Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker Part 28

"By George!" cried he, leaping up in the boat.

"Take care; thou wilt upset the skiff."

"I have half a mind to."

"Nonsense! I can swim like a duck."

"This is no trifle, sir," he returned. "I will allow no man to take the liberty you insist on. It amazes me that you do not see this as I do. I am sorry, but I warn you once for all that I--"

"I am at your service, sir," I broke in.

"Pshaw! nonsense! I am a guest in your father's house. I have thought it my duty, for your sake and my own, to say what I have said. When I know that you have again disobeyed my reasonable and most earnest wish, I shall consider how to deal with the matter. I have been forbearing so far, but I cannot answer for the future."

"Cousin Arthur," I replied, "this seems to me a silly business, in which we have both lost our tempers. I have no hope that Miss p.e.n.i.ston will ever change her mind, and I am free to say to you that I think it useless to persist; but nevertheless--"

"Persist!"

"I said 'persist.' Until Miss p.e.n.i.ston is no longer Miss p.e.n.i.ston, I shall not cease to do all that is in my power to make her change her mind."

"And you call that honourable--the conduct of a gentleman and a kinsman?"

"Yes; I, too, can be frank. I would rather see her marry any other man than yourself. You have sought to injure me, why I shall tell you at my own time. I think you have been deceiving all of us as to certain matters. Oh, wait! I must have my say. If you were--what I do not think you--a straight-forward, truthful man, I should think it well, and leave Miss p.e.n.i.ston to what seems to be her choice. You have been frank, and so am I, and now we understand each other, and--no; I heard you to an end, and I must insist that I too be heard. I am not sorry to have had this talk. If I did not care for her who has promised you her hand, I should be careless as to what you are, or whether you have been an enemy in my home while pretending to be a friend. As it is, I love her too well not to do all I can to make her see you as I see you; and this, although for me there is no least hope of ever having a place in her heart. I am her friend, and shall be, and, until she forbids, shall claim every privilege which, with our simpler manners, the name of friend carries with it. I trust I am plain."

"Plain? By heavens! yes. I have borne much, but now I have only to add that I never yet forgave an insult. You would be wiser to have a care. A man who never yet forgave has warned you. What I want I get; and what I get I keep."

"I think," I said, "that we will go ash.o.r.e."

"With all my heart." And in absolute silence I pulled back. At the slip he left me without a word, and I secured the boat and walked away, having found ample subject for reflection. Nor was I altogether discontented at my cousin's evident jealousy.

The afternoon of this memorable day I rode out on poor Lucy, whom I had put for safety in our home stables. I went out High to Seventh street, and up to Race street road, where there was better footing, as it had been kept in order for the sport which made us call it Race street, and not Sa.s.safras, which is its real name. I was brought to a stand about Twelfth street, then only an ox-path, by the bayonet of a grenadier, the camps lying about this point. I turned to ride back, when I heard a voice I knew crying:

"Holloa, Mr. Wynne! Are you stopped, and why?"

I said I knew no reason, but would go south. I was out for a ride, and had no special errand.

"Come with me then," he said pleasantly. "I am now the engineer in charge of the defences." This was my Aunt Gainor's old beau, Captain Montresor, now a colonel.

"I am sorry your aunt will see none of us, Mr. Wynne. If agreeable to you, we will ride through the lines."

I asked nothing better, and explaining, awkwardly I fear, that my aunt was a red-hot Whig, we rode south to Spruce street, past the Bettering-house at Spruce and Eleventh streets, where the troops which had entered with Lord Cornwallis were mostly stationed. The main army lay at Germantown, with detachments below the city, on the east and west banks of the Schuylkill, to watch our forts at Red Bank and the islands which commanded the Delaware River and kept the British commander from drawing supplies from the great fleet which lay helpless below.

As we went by, the Grenadiers were drilling on the open s.p.a.ce before the poorhouse. I expressed my admiration of their pointed caps, red, with silver front plates, their spotless white leggings and blue-trimmed scarlet coats.

"Too much finery, Mr. Wynne. These are a king's puppets, dressed to please the whim of royalty. If all kings took the field, we should have less of this. Those miserable devils of Mr. Morgan's fought as well in their dirty skin shirts, and can kill a man at murderous distance with their long rifles and little bullets. It is like gambling with a beggar.

He has all to get, and nothing to lose but a life too wretched to make it worth keeping."

I made no serious reply, and we rode westward through the governor's woods to the river. As we turned into an open s.p.a.ce to escape a deep mud-hole, Mr. Montresor said:

"It was here, I think, you and Mr. Warder made yourselves agreeable to two of our people." I laughed, and said it was a silly business and quite needless.

"That, I believe," he cried, laughing, "was their opinion somewhat late.

They were the jest of every regimental mess for a month, and we were inclined to think Mr. Washington had better raise a few regiments of Quakers. Are you all as dangerous?"

"Oh, worse, worse," I said. "Jack Warder and I are only half-fledged specimens. You should see the old fellows." Thus jesting, we rode as we were able until we reached the "banks of the Schuylkill, picketed on both sh.o.r.es, but on the west side not below the lower ferry, where already my companion was laying a floating bridge which greatly interested me.

"We have a post on the far hill," he said, "I am afraid to Mr.

