Nearly as strong and well as ever, Adam Rust heard Garde’s excited and desperate tale of Goody’s capture with an indignation which far outran her own. He failed to realize, at first, the full import of Goody’s position. Then, as Garde made him understand the almost inevitable execution, staring this old woman-friend in the face, at the end of a trial from which Truth would fly moaning, with her hands to her ears, the rover would have buckled on his sword and gone to batter down the jail to set the old wise woman free, had his sweetheart not restrained him with all her powers of dissuasion.
“Oh, we have got to be far more clever than that,” she said. “We have got to get her out of there quietly—so quietly that we can get her away—a long way off, before the awful crowds shall find it out. Help me to do this. Help me to get her out cunningly, or we shall fail—and to-night it will all be too late.”
“Couldn’t the Governor pardon her out?” said Adam. “Why has he gone away at such a time? Here, couldn’t Mrs. Phipps write a pardon? We could take it to the jailer, and try him. If he then refused to release our friend, we could try with a little gold in his hand. Mrs. Phipps—Mrs. Phipps,” he called to the Captain’s wife.
The plump little woman would have done anything on earth for Adam—her boy—and for Garde, whom she loved no less, but she shook her head at this new proposal. The potentialities of the position in which William’s sudden elevation had placed her still gave her a little fright to contemplate. She knew nothing of the powers of a Governor, still less of those of a Governor’s wife.
“I would be glad to do this thing, dear Adam,” she said, “for your sake, or Garde’s, or even for old Goody herself, but can I? Would I dare? I fear you hardly know the temper of these people on this question of witches. They are mad.”
“Try it,” said Adam. “We can do no less than to give it a trial. The jailer will know of no reason for limiting the Governor’s prerogatives, nor even those of his good wife. Write what I shall dictate, and let us make the attempt. A bit of boldness is often as good as an army.”
Never able to resist when Adam begged or even suggested, Goodwife Phipps wrote, as he directed, one of the most sweeping and imperious pardons ever reduced to cold language. This being duly sanded, and approved, Rust folded it up and placed it safely in his pocket.
“Now then, John Rosella,” he said to Garde, who blushed prettily, in spite of her many conflicting emotions, “even supposing this works its charm, we have only then made a good beginning. I must have a horse on which to convey old Goody out of the reach of harm, when they find she has slipped between their fingers. And the horse must be my own. No more borrowed horses will do for me. Therefore content your mind, sweetheart, while I go forth to make my needed purchases.”
He kissed her, while Goodwife Phipps bustled off importantly about her duties, and reassuring her that all should yet be well for Goody, he went out into the glorious sunlight, and felt his old-time vigor spring forward—from the warmth and the joyousness of Nature—to meet him.
But the matter of finding a horse in Boston was not one to be disposed of lightly. He hunted far and wide, for of those which were offered for sale, many were old, a few were lame and others were vicious. These latter he would have liked, for himself, since they challenged him, their spirit against his, but foregoing the pleasant anticipation of a battle royal, he rejected offers right and left, until he had used up the morning completely, and at length felt obliged to be satisfied with a somewhat undersized bay, who nevertheless seemed strong and otherwise fit for the business in hand.