A brown-faced pedlar, his heavy leathern pack sagging wearily from his shoulders, took his shambling way down the winding streets of Hopewell and, knocking at every door, offered for sale his stock of needles, thread, bobbins and silk laces. Although at other times such a trade was apt to be brisk and few housewives generally failed to bring forth their pennies and sixpences, now he was met with frowning looks and peremptory shakes of the head, wherever he stopped.
“We have no business with your like,” said one old woman, scarcely pausing in her spinning as his stooped shadow fell across her threshold, “we know your real errand and will have none of it.”
He next made a detour across the fields and came to Samuel Skerry’s little cottage where Clotilde still used the loom and kept her spinning-wheels and where she and Mother Jeanne were at work that morning. If he had any doubts as to the reason of his cold reception at the other houses, all such were swept away when the old Frenchwoman stood up in the doorway and spoke her mind.
“Begone from here,” she cried, “think you that there is one of us who has not heard of the business that you are about, that you, a skulking Tory, and a dozen like you are marching over the whole countryside, telling people that the cause of America is lost and warning them against enlisting in General Washington’s army? You can go back and tell your master, Andrew Shadwell, that our General could go forth alone with his sword in his hand and drive all the redcoat armies and German hirelings and Tory Loyalists from the country. But he shall have no need so to do, for his army is growing every day, thanks to the recruits New England is sending him. It will not be long before they and our brave General will force you and your like to flee beyond our borders. So, good sir, go ply your trade elsewhere.”
The man made no attempt to stem this tide of eloquence, spoken half in English and half in French, but apparently entirely understood by the object at which it was directed. He stole away without attempting any reply, his shifty little black eyes first taking in every detail of the cottage and all that was to be seen within it. His look, Clotilde thought, was one of most evil threatening. She drew a breath of relief when at last his bent form and great pack disappeared at the turn of the lane.
“Do you think it was quite wise to anger the man so, Mère Jeanne?” she questioned, as the older woman, very red in the face, came back to her seat by the loom.
“It is time that some one told those rascals that we understand their evil work and will have none of it,” replied Mère Jeanne heatedly. “New England is full of them, spreading false reports of lost battles, disaster to our armies and the hopelessness of further effort. That Andrew Shadwell is at the bottom of all, yet no one can prove his part in it. Yes, I did right to speak just so to him.”
“I am not so sure,” returned Clotilde gravely. “I liked not the look he gave us before he turned away, and do you know, Mère Jeanne, I think he was of our race.”
“I thought of that too,” said the old woman, “and I blushed for our kind, although we need not call him a fellow-countryman. He is one of those renegades who are half French, half Indian and wholly the Evil One’s. The English have been trying to make use of them, but little good will come of it. That poor-spirited animal can never do us harm!”
“I trust not,” said Clotilde with a sigh, and went back to her work. There was so much to be done, it was scarcely worth while wasting time in dread of what might happen. Too much was already happening every moment.
It was true that, whatever highways and byways the Tory pedlars travelled in New England, their efforts against the cause of Liberty were of little avail. No matter where they went, Stephen Sheffield had either been before them or came after to undo their work. People listened to him eagerly wherever he went; he stopped at cottage doors, he spoke in market places, he held meetings at country crossroads and convinced men everywhere that now, if ever, they must throw all they had into the struggle for freedom. And everywhere men heard him, they turned away to say good-bye to their wives, to shoulder their old muskets and set forth to join General Washington.
“Alack that I am too old to go,” said one richly dressed and elderly gentleman who stood listening to Stephen’s speech before the door of an inn. “I would indeed that I were a young man again!”
“If you can not go, you can give,” responded Stephen quickly. “How can these lads go to the war unless we at home promise to see that their wives and children do not starve?”
The old gentleman looked at Stephen’s shabby coat, the one over which Mother Jeanne had wrung her hands even last year, and at his threadbare ruffles and said nothing, but went home to do his part. He remembered that before the war the Sheffield estate had been called the wealthiest in Massachusetts.
“I verily believe that Stephen Sheffield would melt the head off his cane if he thought it would help,” he chuckled as he unlocked his money box.
People who knew Stephen and were aware of how frail he was at the outset of his campaign, could now see that he was worn to little more than the ghost of a man, fired and kept alive only by the passion of one purpose. Even strangers and the rough-mannered country folk could see how he was spending his last strength in this mighty effort for the success of the war.
“You may think,” he said in one of his speeches to a gathering of men before a blacksmith’s shop, “that it scarce seems right that I should ask you to go into danger when I stay behind myself.”
“Nay,” returned one of the men bluntly, “it is not hidden from our eyes, Master Sheffield, that you too are laying down your life in the cause.”
Stephen answered him with a happy smile.
“It is the least that any of us can do,” he said, “but I am hoping that Heaven will grant it me to see the end of the war.”
To Clotilde, Stephen, when he went away, had left a heavy task.
“Once we had a few poor people in Hopewell to care for,” he told her, “now all are in want and you must do your best to see that they do not suffer.”
So Clotilde, young as she was, took up the burden and carried it well. Master Simon’s empty garden was ploughed from end to end and planted with cabbages, turnips, beets, potatoes, anything that would give food to the hungry and could be stored away for the winter. Wheat and barley and rye now grew where once a smooth strip of greensward had extended down to the harbour’s edge, while the sturdy women and growing boys of Hopewell were taught to turn their bits of land to similar account.
“We will let the men see that we can bring in as good a harvest as they,” Clotilde told the women, whereupon Nature seemed to bend herself to helping their efforts by giving them a fair and prosperous season.
All through the summer and autumn, Stephen’s time, for the most part, was spent in his journeyings throughout New England. Prospects began to brighten as Washington’s army gathered strength. In October came the wonderful news of Burgoyne’s surrender back in the wilderness of the Hudson valley, where he had been harried and driven up and down the whole summer long. Stephen chanced to be at home when the tidings came.
“Yes,” he said with a smile, as he and Clotilde sat in the porch talking of the good news. “Washington made the victory possible by holding back the British troops that were to have aided Burgoyne, Benedict Arnold brought about the surrender by his gallant fight in the forest, and now General Gates receives the British Commander’s sword with a bow, and apparently all the credit is his. That is the way of war.”
“Will this mean the end of the fighting, do you think?” asked Clotilde. “They are saying in the village that King George will see now that there is no hope for him.”
“Bless you, my child,” answered Stephen, “this is the first time, probably, that His Majesty, King George the Third has fully realised that the war has begun.”
They sat there for some time in the falling darkness, both busy with their own thoughts. Finally Stephen, with a visible effort, spoke again.
“There is a rich merchant in Boston, Clotilde, who desires to—to buy the lower half of our garden, that strip of land that goes down to the water’s edge.”
“Oh, no,” exclaimed the startled girl. “Surely you would never sell it! Is it not enough that the trees and flowers are gone, must we also lose the land itself? What can a man in far-off Boston want with our garden? Oh, how can you speak of such a thing?”
“He offers what he calls a good price,” pursued Stephen steadily. “He does not know, poor stupid fellow, that all the wealth in the world could never repay us for the loss of what once belonged to Master Simon.”
“Then you will not part with it?” she asked hopefully.
Stephen paused before he spoke again.
“Th............