will soon be growing dark, you had best come home with me to dinner." Involuntarily Adam turned about to look at the beef- caters. Their eyes had abruptly taken on a preter- natural brightness at the word dinner. "I have much to ask you and much to tell you," Phipps added. " And the goodwife would exact this honor if she knew you were come." The invitation did not include Adam's retinue. He swallowed, as if the delicious odors of one of Goodwife Phipp's dinners were about to escape him. " Well," he said, " the honors are all the other way about, but the fact is a previous engagement I I 3 34 When a Witch is Young. have promised a rousing hot din I have accepted an invitation to dine with the beef-eaters, at the Crow and Arrow." The ship builder-knew all about those "rousing hot dinners " of cold eel-pie, potatoes and mustard, for which the Crow and Arrow tavern was not exactly famous, lie looked at Adam, to whom as their sachem the beef-eaters appealed with their eyes, like two faithful animals. Adam was regarding the pair silently, a faint smile of cheer and camaraderie on his face. "But but my invitation included our friends," Phipps hastened to say. " Come, come, the tavern can wait till to-morrow. Gentlemen, you will certainly not disappoint me." " Tis well spoken that the tavern can wait," said Pike. " To disappoint the friend of the Sachem would be a grievous thing," said Halberd. " Let the galled tavern sweat with impatience." They would all have started away together at once, had not Phipps noted the heap of baggage, left un- tidily upon his landing when the travelers arrived. "Well," said he, " Adam, you know the way to the house, suppose you and your friends carry your worldly goods to the tavern, engage your apartments, and then follow me on. I, in the meantime, can hasten home to apprise the wife that you are coming, with the beef- eaters, and she can therefore make due preparations in honor of the event." " This is good sense," said Adam. " Go along, or we shall be there before you." Phipps, with a half dozen backward looks at his A Rover and his Retinue. 35 guests and their shabby chattels, made his way out of the ship-yard without further delay. Adam and his retinue gripped three or four parcels apiece and started, with clank of sword, and in some discomfort, for the Crow and Arrow. CHAPTER II. AX 'UNGODLY PEKFORMANCE, ADAM RUST knew the Crow and Arrow more by that repute which had traveled back to England, through the medium of young stalwarts and sailors, than he did from personal acquaintance with its charms. He had seen the place frequently enough, when first he came to Boston with William Phipps, but the town had ex- panded much since then and bore an air of unfamili- arity. The young man and his beef-eaters therefore wandered somewhat from their course. Being overladen and dressed out of the ordinary fashion, the trio soon found themselves attracting attention, particularly from certain of the youths of the quarter and the rough characters incidental to shipping and the neighborhood thereof. Adam was carrying a long box, somewhat decrepit with age. It swung against his legs and struck an occasional post, or a corner, held insecurely as it was by his little finger only, which was passed through a brass handle. In this manner, and with a growing cluster of curious persons beginning to follow on behind, the party were in sight of the tavern at last, when this long box of Adam's abruptly opened and spilled out a richly dark- ened old violin. 36 An Ungodly Performance. 37 With a short exclamation of impatience, Adam halted and dropped his other bundles. Over these tall Halberd fell, with a great clatter of weapons, tin box and shaken bones. Adam fended him off from the violin, snatched it up and scrutinized it with the eager concern which a mother might bestow upon a delicate child. He found it uninjured, but, as it might have been smashed, he clung to it fondly, reluctant to place it again in its treacherous case. Naturally the downfall of Halberd had delighted the gamin and the sailors following. These formed a cluster about the party, and their numbers drew addi- tional spectators rapidly. A number of seafaring men shoved stoutly forward, their eyes glistening at sight of the musical instrument. " I say, give us something, then, on that there red boy ! " demanded one of the men, as healthy a looking rascal as ever drew breath. " You look a bonny lad, come on there's a good nn," said another. " Rattle her guts," said a third. " We ain't heard the like of a fiddle since we came to this town of preachers." Adam looked quietly about him. He knew most of the fellows about in the rude circle for rough English rovers who would love him if he played, or knock him and his belongings playfully into the street if he refused. He was not accustomed to churlishness ; moreover, he felt particularly in the mood for playing. The ruddy sunset, the warm breath of the passing day, the very taste of American air, seemed lusty and joyous, despite the rigid Puritanical spirit o the mirth-denying people 38 When a Witch is Young. of the colony. He took up the bow, twanged the strings, tightened two that had become laggard, and jumped into the middle of a rollicking composition that seemed to bubble up out of the body of the violin and tumble off into the crowd in a species of mad delight. Had the instrument been a spirit of wine, richly dark red as old port, and rendered alive by the frolicking bow, it could not have thrown off more merry snatches of melody's mirth. It chuckled, it caught its breath, like a fat old monk at his laughing, it broke out in guffaws of hilarity, till not a soul in the audience could keep his feet seemly beneath him. The sailors danced, boldly, though clumsily. Their faces beamed with innocent drunkenness, for drunk they were, with what seemed like the fumes and taste of this wine of sound. They had been denied it so long that it went to their heads at the first draught. Across the street, issuing quietly and, he hoped, un- observed, from a door that led into the tavern, a Puritan father now appeared, wiping his mouth as a man has no occasion for doing unless he had recently dipped his upper lip into a mug. He suddenly halted, at the sound of music from over the way. He frowned at the now somewhat dense assemblage of boys and citizens surrounding Adam Bust, and worked up a mask of severity on his face from which it had been temporarily absent. