Early in December there came, suddenly, a furious storm of wind and snow, that covered the fields, blocked the roads and drifted so deep about the houses that many of them were buried to the very eaves. It was the worst that the Colonies had ever known in all of their short history. For three days the gale shrieked about the staunch little cottages and roared down the chimneys, while those who dwelt within toiled unceasingly to build the fires up and keep the bitter cold at bay. When finally the storm had died away, when paths had been dug and people were able to go to and fro again, the strangest news suddenly went racing through the village. The Scotch minister, who had been upsetting the peace of all New England, had disappeared. He had set forth, people said, on a journey from Boston to Salem, travelling alone as was his custom, and, save for one man who had met him at the edge of the forest, struggling along in the face of the rising gale, no mortal eye had ever seen him again. That he had lost his way and perished among the drifts, was easy enough to believe, but the good people of Hopewell had another thing to say. “The Devil came to take his own again,” many of them declared openly, for in those rough times the Devil was a more familiar figure than in later days and more than one of the Pilgrim Fathers laid claim to having seen him, horns and hoofs and tail and all. And while some folk were not quite so free-spoken as to agree with the opinion of their bolder neighbours, yet they too shook their heads and said: “Watch Master Simon’s garden, there will his burning words be proven, whether true or false.” For the thought that, unspoken, filled to the brim every good heart in Hopewell was: “Where was Master Simon through all that bitter storm and will he ever come back to tend his garden again? We can spare a dozen Scotch ministers, but never one Simon Radpath.” December, January and February went by, each one, it seemed to Margeret, covering the span of a year. March slipped past with roaring winds and melting snows, then came April and Spring again. Listlessly she watched the apple trees grow green, saw the warm pink of the Mayflowers showing under the brown leaves and heard the returning birds calling to one another in the meadow. Once she had loved all these things, but what did they matter now if Master Simon was never to see them again?