When a witch is young: a historical novel

I. A Rover and his Retinue 27 II. An Ungodly Performance 36 III. ’Twixt Cup and Lip 45 IV. The Opening of a Vista 53 V. A Weighty Confidence 62 VI. Pan’s Brother and the Nymph 7...

I. A Topic at Court 335 II. Illness in the Family 342 III. Foiled Purposes 345 IV. Making History 350 V. Old Acquaintances 357 VI. Juggling with Fire 362 VII. A Beef-eater Passe...

THE first, the last—the only King the Americans ever had, was dead. It was the 13th day of August, in the year 1676. The human emotions of the Puritan people of Massachusetts tu...

THROUGH the gray mist of Plymouth’s dawn there came a sound of footsteps, and then a murmur of melodious humming, somewhat controlled and yet too sturdy and joyous to be readily...

A BONNIE little Puritan maid, Mistress Garde Merrill, stood in the open doorway at her home, fervently hugging her kitten. The sunlight seemed almost like beaten gold, so tangib...

TOWARD the close of a glorious day in September, 1683, William Phipps beheld a smart brig nose her way up the harbor of Boston, and drop in her anchor in the field of water wher...

ADAM RUST knew the Crow and Arrow more by that repute which had traveled back to England, through the medium of young stalwarts and sailors, than he did from personal acquaintan...

WITH appetites still further whetted by their various diversions, the comrades were hardly made happier when Adam found that once more the many years’ growth of Boston town conf...

FOR a man who had taken so much tonic, Adam had but indifferent relish for the savory and altogether comforting little dinner which Goodwife Phipps had kept all warm and waiting...

AT the tavern, when Adam entered, Halberd had succumbed to a plethora of comfort, which had followed too soon on the paucity thereof, which had been the program of the three for...

ADAM returned to his room attempting to pucker his lips for a careless whistle which failed to materialize. He had evolved a rude but logical philosophy of his own for every pha...

WITH her glorious mahogany-colored hair loose in masses on her shoulders, with her eyes inquiring, and her lips slightly parted as she stole forward, thrilled with the exquisite...

ASSUME a cheerfulness, if you have it not, and it may presently grow upon you. This happened to Adam, so that when he left Captain Phipps, to return to the tavern for his breakf...

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 wi...

HIS friends, forming a hollow square, now escorted John to the house at a quick walk. He disappeared like a Jack into its box, when the door was finally opened, while the grave...

“Thank you—oh, thank you,” said Henry, still stumbling confusedly. “It is such a lovely day I thought I should like to come back and—and—and see—if I had really left them here.”

CAPTAIN WILLIAM PHIPPS was as eager as a boy, now that he had definitely settled on the purpose which had for its object the quest of the sunken treasure. Therefore he and Adam...

GARDE, when she had questioned her cousin Prudence, until there was little or nothing concerning Adam’s visit and farewell at the gate which she did not know, was still far from...

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 pat...

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 hi...

DAVID DONNER was not to be deterred for long, by the shadow of a memory which he had seen flit like a ghost of his past, across Garde’s features. He was arriving at that age whe...

THE night was a thing of perfection, on the sea. The moon rode aloft and its light danced merrily on the tips of the waves. A smart breeze pouted the sails on the “Captain Spenc...

THE brig “Captain Spencer,” came duly to her goal at the green Bahamas. What with wounds received from the pirates, who had called so unceremoniously, and from sea-sickness, whi...

FORTUNATELY mutinies frequently come to a head prematurely. On the “Rose” a jealousy hatched between rival factions of the plotters, so that before they were any of them in actu...

HAD prayers been able to reach him and summon him back to Boston, Adam would have been there long before the fever overtook him at Jamaica. Garde, more alone than she had ever b...

GARDE fled home as if some unthinkable fate were in pursuit. She was haunted by the look she had seen in the eyes of that girl-mother, back in the hut. She could hear the young...

DAVID DONNER came in from that interview in the garden an angered fanatic. The bitter cold of the night had entered into his soul, with all the heaped-up threats which Randolph...

THE right of Spring to exercise idiosyncrasies of weather was conceded, doubtless, by the first man. Spring is well known to be female, for this very proclivity of changing her...

ADAM RUST, sailing northward, grew more and more hearty once again with every day, although his pulse-beat quickened almost hourly, with a fever of impatience which began to fas...

SOME time before nightfall, the two having shared their luncheons together and wandered on, through the delightful patches of sunlight, slanting through the trees, they came upo...

HAVING the fortune to be overtaken by a good-natured farmer, who was trotting his horses northward, along their road, from a trip to market, the travelers got the benefit of a l...

GARDE fairly ran, when she made her early morning start. She had not been able to think of any other solution of the problem of getting back to her own proper sphere without per...