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, and then, realizing that he might not be heard at this distance from them, moved a rod toward his fellow-beings and took a stand in the street. At this moment an ominous snap resounded above both the playing and its accompaniment of scuffling feet An Ungodly Performance. 39 and gruff explosions of enjoyment and hearty apprecia- tion. Instantly Adam ceased playing. He had felt a string writhe beneath his fingers. The man in the road- way grasped at the moment instantly, to raise his voice. "Begone, disperse, you vagabonds!" he said. " What is the meaning of this ungodly performance ? Disperse, I say, you are bedeviled by this shameless disciple of Satan ! " Adam, intent on his violin, which he found had not broken but had merely slipped a string, heard this tirade, naturally, as did all the others. A few boys sneaked immediately about the cluster of men and sped away, as if from some terrible wrath to come. " Who is yon sufferer for melancholy ? " said Adam, looking carelessly at the would-be interrupter. Then suddenly a gleam came into his eye, as he recognized in the man one of the harsh hypocrites who had been among the few zealots who had imprisoned him, years before. " Halberd," he added, "fetch the gentleman forward. Methinks he fain would dance and make merry among us." His opening question had been hailed with snorts of amusement ; his proposal ignited all the roguislmess in the crowd. Halberd, nothing loth to add his quota to the general fun, strode forward at once, way being made by the admiring throng, and he bowed profoundly before the bridling admonisher in the street. Then without warning, he scampered nimbly to the rear of the man of severity, took him by the collar and the slack of his knickerbockers and hustled him precipitately into the gathering. Adam began to play at once. The spectators gathered 4o When a Witch is Young. about the astonished and indignant person of severity, thirsty for fun. " You evidently wanted to dance, therefore by all means commence," said Adam. " You are a veritable limb of Satan! " said the man. " You shall be reported for this unseemly " " Halberd," interrupted Adam, " the gentleman is as shy and timid as your veriest girl. Could you not persuade him to dance ? " "I was born for persuasion," said Halberd. There- upon he drew from his belt a pistol, most formidable, whether loaded or not, and pushed its metal lips against the neck of the hedged-in Puritan, whom he continued to restrain by the collar. " Make merry for this goodly company by doing a few dainty steps," he requested. The crowd pushed in closer and roared with delight. Some one among them knocked the reluctant dancer's knees forward. He almost fell down. " He's beginning ! " cried Adam, and he went for his fiddle with the bow as if he were fencing with a dozen pirates. " Dance ! " commanded Halberd, " dance ! " Terpsichore's victim was not a man of sand. Drops of perspiration oozed out on his forehead. A look of abject fear drove the mask of severity from his face. He jumped up and down ridiculously, his knees knock- ing together for his castanets. " Faster ! " cried Adam, fiddli.ig like a madman. " Faster ! " echoed Halberd, with his pistol-muzzle nosing in the dancer's ribs. The man jumped higher, but not faster ; he was too An Ungodly Performance. 41 weakened by cowardice. The sailors joined in. They could not keep their feet on the ground. The con- tagion spread. Pike and Halberd joined the hopping. The offending admonisher looked about at them in a frenzy of despair, afraid of who might be witnessing his exhibition. He was a sorry dancer, for he was so eager to please that he flopped his arms deliriously, as if to convince his beholders of his willingness to make himself as entertaining as possible. When he suddenly collapsed and fell down, Adam ceased playing. The crowd settled on the pavement and applauded. " For shame, good friend," said Adam, solemnly, "now that I observe your garb, I am shocked and amazed at your conduct. Friends, let us go to the tav- ern and report this gentleman's unseemly behavior. In payment for the fiddling, yon may fetch my bales of goods and merchandise." He waved to his shabby bag- gage and led the way to the Crow and Arrow, which had long before disgorged nearly all of its company, and its landlord, to add to the audience in the street. Flinging up his only piece of gold, the young rover ordered refreshment for all who crowded into the tavern, and while they were drinking, he dragged the beef-eaters, with all the " bales of merchandise," away to the meager apartments provided above stairs in the sorry hostelry. In the darkness of the hall, he ran heavily against some one who was just on the point of quitting a room. The innocent person was bowled endways. " Confound your impudence ! " said the voice of a man. "Why don't you look where you are going ? " 42 When a Witch is Young. " I couldn't see for fools in the way," retorted Adam. "I am no king, requiring you to fall before me." " I can't see