Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker Part 23

What with all the day had brought, and Darthea and Jack, and now this stern old man silent, impa.s.sive, unmoved by what was shaking me like a storm,--although I loved him still for all his hardness,--I had no refuge but in tears.

He rose, and I sat still, thinking what I should say. "When thou art ready to turn from thy sin and ask pardon of G.o.d and of me, who am brought to shame on thy account, I will talk with thee."

Upon this I set myself between him and the door. "We cannot part this way. It is too terrible."

"That was a matter thou hadst been wise to consider long ago, Hugh."

"No!" I cried. I was as resolved as he. "I must be heard. How have I offended? Have I neglected thy business? who can say so? I was insulted in Meeting, and I went where men do not trample on a penitent boy, and if I have gone the way of my aunt's world, is it my fault or thine? I have gone away from what, in thy opinion, is right as regards questions in which the best and purest side with me. Am I a child, that I may not use my own judgment?" It was the first time in my life that I had plainly a.s.serted my freedom to think and to act.

To my surprise, he stood a moment in silence, looking down, I as quiet, regarding him with eager and attentive eyes. Then he said, seeking my gaze, "I am to blame; I have too much considered thy chances of worldly gain. I know not whence thou hast thy wilfulness." As I looked in the face of this strong, rock-like man, I wondered; for he went on, "Not from me, Hugh, not from me--"

"Stop!" I said. "Thou hast said enough." I feared lest again he should reproach her of whose sweetness I had naught but a gift of the blue eyes that must have met his with menace. I saw, as his hands shook, tapping the floor with his cane, how great were both his anger and his self-control.

"It were well, my son, that this ended. I hope thou wilt see thy way to better courses. Thy cousin was right. He, too, is a man not of my world, but he saw more clearly than I where thou wert going."

"What!" I cried, "and thou canst think this? Thou hast believed and trusted Arthur Wynne! What did he say of me?"

"I will not be questioned."

"The man lied to thee," I cried,--"why, I do not know,--and to others also. Why did he deceive us as to Wyncote? What reason had he? As he lied about that, so does he seem to have lied about me. By heaven! he shall answer me some day."

"I will hear no profanity in my house. Stand aside! Dost thou not hear me? Am I to be disobeyed in my own house?"

I but half took in his meaning, and stood still. The next moment he seized me by the lapels of my coat, and, spinning me round like a child, pushed me from him. I fell into the great Penn chair he had turned from the table when he rose. He threw open the door, and I saw him walk quickly down the hall and out into the orchard garden.

For a week he did no more than speak to me a word when business made it needful, and then the monotonous days went on as before in the gray, dismal home, out of which the light of life's gladness departed when those dear mother-eyes were closed in death.

XIV

While, throughout that sad summer, my Jack was slowly coming back to health, even the vast events of the war now under way moved me but little. My Aunt Gainor would think of no one but her young Quaker. Her house was no longer gay, nor would she go to the country, until Mr.

Warder agreed that she should take Jack with us to the Hill Farmhouse, where, in the warm months, she moved among her cattle, and fed the hens, and helped and bullied every poor housewife far and near.

In a bright-tinted hammock I fetched from Madeira, Jack used to lie under the apple-trees that June and July, with my aunt for company; better could hardly have been. When I came from town in June, with news of what the farmers and their long rifles had done at Bunker Hill, it was a little too much for Jack's strength, and he burst into tears. But Dr. Rush declared that self-control was an affair of physical health, and that he who had too little blood--and Jack was lily-white--could be neither courageous, nor able to contain his emotions. I suppose it may be true.

I went in and out of town daily, my father being unwilling to go to Merion. At times I met James Wilson, who was steadily urging me to enter the army. Wetherill had scarce any other words for me. But my father, Jack's condition, and my aunt's depending on me, all stood in my way, and I did but content myself with an hour's daily drill in town with others, who were thus preparing themselves for active service.

We were taught, and well too, by an Irish sergeant--I fear a deserter from one of his Majesty's regiments. As Jack got better, he was eager to have me put him through his facings, but before he was fit the summer was nigh over.

It had been a time of great anxiety to all men. The Virginia colonel was commander-in-chief; a motley army held Sir William Howe penned up in Boston, and why he so quietly accepted this sheep-like fate no man of us could comprehend. My aunt, a great letter-writer, had many correspondents, and one or two in the camp at Cambridge.

"My Virginia fox-hunter," said my aunt, "is having evil days with the New England farmers. He is disposed to be despotic, says--well, no matter who. He likes the whipping-post too well, and thinks all should, like himself, serve without pay. A slow man it is, but intelligent,"

says my Aunt Gainor; "sure to get himself right, and patient too. You will see, Hugh; he will come slowly to understand these people."

I smiled at the good lady's confidence, and yet she was right. They took him ill at first in that undisciplined camp, and queer things were said of him. Like the rest, he was learning the business of war, and was to commit many blunders and get sharp lessons in this school of the soldier.

These were everywhere uneasy times. Day after day we heard of this one or that one gone to swell the ever-changing number of those who beset Sir William. Gondolas--most unlike gondolas they were--were being built in haste for our own river defence. Committees, going from house to house, collected arms, tent-stuffs, kettles, blankets, and what not, for our troops. There were noisy elections, arrests of Tories; and in October the death of Peyton Randolph, ex-president of the Congress, and the news of the coming of the Hessian hirelings. It was a season of stir, angry discussion, and stern waiting for what was to come; but through it all my Jack prospered mightily in health, so that by September 20 he was fit to leave us.

