November came, and with it began that season of bitter and piercing cold, to be known, as long as history books tell the tale, as the Valley Forge winter, the most severe that America had known in nearly a hundred years. The snow fell early and lay so deep and so long that people began to wonder if Spring were ever to come again. Never before had such black and destroying frosts been known, so that, had not the women and children brought in an abundant harvest, had not the wheat sheaves been full and golden and the shocks of corn piled high in the barns, the time would have been a desperate one indeed.
Yet none of those at home had leisure for complaint; the thoughts of all were centered upon the little dauntless American army, those gaunt determined soldiers shivering among the hills and ravines of Valley Forge. Would they come through the winter with strength enough left ever to fight again? Would the warm, comfortable, well-fed British army leave its safe shelter in Philadelphia and sally forth to destroy them at one blow? Time only could tell and time dragged, oh, so slowly, as the winter months went by.
The roads of New England were so deep in snow, the cold so intense and so terrible that, through the midwinter, Stephen was forced to forego his journeyings. At the end of January, however, a difficulty arose that haled him forth again. Andrew Shadwell, the wealthy and influential Tory who dwelt in the next town, had gathered about him a considerable company of his own kind, the number beginning to grow so great that their presence was a threat against the peace of the community. People said that the nest of Loyalists was plotting all sorts of evil, and demanded that the enemy be driven out. The Tories, in turn, loudly complained that they were persecuted and had done no wrong. Each party was afraid of the other and neither dared to move first. It was to confer with the authorities in Boston in this matter, and to try for some peaceable settlement of the trouble, that Stephen set out one cold, glittering January morning, when the dry snow creaked under the horses’ hoofs, and their breath rose in twin columns of steam as they pawed and snorted before the door.
“I have no reluctance in leaving matters in your hands,” he said to Clotilde, as he bade her good-bye in the hall.