your face, but I can see that you are an arrant knave," said the other hotly. " You never could have had a proper drubbing, or you would be less reckless of your speech ! " " I have always been pitted to fight with bragging rascals of about your size and ability with a weapon, else I might have been drubbed/' Adam flung back, laying his hand on his sword as he spoke. ' ' It shames iny steel to think of engaging a ten-pin ! " " By all tokens, sir, you are blind, as well as idiotic, to walk into death so heedlessly. Be good enough to follow me into the yard." " Oh, fie on a death that flees and entreats me to follow," was Adam's answer. " I rolled you once in this hall ; I can do so again. Halberd Pike, candles to place at the head and feet of death ! " The beef-eaters, having reached the apartments ap- pointed for their use, had heard the disturbance in the hall, and expecting trouble, had already lighted the candles. With three of these they now came forth. The hall would have been light enough had it been in communication with the outside world and the twi- light, but as it was, it was nearly dark. " I grieve for your mother," sneered the stranger, whose sword could be heard backing out of its scab- bard. " You must be young to be so spendthrift of your life." " On the contrary, you will find what a miser I am, even as to the drops of my blood," said Adam. " No one ever yet accused the Sachem *' An Ungodly Performance. 43 " The Sachem ! " interrupted the other voice. Halberd, who had sheltered the candle he bore with his hand, now threw its light on the face of the man near by him. " Shatter my hilt ! " exclaimed young Rust, " Wainsworth ! " " Odds walruses !" said the man addressed as Wainsworth, " what a pretty pair of fools we are. By gad, Adam, to think I wouldn't know you by your voice ! " Adam had leaped forward, while his sword was diving back into its sheath. He caught Wainsworth by the hand and all but wrung it off. " Bless your old soul," he said, y u are hi s friend, I know that well. But " "Good!" Adam interrupted. "Then, the Gov- ernor who stands, mind you, in the King's shoes, in this matter, is away. I, being his friend, for the mo- ment take his place. Therefore I stand in the King's shoes myself, and I desire this woman's pardon ! Bring forth your ink, and I shall add my signature to the document, in the King's name." Weaver was bewildered. This reasoning was as clear as a bell, yet he knew what the angry mobs would soon be demanding from his stronghold. " But but there can be no pardon, as I said, till after trial," he stammered. " What ! " said Bust striding back and forth, while Garde looked on and trembled, " do you refuse to obey your King ? " 420 When a Witch is Young. " Oh, sir, alas, no," said the jailer. " But what can I do ? " " Do ? Do ? My friend, do you value your daily bread ? Do you wish to retain your office ? Or shall the Governor grant your dismissal ? " This was touching the man on a spot where he could endure no pressure. He quailed, for he found himself between the devil as represented by the fanatical spirit of the mob and the deep sea into which the loss of his place would plunge him at once. " Oh, don't turn me out ! " he begged, convinced well enough of Adam's power with the Governor. " I would do anything to please you, sir, and I have done much already to please the Governor. I am an old man, sir, and we have saved nothing, and we know no other trade, and many people hate us. There would be no place for me and mine. Do not turn us away for this." " I don't wish to turn you away," said Adam. " I merely ask you to release this woman." "She has never done any harm," put in Garde. " She has been very good to your wife and you. Surely you could spare her this." " I would, Miss, I would," said the wretched man. " I am sick to death of this terrible craze of witches, but what can I do ? If I do not release her, I shall lose my place and starve. If I do let her go, I shall have all the mobs down upon me, when they find there is no witch for trial. How can I show them a paper, instead of a prisoner ? My life might pay the for- feit." Garde's Subterfuge. 421 " Oh, Adam, this is terrible," said Garde, " What can we do ? " "After trial, you can surely get her pardoned," the man insisted. " You have the power. You can save her then." " Oh, they will never wait ! " cried the girl. " They may try her to-night, and find her guilty and hang her the first thing in the morning I" Weaver turned pale. He knew that what she said might in all probability be true. "But I cannot give them a bit of paper instead of a prisoner," he repeated. " If you will bring me some one else, who will vouch for the mob's respect of your pardon, as you vouch for the Governor " " We've got to have her," interrupted Adam. " You can say she escaped, by her power of witchcraft. Re- lease her, or look your last on these cheerful walls." " Oh, but, Adam," said Garde, " why should we make such misery and trouble for one person for two per- sons, indeed with Mrs. Weaver in trying to save another ? I like these good people. They are very kind to their prisoners. They have spent much of their own money to give them little comforts. Can we not think of some other way, as good as this, to get poor Goody out and do no harm to innocent people ? " Weaver was ready to break into tears. He started to repeat, " Bring me some one to " "Oh ! Oh, I know ! I know what to do ! " cried Garde, interrupting. " All you need is some one else to blame, when they find she is gone ! It would never be your fault if some one took her place. It would be a trick on you, when they found it out, I'll take her 422 When a Witch is Young. place. I'll take her place, because when they find out they are starting to try