in the end the old doctor was neither wholly right nor wholly wrong. stephen was never again the square, sturdy lad that he had been before his terrible illness, but none the less he grew through an active boyhood and became a busy, useful man. if it ever was a bitter pain to him to see other boys swim and run and climb in a way that he could never do again, no one had known of it save perhaps his mother, or his good friend sergeant branderby who had so long ago returned to england. his hopes of being a soldier or a sailor were destroyed forever in that single moment when he slipped from the pine tree branch; instead he became a lawyer and made so brilliant a record that he should have had small time to grieve over vanished dreams.
while he was still little more than a boy he became the most honoured member of the hopewell community; long before his hair was grey he began to be spoken of as one of the great men of the colony. what master simon had been to his own little town, stephen was beginning to be to all new england. governors and king’s officers sought his advice, merchants and ship-masters and labouring men of every kind and degree laid their perplexities before him. that he was esteemed the wisest man in all massachusetts was denied by no one save stephen himself. with honest sincerity he laughed at all allusions to his greatness and thought of himself only as a humble man of law.
“if i have had good fortune,” he used to say, “it is because of the shoemaker’s luck-penny. if people come to me it is only because they know that i am a hampered fellow and cannot well go to them. it is kindness of heart and that alone that brings a portion of the great world past my doors.”
it was a strange and motley procession that went in and out of the great house, for half of his guests were dressed in frieze and homespun, while the other half came clad in satins and velvets and gold-laced scarlet coats.
gone now were the old times of rigid economy and stern simplicity among the puritans. men wore bright-coloured uniforms, lace ruffles and great powdered wigs, while the women, with their jewels, their patches, their high, red heels and long brocaded trains, were as gorgeously arrayed as the ladies of the english court. there used to be noble gatherings in stephen’s big dining-room, when the greatest men in the land sat about his board and the tall wax tapers shone upon the officers’ red coats and jewelled orders, upon the ladies’ powdered hair and diamonds and upon the more soberly rich garb of the wealthy massachusetts citizens. a throng of black-faced servants, themselves decked out in livery and powdered wigs, would wait upon the company and later conduct them into the long white-panelled drawing-room whose open windows looked out across the garden to the sea. or, if it were winter, the guests would gather about the fireplace which, although much of the house was new, was the same rough stone one built by master simon’s hands. amid this gay crowd of friends moved stephen, quiet-mannered and simply clad, the only ornament upon his dark coat a diamond star given him by the king of france.
that was a time, also, when the garden bloomed in greater glory than it had ever known before. those to whom stephen had done good, and these were a countless legion, could give him nothing in return in the way of money or high office, for such rewards he did not want. but the royal governors could send him costly fruit-trees from their english estates, poor sailors could bring him rare plants from foreign lands and his good friends of hopewell could offer him the best they had of flower or fruit. the gardener used to say that master sheffield gave away so many plants and flowers that soon there would be nothing left, but that is the usual talk of gardeners. this one, with his acres of many coloured blossoms could not say, generous as stephen was, that the danger of stripping the garden was a great or an immediate one.
one portion was left unaltered, that planted by master simon; for beehives still stood in a row beneath the old, old apple trees, and daffodils in spring and hollyhocks in summer still bloomed in a riot of colour beside the white gate. the queen’s garden, too, was untouched by any change and here stephen came often to sit on the bench under the linden tree and to ponder upon the more and more grave problems that must be solved by those who had the welfare of new england at heart. troubled times were these, with greater difficulties plainly still to come. it was here that he was sitting, one summer day, knitting his brows over a letter with a great, red seal, when there came an interruption that was to mean much to all his after life.
the creak of the opening gate announced a visitor, its hurried bang as it closed again told plainly that the newcomer was in haste. looking up from his letter, stephen saw before him the town constable, his good-natured face clouded with perplexity, his brass-tipped staff, the badge of his office, held stiffly before him, a sure sign that public duty was weighing the good man down. he was followed by a middle-aged woman whose dark, weatherbeaten countenance was lined with grief and whose hair, under her odd, close-fitting starched cap was threaded with grey. she bore in her arms a bundle of what seemed to be nothing but delicately embroidered garments but which, suddenly beginning to stir and turn, revealed itself as a dark-eyed baby of possibly a year old. the woman dropped a deep curtsey and then stood waiting in silence.
