Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker Part 13

The colonel treated me with the utmost respect, and, as a young fellow naturally would be, I was embarra.s.sed more than a little, but not at all dissatisfied with the condition of my cousin. I said awkwardly that il he was willing to forget it I supposed I ought to be.

"I think so," said the colonel. "Suppose you leave it with me, and in a day or two talk it over with him. Indeed, he is a most charming gentleman, and a worthy member of a good old house."

I said I would leave it with the colonel, and upon this he said, "Good-by, and come and dine with the mess some day, but don't hit any more of us;" and so, laughing, he went away, leaving me flattered, but with the feeling that somehow he had gotten the better of me.

My mother declared it was a beautiful letter, writ prettily, but ill-spelled (neither George the king nor our own George could spell well). She would not let me see it. I did years afterward. In it he spoke of me as a boy, and she was cunning enough to know that I should not like that.

It was a week before we saw Mr. Arthur Wynne. My father had meanwhile vented his first wrath on me, and I was slowly getting over the strong sense of disgust, shame, contrition, and anger, and had settled down earnestly to my work. I hardly recognised the man who came in on us after supper, as my mother and I sat in the orchard, with my father in a better humour than of late, and smoking a churchwarden, which, you may like to know, was a long clay pipe. The smoke sailed peacefully up, as I sat looking at its blue smoke-rings. How often since have I seen them float from the black lips of cannon, and thought of my father and his pipe!

We discussed the state of trade, and now and then I read aloud bits from the Boston "Packet" of two weeks back, or my mother spoke of their September voyage, and of what would be needed for it, a voyage being looked upon as a serious affair in those times.

"I found your doors hospitably open," said the captain, appearing, "and the servant said I should find you here; so I have taken my welcome for granted, and am come to make my most humble excuses to Mrs. Wynne."

We all rose as he drew near, my mother saying in my ear as he approached, "It is Arthur Wynne. Now, Hugh, take care!"

This newly found cousin was, like all of us, tall, but not quite so broad as we other Wynnes. He was of swarthy complexion from long service in the East, and had black hair, not fine, but rather coa.r.s.e. I noticed a scar on his forehead. He shook hands, using his left hand, because, as I learned, of awkwardness from an old wound. But with his left lie was an expert swordsman, and, like left-handed swordsmen, the more dangerous.

"We are glad to see thee, Cousin Wynne," said my mother.

Seeing the marks of my handiwork still on his cheek, I took his greeting with decent cordiality, and said, "Sit down; wilt thon smoke a pipe, Cousin Arthur?"

He said he did not smoke, and set himself, with the address of a man used to a greater world than ours, to charm those whom no doubt he considered to be quite simple folk. In a few minutes the unpleasantness of the situation was over. He and my father were at one about politics, and I wisely held my peace. He let fall a discreet sentence or two about the habits of soldiers, and his own regrets, and then said, laughing:

"Your son is not quite of your views as a Friend in regard to warfare."

"My son is a hasty young man," said my father, and I felt my mother's touch on my arm.

Our cousin was in no way upset by this. He said, "No, no, cousin; he is young, but not hasty. I was fitly dealt with. We are hot-blooded people, we Wynnes. The ways of Friends are not our ways of dealing with an injury; and it was more--I wish to say so--it was an insult. He was right."

"There is no such thing as insult in the matter," said my father. "We may insult the great Master, but it is not for man to resent or punish."

"I fear as to that we shall continue to differ." He spoke with the utmost deference. "Do you go to Wyncote? I hear you are for England in the autumn."

"No; I shall be too full of business. Wyncote has no great interest for me."

"Indeed? It might perhaps disappoint you--a tumble-down old house, an embarra.s.sed estate. My brother will get but a small income when it falls to him. My father fights c.o.c.ks and dogs, rides to hounds, and, I grieve to say, drinks hard, like all our Welsh squires."

I was surprised at Ms frank statement. My mother watched him curiously, with those attentive blue eyes, as my father returned;

"Of a certainty, thou dost not add to my inducements to visit Wyncote. I should, I fear, be sadly out of place."

"I am afraid that is but too true, unless your head is better than mine.

We are a sad set, we Wynnes. All the prosperity, and I fear much of the decency of the family, crossed the ocean long ago."

"Yet I should like to see Wyneote," said I. "I think thou didst tell me it is not thy home."

