when, a moment later, roger and master simon half helped, half carried the stranger through the door, margeret’s first feeling was a sinking of the heart and the despairing thought:

“oh, if only my mother were here!”

but the next minute her courage rose again at the thought that here was a task to which, after all, she was quite equal and that at last had come a thrilling adventure in which she could have her own share. she went about the kitchen, mending the fire, setting the kettle to boil, bringing blankets to be heated and herbs to be brewed as steadily and gravely as though she were mistress radpath herself. but all the time her heart was beating loud with excitement rather than terror at the risk they were running. she caught roger’s eye once or twice and observed that under his grave demeanour he was as stirred at heart as she was. here at last was the solution to his mystery, this was the friend that he had visited so often in the forest, it was this very escape through hopewell that he had planned and worried over so many months.

it took much effort and all of master simon’s skill to revive the exhausted guest, to quiet his shivering, to warm his trembling hands and bring a little colour back into his deathlike face. that he was old, margeret had known from the talk in the field, but she had not been prepared to see any one so feeble, so small and shrunken, so bowed down with age and long hardship. he lay back unmoving in master simon’s big chair, his thin, almost transparent hands resting limp and seemingly lifeless against the cushion.

at length, however, he stirred, opened his black eyes to look about him in wonder for a moment and, finally, he smiled and spoke.

“so it is that i am among friends,” he said in his quaint french-flavoured english. “i, who have been hunted like a wild animal up and down your fields these three hours past. they are no respecters of old age and white hairs, these puritan brothers of yours, monsieur simon.”

“they know not any better,” answered master simon briefly, “and since they have failed to find you we can forgive them.”

“yes, they failed, thanks to this brave friend of mine here,” smiled the little priest, laying his hand upon roger bardwell’s. “and i think it is thanks also to the high hedges of your garden that puritan zeal and puritan justice went by on the other side to-night.”

his spirits seemed to revive quickly as the pleasant glow of the fire began to warm his chilled bones. before an hour had passed he was sitting upright among the cushions and blankets telling, to three most eager listeners, tales of his life in the forest. roger bardwell was seated on the settle, warming his cold hands at last and drying his rain-soaked clothes. he seemed a different boy now, with all the old trouble and misgiving put aside for the moment, since now his perilous affairs were in master simon’s safe keeping.

“yes,” the little priest was saying, “it is not a life for those who love luxury and ease, but the jesuit fathers have long since learned to deny themselves both. such toils and adventures as i knew when i was young have made it seem a little thing to dwell in the forest so near to your hostile colony, yet with only my savage red-skinned children for company. their need of me seemed to be so great that i have been led to remain with them, year after year, until old age and feebleness have made impossible my return to canada. the great swamp between me and your village has stood me in good stead, for in all this time my hiding place has been undiscovered, and out of all the white settlers upon the coast, only two have ever wandered so far as my door.”

“and who could those two have been?” inquired master simon.

“one was this dear, good lad here, roger bardwell, who strayed thither half dead with hunger and weariness and has been my helper and benefactor ever since. and the other—ah, what a strange fellow he was! the indians brought him to me after that fearful winter storm some years since; they had found him wandering in the forest nearly crazed from starvation and exposure. he lay there in my hut for many weeks, always crying out that i should not come nigh him, that he would take no favours from an infidel papist’s hands and that heaven’s vengeance would fall upon me did i not change my faith before it was too late.”

margeret stirred a little and looked up anxiously at her father. what was there so familiar in those last words?

“i had hopes at one time that he would live,” the priest went on, “and night and day i tended him with all the skill i knew. i have often thought of what pain it must have been to him to be nursed by a jesuit, whose very presence he believed would bring corruption. how he raved of the sins of the world and the fearful punishments that were to overtake the wicked! ah, could he have lived, as i have, in the peace of the forest, ministering to the simple-hearted indians, he might have learned that, after all, men know not so much of god as to be able to say freely who is to be condemned and who rewarded. he died, just as spring was flooding the forest with new life and beauty, but he died as he had lived, still deeming the world a dark, wicked, bitter place. my indians helped me to bury him under the pines, it was they that brought the white stone upon which we made shift to carve the name he had told us—jeremiah macrae. some day, so i had thought, i would lie there by his side when my own task was laid down forever. i believe that he would not have minded that we should so sleep together through the ages, for i think that he knows by now that salvation is not so narrow and lonely a thing as he had thought, and has learned that a puritan minister and a jesuit priest may labour in god’s work side by side.”