“please, master sheffield,” began the distressed constable, “this woman is one of the exiles from acadia, who, as we all have heard, were landed seven days ago in boston and who have been wandering all through the colony. she has somehow come this far, but there is no one in the town who can tell what to do with her. she understands no word we say and, when i speak to her, only curtseys, weeps or breaks into some foreign jargon of her own.”
“from acadia?” repeated stephen. his clear eyes clouded at the name, for he knew and bitterly regretted the policy that had led british troops into occupying the french-speaking province of acadia, and into driving all the peaceable inhabitants into exile. hurrying them on board ship, they had sent them off anywhere and everywhere, in wild haste to be rid of them, little caring whether families were separated or children and their parents were lost to each other forever. stephen, very gently and kindly, spoke to the woman in her own tongue.
such a flash of joy as lighted up her poor worn face when she heard speech that she could at last understand, and such a flood of voluble french as she poured out when stephen had finished! the constable looked on in amazement and finally heaved a long sigh of relief.
“i might have known enough to come to master sheffield in the first place,” he exclaimed. “he always knows what is best to do!”
stephen, after talking a few minutes with the woman, turned to him.
“i will take the poor creature into my service,” he said, “there is need of another helper in the kitchen and there seems naught else to do with her. she can live, with the baby, in the cottage across the field yonder, it has been empty this year past. take her up to the house, if you please, good master constable, and tell the servants to give her a meal and something for the baby. and bid jason, who was with me in france and can speak a few words of her tongue, to go with her and show her where she is to abide. it is a good child you have,” he added in french to the woman, “is it a granddaughter or a grandson?”
“the baby is a girl, monsieur,” she answered, “but not mine. indeed i have no way of knowing to whom she belongs, for, just as i was being taken on board ship to be torn forever from my dear native land, i found this little one wailing on the beach, left behind, in the confusion, by the boat that must have carried away her parents. and i, who had lost all those belonging to me in the same way, gathered her into my arms and kept her with me through all the long, dreadful voyage. a good child she is indeed, and i have named her clotilde, after my own little daughter that died twenty years ago. may heaven bless you for taking pity on us and letting us bide where we can hear our own speech again.”
she was led by the constable up toward the house while stephen returned to his letter. it had to do with a mission to england that all the worthies of massachusetts were begging him to undertake. once before this, he had gone to france on a weighty errand for the people of the province. he had come back with the mission well performed, with the good will of the french people and with the diamond star that the french king’s own hands had pinned upon his coat. and now his comrades were asking him to take up a still more difficult task, to do what he could toward healing the growing breach between the colonies and the mother country.
even as sergeant branderby had said, kings and queens had grown to be of less value now, so that, with the fading loyalty to the crown, there had diminished the regard of the new world for the old. the dashing stuart kings had been beloved in a way, so had the simple-hearted, good queen anne, but these german princes who sat on the british throne, who possessed little power and who were half the time in hanover, what bond had they with the colonies? it was hard to be loyal to political governors, to the constantly changing ministers in london and to the parliament that was ever piling up new laws that bore heavily on america. it was, therefore, to mend these difficult matters that stephen sheffield was begged to go to england.
“ah, well,” he said at last, coming to the end of a long argument with himself, “my strength is not much, but if it is of any worth to my colony i may as well give it while i can.”
so it happened that the little cottage that had once been samuel skerry’s had scarcely received its new french tenants before the great mansion on the hill was closed and its master had sailed away to england. madame jeanne lamotte, or mother lamotte, as the acadian woman came to be called in hopewell, kept a watchful eye upon stephen’s house and the negro servants who had been left to care for it. for the rest of the time, she was busy scrubbing and polishing in the shoemaker’s dilapidated cottage, and tending the rapidly-growing clotilde. a merry, active little girl she soon grew to be, with yellow hair and great dark eyes, quick and dainty in her ways and looking, so the people of the village said, more like an infant angel than a foundling french child.
slow-sailing ships and slow-dragging politics kept stephen long away, so that it was more than two years before he returned to america. he brought with him, when at last he came, a priceless document, signed by his majesty king george the second, and, what was of far greater worth, by the new and powerful prime minister, william pitt, assuring the colonies of their rights and privileges for a time at least. but even now his travelling was not at an end, for he made long journeys up and down the seacoast, preaching a new political doctrine of which he had begun to see the desperate need, namely union for all of america. if the colonists were to guard their freedom, they must learn to act together, to band themselves into a nation of their own.
friends remonstrated when they saw how much more frail and ill he began to look, how hollow his gay blue eyes were becoming and how grey his hair. but stephen laughed like a boy at all they said, and put their warnings aside.
