“to my dear foster-child, called clotilde lamotte, but who, if she carries out my wish, will call herself clotilde sheffield until she changes that name for another, i leave all my possessions in and near the town of hopewell and in her especial charge i place that plot of ground that has long been called master simon’s garden. i leave behind me no directions as to how she is to care for that garden, since i know that she will tend and cherish it as lovingly as would i myself. i give her with it my blessing and i bid her be of good heart and not disappoint master simon.”

it was this portion of stephen’s will, read to her by the staid old lawyer, that made clotilde smile, even through her tears. “not to disappoint master simon” had been a byword between herself and her dear master sheffield whenever the world looked dark and it seemed hard to face the future with courage. so, with as brave a spirit as she could muster, she set out to fulfil his wishes.

there was still much, so very much hard work for her to do. although the surrender at yorktown had marked the practical end of the fighting, the negotiations for peace had dragged on, the country could not settle down and want and poverty must still be bravely faced. the little town of hopewell, while it looked more cheerful and began to wear an air of greater prosperity, was still full of women who had lost the mainstay of their families, of men whose means of livelihood had been swept away, of others wounded or suffering who needed a hand to set them on their feet again. from cottage to cottage clotilde went, giving freely of her help in advice, money and the products of her lands. the time had not yet come for the finishing of stephen’s house or the replanting of master simon’s garden.

at length the peace-treaty was signed and ratified by congress, the last winter of dire poverty went by and with the spring the colonies of america began the task of setting their affairs to rights and forming a new government. many jealous eyes were watching them from across the seas, for all the world was saying that, though americans might know how to fight for freedom they had no wisdom in the matter of keeping it. their good friend france had helped them to win their battles, but she had no power to aid them now. ah, how sorely was stephen sheffield missed at this crisis and how much he could have done to smooth the rough road of the blundering nation. not only those nearest to him, but also many of the great men of the country mourned the fact that stephen sheffield’s calm, clear, tolerant mind could not assist in this great task.

miles atherton did not come back to hopewell until the last company of soldiers had disbanded and until general washington had gone back to mount vernon to become a plain country gentleman again, instead of the greatest man of his time. then it was that clotilde’s old play-fellow came back to sit with her in the garden once more, to tell her that he was to make one more journey, to explain hesitatingly that this was to be a momentous one indeed—in short to unfold the whole story of the quaker ladies.

“all through that terrible winter at valley forge,” he said as, little by little, she drew the tale from him, “the soldiers used to talk of some one whom they called the ‘little quaker lady.’ no one had ever seen her close, for she used to come like a little grey shadow, slipping past our outer lines and then running away into the dark again as though she were a ghost. but what she left behind was apt to be far from ghost-like, such baskets of wonderful good things, such fat capons, such eggs and butter and fresh cream cheese! you would have to be a half-starved soldier to realise what her gifts meant.”

“well,” smiled clotilde encouragingly, as miles paused, “surely all your raptures are not merely concerning what she brought you to eat.”

“no,” he answered. “i was only thinking of how i began to tell you of this when i was here before, and of how my unwonted talkativeness betrayed me to master sheffield and how he laughed at me. i am glad now that he did guess my secret and that i have the memory of the good wishes that he gave me. no,” he went on, returning to his tale, “if it had not been for a chance happening, i would have had no raptures nor ever known more of the quaker lady than that her hens laid most wondrous fresh eggs.”

“most eggs are fresh when laid,” clotilde reminded him, but he assured her that none could ever be compared to those roasted over the coals of a campfire in the wind-sheltered hollows of valley forge.

“i was doing sentry duty one night,” he continued, “for officers took their turn as well as privates, so short-handed were we. i had built a little fire, just so that my comrades would not have the sorrow of finding a frozen man at my post when they came to relieve me. suddenly i thought that i heard, above the crackling of the flames, a sound of footsteps on the frozen snow, and to make sure, i dropped a branch of fat pitch-pine upon the coals. there was a quick flare of light and i could make out, not ten paces from me, a little dark figure in a quaker bonnet and cloak. for a single second i saw her face plainly before the flame died down. she cried out when she found that she had been discovered, dropped her burden and fled away into the shadows. how the men chided me when i carried the basket into camp and told my story; they feared that she had been too badly frightened to return and besides four of the precious eggs were broken.”

