New England -- Juvenile fiction; United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 -- Juvenile fiction
“Whatever her age and size, she has done a woman’s work since the war
began,” said Stephen. “And as for your height, my child, sigh not over
that as being unlike the others. Radpaths, Bardwells and Sheffields, we
are all proud to call you one of us!”
At which speech, Clotilde first dropped him a stately curtsey and then
ran across the room to throw her arms about his neck.
It was a long, long time, as the Doctor had feared, before the young
English officer made even enough progress on the road toward health to
warrant them in hoping that he could be brought the whole of that
toilsome way. Many weeks it was before his fevered mind became wholly
clear, or the Doctor would permit his being questioned as to who he was
and whether there was really reason for his resemblance to the portrait
in the dining room. Upon the first day that he sat up, however, he put
all doubts to an end by giving a full account of himself. Not only did
he prove to be of Stephen’s kindred and the grandson of Amos Bardwell,
but his surname was the same as Master Simon’s. His mother had married a
distant kinsman of Master Simon’s and the boy’s name, therefore, was
Radpath, Gerald Radpath.
“And I am as proud of my Puritan ancestor as any of you Americans can
be,” he said to Stephen and Clotilde as they sat beside his bed. “I have
heard from my mother all the tales of that far journey among the Indians
and how his daughter and my own grandfather, Amos Bardwell, dared to
stand firm at the witch trial. But my knowledge of scenes and places was
vague, having come through so many hands and I never dreamed, that night
when I found Mademoiselle Clotilde that the place of our meeting was the
shoemaker’s cottage and that the snow-covered scene of my disaster was
Master Simon’s famous garden.”
“But how could you,” burst out Clotilde, “if you were of Master Simon’s
blood, draw your sword against the Colonies and maintain the unjust
cause of the King?”
Stephen held up his hand in warning against the speaking of such
vigorous reproaches to a man weak and ill and propped up among his
pillows for the first time. But Gerald Radpath only smiled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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