“grudge me not my share of the game,” he would say. “if the fighting comes, you that are staunchly built and mighty of limb will then have your turn and mine will be over. let me do my part while the time allows.”
it was only once during this long period that he saw the little clotilde. the meeting occurred one late afternoon when he was abiding for a day or two in his own house and had walked out into the garden to enjoy the coolness, peace and quiet beauty. guests were coming later among whom there would be much weighty discussion of urgent affairs, but now, for a little, there was rest and stillness.
as he passed down one of the grass-covered walks, he heard, behind the hawthorn bush, a sweet clear little voice singing an old french song. he turned the corner of the path and came upon the little acadian girl, sitting beside a bed of white and yellow flowers and looking not unlike them herself, so fair and dainty was she with her fresh white kerchief, her snowy apron and her bright golden hair. seeing stephen, she jumped up, quite unabashed, and dropped him a prim little curtsey.
“tell me, what are you doing here and what was it you were singing?” he asked with a smile.
“it was a french song that mère jeanne taught me,” was her reply, “and i come here often to sit by the flowers and sing to them.”
“you sing to the flowers?” he repeated, puzzled. “what leads you to do that and why to these especial ones?”
“the gardener told me that they came from our land,” she answered gravely, “and that the name men give them is ‘fair maids of france.’ so, since they are in exile as well as we, i come and sing my french songs to them, lest they grow lonely and weep as mère jeanne so often does.”
stephen held out his hand and took her tiny one into it.
“you are a very little maid to be so loyal to your country, and to your fellow exiles,” he said, “and you are young indeed to know the sorrows of banishment. suppose you lead me to that mère jeanne of yours, so that we may try to comfort her a little.”
that night master sheffield’s guests, although they were many and of high importance, had to wait in the long drawing-room, while their host, yonder across the misty field, sat on the bench before the shoemaker’s cottage and talked in french to mother jeanne lamotte. she, poor soul, had learned but little english and found black jason’s few halting words of french, very small comfort indeed. now that she could pour her heart out to one who could understand her native speech, it seemed as though she would never have done. stephen duly admired the neatness and strict order of her little dwelling but finally declared that it had grown too old and tumble-down for comfort and that she and clotilde must come to abide in the great house, where, since his sisters’ marriages and the death of his parents he lived alone save for the black servants.
“there is room in abundance,” he said, “and the little maid will help to brighten a place where all of us, master and men, are growing dreary and old together. would you like to dwell there, mademoiselle clotilde?”
“indeed i would,” she cried with joy, “for there are great wide rooms to play in and here are only four walls and a smoky chimney.”
mother jeanne reproached her severely for this criticism of their dwelling but stephen, laughing, insisted that she was right and that the change must be made at once. but when next day mother jeanne and clotilde gathered up their few possessions and carried them to the big house, they found the master gone again and for several months they saw his face no more.
he went and came much in the years that followed so that he and clotilde caught only fleeting glimpses of each other, yet learned, for all that, to be close friends. sometimes he found her racing about the garden walks with her boon companion, miles atherton, a sturdy, slow-spoken lad of hopewell, sometimes he found her going about her work in the big house, for she was nimble-fingered and industrious and began early to be a great help to her dear mère jeanne. there was one cosy winter evening when she sat on his knee before the blazing fire and heard the tale of king james’ tree and of sergeant branderby and learned how his two great pistols came to hang above the chimney-piece. upon another occasion, a warm summer morning when the linden tree was in bloom, he and she and miles atherton sat upon the bench in the queen’s garden while stephen told the two eager children the story of master simon and queen elizabeth, and of how margeret radpath and roger bardwell had, on that very spot, witnessed the french priest’s forbidden mass.
stephen told them too, one rainy day as they sat in his study, of jeremiah macrae and his still unfulfilled prophecy of the destruction of the garden. he even got down the great family bible and turned the pages to find that same picture that had struck terror to the heart of little margeret radpath, the figure of one of the prophets of old, standing by the city gate and crying forth a warning of the ruin and desolation that would come to the land. the tale laid such hold upon clotilde’s imagination that she dreamed that night of the ominous master macrae and thought for many a day thereafter of what he had foretold. so dearly did she love master simon’s garden and all that grew in it, that the very thought of harm coming to that dear place was more than she could bear. one day, some weeks after, miles came upon her with the great bible open on the table while she stared in terrified fascination at the picture of the prophet.
“surely you are not thinking of that story still!” exclaimed miles. “why the man has been dead and his words forgotten for nearly a hundred years. you do not think that what he said could really come true, clotilde?”