“but she did come back?” clotilde said eagerly.

“yes, but so shyly and secretly that i did not see her again all through the winter. i watched eagerly enough, of that you may be sure, but it was not until spring that i met her again. i had wandered one day far from our valley, farther indeed than was thought safe, but so frantic was i to see something green after all those months in the barren camp, that i had no thought of where i went. i told you once of the meadow and the little clear stream with its banks blue-grey with the close-growing quaker ladies; i did not tell you that, as i was hidden for a moment behind a clump of willows, the little quaker maid herself, in her blue-grey gown and with her hands full of flowers, came walking along the farther bank. when she saw me she would have run away again, but i—i persuaded her to remain.”

clotilde laughed quietly. it was hard to picture slow-spoken miles standing on the bank of the stream, trying to beguile the shy quaker maiden on the other side into waiting to talk to him. but into the life of even the most silent of youths there comes always an instant of eloquence, and this, it seemed, was miles’ great moment. he sat shaking his head over the wonder and glory of it even now.

“and did general washington have to send a squad of soldiers to bring you home again?” she asked him at last.

“not quite,” replied miles, blushing but laughing at himself at the same time, “although i admit that there was almost necessity for it. i came to the meadow again and yet again, where she would come to meet me. i began to feel—oh, clotilde, how it does steal upon you unawares!”

poor clotilde felt a sudden fierce stab at her heart. how it did, to be sure, come unawares and never go away again!

“at last our army marched forth from valley forge,” he went on, “and she, just as master sheffield guessed, was peeping through the window to see us go by. her father was a prosperous farmer, not averse to our side of the war, but more willing to sell his produce for the english gold than for the worthless paper money that bought our supplies. had he ever known how many of his good things went into the larder of the american soldiers, i fear it would have gone hard with his daughter.”

“it must have been difficult to see her after that,” clotilde observed.

“most surely it was,” he said with a sigh; “there were but brief visits snatched as our army went back and forth. i was nearly captured more than once, but several times brought back information that was of use to our commander, so i never received the reprimands that i well deserved. there would have been no captain radpath to set me free this time had the enemy laid hands upon me. by the way, have you heard aught of him since he sailed for england?”

“no, nothing,” she answered hastily, and turned the subject quickly. “and so now the war is over, you are going to be wedded? oh, miles, i am so glad!”

“in two short months,” he told her joyfully, “and there will be the end of midnight rides and secret meetings in the meadow. then she will be here always and nothing to come between us. oh, if you could but know how happy i am!”

she could well measure his happiness, she thought, by her own great loneliness, but of that she could not speak. she was too fond of her old playmate not to feel a glow of pleasure in his joy, and she made him happier yet by the earnestness of her good wishes. he went away through the gate at last, his joyfulness running over for all the world to see, as he beamed delightedly upon every one he passed.

in spite of her good share in miles’ happiness, the world seemed now very empty and forlorn to clotilde, for mère jeanne had slipped away during the dark, stormy days of the winter and had left her adopted child to face life all alone. only stephen’s last request, “not to disappoint master simon” availed to keep up her failing courage. she had a new task before her this spring, one to which she could turn unhindered at last, since starvation no longer threatened the poor of hopewell. and so, with a heavy heart, she bent her energies to the replanting of master simon’s garden.

“but it will not be his garden now,” she reflected drearily. “it will be a place like any other, since i who plant it am not even one of his own children. all that belonged to him has perished utterly.”

when the place was ready, however, when the old beds had been dug and the former lawns sown with grass again, she bethought her of at least one flower that she could plant and know it was still master simon’s. up on the forest hillside was that wonderful group of daffodils, set out by his hand and waiting all these years to return to the garden whence they came. with old jason beside her, she toiled through the muddy lanes and up through the wood, where buds were bursting on the trees and mayflowers were opening under the dry leaves. there she found what she sought, the dear yellow flowers, flinging their gold down the slope like long drifts of spring sunshine. two great basketfuls they brought home, and set the sturdy plants in a long row by the fence where daffodils had always grown since the first year that the colony was settled.

and then there began a miracle, so it seemed, a wonder wrought only by simple love and friendliness, but a miracle just the same. she was lingering over the task of putting the last clump of daffodils in place when through the gate came young giles thurston, twelve-year-old brother to the good soldier david. to his house more than to any other she had gone, during the years of want, and had given help when otherwise starvation would have come very close.

