Every door in Hopewell flew open wide to offer shelter to Master Sheffield now that he was homeless, but it was Samuel Skerry’s little cottage that, in the end, became his abode. It had been rebuilt three years before, for use when the great house was over-filled with guests, and it was now warm, cosy and comfortable, although a trifle narrow in its limits.
“A man had best abide under his own roof,” Stephen had said when Mother Jeanne pointed out to him the discomforts of living through the winter in so small a place. So there they dwelt, Stephen, Clotilde, Mère Jeanne and black Jason, while the other servants were lodged in the village.
Little by little, they learned the story of how the house and garden had been destroyed. It was plain that the soldiers had acted upon well-understood orders for they had stopped but a few moments, had given no time to robbery or pillage but, once convinced that Stephen was not there, had set fire to the house and stayed only to see that it was well ablaze. They had seemed to know, also, that the garden was the love and pride of its owner, for they had piled straw among the flowerbeds and about the hedges and trees, had laid the torch to this inflammable fuel and then had marched on again, leaving the whole place a mass of drifting smoke and evil, licking flames. Only the memory of Stephen’s stern command as he drove through the town had kept the people of Hopewell from falling upon the destroyers and giving them battle there in the streets.
“As it was, we could only turn our energy to the saving of your gear,” said one of the narrators, a lean old man who lived, in abject poverty, at the outskirts of the village and who, by Stephen’s charity alone, was kept from starving. “We rescued what we could, and with a right good will, but we would rather have been dealing out death to those rascally heathen-speaking soldiers of King George.”
“And if you had,” commented Stephen, “there would have been fifty houses burned instead of one, and many a goodwife to-day mourning the loss of her husband or her son, rather than one man grieving for his house and garden.”
“I came so quickly when I saw the smoke,” resumed the old fellow, “that not all of the soldiers were yet gone. One company, it seemed, had marched behind the rest and only came up when the house was all ablaze. The young officer who led them seemed sorely angered at what the Hessians had done; I heard him say hotly to his superior in command,
“‘Such wanton destruction is a sin and a shame, sir.’
“I verily believe he would have set his own men to putting out the fire had they not been commanded to go forward at once. I was made bold by seeing that there was one kind heart amongst them and called after, ‘Never fear, sir, we will care for our good Master’s property,’ and he turned and waved his hat to me as he galloped away. I went up to look at the prisoners when they were marched into Hopewell next day, but he was not with them. I thank Heaven that he was the single one that escaped.”
“You did well,” said Stephen. “I hear from all sides how much you and your comrades saved.”
“There is not a house in Hopewell,” replied the man, “that has not within it somewhat that belongs to you, linen, portraits, silver—all that we could carry we bore away. I sought to save your great Bible which lay just inside the door, but it was all in flames when I seized it. I had only a glimpse of an open page and upon it a black figure with outstretched arms, and then the whole crumbled to ashes.”
“So there is a fitting end to Jeremiah Macrae,” said Stephen, “one that would have pleased the old Puritans most mightily. Now we need never again think of that evil prophecy of his.”
“I saved something further,” went on the man, “for at my house I have—”
“Hush,” whispered Stephen, as Clotilde came up the path toward the cottage door, her head drooping, her eyes upon the ground. “We will talk of that matter no more. The little maid grieves so sorely over the loss of the house and garden that I like not to speak of it before her. What you have you must keep for a space, since here we have no room for aught beside our immediate needs. So do you guard my rescued property until I ask for it.”
So the old man went away, shaking his head sadly over the listless greeting that Clotilde bestowed upon him when they met at the door. It was true indeed that she thought of little else but Master Sheffield’s loss and grieved so, that all the people of Hopewell who knew and loved her looked after her in despair when she passed by.
“The maid is fair sick with her sorrow,” they said to each other. “One would think she were of Master Simon’s own blood, so stricken is she.”
Although Clotilde was not of Master Simon’s race and kindred, she loved his memory as dearly as though she were. There was not one story of the staunch old Puritan and his brave children and grandchildren that she had not heard Stephen tell a dozen times. And now to see perish that precious work of Master Simon’s own hands, the garden that had bloomed through four generations—it was seemingly a greater grief than she could bear. Gone was the bed of blazing tulips that every year renewed the memory of that first coming of the Indian ambassadors, gone were the rows of herbs that had soothed and healed so many ills, burned to a few blackened twigs was the huge hawthorn bush that Master Simon had grown from a tiny slip brought from England. Roses, hollyhocks, lilies, fair maids of France, all had their stories and all were dead. More than once Clotilde had slipped out, in the dusk of the autumn twilight, laid her cheek against the charred bark of the linden tree and sobbed out her grief alone.
“It was all the fault of that wicked Scotch minister,” she burst out one day to Stephen. “That his prophecy has been fulfilled and the garden destroyed and even his likeness burned, makes me think that he was, as people used to say, in league with the Devil!”
