When a witch is young: a historical novel

by Philip Verrill Mighels

However, the rascals nearly “wagged” themselves to pieces when Rust was finally beside them, and the way they laughed was most suggestively like the glad whimpering of two dumbly loving animals expressing their joy. Adam would have scolded the two for having brought themselves to such a condition of weakness and bones, only that he had not the heart to do this justice to the case.

There was, however, no such thing as getting the old fellows back on their pins in a week, nor yet in two, nor three. They even hesitated, after he had come, between running backward toward their long sleep and coming along with him to vales of renewed health. They were like affectionate creatures divided between two masters. The grim visitor had come so near to winning them both, with his beckoning, that they appeared to think it their duty to die.

Adam, however, was a persuasive force. He had won them away from themselves before; he won them again on this occasion. Captain Kidd, a braw Scotsman, who ordinarily dropped his native dialect, having little affection for his country, his father having suffered tortures for becoming a non-conformist clergyman, felt he must needs relapse into something barbaric to express himself on the beef-eaters.

“Of all the twas that ere twad,” said he, “you’re muckle the strangest twa.”

By this he meant to convey that of all the couples that ever mated, the two old rascals were the oddest pair.

The convalescence being a slow affair, Adam was obliged to give up all thought of returning immediately to Boston. Yet so hopeful was he that every day would perform some miracle of restoring the strength to the muscles and the meat to the bones of his retinue, that it was not until he had been away from Garde for more than three weeks that he finally wrote to tell her of why he had failed to return. But the letter, for some unknown reason, was never delivered.

At length, however, what with the fulness of summer come upon them and the hope which Adam had inspired in their breasts, the beef-eaters became padded out to the fulness of their old-time grandeur, and once more swaggered about and bragged of their prowess.

Adam’s money had, by this time, dwindled down to a sum which was not at all difficult to transport from place to place, nor even from pocket to pocket. Having no heart to put the retinue on shipboard, to convey them to Massachusetts, he sacrificed nearly his last bit of coin to secure them passage, by coach and wagon, from Manhattan to Boston. This left him either one of two expedients for himself. He could walk, or he could make shift to secure a passage by vessel, giving work as payment for the favor. He argued that once in Boston he would accept the position offered by Goodwife Phipps at the ship-yard, and hither also would he take his followers, so that by honest toil they might all be happy and continue their time-sealed companionship, and desert the rolling-stone business as an occupation.

It was not without misgivings that the beef-eaters accepted this arrangement. But being obedient things that would willingly have gone into fire, or the sea itself, at Adam’s command or wish, they meekly bade him a temporary adieu and saw him depart before them, a ship being several days ahead of the coach in point of time for departing.

In the meantime, history had been making fast in Boston. The crafty Randolph, whose coup had long been prepared, had returned from New Amsterdam, bearing a commission from the King of England declaring the charter null and void and delegating upon him power to form a new provisional government for the colony of Massachusetts. Great tracts of territory, comprising New Hampshire, Maine and other areas, were lopped off from the province at one fell blow. Randolph created Joseph Dudley provisional governor, Dudley having long been seeking his favor, against this final moment of changes. The courts fell into the hands of the newly-elected power. The soldiers, constabulary, everything assumed an ultra-English tone and arrogance. The people clenched their fists and wrought their passions up to a point where rebellions are lighted in a night.