This year, however, as he and Margeret planted the garden in unsuspecting peace of mind, there was strange talk about them running through the village. Much as the good Puritans had left behind them in England, there was one thing that was bound to travel with them beyond the seas, their love of gossip about a neighbour. The whispered words of Samuel Skerry had travelled from Goody Parsons to those who dwelt nearest her, and from them to others, until soon the whole town was buzzing with wonder concerning Master Simon’s garden and that secret thing that lay hidden in its midst. There were many people who owed him friendship and gratitude for past kindness, but there was not one who, on hearing the news, could refrain from rushing to the nearest house and bursting in with the words: “Oh, neighbour, have you heard—?” the rest always following in eager whispers. Thus the talk had gone the rounds of the village until it reached the pastor of the church, where it fell like sparks into tow. “I was ever mistrustful of Simon Radpath,” cried the minister, Master Hapgood, when he heard the rumour. “That over-bright garden of his has long been a blot upon our Puritan soberness. Others have their door-yards and their garden patches, yes, but these sheets of bloom, these blazes of colour, I have always said that they argued something amiss with the man. He had also an easy way of forgiving sinners and rendering aid to those on whom our community frowned, that I liked none too well. Now we know, in truth, what he really is.” And off he set, post-haste to speak to the Governor of the Colony about this dreadful scandal in Hopewell. Trouble, therefore, was coming upon Master Simon on that pleasant morning of late May when Margeret went out to swing on the white gate and listen to the robins singing in the linden tree. It was trouble in the form of a stern company of dark-clad men, who came striding down the lane beneath the young white-blooming apple saplings. There were the church deacons, the minister, the Assistants and the great Governor himself, come to inquire into this business of the garden and its mysteries. Beside the Governor walked a stranger, a famous preacher from Scotland, whose strictness of belief and fierce denunciations of all those who broke the law, were known and dreaded throughout New England. Margeret dropped off the gate and ran full of wonder and alarm to tell her father.