“No,” returned Stephen quietly, “he was a man trying to do good according to his own lights and he spoke with shrewd good sense, although perchance he knew it not. Such a person as Master Simon, who dared to stand against narrow public opinion when he knew himself to be right, who taught his children and his grandchildren to do the same, did he run so little risk of bringing danger upon himself and upon that which he left behind him? Master Simon loved freedom and justice, so do all of us who are of his blood, so do the children of those bold Puritans who lighted the fire of a new liberty upon our shores. It is that same fire, my child, that has burned through four generations, and has spread over our whole land. If, upon its way, it has scorched our hearts, and has robbed us of what we loved, let us not cry out, but rather blow the bellows and keep the flame bright so that our sacrifice may not be in vain.”
Clotilde pondered his answer long and found it both wise and comforting.
Meanwhile the slow siege of Boston dragged on, and people began to say that the war would be begun and ended in a contest between General Howe and General Washington as to which one could wait the more patiently. News leaked out that supplies were becoming woefully few in the city, now that Washington had drawn his lines more firmly and no more bands of marauding redcoats had been able to break through. As the cold weather came on, the activity of the busy housewives was redoubled in the effort to keep well supplied the shivering soldiers of the Continental Army. Clotilde stood at her spinning-wheel, or sat all day at the loom that had been left in Samuel Skerry’s workshop ever since the time of the bold Puritan weaver who had built the house. Here she laboured from dawn to dark, while Stephen, when he was not writing in his own tiny room, would sit near her in the big armchair, sometimes reading to her to make the toilsome hours pass more quickly. He himself was very busy in these days, however, for many a messenger clattered up to the door, and many important documents went in and out of the little house or were locked away in the cupboard where Skerry had hidden his gold. Stephen had had the little windows protected with iron crossbars and heavy locks put upon both the doors, so that no pilfering fingers should break in to steal the state secrets of the new country. There were many important meetings in the room upstairs, while Clotilde sat alone below, whirring her busy wheel, looking out through the little barred windows at the falling snow, and dreaming of Master Simon’s garden when it was green and fair. Now and then a scribbled letter from Miles would reach her, but as the boy was sparing of written words, he gave her little news of himself. The first real tidings of him she received when David Thurston brought a letter for Stephen and stayed to consume, with great delight, one of Mother Jeanne’s hot mutton pies.
“You can tell Master Sheffield when he comes in,” he said, for Stephen was out and did not return while the man was there, “that David Thurston has taken his advice and is doing his own part as a fighting man instead of sitting by the fire telling of what he would do were he King George. It is sometimes a weary and a hungry task, this siege of Boston, but all of the Hopewell lads are doing their share bravely. Our young Miles Atherton is a Captain now: heard you of the deed he did just before Christmas?”
“No,” exclaimed Clotilde. “What was it?”
“He is, indeed, a wonder of daring,” Thurston answered, “for he ventured into Boston in a huckster’s garb and brought forth his cousin, Betsey Anne Temple, and her daughter. Lone women they were, the older one ill, and both suffering much from the hardships of the siege. Miles has leave to visit Hopewell soon, so he will perhaps tell you the tale of his adventure himself, but, being so modest, he will not let you see how bold a stroke it was.”
After the man had gone, Clotilde stood dreaming beside her wheel, forgetting to wind the spindle or take up another roll of wool. She was proud of brave Miles, proud that he should risk himself on such a chivalrous errand, and a little envious still that he should do such things and she must bide at home. She longed to see him and tell him how well she thought he had done. It was not until she heard Stephen’s slow footstep on the path outside that she remembered herself and her task, and fell to whirling her wheel around as swiftly as though it had wings.
Some days later she heard the story from Miles himself, who came whistling up the path to knock at the door of Master Sheffield’s new abode. Stephen, sitting in the big armchair, rose to greet him cordially and bade him take his place on the settle on the opposite side of the fire. Clotilde was just coming in from the kitchen as Stephen was saying:
“These are brave accounts that we hear of you and your gallant rescue of your Cousin Betsey Anne. We are all proud of you, lad.”
The girl could not, at that moment, see Miles’ face, but she noticed that his ears turned suddenly the colour of flame and she heard him mutter,
“I would that people did not make so much of so small a thing!”
“Nay, but it was no small deed,” insisted Stephen, “and the risk was really great, as we all know. There is no hope of success in your effort to make light of what you did, the grateful tongue of your Cousin Betsey drowns all you can say.”
“It is so,” answered the boy with a sigh. “Did you ever know a woman so feeble of body, yet so untiring of speech? I sometimes think it is small wonder that the British were so willing to let her pass.”
“For shame, Miles,” laughed Clotilde, coming at this moment round the corner of Stephen’s great chair. “You do a gallant deed and then seek to spoil it by such ungallant words.”
Miles’ face lighted happily as he rose to greet her, but dropped once more into gloom as he sat down again. For a few moments he remained silent, gazing into the fire, and then burst out into hurried and determined speech.
“You cannot know, Master Sheffield,” he said, “how terrible it is to be praised by all for a deed whose memory brings me only rage and shame. People call me brave when really I have done nothing save to prove that I am the greatest and most blundering fool in General Washington’s army. I came hither with the firm determination that you, at least, and Clotilde, should know the truth of this adventure, since to you alone I can speak freely. Ah, I could beat my head against the wall when I think of what a booby I have been.&rd............