“i would that all the world could see as clearly as you,” said master simon, with a sigh.

“it will some day,” answered the priest cheerfully. “not in our time, brother, but at last. few of my faith and few of yours think as do you and i, but the seed is sowing and the world will grow wise in heaven’s own good time.”

there was silence for a space before the thin, gentle voice of the priest went on again.

“shall i tell you, my friends,” he said, “why it is not to be that i sleep beside jeremiah macrae in the forest and why i am at last laying the burden down and, if it be that i slip through the fingers of your puritan brothers, will go back to die in my own dear country across the sea? it was but a little thing that in the end broke down my firmness, but when a man is old and weary it takes not much to call him home. i have never spoken before of what the true reason was, but i think that boy yonder knows.”

roger smiled.

“i believe it was the nascomi indian,” he observed, “and the gift that he left you.”

the little father nodded.

“it was in the same year as the coming of monsieur macrae that an indian from a strange tribe passed that way and lingered with us a little. he left, when he went forward on his journey again, a faded yellow tulip whose petals had once been like burnished gold, just such a flower as used to grow in the garden near my first parish church in france. so long have i dwelt in the fierce wilderness that it seems only a dream when i think of that fair bright country of mine. yet it is a dream that stands often before my eyes, those close-built villages with their clustering red roofs and their smoke rising from a hundred neighbourly chimneys, those sun-bathed streets, narrow and crooked but, oh, so dear, and the great church towering over all as though to care for its children and protect them. long, long i sat in the doorway the night after the indian had gone, looking out into the moonlit forest, looking out toward france with tears in my foolish old eyes. the desires that i thought i had stilled forever awoke again and grew greater and greater until now i have but one thought, one longing, that fills my whole being. the indians carried word of me back to my friends in canada, through roger bardwell we arranged that the ship they would send was to take me on board near hopewell. it was through my own impatience that the plan miscarried, for i would not wait for him in the place where he was to meet me in the forest, but pressed on, missed him in the dark and in my bewilderment sought his cottage and betrayed all to that crafty shoemaker who vowed he was my friend. for one thing only i can be thankful; it is that misgiving checked my foolish tongue in time and i did not tell of this boy’s share in bringing me here. and oh, it cannot, it cannot be that after all this danger and effort of those i love, i am to lose my heart’s desire and perish at the hands of the puritans before i have seen france again!”

master simon rose and pushed back his chair.

“it cannot and it will not be,” he said; “so be of good comfort and have no fear.”

roger also got up from the settle and went over to look from the window.

“the storm has blown itself out,” he observed, “and there is a heavy fog rolling in from the sea. it is long past midnight and such of the men of hopewell who have not given up the search in weariness have gone up over the hill. the french ship must be lying somewhere off-shore in this darkness: now is the time to try to signal to her from the shore if it is to be done in safety. do you wait here, while i see what i can do.”

“i will come with you,” said master simon, taking down his lantern once more and putting in his pocket a handful of margeret’s bayberry candles. “we may have to go to the far end of the headland before the ship sees us and the time is none too long. and should any one knock at the door while we are gone, margeret—well, the big cupboard upstairs is the safest hiding place. it must be your quick wit and courage that can avail to save us all in such a case.”

the priest spoke very little after they had gone, and finally dropped into a doze in the big chair. margeret looked at him many times as she tip-toed about the kitchen, looked at his white hair, his gentle wrinkled face and his thin shoulders bowed with toil and suffering. how was it possible that people of her own dear hopewell could be seeking to take the life of such a man? would the gospel of fear always have such a hold upon kindly people’s hearts? she became so absorbed in her thoughts that she failed to hear an almost noiseless movement outside and turned with a gasp of dismay when, without a sound, the door swung slowly open.

but it was not the puritans who had found out where the hunted jesuit was hiding that night. margeret gave almost a sob of relief when she saw that it was a tall, blanketed indian who had come in and that the faces filling the door behind him were all dusky ones, heavy, stolid and red of skin. the priest awoke and greeted the newcomers with a happy smile.

“these are my dear, dark children,” he explained to her, “and they have followed to bid me a last good-bye.”

their faces lighted as he spoke to them and they responded in the thick gutturals of a tongue quite strange to margeret. more and more came crowding into the fire-lit kitchen while a greater and greater company stood silent and patient outside. their movements were so utterly without a sound that it was small wonder they had slipped, like unseen ghosts, past the searching white men.

they seemed to be asking something of the priest, for he shook his head distressfully again and again as one after another spoke. but the look that he turned to her now and again grew ever more wistful.