“please, mistress,” said giles, laying upon the ground a great awkward bundle that he had been carrying in both arms, “i heard that you were planting your garden and i have been wishing so much that i might bring you something to grow there. our own garden is bare and planted with turnips and cabbages of which you surely have enough already, but up on the hill is a tumble-down empty cottage with a rose vine growing all over its broken walls. my mother says that an old woman named goody parsons used to dwell there a long, long time ago and that the rose once grew in master simon’s garden. see, i have brought you a root of it. mother put a slip into the ground the very first spring after your garden was burned. and here, too, is a part of goody parsons’ hawthorn bush that i think must also have come from master simon.”

poor old goody parsons, dead so many years and gone to that heaven that was to be like hertfordshire, how she would have rejoiced to know that her memory still lived and had offered back the gift that master simon had given.

most joyfully did clotilde accept what the boy had brought and together they went quickly to find the very place where the former plants had grown. they set the rose below the easement window of the drawing-room and the hawthorn bush close to the edge of the queen’s garden.

“now,” exclaimed clotilde, “though all the rest be only mine, i can feel that part of the garden at least still belongs to those who planted it.”

giles thurston was not the only one, however, who had an offering to bring. nearly every day some woman would present her with a bag of seeds, saying:

“these are of the pink and white hollyhocks that have flourished in our dooryard ever since mistress margeret bardwell gave my grandmother the first plants.”

or a man would stop at the gate to say:

“i have carried hither a clump of sweet-william that perhaps you may like to have. it is a matter of pride with us that master simon himself gave the first plants to one of our family. they say he brought them from england.”

so it went on, stephen’s flowers, alisoun’s, margeret’s and master simon’s all were to be found growing somewhere, so many had been the gifts and so grateful the friends who had received them. fraxinella, wallflowers, peonies and fair maids of france, all were there to grow anew in memory of the brave old puritan and his children. clotilde dropped a few tears as she set out the fair maids of france. what a long, long time it was since stephen had found her sitting beside the bed to sing to them, how swift the years had been and how happy until so little a time ago!

the most wonderful gift of all came at the very end of the replanting. it was brought by the minister of hopewell, who since the very beginning of the war had been away and had only just now come home again. what he gave her was a little bag of gold and an old, torn yellow letter.

“these were left in my hands,” he explained to clotilde, “by the pastor before me, who had received them in turn from the man who came before him. it was only as i was on my way home that i heard full news of the burning of the garden and realised that the assistant that i had left here did not know that the letter had to do with just such a disaster. indeed, so old is the trust that i had well-nigh forgotten it myself.”

clotilde, standing by the open window in stephen’s study, slowly opened the worn, yellow missive. it bore the crabbed signature of samuel skerry and contained these words:

“if ever simon radpath’s garden be destroyed, i know now that it will not be god’s judgment, as jeremiah macrae has sought to make us think, but that it will be the work of evil alone. therefore, in the hands of the minister of hopewell i am leaving this money, the half of all i have, so that if that living memorial to master simon should come to harm, this will help to build it up again.

“i might have known that i could not hate him forever, might have realised, when in a fit of jealous rage i sought to destroy his garden that it was of no use. a garden such as his, that is planted in the hearts of his fellow men, can never perish. as i have sat at my cobbler’s bench through all these years, toiling for my living in an alien land, i have fought against the thought of master simon and of all the good he did to me and to others, but i have fought in vain. the memory grew and grew within my heart, choking out my evil and bitter thoughts, just as his clumps of blossoming plants used to grow until there was no room left for weeds. so i have come back to do what justice i can at last ere i die, and to struggle through the snow to look at his gravestone where he sleeps up yonder on the hillside. i would that i had earned, like him, such peaceful, true repose.”

the tears rained down clotilde’s cheeks as she refolded the letter. so that was why samuel skerry, old and broken as he was, had travelled all the way from holland to new england, spurred by his longing to make amends for the wrong that he had done.

the minister emptied the contents of the bag upon the table.

“it is not a very great sum,” he said, “but the little shoemaker’s penitence should make it equal to all the riches in the world.”