AFTER nearly a week of rain and dull, gray skies, the weather was again entrancing. The warm, soporific breeze which played through the house lulled Grandther Donner off to slee...

ADAM found his faithful beef-eaters on the verge of the grave. The miserable old rogues had no better sense than to be pining to death like two masterless dogs. They had been il...

IT was a quiet time of the day, in a quiet part of the city. Adam discerned one or two individuals only and was not concerned with noting that he was suddenly preceded by a nois...

IRRESPONSIBLY joyous, thus to be in a saddle, on a spirited horse, Rust was soon dashing across the common and turning about like a centaur, for ease and grace, glanced back to...

ADAM covered many a mile before the morning. Mindless of his hunger, spurred by the thought that he must soon be back in Boston, he felt that the further he went the more he mus...

SOMETIME, along toward the middle of the night, Adam tripped, on a root which lay in his path, and in catching himself so that his small partner should not be injured, he sprain...

THE beef-eaters arrived in the afternoon of the same day that Adam was arrested. Alighting from the coach, they did exactly what he had feared they would. They wended their way...

UNBEKNOWN to his retinue, Adam was accommodated in the same jail where Pike and Halberd had been landed while the evening was still comparatively young. The body of the little N...

HOW to get the keys into Adam’s possession, now that she had them in her own, was the first question that presented itself to the mind of Garde. Her ruse at her uncle’s had been...

ADAM’S disappointment, when he got no more responses to the eager questions and blessings he breathed upward to his unseen sweetheart, was keener than all the anguish he had fel...

AWARE that his ruse in locking the jail upon his jailers would hold them only till they could think of taking off the lock and knocking out the sword-end, Adam was nevertheless...

WHILE Garde, heart-broken, pale and ill, was restoring her uncle’s keys to their accustomed hook, in the morning, Adam and his retinue were taking a much-needed sleep in the woods.

CAPTAIN WILLIAM PHIPPS, when Adam left him at Jamaica, had returned, as he had said he intended, to the waters wherein the old Spanish galleon, with her golden treasure, was sup...

AT Boston it was not a matter of many months before Henry Wainsworth and piety Tootbaker, having been made aware that Garde was no longer provisionally betrothed to Randolph, re...

WHEN she had recovered somewhat of her calm again, Garde found herself confronted by several difficulties with which she would be obliged to cope. In the first place she had rui...

IN the midst of a gay throng, in the production of which the Court of King James lagged little, if any, behind that of his brother, Charles, Adam Rust and Captain Phipps were pr...

SICK of the women, to all of whom he made love, openly, to avoid being thought serious by any; weary of the specious show, which failed to bring him the forgetfulness he craved,...

INCREASE MATHER met with a dignified and polite reception at the Court of the King, for Sir William Phipps, with all his influence and persuasiveness, prepared the way for the e...

UNTHRONED and uncrowned as he was, James, for some inexplicable reason, still entertained a wild idea that the colonies, the patriots of which he had taken no pains to endear to...

ADAM RUST failed, even in the intricacies of collecting violins and the pursuit of health for the old beef-eaters, to find the depths of forgetfulness she sought, but which coul...

LADY MARGARET was a beautiful woman. The next time he met her, Adam realized that this was true. He stood looking down upon her, where she sat on a low divan which was made to t...

THE rigors of the London winter pursued the beef-eaters relentlessly, tapping them remindfully on the shoulder, now and again, with a cold, or a spell of bronchitis, and then, u...

SIR WILLIAM PHIPPS and Increase Mather, together with the other Puritan patriots who made up the small band of charter-hunters at the Court of William and Mary, worked consisten...

WHEN the Andros government came to an end, Edward Randolph had languished in jail for a brief time only. The Puritans were chiefly angered at his master, whom they had finally p...

AT Grandther Donner’s house, Garde had passed the day with her heart so fluttering between hope and fear that she was all unstrung by the time the evening arrived. She could bea...

THE rover, so lost in exalted happiness that he hardly knew where he was going, when at length he said his final good night to Garde, was not aware that the faithful old Halberd...

WHEN the intelligence of the almost unparalleled crime spread with terror and awe in its wake through Boston, in the morning, Garde heard it like a knell—a fatality almost to ha...

THE worthy Puritan citizens of Boston fêted Governor Phipps in one breath and asked him to make concessions of his powers to his council in the next. They worked themselves wear...

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 f...

GOODY DUNE was a frightened and pitiable spectacle, with her age and the terrors of the dungeon and coming execution upon her. She struggled in an effort to maintain a show of c...

WITH his bride up behind him on his horse, the rover spurred swiftly away from the parson’s, still within the hour, in which he had promised to return to his wedding. Unafraid o...

“I forgyve you y^r merrie empersonashun and all ye other things alsoe, save y^e going away without goode-bye,” he read, “but let it pass. I w^d write to say God Blesse you bothe...