“mademoiselle,” he said at last, “these children of my faith are begging me to say the mass for them once more before i go. i have tried to refuse since it would bring greater danger upon you and your father, but, oh, it is hard to say no! could it be that you would permit us to find some quiet corner of your garden and there worship together before we part for all time?”

“yes,” she answered with no hesitation, “and were my father here i know that he would say the same. do whatever you desire and—and take whatever you wish to use,” she added vaguely, not quite knowing what this service was nor what it required.

“but that is truly brave and kind!” exclaimed the little priest, his face fairly shining with sudden joy. “it is not much that we will need, this table, if you will be so kind, and—and these?”

he laid his hands lovingly upon the great heap of candles that still lay upon the table and drew forth one of the tall thick tapers that was to have burned in honour of the governor of the colony.

“yes, anything, everything,” answered margeret quickly, opening the cupboard where the candlesticks were kept.

the priest hesitated for a moment.

“it were better, mademoiselle margeret,” he said, “that you go upstairs and try to neither see nor hear that which we are about to do, so that, if the story of this night ever becomes known, those of your faith cannot accuse you of worshipping with us.”

most unwillingly, yet realising the wisdom of his advice, margeret went slowly up the stairs toward her own room, yet stopped to look out at the little uncurtained window under the roof. she saw that the storm was over, as roger had said, and a heavy mist was spreading over the garden. neither moon nor stars were to be seen, but the wind had dropped and the night was breathlessly still. down near the water’s edge she could make out two moving points of light, master simon’s lantern and roger bardwell’s, signalling to the ship before the fog should hide them entirely. over toward the town all was quiet and dark, since the search in this direction at least, had come to an end. she heard moving to and fro below her, the gentle opening and closing of the door; then the house became so silent that she could hear only the quiet crackling of the kitchen fire.

what were they doing out there in the garden? what was this catholic mass of which she had heard men speak with bated breath as being seven and seventy times forbidden in the puritan colony? so far, she had been trying to bear her part in this adventure as though she were a grown woman, now she became all at once a little girl again and one consumed with curiosity. forgetful of all consequences, she ran down the stairs, slipped out of the door and stole across the thick, wet grass. the mist had grown very heavy now but she could still see some paces in front of her.

from within the high dark hedges of that square enclosure that she and her father now called the queen’s garden, there fell a gleam of soft, yellow light. cautiously she stole nearer and nearer, peeped through the bushes and caught her breath at what she saw. the grassy space was crowded with indians, a dense throng of kneeling worshippers, far too many ever to have found places within master simon’s house. their backs were toward her and their faces upturned toward the light that fell upon their glistening, coppery skins. the priest was standing before them, his head was bowed and he was reading in an unknown language from a little book. against the hedge behind him had been placed the table, covered with a white cloth and decked with such flowers and berries as were still to be found in the garden. and upon the table burned what seemed a myriad of bayberry candles, great ones and small, their broad, clear flames rising straight upward in the still air and giving forth a faint sweet perfume like incense. their soft light fell like a benediction upon the strange scene, on the priest’s white hair, on the dark faces of the indians, on the wet shining leaves of the sheltering hedge.

she watched entranced and was hardly conscious of a movement at her side until she turned to see that roger bardwell had stolen close to her and was kneeling to look through the same opening between the branches. so absorbed was she that she did not in the least notice when he took off his homespun coat and put it about her shoulders to shield her from the chill air that foretold the coming dawn. the birds were beginning to chirp and sing in the forest and the blackness of the night was faintly changing to grey.

the priest finished his reading and turned to give the final blessing. margeret, looking up at his worn white face, saw suddenly, beyond it, another that made her start back in terror. at a gap in the hedge behind the priest stood samuel skerry watching the forbidden ceremony with dark, eager little eyes. she gasped, looked again and saw only the empty place. could she have imagined that ill-omened vision? she turned to question roger but he had been gazing down toward the sea and had seen nothing.

the indians rose from their knees and went forward, one by one, to say farewell. finally the last one slipped away; there remained behind only a boy who was putting out the candles and removing the flowers; the service was over. master simon came striding down the path and stopped at the edge of the queen’s garden.

“dear friend,” said the priest, hurrying to him, “can you forgive that i have done this forbidden thing and brought such danger on you and your daughter and your garden? it has meant much, so much to those i must leave behind!”

