THE HAND ON THE LATCH
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.
“There are times,” he said at last; “times like these, when even that
which one would not sell for all the gold on earth must be freely given.
What Master Simon left to us seems well-nigh sacred, but the welfare of
our neighbours, is not that sacred too? People are suffering, some are
starving, and with every year that the war drags on the poverty grows
worse. My own fortune has been swept away by the hazards of the time; a
moment is very close when people will come to me for help and I will
have naught to give them. Shall a strip of meadow land, a blossoming
hedge and a memory of Master Simon be more to us than our love for our
people?”
“No,” agreed Clotilde, but with a sob; “no, you are right and he would
never have wished us to keep it. But oh, the very thought of it breaks
my heart!”
On Stephen’s next journey to Boston the transfer was made and a good
half of Master Simon’s garden passed into the hands of Ephraim Paddock,
the wealthiest and most close-fisted man in all of Massachusetts. Having
in view the building of docks and warehouses at the water’s edge, a plan
that could not well be carried out at once, he graciously granted, as
part of the terms of sale, permission that Stephen Sheffield make use of
the land until building should begin. Therefore the meadow still yielded
its harvest for the feeding of the poor, while its purchase price was
spread broadcast to give clothing and shelter to those who were in need.
November came, and with it began that season of bitter and piercing
cold, to be known, as long as history books tell the tale, as the Valley
Forge winter, the most severe that America had known in nearly a hundred
years. The snow fell early and lay so deep and so long that people began
to wonder if Spring were ever to come again. Never before had such black
and destroying frosts been known, so that, had not the women and
children brought in an abundant harvest, had not the wheat sheaves been
full and golden and the shocks of corn piled high in the barns, the time
would have been a desperate one indeed.
Yet none of those at home had leisure for complaint; the thoughts of all
were centered upon the little dauntless American army, those gaunt
determined soldiers shivering among the hills and ravines of Valley
Forge. Would they come through the winter with strength enough left ever
to fight again? Would the warm, comfortable, well-fed British army leave
its safe shelter in Philadelphia and sally forth to destroy them at one
blow? Time only could tell and time dragged, oh, so slowly, as the
winter months went by.
The roads of New England were so deep in snow, the cold so intense and
so terrible that, through the midwinter, Stephen was forced to forego
his journeyings. At the end of January, however, a difficulty arose that
haled him forth again. Andrew Shadwell, the wealthy and influential Tory
who dwelt in the next town, had gathered about him a considerable
company of his own kind, the number beginning to grow so great that
their presence was a threat against the peace of the community. People
said that the nest of Loyalists was plotting all sorts of evil, and
demanded that the enemy be driven out. The Tories, in turn, loudly
complained that they were persecuted and had done no wrong. Each party
was afraid of the other and neither dared to move first. It was to
confer with the authorities in Boston in this matter, and to try for
some peaceable settlement of the trouble, that Stephen set out one cold,
glittering January morning, when the dry snow creaked under the horses’
hoofs, and their breath rose in twin columns of steam as they pawed and
snorted before the door.
“I have no reluctance in leaving matters in your hands,” he said to
Clotilde, as he bade her good-bye in the hall.
“I will do what I can,” she answered, “although the best thing that I
could accomplish would be to keep you at home.”
“No, no, child, there is no danger in this journey,” he said, “but,
should this brewing trouble break out while I am gone—well, well, there
is small use in such misgivings! I will be back again in four days and
little can happen in that time.”
Clotilde watched him ride away through the clear, keen, frosty air and
wished, for the hundredth time, that she were a man and could go with
him.
“What are spinning and weaving,” she sighed aloud, “and sewing and
baking, beside what men can do?”
But spinning and weaving and baking must be accomplished if the war were
to go on and the patriot soldiers be clothed and fed, so she ran quickly
into the house, tucked up her sleeves, put on her big apron and began
the labours of the day.
