Again, at William's persuasion, the General came home to Mulberry Hill. An expert horseman, everybody in Louisville knew Captain Clark, who, wrapped in his cloak, came spurring home night after night on his blooded bay, with York at his side, darkness nor swollen fords nor wildly beating storms stopping his journey as he came bearing news to his brother.
"I have ridden for brother George in the course of this year upwards of three thousand miles," wrote the Captain to his brother Edmund, in December, 1797, "continually in the saddle, attempting to save him, and have been serviceable to him in several instances. I have but a few days returned from Vincennes attending a suit for twenty-four thousand dollars against him."
These long journeys included tours to St. Louis, Vincennes, Kaskaskia, among the General's old debtors, proving that the articles for which he was sued were for his troops, powder and military stores.
"The General is very ill again," said father Clark, walking up and down the entry before the chamber door. The old man's severe countenance always relaxed when he spoke of "the General." Of all his children, George Rogers was the one least expected to fall into dissipation, but now in rheumatic distress, old before his time, George Rogers sometimes drank.
"Cover him, shield him, let not the world witness my brother's weakness," William would say at such times, affectionately detaining him at Mulberry Hill.
Glancing into the dining-room, the white-haired cavalier noticed Fanny and her children and others sitting around the table. Preoccupied, the old man approached, and leaning over a chair delivered an impressive grace.
"Now, my children, you can eat your dinner. Do not wait for me," and again he took up his walk in the entry outside the chamber door. A smile wreathed the faces of all; there was no dinner; they were simply visiting near the table.
With children and grandchildren around him, the house at Mulberry Hill was always full. At Christmas or Thanksgiving, when Lucy came with her boys from Locust Grove, "Well, my children," father Clark would say, "if I thought we would live, mother and I, five years longer, I would build a new house."
But the day before Christmas, 1798, the silky white hair of Ann Rogers Clark was brushed back for the last time, in the home that her taste had beautified with the groves and flowers of Mulberry Hill.
More and more frequently the old cavalier retired to his rustic arbour in the garden.