only me, they will have to laugh it off as a joke. And Grandther is one of the magistrates appointed to-day so they will have to let me go and Goody will be far away, by then and no one will get into trouble ! " " No one could blame me nor they wouldn't," said Weaver, slowly, "but as for you, Miss - " " Then we can do it ! " Garde broke in, a little wildly. " Oh, hurry ! we might be too late. You can put me wherever Goody is, and I can change clothes with her, and then, Adam - " "Yes, but - ".started Adam. " Oh, let me, dear. I shan't mind it a bit. And in the morning it will all be over, and Goody will be safe, and no one harmed and there is no other way. And I want to ! Oh, Goody has been like a mother to me ! I must do it. Please don't say anything more. Mr. Weaver, take me to Goody now ! '' " You brave little woman ! " said Adam, his own courage leaping to greet this intrepid spirit in his sweetheart. " I believe you can do it ! We shall win ! " "Come back as early as you can," said Garde, on whom a thought of the lonely part of the business was suddenly impressed. " It won't seem long. And when it is over, I shall feel so glad I could do a little thing for Goody. We must hurry. Every moment may be precious ! " " But, lassie - " the jailer tried to insist once more, "Please don't talk any more," said Garde. "Take Garde's Subteafuge. 423 me to her now. And when somebody looking like me conies back, let her go out by Mrs. Weaver's door with Mr. Kust." " Yes, I, but "In the King's name, no more talk," interrupted Adam. Then he turned to Garde. " You won't be timid, little mate ? " he said. " I shall not be gone past midnight at the most." " I shall be so glad to think I am leaving Goody in your strong, dear hands," said Garde, with a smile of love in her eyes. " Good-by, dear, good night, till the morning." She kissed him, and smiling at him bravely, followed the jailer, who saw that his place in the jail depended now on compliance with Adam's and Garde's demand. The tremulous pressure of her little hand in his re- mained with Adam when she had gone. He wondered if he were doing well, thus to let his sweetheart assume poor Goody's place. Then his own boldness of spirit rebuked him and he laughed at the imaginary scene of the magistrates, when they should finally discover their trial to be nothing but a farce. AVeaver meantime took a candle in his hand and led the way down the corridor of the prison. Garde hesitated when she saw him descending the steps. "Why where is she ?" she asked, timidly. "In the dungeon, lass," said the jailer. "I was over sorry, but it could not be helped. We are full everywhere else. But I shall leave you the light, and anything you like for comfort. Only, if you hear any one coming, blow out the candle straightway, or I shall be in a peck of troubles." 424 When a Witch is Young. Quelling her sense of terror, and thinking of Goody, alone in that darkness, with such dreadful fates awaiting her reappearance among the people, she promised herself again it would soon be over, and so followed resolutely down into the hole where Adam had once been locked, in those long-past days of despair. CHAPTER XV. THE MIDNIGHT TKIAL. GOODY DUNE was a frightened and pitiable spectacle, with her age and the terrors of the dungeon and com- ing execution upon her. She struggled in an effort to maintain a show of composure, at sight of Garde and the jailer. Nevertheless she would not, at first, listen to a word of the plan of substitution, to get her away from the prison. When at last she had fairly overridden Goody's ob- jections, and had made her complete the exchange of garments, Garde kissed her with all the affection of a daughter, and sent her forth to Adam's protection. She then heard the lock in the dungeon-door shoot squeakingly into place with a little thrill of fear, which nothing human and womanly could have escaped. She listened to the footfalls receding down the cor- ridor, and then the utter silence of the place began to make itself ring in her ears. She looked about her, by the aid of the nickering light which the tallow dip was furnishing, at the barren walls, the shadows, and the heap of straw in the corner. At all this she gave a little shiver of dread. All the excitement which had buoyed her up to make this moment possible escaped from her rapidly. 425 426 When a Witch is Young. She began to think how Goody must have felt, till her moment of deliverance came. Then she thought of what Adam had endured when, lame, hungry, exhausted and defamed, he had been thrown with violence into this horrible hole, from which he could have had no thought of being rescued. She took the candle in hand and went in search of the tiny window, down through which she had dropped him the keys. When she saw it, she gave a little shudder, to note how small it was, and how it per- mitted no light to enter the place. Returning then to a paper, filled with bread and butter, pie, cake and cold meat, which Weaver had fetched her, while she and Goody had been exchanging garments, she tried to eat a little, to occupy her time and her thoughts. But she could only take a sip of the milk, which stood beside the paper, and a nibble at the bread. To eat, while in her present state of mind, was out of the question. The stillness seemed to increase. She felt little creeps of chill running down her shoulders. What a terrible thing it would be to have no hope of leaving this fearful cellar ! Suppose anything should happen to Adam, to prevent him from returning ! How long would it be till morning ? Surely she must have been there nearly an hour already. She clasped her hands, that were cold as ice. She almost wished she had not tried this solution of the difficulty. Then she remembered the wise old woman, who had made her neighbors' children her own care as she had no sons nor daughters of her own and who had been sister, mother and friend to Hester Hodder, and guardian The Midnight Trial. 