In her laughter over Miles’ hearty disgust with himself, Clotilde, for a little time after his visit, forgot to grieve over the ruined garden. But when Spring came and there were no bright daffodils nodding by the gate, when the covering snow melted and showed once more the charred wreckage of the burned house, when the hedges displayed only a few green twigs coming up from the roots, and the linden tree, long after the whole green country was in abundant leaf and blossom, still stood a blackened skeleton against the sky, then her grief awoke afresh.
In the kitchen garden, the apple trees and the row of beehives beneath them had by chance been spared. Yet to see the apple trees blooming alone in a black and desert waste, to watch the bees flying about in bewilderment, looking for flowers that had once yielded such generous honey, was worse, almost, than to have had all perish together. Clotilde had need, through these days, of all her courage and of all Stephen’s shrewdly comforting sayings, to keep up even a show of cheerfulness.
Two great events, however, the Spring brought, which were of equal and joyful importance to the people of Hopewell. One was the abrupt departure from Boston of General Howe and all his soldiers, British and German. Early in March they had embarked upon their war vessels, had hoisted sail and cleared the port of Boston with loudly expressed hopes that they would never be so unlucky as to see it again. Many of those wise prophets who are always ready to tell any one who will listen, just what things are going to happen, protested loudly that the war was over and began to criticise General Washington for not sending his soldier boys home. But, strange to say, this eagerly offered advice seemed to fall unheeded upon the Commander’s ears and the Continental forces still remained under arms waiting for the next move.
The other event was the rebuilding of Master Stephen Sheffield’s house. By an odd chance of war that brings about so many unexpected happenings, the same hands that had burned it down were busied in building it up again. Many of the Hessian prisoners taken the same night of the burning had been quartered all winter in the Hopewell jail, much to their own discomfort and that of every one else. The village place of imprisonment, very little used of late, was now fairly bursting with the captives of war. The officers had been exchanged, but the German privates remained, a sore responsibility, although it must be owned that they were patient, tractable and showed no eagerness to escape. Those who had them under guard were glad to put their charges to work, while the prisoners themselves were delighted to labour in the open air at a trade in which many of them were skilled. Mustered into the army of some small German ruler, enrolled against their will, bewildered but yet obedient, they had been hired out to fight an enemy of which few of them had ever heard. After fighting that foe conscientiously, thoroughly and to the best of their ability, they were quite as willing, when so ordered, to labour for their captors with the same silent, heavy industry.
Stephen, during his stay in England, had learned to speak German, a language used about the court as much as English. When he went among the toiling workmen and spoke to them in their own tongue, it was pleasant to see the stolid faces light up, to see the men’s eyes grow brighter and their hands become more nimble in their enthusiasm to labour for the “gn?dige Herr.”
In July, when the bells in the town pealed out the thrilling tidings that Congress, in the face of reverses and threatened defeat, had dared to declare the Colonies, “free and independent,” amid the cheers of Hopewell there went up many a sturdy German voice. Once it was explained to them what the great news meant, there was no cap tossed higher than theirs and no cheer more earnest than their deep, resounding “Hoch!”
“For,” as one of them explained to Stephen, “it is the first time we have dwelt in a country where men dared speak out what they feel, therefore why should we, though we be prisoners, fail to cry our joy with the rest of you?”
And Stephen had smiled and cordially shaken the German’s great rough hand.
There was no lack of material for the new dwelling, since that was amply supplied by the ships sent out to raid upon the English commerce. Among them was the Mistress Margeret, built by public subscription and bearing the famous mainmast made from King James’ Tree. These raiders had brought in more than one brick-laden vessel, carrying its cargo to some Tory planter of Georgia or Carolina, who had planned a new dwelling with no thought of a long-lasting war. The loads of bricks, of tall, white, fluted pillars, carved mantels and door-lintels were sold at auction in the seaport towns of New England and many of them bought by Stephen’s agents. Some wealthy Loyalist of the South, no doubt, looked long and anxiously out to sea that year, wondering why the duly ordered material for his new house never came to port and little guessing that, far off in New England, there was rising upon the site of Master Simon’s rough little cottage and Roger Bardwell’s big white-painted house, a mansion such as had never been seen in that neighbourhood before.
Had this rebuilding meant the outpouring of money needed for other things, Stephen would have lived to the end of the war, and longer, in Samuel Skerry’s little cottage. But material, as has been said, was abundant, and many a poor man, beside the Hessians, stood sorely in need of work. Mother Jeanne frowned often over Stephen’s threadbare coat and rusty hat, but she could persuade him to spend no single penny upon himself, when all of New England was in want.
“Monsieur pays those idle workmen twice too much,” she would storm, for she had become a privileged character in the household and was suffered to speak her mind with blunt directness when her feelings became too much for her. “He is of such a poverty himself as to his clothes, that, were it not for his gold-headed cane, no one could tell which was master and which was man!”
“Our coats are of a like shabbiness, I own,” Stephen would return, untroubled, “but there is one further difference; the man needs the money at this moment and the master does not.”
Day by day, therefore, the house went up. The big white stone steps were the same that Roger Bardwell had had put in place, and the wide chimney was that one that Master Simon had built for his first dwelling, but beyond these all was to be new, the walls this time being built of clear-hued mellow brick instead of wood.