Two evenings later, just as the early winter dark had begun, there came
marching up the long driveway to the house, a little band of blue-coated
soldiers. Their young Lieutenant bore a letter from Stephen, explaining
that these men, stationed at Salem, had been sent forward at once, but
if there were no immediate disturbance near Andrew Shadwell’s, they were
to await the coming of a larger body of troops from Boston. He begged
that Clotilde would see to it that the men supped well before they went
on to the empty farm-house a mile or two from Hopewell, where it had
been arranged that they camp for the night.
There was much hurrying and scurrying, you may be sure, in the getting
ready of an abundant meal for so many hungry fighting-men, a great
clattering of dishes and stirring of pots. Huge fires roared up every
chimney in the house while the men gathered close about the hearths to
warm their cold hands and half frozen feet.
“Men say there is surely trouble to come over these rascal Tories,” said
the Lieutenant, as he sat in Stephen’s chair at the head of the table
and eyed joyfully the smoking platter that Clotilde set down before him.
“It is even rumoured that Andrew Shadwell has been petitioning the
British Commander to send a company of redcoats to escort him and his
friends out of the country. He knows that, as it is, if he tries to
escape the whole neighbourhood will be upon him like a nest of hornets.
But the English soldiers have too much to do elsewhere, and, influential
as our friend Andrew is, I doubt much if they will listen to his plea.
Certainly no such measures can be taken for some time.”
When at last the grateful guests, warmed, dry, well fed and greatly
cheered in heart, had marched away and the remains of the supper had
been cleared from the board, Clotilde bethought her of a task that had
been nearly forgotten in the hurry and excitement of the soldiers’
coming. A great bale of woollen cloth, for the making of army coats, was
to be sent from Hopewell next day, but her share of the weaving had, in
the press of other things, been left unfinished on the loom in Samuel
Skerry’s cottage. Only a yard remained to be woven, therefore, she
decided, she could slip over to the little house and finish the work
that it might be carried to the Town Hall in the morning. Leaving word
for Mère Jeanne, who was used to her labouring late in the weaving-room
and would not lie awake for her, she wrapped herself in her old cloak
and slipped out into the white, silent night.
Old Jason heard the door creak, came hurrying out to remonstrate against
her going alone and finally insisted on following her across the fields
to the shoemaker’s house. Here he built a great fire on the hearth in
the workroom, drew the curtains close and sat down to wait, while
Clotilde climbed to the high bench before the loom and presently filled
the whole cottage with the monotonous sound of the swinging heddle.
“Jason,” she said at last, seeing that the old man was worn out by the
unwonted business of the day and was drowsy and nodding in his chair,
“there is no need of your waiting here. I have worked in this place at
night a score of times and have come to no harm. Go home and to bed: I
have the key of the little side door and will come just so soon as this
web is done.”
“Yes, Mistress,” answered Jason, rising obediently, too sleepy either to
reason or object. He stumbled out, closing the door behind him, and left
Clotilde alone to a silence broken only by the crackling of the fire,
the whirring of the shuttle and the creaking of the loom.
“I suppose I should get down and lock the door after him,” she
reflected; but just at that moment a knotted thread caught her attention
and held it until, presently, she forgot all about the big iron key
sticking, unturned, in the lock.
She worked on busily, so absorbed in the finishing of her task that she
had no thought of time. She was singing a little song to herself as she
pressed the treadle and flung the shuttle back and forth, she was
thinking of Stephen who must be already on his way back from Boston, she
was thinking of Miles in his little wind-swept, bark-roofed hut at
Valley Forge.
At last she brought her weaving to an end, cut off the length of cloth
that she needed and was climbing down from her seat holding the great
roll in her arms. She was still singing her little song when, she
scarcely knew why, she stopped in the middle of a word with a sudden
catching at her throat.
“It is nothing. It is nothing. Why should I be afraid?” she said to
herself over and over again.
None the less her heart was beating so loud that it almost drowned the
slight noise of footsteps in the snow outside the door, and the sound of
a hand fumbling at the latch.