"No; a soldier can hardly be said to have a home; and a younger brother, with a tough father alive, and an elder brother on an impoverished estate, must needs be a wanderer."

"But we shall make thee welcome here," said my father, with grave kindness. "We are plain people, and live simply; but a Wynne should always find, as we used to say here, the latch-string outside."

With a little more talk of the Wynnes, the captain, declining to remain longer, rose, and, turning to me, said, "I hear, Cousin Hugh, that you refused to say that you were sorry for the sharp lesson you gave me the other night. I have made my peace with your mother."

"I shall see that my son behaves himself in future. Thou hast heard thy cousin, Hugh?"

I had, and I meant to make it up with him, but my father's effort as a peacemaker did not render my course the more easy. Still, with the mother-eyes on me, I kept my temper.

"I was about to say thou hast done all a man can do," said I.

"Then let us shake hands honestly," he replied, "and let bygones be bygones."

I saw both my parents glance at me. "I should be a brute if I did not say yes, and mean it, too; but I cannot declare that I am sorry, except for the whole business." And with this I took his left hand, a variety of the commonplace ceremony which always, to my last knowledge of Captain Wynne, affected me unpleasantly.

He laughed. "They call us hi Merionethshire the wilful Wynnes. You will find me a good friend if you don't want the things I want, I am like most younger brothers, inclined to want things. I thank you all for a pleasant hour. It is like home, or better." With this he bowed low to my mother's curtsey, and went away, chatting as I conducted him to the door, and promising to sail with me, or to fish.

Naturally enough, on my return I found my parents discussing our newly found relative. My mother thought he talked much of himself; and had been pleasanter if he had not spoken so frankly of his father. My father said little, except that there seemed to be good in the young man.

"Why should we not forgive that in him which we must forgive in our own son?"

My father had some dreadful power to hurt me, and to me only was he an unjust man; this may have been because my wrong-doing troubled both his paternal and his spiritual pride. I was about to say that there was little likeness between my sin and that of my cousin; but I saw my mother, as she stood a little back of my father's great bulk, shake her head, and I held my tongue. Not so she.

"If thou hadst been a woman in my place, John Wynne, thou wouldst be far from saying the thing thou hast said."

Never had I heard or seen in our house a thing like this. I saw, in the fading light, my father working his hands as I have described, a signal of restrained anger, and, like anything physically unusual in one we love, not quite pleasant to see. But my mother, who knew not fear of him nor of any, went on, despite his saying, "This is unseemly--unseemly, wife."

"Thou art unjust, John, to my son."

"Thy son?"

"Yes; mine as well as thine. I have faith that thou, even thou, John, wouldst have done as my boy did."

"I? I?" he cried; and now I saw that he was disturbed, for he was moving his feet like some proud, restrained horse pawing the gra.s.s. At last he broke the stillness which followed his exclamations: "There is but one answer, wife. Both have been brutes, but this boy has been kept near to G.o.dly things all his life. Each First-day the tongues of righteous men have taught him to live clean, to put away wrath, to love his enemies; and in a day--a minute--it is gone, and, as it were, useless, and I the shame of the town."

I hoped this was all; but my mother cried, "John! John! It is thy pride that is hurt. No, it is not seemly to dispute with thee, and before thy son. And yet--and yet--even that is better than to let him go with the thought that he is altogether like, or no better than, that man. If thou hast a duty to bear testimony, so have I." And thus the mother of the prodigal son had her say. No doubt she found it hard, and I saw her dash the tears away with a quick hand, as she added, "If I have hurt thee, John, I am sorry."

"There is but one answer, wife. Love thy enemy; do good to them that despitefully use thee. Thou wilt ruin thy son with false kindness, and who shall save him from the pit?"

I turned at last in a storm of indignation, crying, "Could I see my mother treated like a street-wench or a gutter-drab, and lift no hand? I wish I had killed him!"

"See, wife," said my father. "Yes, even this was to be borne."

"Not by me!" I cried, and strode into the house, wondering if ever I was to be done with it.

The day after no one of us showed a sign of this outbreak. Never had I seen the like of it among us; but the Quaker habit of absolute self-repression, and of concealment of emotion again prevailed, so that at breakfast we met as usual, and, whatever we may have felt, there was no outward evidence of my mother's just anger, of my father's bitterness, or of my own disgust.

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