Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker Part 15

At last I saw that my gentle-voiced speaker, Wetherill, was, like myself, rigid, with upheld head, and that, with a faint smile on his face, he was looking toward me. Minute after minute pa.s.sed. Would they never be done with it? I began to wonder what was going on under those bent gray hats and black bonnets. I was far away from penitence or remorse, a bruised and tormented man, helpless, if ever a man was helpless, under the monotonous and silent reproach of some hundreds of people who had condemned me unheard. It did seem as if it never would end.

At last the voice died out. The man rose, and put on his hat. All resumed their seats and their head-coverings. I saw that Friend Scattergood extended a hand to my father, who was, as I have not yet stated, an elder. The grasp was accepted. Elders and overseers, both men and women, rose, and we also. I pushed my way out, rudely, I fear. At the door James Pemberton put out his hand. I looked him full in the face, and turned away from the too inquisitive looks of the younger Friends. I went by my father without a word. He could not have known what pain his method of saving my soul would cost me. That he had been in some way active in the matter I did not doubt, and I knew later that my opinion was but too correct.

Hastening down Front street with an overwhelming desire to be alone, I paused at our own door, and then, late as it was, now close to ten, I unmoored my boat, and was about to push off when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Samuel Wetherill.

"Let me go with thee, my boy," he said. "We should talk a little, thou and I."

I said, "Yes. Thou art the only man I want to see to-night."

There were no more words. The moon was up as I pulled down Dock Creek and out on my friendly river.

"Let thy boat drift," he said. "Perhaps thou art aware, Hugh Wynne, how grieved I was; for I know all that went before. I somehow think that thou hast already done for thyself what these good folk seemed to think was needed. Am I right?"

"Yes," I said.

"Then say no more. James Wilson has spoken of thee often. To be loved of such a man is much. I hear that thou hast been led to think with us, and that, despite those wicked wild oats, thou art a young man of parts and good feelings, thoughtful beyond thy years."

I thanked him almost: in tears; for this kindly judgment was, past belief, the best remedy I could have had.

"I saw thy great suffering; but in a year, in a month, this will seem a thing of no import; only, when thou art calm and canst think, hold a Meeting in thy own heart, and ask thy quiet judgment, thy conscience, thy memory, if prayer be needed; and do it for thyself, Hugh."

I said, "Thank thee," but no more. I have ever been averse to talking of my relations to another world, or of what I believe, or of what I am led thereby to do in hours of self-communion. I sat wishing my father were like this, a tender-hearted yet resolute man.

Seeing me indisposed to speak, he went on: "If we could but keep the better part of Friends' creed, and be set free to live at peace with the law, to realise that to sit down quietly under oppression may be to serve the devil, and not G.o.d! Thou knowest, as well as I, that divers Friends have publicly avowed the ministry, and allege that whatever they may do is a just punishment of rebellion. We are going to have a serious settlement, and it will become us all, Hugh, young and old, to see that we are on the right side, even if we have to draw the sword. And thou and I shall not be alone of Friends. There are Clement and Owen Biddle, and Christopher Marshall, and more."

I was surprised, and said so.

"Yes, yes," he said; "but I talk to thee as to a man, and these things are not to be spread abroad. I trust I have been to thee a comfort; and, now the moon is setting, let us go home."

I thanked him as well as I knew how. He had indeed consoled me.

When I came in my father had gone to bed, but my mother was waiting to see me. She caught me in her arms, and, weeping like a child, cried, "Oh, I have heard! He did not tell me beforehand, or I should have forbade it. Thou shouldst never have gone! never! It was cruel! _Mon Dieu!_ how could they do it!"

It was I who now had to comfort, and this helped me amazingly, and yet added to my just anger; for why must she, who was innocent, be thus made to suffer? My father, when he came in, had asked for me. He had met my cousin, who had seen me going down Front street, and had hinted that I meant to find comfort at the coffee-house among the officers. She knew better, and had said her mind of this kinsman and his ways; upon which my father had gone angry to his bed. I was beginning to have an increasing distrust and dislike of Arthur, and the present news did not lessen either feeling. So at last here was an end of the consequences of my sad night at the coffee-house.

XI

The next day we went to our farm in Merion. My father said no word of the Meeting, nor did I. The summer of '73 went on. I rode in to my work daily, sometimes with my father, who talked almost altogether of his cattle or of his ventures, never of the lowering political horizon. He had excused himself from being a consignee of the tea, on the score of his voyage, which was now intended for September.

My aunt lived in summer on the farther slope of Chestnut Hill, where, when the road was in order, came her friends for a night, and the usual card-play. When of a Sat.u.r.day I was set free, I delighted to ride over and spend Sunday with her, my way being across country to one of the fords on the Schuylkill, or out from town by the Ridge or the Germantown highroad. The ride was long, but, with my saddle-bags and Lucy, a new mare my aunt had raised and given me, and clad in overalls, which we called tongs, I cared little for the mud, and often enough stopped to a.s.sist a chaise out of the deep holes, which made the roads dangerous for vehicles.

Late one day in August, I set out with my friend Jack to spend a Sunday with my Aunt Gainor. Jack Warder was no w a prime favourite, and highly approved. We rode up Front street, and crossed the bridge where Mulberry street pa.s.sed under it, and is therefore to this day called Arch street, although few know why. The gay coats of officers were plentiful, farmers in their smocks were driving in with their vegetables, and to the right was the river, with here and there a ship, and, beyond, the windmill on the island. We talked of the times, of books, of my father's voyage, and of my future stay with my aunt.