I still think pleasantly of all the pretty pictures of pale, fair-haired Jack in the hammock, with Darthea reading to him, and the Whig ladies with roses from their gardens, and peaches and what not, all for Jack, the hero, I being that summer but a small and altogether unimportant personage.

When my Jack went home again, we began at once to talk over our plans for joining Mr. Washington; I made sure that now there was no greater obstacle in my way than my father's opinions. Alas! in November my aunt took what Dr. Rush called a pernicious ague, and, although bled many times and fed on Jesuits' bark, she came near to dying. In January she was better, but was become like a child, and depended upon me for everything. If I but spoke of my desire to be in the field, she would fall to tears or declare me ungrateful. She was morally weakened by her disease, and did seem to have changed as to her character. I lamented to Jack that it was my fate to stay, and he must go alone; I would follow when I could.

It was far into April before my aunt was entirely her old self, but as early as the close of January she had decided that she was well, and that to be well you must get rid of doctors. She told the great physician as much, and he left her in vast disgust. Society she would now have had for remedial distraction, but the war had made of it a dismal wreck. The Tories had been warned or sent away; the moderates hardly fared better; and the old gay set was broken up. Nevertheless it was not until far later, in July, '77, that Mr. Chew, Mr. Penn, and other as important neutrals, were ordered to leave the city; until then some remnants of the governor's set kept up more or less of the pleasant life they had once led. But there were no more redcoats in their drawing-rooms, and our antagonists were of the last who had lingered.

Even before their departure, any gentleman of the king's service was sure to be told to leave, and meanwhile was apt to find a militiaman at his door.

My aunt would have none of them that winter, and her old Tory friends ceased to be seen at her house, save only Darthea, whilst continental uniforms and gentlemen of the Congress were made warmly welcome; but alas! among these was no match for her at piquet, and she felt that no one had sacrificed more for the country than had she.

In February of '76 a double change took place among us, and to my great discontent. I had seen much of Darthea in the fall and early winter of '75, and had come to know her better. She was fond of riding with my aunt, who had a strong gray stallion full of tricks, but no master of the hardy old lady, whom neither horse nor man ever dismayed. The good spinster was by no means as vigorous as I could have wished, but ride she would on all clear days whether cold or not, and liked well to have Darthea with us. When ill she was a docile patient, but, once afoot, declared all doctors fools, and would have no more of them "and their filthy doses."

We rode of sunlit winter days out to Germantown, or upon the wood roads over Schuylkill, my Aunt Gainor from good nature being pleased to gallop ahead, and leave us to chat and follow, or not, as might suit us.

One fine crisp morning in February we were breasting at a walk the slippery incline of Chestnut Hill, when Darthea, who had been unusually silent, said quite abruptly:

"I am going away, Mr. Wynne."

I was instantly troubled. "Where?" I said.

"Next week, and to New York. My aunt can no longer stand all this mob of rebels. We go to New York, and for how long I know not. Since, in September, our friend, Dr. John Kearsley, was mobbed and maltreated, my aunt declares you unfit to live among. I must say I thought it brutal, sir. When men of sense and breeding like Mr. Penn, Mr. Chew, and Dr.

Kearsley, cannot live unmolested it is time, my aunt thinks, to run."

"No one annoys Mr. Penn or Mr. Chew," said I. "To my mind, they are neutrals, and worse than open foes; but thy doctor is a mad Tory, and a malignant talker. I saw the matter, and I a.s.sure thee it was overstated.

He lost his temper; 't is a brave gentleman, and I would he were with us. But now that both sides are sure at last that they are really at war, these men who live among us and are ready to welcome every redcoat must have their lesson. It must be Yes or No, in a war like this."

"But I hate that," she returned; "and to be comfortable and snug, and to love ease and Madeira and a quiet horse, and a book and a pipe and a nap of an afternoon, and then to have certain of the baser sort cry, 'Get up and kill somebody!' I think I am with Mr. Ross and believe that, 'let who will be king, I well know I shall be subject.' Imagine my Aunt p.e.n.i.ston's fat poodle invited to choose between exile and killing rats."

"My dear Darthea, for thee to preach caution and neutrality is delightful."

"Did it sound like that Mr. Congregation?"

"No; to tell the truth, I think it did not."

"Indeed, you are right," says she. "I am a red-hot Tory, sir. I scare Margaret Chew out of her sweet wits when I talk blood, blood, sir; and as to Miss Franks,--she hates to be called Becky,--when I say I hope to see Mr. Washington hanged, she vows he is too fine a man, and she would only hang the ugly ones. So take care, Mr. Stay-at-home, take care; I am no neutral."

"Thank thee," I said, lifting my hat. "I like open enemies best."

"Oh, I will say a good word for you, when it comes to that, and you will need it. Sir Guy will have Ticonderoga soon, and Mr. Howe New York; so that, with my loyal cousins and the king in possession, we shall at least be in civilised society."

"There is a well-worn proverb," said I, "about counting chickens. Where shalt thou be in New York?"

"Cousin De Lancey has asked us to stay with them. When the king's troops return to your rebel town we shall come back, I suppose."

"I am sorry," I said. "All my friends are flitting like swallows. Poor Mr. Franks is to go, it seems, and the gay Miss Rebecca; but she likes the redcoats best, and another is of the same mind, I fear."

"I am not over-grieved to go myself," said Darthea, "and we will not quarrel just now about the redcoats. Have you seen Mr. Warder to-day?"

"I have not."