Garde placed her other hand over the tingling fingers he had kissed, as if to prevent the caress from escaping.
As he went out over the water, she waved her tiny handkerchief to him, and permitted two warm tears to trickle down her face.
Adam’s memory of her was of her pretty, brown figure, seen from afar, and the look in her eyes, which he felt that no space could dim in his vision.
CHAPTER XIV.
OVERTURES FROM THE ENEMY.
Against his long journey across the Atlantic, David Donner made preparations that consumed no small amount of time. A sufficient quantity of money had been subscribed by the patriots who were so concerned for the charter, but this was one of the least important details of Donner’s contemplated venture. As a matter of fact, the Puritans had acquired the arts of procrastination patiently and laboriously, for this had proved their most efficient weapon of defense, in those days of struggling against the Stuart dynasty, and therefore the cream of the putting-off science permeated the very being of David Donner. He nursed his preparations till they grew and flourished.
Two ships bound for England sailed without him. He was quite calm as he contemplated further events of a like nature. At length his fellow-citizens, eager to have him at his work, expostulated with him, mildly. His answer astounded them all. He said he had reasons for believing that Edward Randolph was beginning to feel inclined toward more kindliness of spirit with regard to the Colony and the men who had built it there in the wilderness. Randolph had made overtures of friendship to him. He appeared to be a more agreeable person than any one of them had heretofore believed.
Randolph, indeed, was fairly wooing the old man’s regard. He had begun by nodding, pleasantly, when he and Donner passed in the streets. He had followed this up by halting at Donner’s gate and admiring his flowers, for which the old man had a secret passion.
“If I could dissuade him from his evil purposes,” said David to his colleagues, “if I could win his favor for the charter, and so enlist his services with us, instead of against us, I should be of vastly more service to Massachusetts by remaining here than I could be if I were to go to the Court of Charles.”
Nevertheless the governors held the promise of David Donner sacred. He would go as agreed, unless he could shortly furnish something substantial as a result of this coy flirtation of Randolph’s to gain his good opinion.