“n-no,” she faltered, closing the book with a great sigh, “i do not think his words could come true—but they might. i do not know what to think, yet i cannot put the tale out of my mind. when master sheffield comes home i will ask him whether i should believe it or not.”
“we will ask him,” returned miles sturdily, “but i will not credit such a dismal prophecy unless i must.”
clotilde would have given much to feel as he did, but could not put aside the secret misgiving hidden in her heart. she never let miles see her looking at the picture again, but she peeped at it more than once, none the less. quaint and rude as was the old woodcut, there was still something very earnest and very terrible about the face and figure that were supposed to resemble jeremiah macrae’s.
before stephen returned, however, the affair had very nearly drifted from her mind. there were long, long months now when the master of the house was from home, when she missed him sorely and when mother jeanne would shake her head and say:
“our good monsieur has not too strong a hold upon health. it will cost him his life if he does not give up these endless journeyings.”
there came an evening when stephen, after a long absence, drew rein before the door and dismounted, almost too weary to climb the wide, stone steps. it was to a nearly empty house that he came, for the servants had all gone to some festival in the village and only clotilde came running out to welcome him with a shout of joy, while mère jeanne stood smiling and curtseying in the doorway.
“there will be three men to sup with me,” said stephen, “so have all in readiness as soon as you can. and let my man michael, when he has carried in the saddle bags, eat and go to bed at once, for he is worn out with our long riding.”
“but yourself, monsieur!” mother jeanne ventured to remonstrate.
“no, no, woman,” he replied quickly, “i am not weary and have much work to do.”
the guests arrived presently, all three riding up to the door together. there was doctor thorndyke of hopewell in his shabby plum-coloured coat and muddy boots, and with him two strangers, one from boston, so clotilde gathered from their talk, and one from salem.
“we came in company,” said doctor thorndyke as he dismounted at the steps, “for our friend here tells me that a man rode after him half way from the last inn and that he fears some rascal may have got wind of the money that we carry.” he unstrapped his saddle bags and carried them into the house. “my faith,” he said, “but i am not often so valuable a man as i find myself to-night. i fairly jingle as i walk!”
mère jeanne, who was a famous cook, had prepared a supper fit for king george himself. clotilde waited on the company and received a nod and smile from doctor thorndyke who was her old and well-loved friend. when the meal was ended and she came to carry the plates away, she found that the dishes had been pushed back and that each man had produced a leather bag and had poured out on the table a stream of gold, silver and copper money. every kind of coin was there, clumsy pennies, silver shillings, spanish gold pieces of eight. when all was counted and piled in a heap together it made a sum that caused clotilde’s eyes to open wide and quite took her breath away. it was a strange sight, the pile of coins shining in the candlelight, the three eager faces lit by the yellow flame, with stephen’s white and weary one resting against the back of his big armchair.
“here, then,” she heard doctor thorndyke say as she was carrying away the last of the dishes, “is the money for our first fighting-ship, the gift of massachusetts to the united colonies. the sum has been generously given by rich and poor alike, for people are beginning to look a little into the future and to see that there will be need for such a ship and many others. it would have been a misfortune surely had we been robbed upon the way.”
“i can scarcely believe,” observed stephen, “that there is any one in the colony capable of such a deed.”
“we boast some precious rascals in our midst,” said the man from salem, “men who, if they would not do it of their own will, could easily be persuaded to the task by some one above them. i think that the authorities have got wind of our plan and, not daring to take so bold a step as to confiscate the money openly, would be glad to lay hold of it in some such way. however, the whole matter is a mere guess; there may have been no harm in the fellow who followed us. at any rate, we have arrived safely and the money for our ship lies here upon the table.” he filled his glass and held it up:
“gentlemen,” he said, “i give you the american navy.”
“i have a further gift to add,” said stephen as he rose with the others to drink the toast standing, “for i can see now that the great pine tree at the corner of my garden can be of better service than as a shelter to travellers on the king’s highway. it shall form the mast of our new vessel and shall put to sea flying the flag—of a new nation.”
a shout and a clinking together of glasses followed his words, but clotilde heard no more for she had gone out with her tray and the door had swung to behind her.
the night was warm and the long windows of the hall stood open into the garden, letting in the scent of heliotrope and wallflowers and the far-off sound of the sea. clotilde, a little weary with the bustle of unexpected preparations, set down her tray upon the sill and leaned her hot forehead against the cool pane. outside there was only starlight, but so clear was the night that she could make out the lines of the garden hedges and the narrow, winding walks. how strange, she seemed to see a darker shadow moving toward her among the flower beds, then another, and another! could it be the servants coming home?
in the dining room, stephen and his guests were leisurely returning the money to the leather bags and discussing as to the safest and quickest method of sending it to boston, when they were startled by the sudden crash of the window’s swinging back upon its hinges. a tall, dark-clad man climbed over the sill, levelling toward them the long barrel of a pistol. behind him, three more scrambled up and, similarly armed and similarly threatening, stood in a sinister row against the wall.
