“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?”
“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.”
