Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker Part 12

I can see her coming toward me under the trees, grave and quiet and sweet. The great beauty, Sarah Lukens, who married in mid-war the gallant Lennox, used to say of my mother that she put some sugar into all her moods; and it was true. I have seen her angry. I had rather have faced my father in his wildest rage than her. Why was she not angry now?

She had vast reason for displeasure. After men have become wise enough to understand woman, I protest there will remain the mother, whom no man will ever comprehend.

"What a beautiful day, Hugh! And you had a good swim? was it cold f Why may not girls swim? I should love it."

Next she was beside me on the gra.s.s, my head on her bosom, saying, with a little sob, as if she had done some wrong thing:

"I-I did not choose it, dear; indeed I did not. It came in order with the day, as your father reads; and I--I did not think until I began it, and then I would not stop. It is strange for it to so chance. I wonder where that prodigal's mother was all the while? Oh, you are better than that wicked, wicked prodigal. I never would have let him go at all--never if I could have helped it, I mean. _Mon Dieu!_ I think we women were made only for prayer or for forgiveness; we can stop no sin, and when it is done can only cry, 'Come back! come back! I love you!'"

If I cried on that tender heart, and spoke no word, and was but a child again, I am sure that it was of all ways the best to tell her that never again should she be hurt by any act of mine.

"See, there is Judith at the door, wondering where I am," she said, "and what is to be for dinner. I must go and get ready the fatted calf. Ah, I would not have left one alive. Yes, yes, I can jest, because I am no more afraid, _mon fils_, nor ever shall be."

Upon this I would have said something of my deep shame, and of the swine among whom I had wallowed.

"No," she cried; "_c'est fini, mon cher_. It is all over. The swine will eat alone hereafter." She would hear no more, only adding, "As for me, I want to be told once how brave I was. Jack said so; indeed he did. I _was_ brave, was I not?"

"Don't, dear mother! please! I cannot bear it." Somehow this plea, so childlike, to be praised for what must have cost so much, quite overcame me.

"Yes, yes," she said; "I understand thee, and I shall always. How strong thou art, _mon fils!_ I was proud of thee, even in that sty of pigs in red coats. And he behaved like a gentleman, and hath wondrous self-command. I would see him again; who is he?"

I told her his name.

"_Que c'est drole_. That is curious. Thy cousin! No doubt we shall see him to-day, and thy father. I shall tell him all--all. He must know."

"Yes, he must know," I said; "but I will tell him myself."

"He will be angry, but that is part of thy punishment."

Then I told her, too, I had lost an hundred pounds, as I believed, and she said:

"That is, after all, the least. There are pearls of my sister's I never wear. Thy aunt must take them and pay this debt. Go now to thy business as if nothing had happened, and I will send thee the pearls by Tom. No, no; it is to be as I say; I must have my way."

What could I do? I kissed her, and we parted. I made no promises, and she asked for none. I like to think of how, after all, I left with her this sense of quiet trust.

I have said that the daily march of events never so influenced my life as did critical occasions. This was surely one of them. I do not now regret the knowledge of a baser world which I thus acquired. It has been of use to me, and to some with whose lives I have had to deal.

Of the wrath of my father, when I humbly confessed my sins, it is not needful to speak at length. For business calamities he was ready enough, and lacked not decision; but in this matter he was, as I could see, puzzled. He strode up and down, a great bulk of a man, opening and shutting his hands, a trick he had in his rare moments of doubt or of intense self-repression.

"I know not what to do with thee," he said over and over; "and thou didst strike the man, thy cousin? Well, well! and hurt him, I am told?

And he did not return the blow!"

I had not said so. Thus I knew that other busy tongues had been at work.

For my life, I could not see whether he looked upon the blow as my worst iniquity, or deep in his heart was hardly grieved at it.

"Thou didst strike him? I must consider of thee; I must take counsel.

Go! thou wilt bring my gray hairs in sorrow to the grave." And so I left him, still striding to and fro, with ever the same odd movement of his hands. He took counsel, indeed, and for me and for him the most unwise that ever a troubled man could have taken. It was some days before this unpleasant scene took place, and meanwhile I had seen my aunt.

She was taking snuff furiously when I entered, and broke out at once, very red in the face, and walking about in a terrible rage. My mother used to say that the first thing one saw of my Aunt Gainor was her nose.

It had been quite too much of a nose for the rest of her face, until gray hair and some change wrought by time in the architecture of her fine head helped to make it more in harmony with the rest of her features. Somehow it arrested my attention now, and Heaven knows why it seemed to me more odd than ever.

"This is a fine repentance indeed! What are you staring at, you fool?