427 angel, teacher and kindly spirit over herself. This made her calmer, for a time, and again courageous. When once more the dread of the place and the ringing silence and the doubts that seemed to lurk in the shadows, came stealing back, she thought of Adam, rehearsing every incident in every time they had ever met. And thus she lingered long over that walk from Plymouth to Boston. In the midst of sweet reveries which really did much to dissipate her qualms and chills, she heard someone walking heavily along in the corridor above her. Swiftly calling to mind what the jailer had said about the light, she blew it out and stood trembling with nervousness, waiting for the door to open before her. But the sounds of heavy boots on the upper floor presently halted. Then they retreated. She breathed more freely. And then she suddenly felt the dark- ness all about her. Fear that some one had been about to enter had, for the moment, made her oblivious of the curtain of gloom which closed in so thickly when she blew out the candle. Now, when she realized that she could not again ignite that wick, a horror spread through her, till she closed her eyes and sank on the floor in despair. The time that passed was interminable. She had not thought of how terrible the dungeon would be without the candle. She could almost have screamed, thus to be so deprived of the kindly light which had made the place comparatively cheerful. But she pulled up her resolution once again, thinking how 428 When a Witch is Young. Goody and Adam had endured nothing but darkness, and with no hope of succor such as she could see illu- minating her hours of dread. Midnight came at last and found Garde unstrung. When the tramp of many feet rang above her, at last, she welcomed the thought that some one was near. She hoped it was morning and that Adam had re- turned. But then she heard a jangle of keys, and footfalls on the steps leading down to where she was, and her heart stood still. In the natural consternation which the hour, the darkness and the suspense had brought upon her, she hastily hid her,.head and face in Goody's shawl, and bending over, to represent the older woman, she tremblingly saw the door swing open and heard the jailer command her to come forth. AVith her heart beating violently and her knees quaking beneath her, Garde came out, relieved in some ways to flee from that awful hole of darkness, but frightened, when she saw the array of stern-faced men, who had come, as she instantly comprehended, to take her away to a trial. There was not one among the five or six men that she knew. She remembered the faces of Pinchbecker and Higgler, having seen them in the morning, when Goody was taken, but the others were witnesses that Eandolph had sent from Salem, experts in swearing away the lives of witches. They too had been present at the capture of Goody. Undetected as she was, Garde was surrounded by this sinister group of men, and was inarched away, out of the jail, into the sweet summer's night air, and The Midnight Trial. 429 so do^n a deserted street, to a building she had never entered before in her life. Hardly had the prison been left behind when Adam Rust, swiftly returning, after having readily provided for the safe escape of Goody Dune, came galloping into Boston, his brain on fire with a scheme of boldness. He had made up his mind to ride straight to the prison, demand admittance, compel the jailer to deliver Garde up at once, carry her straight to a parson's, marry his sweetheart forthwith, and then take her off to New Amsterdam. Weaver could blame the rescue of the witch to him and be welcome. He could even permit Adam to tie him and gag him, to make the story more complete, but submit he should, or Rust would know the reason. His wild ride had begotten the scheme in his adventure-hungry mind. He knew the residence of the parson who had married Henry Wainsworth and Prudence Soam, the week before he and Phipps had returned to Massachu- setts, for Garde had told him all the particulars, time after time having marriage in her own sweet thought, as indeed she should. He therefore went first to this parson's, knocked hotly on the door, to get him out of bed, and bade him be prepared to perform the cere- mony within the hour. The parson had readily agreed, being a man amenable to sense and to the luster of gold in the palm, where- fore Adam had gone swiftly off to work the tour de force on which all else depended. He arrived at the jail when Garde had been gone for fifteen minutes. Here he learned Avith amazement of the midnight trial to which she had been so summarily led. 43o When a Witch is Young. Trembling like a leaf, Garde was conducted into a chamber adjoining the room wherein the dread magis- trates were sitting, with their minds already convinced that this was a case so flagrant that to permit the witch to live through the night would be to impair the heavenly heritage of every soul in Boston. Here the girl was left, in charge of Gallows and two other ruffianly brutes, whose immunity from the evil powers of witches had been thoroughly establishedin former cases. In the meantime her accusers had gone before the magistrates, ahead of herself, to relate the unspeakable things of which Goody Dune had been guilty. Shaking, not daring to look up, nor to utter a sound, Garde had tried to summon the courage to throw off the whole disguise, laugh at her captors and declare who she was, but before she should arrive in the pres- ence of Grandther Donner, who would protect her and verify her story, at least as to who she was, she could not possibly make the attempt. Terribly wrought upon by the suspense of waiting to be summoned before that stern tribunal of injustice, Garde began to think of the auger which these unmirth- f ul men might show, when she revealed the joke before their astounded eyes. She swayed, weakly, almost ready to swoon, so great became her alarm. She could hear the high voices of Psalms Higgler and Isaiah Pinchbecker, penetrating through the door. They were giving their testimony, in which they had been so well coached by Edward Eandolph, who was even now in there among the witnesses, disguised, and keeping as much as possible in the background. The Midnight Trial. 