“Very soon now, I hope,” she answered, “but we must go carefully and do all that the good doctor says.”
It was Sergeant Branderby, pale, aghast and trembling, who had carried Stephen up to his room upon that terrible day; it was the same stout soldier, beaming and jubilant, who bore him downstairs the first morning that he was able to leave his bed. Established in a great armchair on the columned verandah, Stephen held court among his youthful friends, who came running down the lane from the farthest ends of the town at the news, “Stephen Sheffield is out again.”
After they had all gone home the boy leaned back in his chair and looked up at his good friend the Sergeant, who had never left his side through all the coming and going.
“I had forgotten,” Stephen sighed, as he looked out over the garden, “that leaves could be so green or sun could shine so bright. And I feel so well that surely by to-morrow I can run down the path and see what time it is by the sundial.”
“Not just to-morrow, I fear,” objected Branderby. Then, seeing the boy’s face clouded with disappointment, he added, “Suppose I come in a day or two and carry you down yonder to the harbour’s edge, where you can sit all day on the warm sand and watch the full blue tide come in.”
“Ah, that will be famous,” exclaimed Stephen, “and then perhaps the day after that I can run in the garden again. It tries my patience sorely to be still so long!”
The morning after this brought Stephen another visitor, a long looked-for and most welcome one. During the night a big ship slipped into the harbour and early next day a brown-faced, smiling man came striding up the path and knocked at the door. Mistress Sheffield, who opened it, flung two joyful arms about his neck crying:
“Amos Bardwell, but it is good to see you, lad!”
This, then, was Stephen’s Cousin Amos, the same who, when he was a little boy, had figured so bravely in the witch affair. Although he was a sea captain now and dwelt in England when he was ashore, he visited Hopewell as often as it was possible, and was Stephen’s most well-beloved playmate in spite of the difference in their years.
“Now,” he said, when he was seated at the boy’s bedside, “what is this I hear of your climbing King James’ Tree in defiance of the British Army and then falling out of it through turning to gape after a retreating enemy? We must have no more of such doings.”