“There are travellers from Salem riding into the inn yard,” she heard some one call. “Come quick to hear the news of the Star of Hope. John Ashby is with them; he says that some men have come all the way from London on her. She is the first ship from England.”
Housewives coming to their open doors re-echoed the cry.
“The first ship from England!” they called to one another. “Now indeed will more prosperous times begin again!”
Sternly Clotilde took her way to the farthest corner of the garden, where a tangle of wild blackberry and sweetbriar had grown up, and where once had stood King James’ Tree.
“I can transplant the sweetbriar,” she was telling herself. “It used to grow outside the window where Gerald—what am I saying, where Master Sheffield loved to sit. I believe—”
Oh, what was that sound—horse’s hoofs coming down the lane, a pause for dismounting, a creak of the gate! Whose were those feet on the path behind her coming so quickly? She dared not look round, she could not. She felt suddenly weak and giddy; the trembling of her knees forced her to catch at a branch for support.
“Little Mademoiselle,” said a voice behind her. “What is the matter? Do you know me only in a scarlet coat?”
What happened then all Hopewell might have watched unforbidden, had not all, most fortunately, been occupied with other matters.
“For shame,” said Clotilde, finally freeing herself and realising, of a sudden, where they were. “How can you do so, here by the highroad, where every person in the town can see?”
“I care not who sees,” responded Gerald cheerfully, “but if it will save your blushes, we will go into the Queen’s Garden.”