Here has been that wild curlew, Bess Ferguson, with an awful tale of how you have gambled and lost an hundred pounds, and half killed an unlucky cousin. Who the deuce is the man? A nice G.o.dchild you are! A proper rage I am in, and Dr. Rush tells me I am never to get excited! You should hear Mrs. Galloway; duels and murder are the least of her talk; and, upon my word, you know no more of the small sword than of--I know not what. I must send you to Pike for lessons. When is it to be?"

"My dear aunt," I cried, "I wish all these Tory cats of yours were dead!"

At this she broke into laughter, and sat down.

"Cats! and didn't they miaow! That sweet girl-boy, Jack Warder, has been here too; sent, I suppose, by that dear Jesuit, your mother. How he blushes! I hear you behaved like a gentleman even in your cups. I like the lad; I did not use to. He is a manly miss. Sit down, and tell me all about it. Bless me! how hot I am!"

Upon this I knew I had won my battle, and went on to tell the whole story. When I produced my pearls, of which I was horribly ashamed, she broke out anew, declaring we were all mere traders, and did we think her a p.a.w.nbroker? and ended by giving me an hundred pounds, and bidding me to be careful and pay at once, as it was a debt of honour. "As to the pearls, let Madam Marie keep them for thy wife."

Thus ended a sorry business. It was to be told, and I have told it; but none, not even my mother or Jack, knew how deep a mark it left upon my character, or how profoundly it affected my life.

My friend Jack shall say the requiescat of this chapter of my life, which I have so unwillingly recorded. There was one more thing needed to complete its misery. Says Jack:

"Hugh Wynne and I fell apart this last winter of '72 and '73. It was my fault." This I do not understand. "Came then that hideous night in April, and all the rest; and Hugh I saw the day after, and begged him to forgive me because I had so easily deserted him. I took him later a kind message from Mr. James Wilson; for our small city knew it all. Friends looked at him as one disgraced, except Friend Rupert Forest, who, to my amus.e.m.e.nt, seemed to enjoy to hear the whole story, saying, 'Alas!

alas!' and yet, as I saw, far more pleased than distressed. It brought to my mind the battle he had set us to fight out when we were boys. For a week or two Hugh was dispirited, but after that, when the colonel had called, and his cousin, Arthur Wynne, began to be more and more with him, he took heart, and faced our little world, and would let no one, except myself, say a word to him of the time of his downfall; this I think I never did, save perhaps once, and that long after.

"There was no need to preach. Converted devils make the best saints. I never was as good as Hugh, because I lacked courage to be wicked. Hugh was no saint, but he drank no more for a long while; and was ever after moderate. As to cards and dice, it was much the same."

What Jack has here written is all nonsense. He was a better man than I, and never was nor could have been a bad one.

IX

I have said that one event had to be recorded before I completed the story of that episode of which I was weary of hearing. My father--and it was against all his habits in regard to most matters--reminded me almost daily of my misdeeds. He hoped I did not drink any more, and he would even look at the square flasks on the shelf to see, as I suspected, if they had been used. To be prayed for was worst of all, and this he did more than once. It was all of it unwise, and but for my mother I should have been even more unhappy. I can see now that my father was this while in distress, feeling that he must do something, and not knowing what to do.

In his business life there had always been a way opened, as Friends say.

He did not see that what I needed was what it was not in his nature to give, and thus it came about that we drew apart, and perhaps neither then nor at any later time were, or could ever have been, in the kindlier relation which makes the best of friendships that of the grown-up son with the elderly father.

At last, after a month or more, when it was far on in June, he ceased to trouble me, and to walk up and down, opening and shutting his hands, as he recounted my sins. He had reached an unfortunate decision, of which I was soon to feel the results.

In the mean time my cousin, Mr. Arthur Wynne, had come into very close intimacy with all our family circle. As he had much to do with my later life, it is well to return a little, and to detail here what followed after the night of my mother's visit to the coffee-house.

Next day, in the evening, came the colonel of the Scots Grays, and desired to see me in the sitting, room, my father being still in Lancaster.

"Mr. Wynne," he said, "Captain Wynne has asked me to call in reference to that unhappy business of last night. He begs to make his excuses to Mrs. Wynne in this letter, which may I ask you to deliver? And after this action on his part I trust you will see your way to regret the blow you struck."

I was quiet for a moment, feeling that I must be careful what answer I made. "I cannot feel sorry," I said; "I do not regret it."

"That is a pity, Mr. Wynne. You should remember that Mr. Arthur Wynne could not have known who the lady was. A blow is a thing no gentleman can, as a rule, submit to; but this has been discussed by Sir William Draper and myself, and we feel that Mr. Arthur Wynne cannot challenge a boy of eighteen."

"I am twenty," I replied.

"Pardon me--of twenty, who is his cousin. That is the real point I would make. You have the best of it. You were right, quite right; but, by St.

George, you are a hard hitter! Mr. Wynne would have come in person, but he is hardly fit to be seen, and a sign-painter is just now busy painting his eyelids and cheek, so as to enable him to appear out of doors."