Having the fortune to be overtaken by a good-natured farmer, who was trotting his horses northward, along their road, from a trip to market, the travelers got the benefit of a lift that landed them within a few hours’ walk of Boston. However, as the farmer’s journey ended where there were no accommodations, and there was still another hour of light, which would suffice to bring them to a small hostelry, where Garde knew she could make such arrangements as she desired, they tramped onward as before.
With every step that brought them further toward their destination Adam waxed more and more impatient to hurry, while Garde found her courage and her footsteps lagging.
She had momentarily forgotten her troubles, in the joy of being with Adam, strolling for hours through the vales of peace and loveliness, but now her tribulations returned, with compound interest. She yearned over her smitten grandfather, yet she feared for what he might do, when he should see her again within his reach, for if he had been well-nigh insane when she saw him last, how much more violent he might now have become.
She trembled likewise at the thought of Randolph, and the measures of revenge which he might adopt, backed by the power which was sufficient to uphold or to overthrow the charter. From these meditations she was tempted to fly to Adam’s arms and implore his protection. It afforded her infinite relief to think that he would at least be near. If the worst came of her returning, she would manage to go to him, by some means, she was certain, and under the stress of circumstances she would not be deemed immodest in beseeching his protection, for which purpose she would consent immediately to become his wife.
Eager to justify herself in what she had done, refusing to believe that honor had been as nothing and Randolph’s promises all important, she framed many introductions to the subject, before she could finally begin to question her fellow-traveler upon it.
She then began by reciting to him somewhat of the news of Boston town. She told of the fear for the charter, which had become a mania with the older patriots, of the baleful power of Randolph and of the culminations which at last he was beginning to work against the colony. Adam waxed so wroth against Randolph, whom he remembered distinctly, that she was much encouraged to go on with a hypothetical case which she soon invented.
She dared not connect the name of Randolph directly with her story and questions, lest Adam, when he arrived in Boston, should learn more, concerning the whole wretched business, and know it was she who had undergone the ordeal. Also it required a great concentration of her courage, backed by repeated assurances to herself that Adam thought her a youth, before she could approach the subject in any manner whatsoever. Yet she knew she would have no such opportunity to speak to him again with anything like the freedom which was now possible, and Goody Dune had made her a sensible young woman.
“Suppose,” she finally said, “that a man who had influence with the King threatened to use all his power against the colony and its charter, if some young girl should refuse to become his wife. Would it be her duty to marry the man?”
“That would depend on her spirit of patriotism,” said Adam. “If she believed she could save the colony from a grave danger, it seems to me she ought to do so.”
“Yes—I think so too,” said Garde, honestly. “But suppose she found out that the man had been very false.”