THE GOSPEL OF FEAR
The higher task and the larger adventure were nearer to Margeret Radpath than she had thought. Neither she, nor her mother nor Master Simon as they went about their work through all those busy summer months had even a vague dream of what the first days of autumn would bring forth. Hopewell, falling ever into more placid ways with each year of quiet and prosperity, had begun to forget the excitements of its earlier history and to cease talking even of the strange vanishing of Jeremiah Macrae. It seemed, as it always does in peaceful times, as though nothing could ever again stir the calm order of the passing days.
If there was any one who had an inkling of what disturbing matters were in store it was the silent, shabby Roger Bardwell who did Samuel Skerry’s errands, helped to mend Hopewell’s rows of broken shoes and who, in spite of his shyness and the evil reputation of his master, seemed to have won the good will of all who knew him. It began to be that people bringing boots to be mended asked that the apprentice do the work instead of the cobbler himself for, as Goodwife Allen said:
“That surly Skerry makes me feel that with every stitch he puts into the leather he has sewed in a poisoned thought of me and mine.”
At first the shoemaker took such requests as ill-naturedly as you would expect of so sour tempered a man; later he would merely shrug his shoulders and say:
“If the boy wishes to do twice as much work as his master, what have I to say? So be it you pay me the money I care not who bears the labour.” For it was well known that Skerry loved money almost as much as he hated his fellow men.
Throughout this summer it began to happen more and more often that villagers, coming to ask for Roger Bardwell, found only the scowling master-cobbler, and on their inquiring where the boy might be were told that “he was off in the forest somewhere, wasting the precious minutes that might otherwise be turned into good silver coin.”
“Ay, coin for you but not for him,” Goody Parsons retorted one day. “When you pay the boy no wages you have no just cause for complaint if now and then he steals a moment for himself.”
“A moment!” snarled Skerry. “Why, he is often gone for a whole day and a night and sometimes more. He used to waste his time sailing a boat down yonder on the bay, but now he has given up even that pastime for these endless expeditions into the wood.”
“Tell me, friend, what errand takes him there and for such long spaces of time,” inquired the Goody eagerly. “Tell me and I vow I will whisper it to no one.”