431 The door presently opened and Garde was bidden to enter. Her heart pounded with tumultuous strokes in her breast. She could barely put one foot before the other. She caught at the door-frame to prop herself up as she entered the dimly-lighted, shadow-haunted room. Then her gaze leaped swiftly up where the magis- trates were sitting. She saw strangers only men she knew in the town, but not David Donner. She felt she should faint, when one of the men turned about, and she recognized her grandfather, looking feverish, wild- eyed and hardly sane. This was why she had not known him sooner. "Oh, Grandther!" she suddenly cried. "It's I! It's Garde ! Oh, save me ! Oh, take me home ! " She flung off Goody's shawl, and darting forward ran to her grandfather's side and threw her arms like a child about his neck, where she sobbed hysterically and laughed and begged him to take her away. The court was smitten with astonishment from which no one could, for the moment, recover. Eandolph had pressed quickly forward. But he now retired again into the shadow. " What's this ? What's this ?" demanded the chief of the magistrates, sternly. "What business is this ? What does this mean ? Where is "Witchcraft! A young witch ! Cheated! We are cheated ! The young witch has cheated us of the old witch !" cried Pinchbecker, shrilly. " My child ! My child ! " said David Donner. " This is no witch, fellow-magistrates and friends." " She has cheated us of the old witch ! " repeated 432 When a Witch is Young. Pinchbecker wildly. " She has daily consorted with a notorious witch. She has aided a witch to escape. She is a witch herself ! We know them thus ! She is a dangerous witch ! She is a terrible young witch ! " 11 How comes this ? " said the chief again, excitedly. His associates also demanded to know how this busi- ness came to be possible, and what was its meaning. The room was filled with the shrill cries of the men de- nouncing Garde more stridently than before, and with the exclamations of astonishment and shouts to know what had become of the witch they had come there to try. During all this confusion, Garde was clinging to her grandfather and begging him to take her home. " Have the girl stand forth," commanded the chief magistrate. " We must know how this business has happened." Three of the men laid hold of Garde and took her from her wondering grandfather's side. She regained her composure by making a mighty effort. "Goody Dune was no witch !" she cried. "You all know what a good, kind woman she has been among you for years till this madness came upon us ! She is a good woman and I love her, for all she has done. She is not a witch you know she is not a witch ! " The witnesses, who knew all the ways in which witches were to be detected, raised their voices at once, in protest. " Order in the Court !" commanded the magistrate. " Young woman, have you connived to let this Goody Dune escape ? " " She was no witch !" repeated Garde, courageously now. " I knew you would try to send her to the gal- The Midnight Trial. 433 lows. I knew she was fore-condemned ! I could do no less and you men could have done no less, had you been less mad ! " " Blasphemy ! " cried Higgler. " She is convicted out of her own mouth ! " " When a witch is young," cried Pinchbecker, " she can work ten times more awful evils and arts ! " One of the magistrates spoke : " No woman ever yet was beautiful and clever both at one time. If she be the one, she cannot be the other. This young woman, being both, is clearly a witch ! " "She's a witch worse than the other !" screamed another of the witnesses. " Condemn her ! Condemn her ! " "Oh, Grandther," cried Garde, "take me away from these terrible men ! " Kandolph now came sneaking forth, out of the shadow. " This is that same young woman," he cried, " who lost the colony its charter ! " " The charter ! " screamed David Donner, instantly a maniac. "The charter! She lost us the charter ! "Witch ! The charter ! Condemn her ! Kill her ! The charter ! She ! She ! She ! Kill her ! Where is she ? The charter ! The charter ! The charter ! " With his two bony, palsied hands raised high above his head, like fearful talons, with his white hair awry over his brow, with his eyes blazing with maniacal fire, the old man had suddenly stood up and now he came staggering forward, screaming in a blood-chilling voice and making snch an apparition of horror that the men fell backward from his path. 28 434 When a Witch is Young. "Oh Grandther ! Grandther !" cried Garde, hold- ing forth her arms and going toward him, to catch him as she saw him come stumbling toward her. " Witch ! " screamed the old man shrilly. " Kill her ! Kill her ! I never coerced her ! The charter ! Witch ! Witch ! The charter ! " He suddenly choked. He clutched at his heart in a wild, spasmodic manner, and with froth bursting from his lips, he fell headlong to the floor and was dead. " She has killed him I" cried Higgler. "She has killed him with her hellish power ! " " Witch ! A murderous young witch ! " " Condemn her ! Condemn her ! " came in a terri- ble