The three conspirators walked homeward through the wet field and paused at the edge of the garden where Roger Bardwell made a stammering attempt at thanks for the help they had given to his friend. His broken words were cut short, however, by Margeret as she laid her hand upon her father’s arm.
“Look!” she said.
The fog had lifted over the meadows showing them the sleeping town of Hopewell, every house with its doors closed and its windows blank as though drowsy with the same slumber that held those who slept within. But nearer than the village they could see Samuel Skerry’s cottage, its door open and the casements standing wide while a plume of smoke rose steadily from the chimney. The glow of the dawn was reflected like fire from one of the windows that winked at them with its red light like some wicked, baleful eye. No matter who was asleep, the shoemaker was up and stirring.
“Now was he or was he not in the garden last night?” said Roger with a sigh of deep misgiving.
“There is little need to waste time in pondering over that question,” returned Master Simon cheerily, “for if he was there we and all of Hopewell will know of it—and that right soon!”
CHAPTER VI
THE SCHOOLHOUSE LANE
For once it seemed that Master Simon was mistaken. It may have been that Samuel Skerry was really ignorant of what had occurred that early morning in the garden or it may have been that he had seen, and for some reason held his peace. Whichever was the truth, the matter remained long a mystery. Margeret was so certain that she had seen him spying upon them and so equally certain of his ill-will toward her father that she felt, for many slow-dragging, anxious weeks, that any day might bring his betrayal of their law-breaking. She waited a month, six months; then a year went by and another and another, but still the shoemaker did not speak. Had he forgotten? Had he never known?
All through the years that she was growing up, the thought was ever in her mind that he could bring ruin upon them at any moment he so desired. Once, as she stood at the edge of the village square, the town crier passed, bell in hand, announcing the trial and banishment of three Boston men for “giving succor and shelter to members of that dangerous and dissenting sect, the Baptists.” Samuel Skerry, going by at that moment, turned upon her a leer of such evil import that she felt sure he had read her thoughts. If such was the punishment for giving help to Baptists, had been her reflection, would it not be, to the prejudiced eyes of Puritans, a hundred times worse to have aided a Roman Catholic? But time passed and still they dwelt in safety, for the shoemaker, so it seemed, was biding his time.
“Sometimes,” said Roger Bardwell, who was a frequent visitor at their house now; “sometimes I think it may be regard for Master Simon that keeps him silent, sometimes I think that he was lost and bewildered in the storm that night as were the others, and so never saw the mass in the garden, sometimes I think that he is so wrapped up in money-getting that he has not a thought for other things. He is mad for gain these latter days, and he must have a fortune stored away in his hiding-hole behind the cupboard.”