“I have never coerced little Garde,” he said aloud, “never, Ruth, never.”
CHAPTER XV.
LOVE’S INVITING LIGHT.
Something had happened to Mistress Garde Merrill, even as far back as upon that first Sunday at Meeting, when Adam had been beneath the South Church roof, where she could see him from the corners of her eyes. Love had left its sign-manual upon her. She had suddenly become illumined from within, by her heart’s emotions, so that she appeared to shine from afar, in the somewhat gray and unjoyous lives of the Puritan young men about her.
Thus it was that, in addition to Randolph, who attended the service solely for the purpose of feasting his eyes upon her beauty, there was always Wainsworth, who heard nothing of the Meeting’s cheerless proceedings. And there was also young Piety Tootbaker, who knew not at which shrine he was worshiping, from Sunday to Sunday.
Garde was half the time at her uncle, John Soam’s. This fact increased the facilities for the young men to seek her presence, for the Soams were life-loving people, in spite of their Puritan conformity to the somewhat melancholy and smileless practices of the day. Moreover, John Soam, who thought himself something of a farmer, as well as a carpenter and Jack-of-all-genius, not infrequently impressed the would-be suitors into various duties with which he was amusing himself about his place.
Piety Tootbaker was a fat young man of modest wealth in his own right, his father having died leaving Piety his sole heir. He was a heavy lump, who came often and said next to nothing, so that his intentions might have lain anywhere between Prudence, Garde and the family cow, for aught that any one could ascertain definitely. He was John Soam’s easiest prey, when the farmer or carpenter, as the case might be, was seized with a desire to work.
Randolph contented himself with courting David Donner. He felt no small contempt for Wainsworth and Tootbaker, whose movements he was stealthily watching. He had placed his reliance on power always, and with complete success. The present was no time to alter his usual tactics.
Grandfather Donner, left alone with his thoughts, arrived at no conclusions rashly. He went systematically to work on his friends, to get from each an expression of belief that Randolph, if he would become one of them, working for instead of against them, would be a valuable factor for the preservation of the charter. This opinion he readily secured, especially as he gave no hint, as yet, of the method by which Randolph’s conversion was finally to be accomplished. Indeed so much promise could his friends discern in the securing of an end so commendable, that David Donner began to justify himself in the thought of aiding this matter with all reasonable power. He encouraged the growth of a better opinion of Randolph, in his own mind. He argued the man’s case with his friends, with fanatical insistence, until they perforce admitted virtues in Randolph’s disposition, heretofore quite overlooked.
Thus he wrought upon himself until, mentally, he accepted the ex-enemy as his grandson-in-law, to whom he was willing to extend his welcome, if not actually his love. With this development of the case, his dislike for the journey to England increased, while, far from abating, his concern for the charter grew the more active, as he dreamed of preserving it here at his own home.