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.