In spite of his being unable to resume his long journeys from Colony to Colony, his share in the public affairs was still very great. Many grave men of high importance came to consult with him, and every day, it seemed, messengers arrived with packets of papers or great sealed official letters that must be delivered in all haste to Master Sheffield. While the answers were being made ready, the men would sit before the kitchen fire, refreshing themselves with Mother Jeanne’s substantial good cheer and giving, in return, news of what was going on in the world outside Hopewell.
Clotilde, when her services as scribe were not needed in the study, loved to stand by and listen to the strangers’ talk, of how such and such a man had been put in jail for refusing the King’s officers the right to search his house for smuggled goods, or of how such and such a ship had been turned about and sent back to England because the Americans would not pay the tax on her cargo of tea. With one conclusion the tale invariably ended, no matter who it was that spoke to the little audience gathered in the kitchen.
“If I were the King,” the men would always say, or “if I were William Pitt,” or “if I were Governor of Massachusetts, I would do such—or such a thing and all would be well.”
Once Stephen interrupted an address of this kind, when he came to the kitchen door himself, the completed letter in his hand.
“There is much you can do in your own person, David Thurston,” he said quietly. “This is a time when every man must act for the public good without waiting until he become Governor or Prime Minister or King George the Third.”
“God bless you, Master Sheffield, and I will strive to do as you say,” the man replied. He went away laughing, but with a new determination in his rugged face.
A scarlet-uniformed soldier, bringing a letter from the Governor, sat upon the settle one day drinking gratefully, after his long ride, a great mug of home-brewed cider. He heard Clotilde speaking in French with Mère Jeanne and looked round at her in surprise.
“How come you to speak that tongue as though you were born to it?” he asked. “There are not many of you New Englanders who have learned French.”
“We are Acadians,” Clotilde told him, “and still cling to our own speech, although it is many years now since the brave English soldiers drove a harmless people from their homes.”