“it will buy back the land that, in the necessity of war, had to be sold,” answered clotilde, “the land that master sheffield valued at just that sum—all the riches in the world.”

thus it came about that the strip of meadow land running down to the sea became once more a part of the garden, and its blossoming hedge that had escaped the fire, bloomed, that spring, for clotilde and for hopewell and not for tight-pocketed ephraim paddock.

by this time every flower bed and border was filled again, the may sunshine had brought out the apple blossoms and the linden leaves, had quickened the growing hedges and made green the grass of the queen’s garden.

“another year,” reflected clotilde, rising from her task of setting out the last plant, “and the place will be all itself again.”

she was working near the hedge that separated that part of the garden from the lane, and as she stood there, surveying her handiwork, she heard two men talking together as they passed on the other side of the bushes.

“they say there is a ship from england come to anchor in salem harbour,” said one. “john ashby rode up to see her, as she is partly his, the star of hope. she was caught in an english port when war began and has been held back by the winter storms ever since the peace was declared. she is the first vessel to come to these parts from england since the war ended.”

“ay,” said the other. “john ashby must be a glad man. it is a happy sign for all of us when ships ply the seas again between the old country and the new. i wonder what she carries!”

he could not have wondered so much as did the little maiden who stood on the other side of the hedge, her heart beating as though it would choke her. a ship—from england! no, no, he would not come, she must not let herself believe it. through all the long morning she forced herself to go on with her work, and very badly indeed was it done, for her thoughts were upon one subject to the exclusion of all else.

the shadow of the sundial had dwindled almost to the marking of noon, when she heard feet in the lane again, the running feet of men and boys, hurrying past and up the hill.

“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.”

so there under the linden tree, clotilde listened to just such words as alisoun bardwell had heard there also, the same that margeret radpath had hearkened to in the schoolhouse lane, words that had opened the gates to such far-reaching happiness. the thin shadow of the sundial passed the noon mark, stretched its dark finger across one figure and then another on the circle of the dial. still they sat there, while clotilde learned how gerald had gone away in silence on account of that unlucky letter from miles, of his restless unhappiness in england and his inability to hide at home when he heard of an american ship setting sail for a port so near to hopewell. of how miles had met him at the gate of the inn and, so full of joy that he could not keep his news to himself, had told of his approaching marriage. whatever gerald might have already planned to do or say, if indeed he had plans at all, had at once been swept away in his instant desire to reach clotilde with all the speed he might.

“i wish that dear master sheffield might have known of our happiness,” said clotilde as he concluded his story, “or might at least have seen that it was to come.”

“perhaps he did,” returned gerald, “for when i went away he gave me samuel skerry’s lucky penny and said, ‘it will be the best good fortune of all, lad, when it brings you back to us.’ so here it is and here am i, and it is on this side of the water that i am going to abide for the rest of my life. the war is over, king george’s quarrel with the colonies is settled forever and i can, with all honesty, throw in my lot with the americans.”

clotilde had much to tell also, of stephen’s death and mère jeanne’s, of the unhappy, dragging years of the war, of the final beginning of peace and prosperity, and of the replanting of the garden.

“and see,” she cried joyously, pointing to the beds already green with growing plants and to the rows of blossoms that had come out in all their spring bravery of colour just as though they knew the soil had once been their real home, “is it not a marvel that master simon’s garden has so come to its own again?”

“it is indeed,” replied gerald soberly, “and it stands only for the greater miracle that you have wrought, you americans. wonderful things beyond the mere planting of flowers have been done by those who dwelt here. of all the tales told me by my own grandfather and by master sheffield i like best the story of how master simon saved the french priest at such great risk to himself, yet would not flee from peril because, as he said, ‘i have planted a garden here in the wilderness and i must abide to see what sort of fruit it bears.’ ah, such a garden as he planted in this new world, he and his kind, sowing the seeds of liberty and justice and freedom for all! their children and their children’s children have tended what he planted, master sheffield and his good comrades have carried the seed far, and here is the fruit at last, a new country for a free people. i wonder at you all, little clotilde, at you and at the line of my forbears. why did all that work so prosper, both here in your garden and in the world without?”

“master simon knew why,” answered clotilde simply.

she led him down to the sundial and lifted the trailing vines that grew so close about the pedestal. there she showed him the words that master simon’s hand had carved about the edge of the circle, cut so deep and so long ago, for posterity to read at last:

“i have planted, you have watered, but god gave the increase.”