CHAPTER IX.
A MATTER OF STATE.
Mistress Garde Merrill, having several hours before delivered her simples and aromatic leaves to old Goody Dune, just outside the limits of the town, stood looking out of the window, at her Uncle John Soam’s home, where she was visiting. Thus it was that she saw her grandfather, David Donner enter the gate. Two minutes afterward she beheld the unusual sight of three Governors come into the garden together.
The first was ex-Governor Leverett, that stern old Roundhead, the ex-Captain of Cromwell’s horse. At his side was Governor Winslow, up from Plymouth, on grave affairs. Behind them was an older man, and perhaps a wiser one, Governor Simon Bradstreet, still hale and hearty after fifty-three years of service to the colonies.
Bringing up the rear of the little procession was Henry Wainsworth, private secretary to Leverett. He looked toward the windows in the hope of seeing Garde, but that young lady stepped silently back into the shadows, for she had no desire to be seen.
Neither David Donner nor the other visitors came to the house, nor even to the front door thereof. It was a fine day, so that the garden seemed all smiles. A cow was mooing lustily and chickens were singing in their contentment. These sounds were interspersed with the hawing of a saw, and then with hammer strokes, these latter disturbances issuing from a newly constructed granary and cow-shed which John Soam, Garde’s uncle, had recently afforded.
David Donner, who had known that he would find Goodman Soam in this shed, had tracked across the garden without ceremony. The governors and Wainsworth, having confidence that Donner knew what he was doing, followed where he led, to the center whence the clatter of industry proceeded.
The hammer-pounding had abated nothing, nor did it cease when the three grave citizens and Wainsworth had entered the house and ranged themselves silently beside David Donner, to whom they could not well speak for the din. They nodded to their friend, however, and looked up, like students of astronomy all of one mind, at Goodman Soam above them.
John Soam had never been reputed a carpenter of talent in Boston. However, here he was, standing on the head of a barrel and obviously completing the task of ceiling this room of the granary, for his head, shoulders and arms were out of sight, in the darksome region above the ceiling, while part of his body and his legs, below, moved in vigorous jerks as he pounded into place and nailed what appeared to be the last board but one which would be needed to complete the job on which he was so commendably engaged.
It seemed to his visitors that they had never before seen Goodman Soam in so tight an orifice as was the one from which he now protruded. They waited in patience for the nailing to cease, conversation being impossible meantime. John was, by all reckoning, a thorough workman, for he drove home nail after nail, without ceasing for so much as a breath.