chorus. " To the gallows ! Hale her to the gallows ! " Kan- dolph added from the rear. The man called Gallows thought this referred to him. He grinned. He and the two brutes who had handled many defenseless witches before, came toward the girl, who stood as if petrified, her hand pressed against her heart in dumb anguish. Suddenly the door was thrown open and in there came Governor Phipps, cane in hand, periwig adjusted, cloak of office on his shoulders. He was blowing his nose as he entered, so that no one saw his face plainly, yet all knew the tall, commanding figure and the dress. " What, a trial, at night, and without me ? " he roared, in a towering rage, which many present had already learned to fear. " Is this your province, you magistrates, assembled to deal out justice ? Do you heckle a defenseless woman like this ? Disperse ! the whole of you, instantly. I command it ! If you have The Midnight Trial. 435 condemned, I pardon. The prisoner will leave the court with me ! " The men, craven that they were, he could deceive, but Garde knew the voice, the gait, the bearing of her lover. She sprang to his side with a little cry of gladness and clung to him wildly, as his strong arm swung boldly about her waist. She could hardly more than stand, so tremendous had been the stress of her fearful emotions. Scorning to expend further scolding or shaming upon them, and comprehending that delay had no part in his game, Adam turned his back on the slinking com- pany and strode away, half supporting Garde, who hung so limply in his hold. Eandolph, baffled, afraid to reveal himself by de- nouncing the imposture which he had been only a second behind Garde in detecting, stole close to his henchmen and whispered the truth in their ears. Higgler and Pinchbecker, conscious of the blood of Adam on their hands, felt their knees knock suddenly together. The man must be the very devil himself. CHAPTER XVI. THE GAUNTLET RUN. WITH his bride up behind him on his horse, the rover spurred swiftly away from the parson's, still within the hour, in which he had promised to return to his wedding. Unafraid of whatsoever the world, before or behind, might contain, while her lover-husband lived at her side,Xjarde felt a sense of exhilaration, at leaving Boston, such as she had never known in all her life. With her grandfather dead and Goody no longer at the little cottage on the skirts of town, she had no ties remaining, save those at the houses of Soam and Phipps. And what were these, when weighed in the balance against Adam Rust her Adam, her mighty lord? Trembling and clinging as she was, he had carried her off. Gladly she had gone to the parson's. Her heart now rejoiced, as he told her that Massachusetts was behind them forever. For its people, with their harsh, mirthless lives of austerity and fanaticism, she had only love enough to give them her pity. But her life was life indeed, when, ever and anon, Adam halted the horse, lest she fear a fall, and twisted about to give her a kiss and a chuckle of love and to tell of the way he had cheated the mob and the court of their witches. 436 The Gauntlet Run. 437 "Make no doubt of it, you are a witch one of the sweetest, cleverest, bravest, most adorable little witches that ever lived," he said, ''and I love you and love you for it, my darling wife ! " They had left the town early in the morning. By break of day they were not so far from Boston as Adam could have wished. The horse had been wearied by carrying double, when he conveyed Goody Dune to a place of safety, so that the old woman could subse- quently join himself and Garde in New Amsterdam, and therefore he had halted the animal humanely, from time to time, as the load under which the good beast was now working was not a trifle. Having avoided the main road, for the greater part of the remaining hours of darkness, Adam deemed it safe at last to return to the highway, as he thought it unlikely they had been pursued under any circum- stances. Thus the sun came up as they were quietly jogging along toward a copse of trees through which the road went winding with many an invitation of beauty to beckon them on. Crossing a noisy little brook, the rover permitted the horse to stop for a drink. Not to be wasting the pre- cious time, Adam turned himself half way around in the saddle, as he had done so frequently before, and gave his bride a fair morning salute. He had then barely ridden the horse a rod from the stream, when, without the slightest warning, the figure of Gallows, mounted on a great black steed, suddenly broke from cover among the trees and bore down upon them. The great hulk, sword in hand, made a quick dash 438 When a Witch is Young. toward the defenceless two, and slashed at Garde with all his fearful might. Jerking his horse nearly out of the road, Adam swung from the line of the brute's cowardly stroke, yet before he could do aught to prevent it, Gallows righted, flung out his leaden fist and dragged the girl fairly off from her seat, till she struck on the back of her head, among the rocks of the road, and lay there unconscious, and almost beneath the tread of the horse's prancing feet. Then the monster spurred at his horse and turning him back, rode to drive him madly over the prostrate form in the dust. Making a short, sharp cry of anger, Adam whipped out his sword and dashed upon the murderous butcher before he could get within fifteen feet of Garde, where she lay in the sunlight. Gallows had plenty of time to see him coming. The two met in a tremendous collision of steel on steel that sounded a clangor through the woods and sent the two swords flying from their owners' grips. Disarmed, the pair thudded together in a swift and hot embrace, sawing their horses close in, the more firmly