Almost unnoticed the door had opened and some one had come pushing through the crowd. But a dead silence fell when Master Simon strode out into the room, his tall figure and white head bent, his grey cloak powdered with snow. Upon the breathless hush that followed the uproar, his quiet voice fell with a thrilling emphasis:
“Walk not in fear, ye men of God.”
There was no word given in reply. The men stood motionless in their places as Master Simon went on:
“Why must you be so stricken with blind terror,” he said, “when one amongst us takes a further step along that path to freedom that we ourselves have followed, that dares to think other than the rest of us? Is it reasonable that each one of us should say: ‘I will believe as I choose and all men must think as I do’? Search your hearts truly and ask yourselves if there be not some point of doctrine, some order of worship that you have not questioned either once or many times. If there be one amongst you who has not so thought, let him stand forth that we may do him honour.”
He paused, but no one stirred. With furtive sidelong glances, his listeners looked at each other, but not a man stepped forward. Master Simon’s glowing eyes searched the faces of one after another.
“If then it be a wrong not to weave all our thoughts to the self-same pattern, are we not all sinners together? But thoughts are like running water, they go where they will and only our Father follows them and knows that they all flow down to the same sea. Trust Him who loves us much, and let Him guard our faith and us. And let it be that after our time people will say of us, not merely that we wore grey coats and never smiled, not that we walked a narrow way and persecuted our brethren, but let them say, ‘They braved much, those Pilgrim fathers, they laboured valiantly, they trusted God, they planted a new spirit of freedom in this good New World, and they did well.’”
He ceased speaking and there was a pause, broken at last by Goodman Allen’s long sigh of relief. The men moved, relaxed, smiled at each other and came forward to grasp Master Simon’s hand. The danger was at an end.
“Margeret, child,” said Master Simon, turning to his daughter, “do not look so anxious that I am here. Did you think to keep all this from your poor old father, who should stop at home now that age has bowed him down? No, I felt that I must speak to my comrades once more, and that this was a fitting time. I doubt if I have strength ever to step beyond my own doorstone again.”
Amid the general hum of voices that followed now, Samuel Skerry’s was lifted once more. The little shoemaker, apparently unmoved by Master Simon’s words, seemed determined still to attain his end.
“I ask again,” he shouted in tones so loud that all were forced to listen; “I ask why that youth, Roger Bardwell, did not later follow his father beyond the seas, as he could well have done these three years past? Why does he still lurk here if it be not for some evil purpose of heresy?”