Although Jack's father was a Quaker, he was too discreet a business man not to approve of Jack's visits to my aunt, and too worldly not to wish for his son a society to which he was not born; so Mrs. Ferguson and Mrs. Galloway made much of Jack, and he was welcome, like myself, at Cliveden, where the Chews had their summer home.

The Tory ladies laughed at his way of blushing like a girl, and, to Jack's dismay, openly envied his pink-and-white skin and fair locks.

They treated him as if he were younger than I, although, as it chanced, we were born on the same day of the same year; and yet he liked it all--the gay women, the coquettish Tory maids, even the "genteel" Quaker dames, such as Mrs. Sarah Logan or Mrs. Morris, and the pretty girls of the other side, like Sarah Lukens and the Misses Willing, with their family gift of beauty. These and more came and went at my aunt's, with men of all parties, and the grave Drs. Rush and Parke, and a changing group of English officers.

In the little old house at Belmont, the Rev. Richard Peters was glad to sit at cards with the Tory ladies, whose cause was not his, and still less that of Richard, his nephew. At times, as was the custom, sleighing parties in winter or riding-parties in summer used to meet at Cliveden or Springetsbury, or at a farm-house where John Penn dwelt while engaged in building the great house of Lansdowne, looking over trees to the quiet Schuylkill.

We rode out gaily this August afternoon, along the Germantown road, admiring the fine farms, and the forests still left among the cultivated lands. Near Fisher's Lane we saw some two or three people in the road, and, drawing near, dismounted. A black man, who lay on the ground, groaning with a cut head, and just coming to himself, I saw to be my aunt's coachman Caesar. Beside him, held by a farmer, was a horse with a pillion and saddle, all muddy enough from a fall. Near by stood a slight young woman in a saveguard petticoat and a sad-coloured, short camlet cloak.

"It is Miss Darthea p.e.n.i.ston," said Jack.

"Miss p.e.n.i.ston," I said, dismounting, "what has happened?"

She told me quietly, that, riding pillion to stay with my aunt, the horse had fallen and hurt Caesar, not badly, she thought. She had alighted on her feet, but what should she do? After some discussion, and the black being better, we settled to leave him, and I proposed that Jack, the lighter weight, should ride my Aunt Gainor's horse, with Miss p.e.n.i.ston on the pillion behind him. Upon this Jack got red, at the idea, I suppose, of Miss Darthea's contemplating the back of his head for four miles. The young woman looked on with shy amus.e.m.e.nt.

At this moment Caesar, a much pampered person, who alone of all her house dared give my aunt advice, declared he must have a doctor. Jack, much relieved, said it was inhuman to leave him in this case, and put an end to our discussion by riding away to fetch old Dr. de Benneville.

Miss Darthea laughed, said it was a sad thing a woman should have no choice, and pretended to be in misery as to my unfortunate lot. I said nothing, but, after looking Caesar's horse over, I gave my saddle to be kept at the farmer's, and put the coachman's saddle on my mare Lucy, with the pillion behind made fast to the saddle-straps arranged for this use. Then I looked well to the girths, and mounted to see how Lucy would like it. She liked it not at all, and was presently all over the road and up against the fence of the old graveyard I was to see again in other and wilder days.

I saw the little lady in the road watching me with a smiling face, by no means ill pleased with the spectacle. At last I cried, "Wait!" and putting Miss Lucy down the road for a mile at a run, soon brought her back quite submissive.

"Art thou afraid?" I said.

"I do not like to be asked if I am afraid. I am very much afraid, but I would die rather than not get on your mare." So a chair was fetched, Miss p.e.n.i.ston put on her linen riding-mask, and in a moment was seated behind me. For ten minutes I was fully taken up with the feminine creature under me. At last I said:

"Put an arm around my waist. I must let her go. At once!" I added; for the mare was getting to rear a little, and the young woman hesitated.

"Do as I tell thee!" I cried sharply, and when I felt her right arm about me, I said, "Hold fast!" and gave the mare her head. A mile sufficed, with the double burden, so to quiet her that she came down to her usual swift and steady walk.

When there was this chance to talk without having every word jolted out in fragments, the young person was silent; and when I remarked, "There is now an opportunity to chat with comfort," said:

"I was waiting, sir, to hear your excuses; but perhaps Friends do not apologise."

I thought her saucy, for I had done my best; and for her to think me unmannerly was neither just nor kind.

"If I am of thy friends--"

"Oh, Quakers, I meant. Friends with a large F, Mr. Wynne."

"It had been no jesting matter if the mare had given thee a hard fall."

"I should have liked that better than to be ordered to do as your worship thought fit."

"Then thou shouldst not have obeyed me."

"But I had to."

"Yes," I said. And the talk having fallen into these brevities. Miss p.e.n.i.ston was quiet awhile, no doubt pouting prettily; her face was, of course, hid from me.

After a while she said something about the milestones being near together, and then took to praising Lucy, who, I must say, had behaved as ill as a horse could. I said as much, whereon I was told that mares were jealous animals; which I thought a queer speech, and replied, not knowing well how to reply, that the mare was a good beast, and that it was fair flattery to praise a man's horse, for what was best in the horse came of the man's handling.

"But even praise of his watch a man likes," said she. "He has a fine appet.i.te, and likes to fatten his vanity."