Goody kissed her, as she bent affectionately forward, and patted her motherly on the back. “That’s a good boy,” she said.
She opened the door and Garde went forth. The open air made her conscious of her attire instantly. But she did her best, shy and unboyish as the effort was.
“Oh, I forgot to ask,” she said, glad to get one more moment in which to get ready. “How is Hester? How was she when you saw her last?”
Goody’s face darkened. “I saw her the first thing this morning,” she said. “Some one must have called last night, after I left. Hester is dead.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
A GREENWOOD MEETING.
Adam Rust, sailing northward, grew more and more hearty once again with every day, although his pulse-beat quickened almost hourly, with a fever of impatience which began to fasten itself upon him. He was quite himself again, long before the ship arrived at the port of New York. But the beef-eaters were a sorry pair, for the sea still took its revenge upon them for Adam’s total disregard of its powers, and the passage had been exceptionally rough.
It was no more than natural that Pike and Halberd, on arriving as far as New Amsterdam, should desire to have done with the boisterous Atlantic. Adam, on the other hand, was in such a fever to go on to Boston that, had no ships been available, and no other means possible, he would have been tempted to swim. As it was, there was no vessel putting for the north to any point beyond Plymouth for a week, so that Adam determined to sail that far and either to catch another captain there, who would convey him onward, or to walk the remaining distance alone.
The beef-eaters, seeming absolutely in need of a rest from their adventures on the water, reluctantly saw the “Sachem” depart without them, they in the meantime remaining with Captain William Kidd, at his New York home, expecting to go on to Boston with him later. This had been the first time that Rust had been more glad than otherwise to be for a brief season without his faithful followers. But never before had the conditions of his going to Boston been the same.
Thus, on a fine day in April, Adam found himself landed in the old town, of which he had no pleasant memories. He would have confined his inspection of and visit to Plymouth to the docks, had not a hurried tour of inquiry elicited the information that no vessels were due to sail to Boston for two or three days. To remain in the place for such a time as that was not to be thought of on any account.