“When the house is done,” Stephen said to Clotilde, “and all this tramping to and fro is at an end, we will turn our labour to the garden and see what we can make of that,” but at this she only shook her head sadly.
“It will never be the same,” she sighed. “There are no ship-loads of shrubs and flowers coming from England and those that Master Simon planted have perished forever.”
“Be not too sure of that,” Stephen answered with a smile, but Clotilde refused to look at the matter hopefully.
By autumn the dwelling was ready for occupation and a splendid half-new, half-familiar place it seemed. Stephen had bought only such material as the ship-owners had to sell and had spent only such money, in the building, as would help his fellow townsmen. Therefore the house was only half finished, with carving and panelling in one apartment and bare rafters in another, with rough wooden shutters where windows should have been and walls of unsmoothed boards in many of the bedrooms. The big drawing-room was completed, however, with its white cupboards and panelling and long casement windows opening to the east. In the hall a great carved staircase with a white balustrade and mahogany handrail wound up to the second floor. The round window on the landing encircled, like a frame, a far view of rocky capes, scattered islands and broad, blue sea. Here Clotilde loved to kneel upon the cushioned seat and watch for hours the whirling gulls, the blue October sky and the sunlight on white, swiftly-moving sails.
When the word went forth that Master Sheffield’s house was at last completed, the doors of Hopewell opened and out came, in long and straggling procession, those household treasures that the friendly souls of the town had risked their lives in rescuing. There were framed pictures, from the huge, heavy portraits down to the little sampler over which Margeret Radpath had pricked her fingers on the very day that first she laid eyes upon Roger Bardwell. There were the old bits of pewter that had belonged to Mistress Radpath when she was a bride, there was the bowl that was Samuel Skerry’s unwilling marriage gift, there was the wonderful silver service given to Stephen when on his mission to England. There were rolls of homespun linen sheets, Stephen’s own armchair, and Clotilde’s little polished spinning-wheel. Much, of course, had perished in the flames, but so much had been saved that Stephen, Clotilde and Mother Jeanne could only wonder, rejoice and forget what was gone beyond recall. Last of all there stumped up to the door—where the silver knocker set by Paul Revere once more shone resplendent—that same old man who had told Stephen the tale of the burning. Fumbling in his pocket, he brought forth a velvet case which he put into Clotilde’s hand.
“Since I am so old and awkward, there was little I could save,” he said, “but I spied a cupboard standing open and this within, so I carried it home to be kept safe for you and Master Sheffield. This whole long winter, when there was little fire on my hearth and starvation waiting, seemingly, only just around the corner, I used to get out this treasure and warm myself at the glow of the jewels. And it is proud I am to have something to bring to you when all the others are carrying their offerings hither!”
Clotilde snapped open the cover and found within the diamond star that had been given by the King of France to Stephen and by him to her. She had often thought of it, but always as lost beyond hope of recovery, so she gave, now, a glad cry of surprise and ran to show Master Sheffield that her greatest treasure had come back to her. The man would accept no thanks, nor consider it any merit that, in the midst of such dire poverty, his honesty had never been tempted by the shining stones.
“There would have been a curse on me, and a well deserved one,” he said, “had I even thought of keeping for myself that which belongs to you who have been so good to me.”
A great feast took place in Stephen’s house, a housewarming where all of Hopewell was made welcome. The occasion, although it should have been one of rejoicing, for was not Master Sheffield safe and sound in his own house again, was tinged with gloom, since the British had taken possession of New York and General Washington’s army was in retreat through New Jersey. Louder and louder were growing the criticisms of Washington, while many wiseacres were saying openly that he had not the ability for a Commander-in-Chief, and that Benedict Arnold should have been the man. Others, too, there were who said just as loudly that the war was over and the victory with the English, the same prophets who, six months ago, had wished to disband the army, since America was safe.
At the end of the evening, when the feasting was over and the guests were ready to go, Stephen Sheffield, standing upon the stairway above the heads of all the people, made a speech that many of those who heard forgot not to their dying day. He spoke first of the thanks that he owed them all, and, though his words were few, they were so simple and earnest that every one who had done him a service felt more than worthily repaid.
“But with my thanks,” he said, “is coupled a request, for I must ask you for a service greater than any you have yet done me. I beg that you speak no further ill of that heavy-hearted man who leads our armies, who with troops deserting, money lacking, food and clothing scarce and with winter close upon him, never admits defeat, and will still lead his men to victory. Not because he is merely a friend of mine do I ask you to abstain from evil-speaking of him in my house, but because he is the friend of all of you, fighting for you—and you—and you,” here certain of the guests hung their heads for, with unerring finger Stephen had pointed to the worst offenders, “and will you, by your idle words make his task heavier?”
It was a sober company that said good night and filed out through the great doorway. A dozen, at least, of the men present had been in Washington’s army, but, having enlisted for only a few months, had come home at the end of that time, vowing that they would risk their lives no longer in a hopeless cause. Among this number was David Thurston, although he had better excuse than the others, since his feeble old mother, who dwelt in Hopewell, was in sore need of his............