When a witch is young: a historical novel

by Philip Verrill Mighels

This was a masterly composition, for poor Wainsworth destroyed the proposing epistle he had written at such infinite pains, and for a time, wholly abandoned any thought of speaking of marriage. He was exceedingly mortified to think he had made such a blunder as to give her the letter which he had guarded so cautiously. Timidity settled upon him, especially as he noted another, altogether incomprehensible change in Garde’s demeanor, when next they met.

Having despatched her letter to Adam, Garde felt a happiness grow and expand in her bosom daily. She expected the wait to be a long one, till a letter, or some other manner of a reply, could come from Adam. Goodwife Phipps, of whom she had artfully contrived to get the rover’s address, had assured her of the very great number of weeks that elapsed between communications from William, in answer to the fond little flock of letters which she was constantly launching forth to the distant island across the sea. But when weeks became months, and time fled onward inexorably, with never a sign or a word in return for what she had written, she had many moments in which sad, vain regrets and confirmed despair took possession of her thoughts.

She was a resigned, patient girl, however, with her impulses curbed, for the sadness of the times, aside from her own little affairs, cast a gloom upon the colony which seemed to deepen rather than to promise ever to dissolve.

Her heart felt that the fifty years had passed many times over her head, when, after a longer time than Mrs. Phipps had mentioned as sufficient to bring even a delayed reply had passed, and nothing had come from Adam Rust. Garde watched for the ships to come, one by one, her hopes rising always as the white sails appeared, and then falling invariably, when no small messenger came to her hand. She lived from ship to ship, and sent her own little argosies of thought traveling wistfully across the seas, hoping they might come to harbor in Adam’s heart at last and so convey to him her yearning to hear just a word, or to see him just once again.

In the meantime, she could not endure the thought that either Henry Wainsworth or Piety Tootbaker should even so much as think of her as if they stood in Adam’s place. She therefore went to work with all her maidenly arts, to render such a situation impossible, in the case of either of the would-be suitors.

Thus she contrived to tell the faithful Henry that Prudence Soam was very fond of him indeed. For this she had a ground work of fact. She then conveyed to Prudence the intelligence that Henry was thinking upon her most fondly. This also began soon to be true enough, for Henry had been flattered, not a little, by the news he heard and did look at Prudence with a new and wondering interest. He likewise underwent a process of added intelligence in which he realized that Garde was not for him, howsoever much he might have dreamed, or would be able to dream in the future. It was remarkable, then, how soon the timid Henry and the diffident Prudence began to understand one another. Prudence, who had never had a sweetheart before, blossomed out with pretty little ways and with catching blushes and looks of brightness in her eyes that made her a revelation, not only to Henry but to Garde herself. And Henry became really happy and almost bold.

For Piety, alas, there was no Prudence available. Garde racked her brains for a plan to fit the case of Tootbaker’s state of mind. At length, when John Soam began to talk to his wife about the colony patriots again desiring that money which had never been used to send David Donner abroad, for the purpose of sending somebody else, in the spring, Garde knew exactly what to do.

She would manage to send Piety Tootbaker away to England. She went to work in this direction without delay. Her success was not a thing of sudden growth. It took no little time and persuasion to fire Piety with an ambition to serve his country by going so far from his comfortable home and his equally comfortable wooing, in which he believed he was making actual progress.

For their agent extraordinary, to plead their cause at the Court of King James, the colonists selected Increase Mather, a man at once astute, agreeable and afflicted with religious convictions which had every barnacle of superstition that ever lived, attached upon them. Piety Tootbaker was to go as his clerk and secretary.

The preparations for sending Mather abroad were conducted with no small degree of secrecy. Nevertheless Edward Randolph became aware of what was being contemplated, for his hypocritical Puritan agents were everywhere and in all affairs of state, or even of private business.