and straight erect to hold their seats. "You be a fool and I be the fool-killer \" roared Gallows, hoarsely. He tugged with his giant strength, to drag Adam fairly across to his own big saddle, where he could either break his back or beat him to death with the butt of a pistol, which he was trying to draw with the hand that held the reins. Slipping his wrist under the chin and his hand around to the fellow's massive shoulder, Adam tilted The Gauntlet Run. 439 back the heavy head with a force so great that Gallows was glad to release his hold, else he would surely have toppled from his perch. The horses leaped a little apart. Back their riders jerked them. Again the two big human forms shot to- gether, and clung in a fierce embrace, like two massive chunks of iron, welded together by their impact. Once more Gallows used his great brute strength, while Eust employed his wit and got his same terrible lever- age on the monster's neck. For a moment Gallows fought to try to break the hold, and to drag his opponent headlong from his horse, by kicking Adam's animal stoutly in the flank. But Adam was inflicting such an agony upon him as he could not endure. They broke away, only to rush for the third time, back to this giant wrestling. " The fool will never learn. I shall kill him yet !" cried Eust to himself, for he went for Gallows's neck as before and got it again in his hold. He threw a tremendous strength into the struggle. Gallows let out a bellow. Eeleasing the reins, he threw both his arms about his foe and deliberately fell from his seat, with the intention of crushing Eust beneath his weight, on the ground. Adam's turn in the air was the work of the expert wrestler. The horses shied nervously away. The two were up on their feet and telescoped ab- ruptly in one compact, struggling mass, as if two mal- leable statues of heroic size had suddenly been bent and intertwisted together. With his ox-like force Gallows began to force Adam backward. Adam let him expend himself in this 44O When a Witch is Young. manner for a moment. He then discovered the great hulk's design. He meant to force the rover to where Garde was still lying, and so to trample upon her till the life should be stamped and ground from her help- less form. Randolph had sent him to commit this final infamy. The rage that leaped up in Adam's breast was a ter- rible thing. He feinted to drop as if in exhaustion. Gallows loosened his hold to snatch a better one, at once. In that second Adam dealt him a blow in the stomach that all but felled him where he stood. Before he could straighten to recover, Rust was upon him like a tiger. Getting around the great brute's side, he threw both hands around the short, thick neck and twisted himself into position so that he and Gal- lows were placed nearly back to back. Then with one movement he lifted at the man's whole weight, with the monster's head as a lever, hauled fiercely backward. Into the action he threw such a mighty rush of strength that Gallows was hoisted bodily off the ground, for a second, and then his neck gave forth a tremendous snap and was broken so fearfully that one of the jagged ends of a vertebra stabbed outward through the flesh, and dripped with red. The whole dead weight of the fellow's carcass rested for a second on Rust's back and shoulder, and then Adam let him fall to the ground, where, like a slain hog, he rolled heavily over and moved no more. Panting, fierce-eyed, ready to slay him again, Adam stood above the body for a moment, his jaws set, his fists clenched hard in the rage still upon him. Then he heard a little moan, and turning about saw The Gauntlet Run. 441 Garde, attempting to raise herself upward, in the road. He ran to her instantly and propped her up on his knee. " Dearest, dearest," he said, "are you badly hurt ? Garde, let me help you. Don't look don't look there. It's all right. Here, let me get you back to the shade." He took her up tenderly in his arms and carried her out of the road to a near-by bank of moss. Here he sat her down, with her back to a tree, and ran to fill his hat with water from the stream. The two horses, having stopped to take a supplement- ary drink, and a nibble at the grass, were easily caught. The rover secured them both and tied them quickly to a bush, with the dragging reins. Then back to Garde he ran with the water. " Oh, thank you, dear," she said, "I don't think I am hurt. But with the fright, and the fall, I think I must have fainted." " Thank God ! " said Adam, as she drank from his hat and smiled in his face, a little faintly, but with an infinite love in her two brown eyes. " Thank God, for this delivery. There will be no more trouble. I feel it ! I know it. At last we have run the gaunt- let." CHAPTER XVII. BEWITCHED. IK his tidy little house in New Amsterdam, Adam sat reading a letter from Governor William Phipps, written at Boston. "I forgyve you y r merrie empersonashun and all ye other things alsoe, save y e going away without goode- bye," he read, "but let it pass. I w d write to say God Blesse you bothe. And as I have never known such a goode blade as y re in fight, I w d offer you to make you my commander of ye forces to goe in war against ye French, where they do threat to harasse our peeple as of yore " Adam halted here and looked up at the battered old sword on the wall. His thought went truant, to his helpmate, away for a few minutes' walk to Goody Dune's. He shook his head at the Governor's generous offer. " Well, well, William," he said aloud, "I don't know. I don't know what may be the matter, but no more fighting for me, old comrade. I think it must be that I am bewitched." THE END. 442 A 000 697 341 6 ..E59. U . RN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACI A 000 697 341 6