“hold up your hands, good masters,” ordered the first one, with an easy insolence that had almost the air of official authority. “you are dead men otherwise, so you may as well obey!”
the three guests did as they were told instantly, the doctor sputtering with rage and threatening the robbers with dire punishment. but stephen’s hands did not move.
“quick, sir,” commanded the robber. “have you no regard for your life?”
“i have,” replied stephen quietly, “but i have a greater regard for the people’s money that has been entrusted to my care. were it my own, i admit that i might give it up to avoid bloodshed, but as it is—”
there was a burst of flame from the robber’s pistol and a loud report. the ball cut through stephen’s coat sleeve and grazed his arm so that the warm blood came trickling down into his hand.
“now will you give up the money?” cried the thief as stephen reeled and caught at the back of the chair.
“no!” was his defiant answer. his only weapon was the ebony cane that was always near his hand, but with this upraised, he advanced upon his enemy. the masked robber lifted his pistol again.
“come, men,” he was saying.
“bang,” came a deafening crash from beyond the door. had a cannon been discharged within the house it could not have sounded louder. the thieves drew back and looked at each other dismayed.
“bang,” came a second explosion more terrific than the first. it shook the walls of the whole dwelling and was followed by the tinkle of breaking glass.
“it is the town watch!” cried one of the robbers.
out through the window they plunged, stumbling and jostling and falling over one another in their haste to escape. doctor thorndyke sprang forward in pursuit unarmed as he was, the man from salem was about to follow, but stephen held up his hand.
“let them go for the moment,” he said, “should they turn upon you in the garden you were surely a dead man. i will have my servant carry the alarm to the village and call out the town watch.” he sank into the big chair and his friends hastened to support his bleeding arm.
“open the door,” stephen directed weakly. “let us see to whom we owe our rescue. i am well-nigh certain that it was not the watch.”
it was doctor thorndyke who did his bidding, threw open the door and started back in amazement at what he saw. upon the threshold stood a dainty little maiden with golden hair and neat, white frilled apron. in either hand she held a great, smoking, horse-pistol.
“clotilde!” cried stephen. “where, in heaven’s name, got you such weapons?”
“they were sergeant branderby’s,” she replied simply. “there seemed naught else to do, so it occurred to me to climb up and see if by chance, they were still loaded. i regret that i broke a window and blew two great holes in the frame.”
“you are a brave lass,” exclaimed doctor thorndyke. stephen put out his unwounded arm and drew her to him.
“child, child,” he said, “the pistols might have burst and killed you where you stood!”
“that were no matter,” maintained the little girl stoutly, “so only you and the public money were safe. oh, oh, you are hurt!”
“it is nothing,” stephen assured her, although his face was growing whiter every moment. “here,” he continued, turning to the others, “is a generous enemy. although she is a prisoner of war and an exile from her own land, still she risks her life to preserve us from our foes. what say you to such a maid of france?”
“i say that her banishment should be at an end,” said the man who stood nearest, “and that she should be given, with all honour, a safe-conduct back to her own country.”
stephen had been fumbling in his pocket and now drew forth a key.
“unlock yonder cupboard, clotilde,” he said, “and bring me the velvet case that you will find therein.”
when the box was set upon the table before him, he opened it and showed the diamond star that, on great occasions, he wore pinned to his coat. he took it up and awkwardly, with his one hand, fastened it to clotilde’s dress.
“the gift of the french king,” he said, “finds its true place over a brave french heart!”
the three men bowed to the little girl who stood in awed and bewildered silence.
“clotilde, my child,” went on stephen, his voice growing suddenly strangely faint, “will you accept what this gentleman offers and can give you, a safe-conduct with mère jeanne back to your own country?”
“no, no,” she cried, finding her voice at last. “i do not wish to go. i want to stay here, with you, always!”
and springing forward she was just in time to fling her supporting arms about him as he fell back, unconscious, in his chair.
