Roger laughed shortly and bitterly.
“Until the Pilgrim Fathers learn to be more gentle to one of another faith than theirs,” he said, “my danger is neither lessened nor increased by my friendship with this priest who dwelt in the wood.”
They had reached the shore by now and had come up with the Jesuit and Master Simon who stood talking earnestly together as they waited on the beach. Through the fog came the sound of creaking rowlocks and the splash of oars approaching nearer and nearer. It was plain from the priest’s words that he was overcome at the thought of what might happen after his departure and was begging Master Simon to flee the danger completely and to leave Hopewell.
“You think not as these other Puritans do, good sir,” he was saying. “You are ever in danger on account of their narrow laws and your wider views. Why not gather up your possessions and your family and seek some place where persecution is not so fierce and where a man can think and worship as he desires?”
Master Simon was silent a little before he spoke his answer, but his hesitation was not through doubt of what that answer should be.
“I have planted a garden here in the wilderness,” he said slowly, at last, “and I must abide to see what sort of fruit it bears. I and my children and their children too, I trust, will tend it each in turn. And when we Englishmen turn our hands to the planting of such gardens we like not to abandon the task and leave others to destroy our work.”
The priest seemed not to have grasped his meaning.
“But gardens grow in all lands, Monsieur,” he protested. “Flowers bloom fairer in other soils than this of bleak New England. You can plant another garden across the sea.”
“The flowers that I and my Puritan comrades have planted are not such as grow on other shores,” Master Simon answered. “For we have planted truth, and a new freedom in a new land. There are weeds in our garden, I grant you, the weeds of jealousy and too-narrow justice and the Gospel of Fear. But where was there ever a new garden without weeds or a new country without mistakes and bitter lessons that it must master before it comes to its glory at last. No, good friend, I have laid my hand to the plough nor will I look back!”
The prow of a ship’s boat came suddenly out of the mist and grated on the beach. Two sailors leaped ashore to help the priest embark, cutting short his words of protest and farewell. A moment later the little craft had disappeared into the fog again and the muffled sound of the oars had died away. They could hear, a short space after, the creak of ropes and the rattle of an anchor-chain, while something big and grey, the ghostly shadow of a ship, slipped by through the mist that was beginning to be faintly bright with coming day.