“my forgiveness is not needed,” master simon replied, “for you have done no wrong. but now the morning is at hand, a boat is waiting for you just off our beach and you must begone. save for a fortunate chance that led the men of hopewell to think that you had been seen on the northward road, you might have been discovered before this. but we must hasten now before the sun rises and this shielding fog is gone.”

it took but little time to gather up the priest’s few possessions and to guide him down to the landing place. he and master simon walked together across the garden, through the winding path among the bayberry thickets and over the rocks and sand to the water’s edge. margeret and roger came behind, she at last finding time to put to him a score of questions concerning their strange guest. had roger really known the priest so many years and yet told no one? what sort of a house did he dwell in there in the forest? how had roger ever chanced to find it, and when?

“it was just before i came to samuel skerry’s,” the boy explained vaguely in answer to this last inquiry. “i was lost and in trouble and the little father gave me such help and comfort as i can never forget or repay.”

“and you think he will be safe now?” margeret pursued.

“ay, safe enough,” he answered, “if the ship once gets to sea. but it is of your danger and master simon’s that i am thinking; only the most dire necessity could have led me to bring you into such a hazardous affair. and if it is really true that you saw the shoemaker watching through the hedge, there is no knowing what harm may come. i cannot but hope that in the mist and candlelight your eyes deceived you. i can never forgive myself if harm comes to you through this night’s adventure.”

“but you,” questioned margeret, “is not your peril greater than my father’s or mine?”

roger laughed shortly and bitterly.

“until the pilgrim fathers learn to be more gentle to one of another faith than theirs,” he said, “my danger is neither lessened nor increased by my friendship with this priest who dwelt in the wood.”

they had reached the shore by now and had come up with the jesuit and master simon who stood talking earnestly together as they waited on the beach. through the fog came the sound of creaking rowlocks and the splash of oars approaching nearer and nearer. it was plain from the priest’s words that he was overcome at the thought of what might happen after his departure and was begging master simon to flee the danger completely and to leave hopewell.

“you think not as these other puritans do, good sir,” he was saying. “you are ever in danger on account of their narrow laws and your wider views. why not gather up your possessions and your family and seek some place where persecution is not so fierce and where a man can think and worship as he desires?”

master simon was silent a little before he spoke his answer, but his hesitation was not through doubt of what that answer should be.

“i have planted a garden here in the wilderness,” he said slowly, at last, “and i must abide to see what sort of fruit it bears. i and my children and their children too, i trust, will tend it each in turn. and when we englishmen turn our hands to the planting of such gardens we like not to abandon the task and leave others to destroy our work.”

the priest seemed not to have grasped his meaning.

“but gardens grow in all lands, monsieur,” he protested. “flowers bloom fairer in other soils than this of bleak new england. you can plant another garden across the sea.”

“the flowers that i and my puritan comrades have planted are not such as grow on other shores,” master simon answered. “for we have planted truth, and a new freedom in a new land. there are weeds in our garden, i grant you, the weeds of jealousy and too-narrow justice and the gospel of fear. but where was there ever a new garden without weeds or a new country without mistakes and bitter lessons that it must master before it comes to its glory at last. no, good friend, i have laid my hand to the plough nor will i look back!”

the prow of a ship’s boat came suddenly out of the mist and grated on the beach. two sailors leaped ashore to help the priest embark, cutting short his words of protest and farewell. a moment later the little craft had disappeared into the fog again and the muffled sound of the oars had died away. they could hear, a short space after, the creak of ropes and the rattle of an anchor-chain, while something big and grey, the ghostly shadow of a ship, slipped by through the mist that was beginning to be faintly bright with coming day.

the three conspirators walked homeward through the wet field and paused at the edge of the garden where roger bardwell made a stammering attempt at thanks for the help they had given to his friend. his broken words were cut short, however, by margeret as she laid her hand upon her father’s arm.

“look!” she said.

the fog had lifted over the meadows showing them the sleeping town of hopewell, every house with its doors closed and its windows blank as though drowsy with the same slumber that held those who slept within. but nearer than the village they could see samuel skerry’s cottage, its door open and the casements standing wide while a plume of smoke rose steadily from the chimney. the glow of the dawn was reflected like fire from one of the windows that winked at them with its red light like some wicked, baleful eye. no matter who was asleep, the shoemaker was up and stirring.

“now was he or was he not in the garden last night?” said roger with a sigh of deep misgiving.

“there is little need to waste time in pondering over that question,” returned master simon cheerily, “for if he was there we and all of hopewell will know of it—and that right soon!”