Hamilton's annoyance. Let us follow the river."

I was able to guide him along an ox-road, and past garden patches across High street, to the upper ferry at Callowhill street. Here he pointed out to me the advantage of a line of nine forts which he was already building. There was to be one on the hill we call Fairmount to command the upper ferry. Others were to be set along to the north of Callowhill street road at intervals to Cohocsink Creek and the Delaware.

The great trees I loved were falling fast under the axes of the pioneers, whom I thought very awkward at the business. Farm-houses were being torn down, and orchards and hedges levelled, while the unhappy owners looked on in mute despair, aiding one another to remove their furniture. The object was to leave a broad s.p.a.ce to north of the forts, that an attacking force might find no shelter. About an hundred feet from the blockhouses was to be an abatis of sharpened logs, and a ma.s.s of brush and trees, through which to move would be difficult.

I took it all in, and greedily. The colonel no doubt thought me an intelligent young fellow, and was kind enough to answer all my questions. He may later have repented his freedom of speech. And now I saw the reason for all this piteous ruin. Compensation was promised and given, I heard, but it seemed to me hard to be thus in a day thrust out of homes no doubt dear to these simple folk. We went past gardens and fields, over broken fences, all in the way of destruction. Tape-lines pegged to the earth guided the engineers, and hundreds of negroes were here at work. Near to Cohocsink Creek we met the second Miss Chew, riding with her father. He was handsome in dark velvet, his hair clubbed and powdered beneath a flat beaver with three rolls, and at his back a queue tied with a red ribbon. He had remained quietly inactive and prudent, and, being liked, had been let alone by our own party. It is to be feared that neither he nor the ribbon was quite as neutral as they had been. Miss Margaret looked her best. I much dislike "Peggy,"

by which name she was known almost to the loss of that fine, full "Margaret," which suited better her handsome, uptilted head and well-bred look.

On the right side rode that other Margaret, Miss Shippen, of whom awhile back I spoke, but then only as in pretty bud, at the Woodlands. It was a fair young rose I now saw bowing in the saddle, a woman with both charm and beauty. Long after, in London, and in less merry days, she was described by Colonel Tarleton as past question the handsomest woman in all England. I fear, too, she was the saddest.

"And where have you kept yourself, Mr. Wynne?" she asked. "You are a favourite of my father's, you know. I had half a mind not to speak to you."

I bowed, and made some gay answer. I could not well explain that the officers who filled their houses were not to my taste.

"Let me present you to Mr. Andre," said Mr. Shippen, who brought up the rear.

"I have the honour to know Mr. Wynne," said the officer. "We met at Lancaster when I was a prisoner in '76; in March, was it not? Mr. Wynne did me a most kind service, Montresor. I owe it to him that I came to know that loyal gentleman, Mr. Cope, and the Yeates people, who at least were loyal to me, I have not forgotten it, nor ever shall."

I said it was a very small service, and he was kind to remember it.

"You may well afford to forget it, sir; I shall not," he returned. He was in full uniform, not a tall man, but finely proportioned, with remarkably regular features and a clear complexion which was set off to advantage by powdered hair drawn back and tied in the usual ribboned queue.

We rode along in company, happy enough, and chatting as we went, Mr.

Andre, as always, the life of the party. He had the gracious frankness of a well-mannered lad, and, as I recall him, seemed far younger than his years. He spoke very feelingly aside to me of young Macpherson, who fell at Quebec. He himself had had the ill luck not to be present when that gallant a.s.sault was made. He spoke of us always as colonials, and not as rebels; and why was I not in the service of the king, or perhaps that was a needless question?

I told him frankly that I hoped before long to be in quite other service. At this he cried, "So, so! I would not say it elsewhere. Is that so? It is a pity, Mr. Wynne; a hopeless cause," adding, with a laugh, that I should not find it very easy to get out of the city, which was far too true. I said there were many ways to go, but how I meant to leave I did not yet know. After I got out I would tell him. We had fallen back a little as we talked, the road just here not allowing three to ride abreast.

"I shall ask the colonel for a pa.s.s to join our army," I said merrily.

"I would," said he, as gay as I; "but I fear you and Mistress Wynne will have no favours. Pray tell her to be careful. The Tories are talking."

"Thanks," said I, as we drew aside to let pa.s.s a splendid brigade of Hessians, fat and well fed, with shining helmets.

"We are drawing in a lot of men from Germantown," said Andre, "but for what I do not know. Ah, here comes the artillery!"

I watched them as we all sat in saddle, while regiment after regiment pa.s.sed, the women admiring their precision and soldierly bearing. For my part, I kept thinking of the half-clad, ill-armed men I had seen go down these same streets a little while before. "I will go," I said to myself; and in a moment I had made one of those decisive resolutions which, once made, seem to control me, and to permit no future change of plan.

By this time we were come to the bridge over Cohocsink Creek, I having become self-absorbed and silent. The colonel called my attention to his having dammed the creek, and thus flooded the low meadows for more complete defence. I said, "Yes, yes!" being no longer interested.

Mr. Shippen said, "We will cross over to the 'Rose of Bath' and have a little milk-punch before we ride back." This was an inn where, in the garden, was a mineral water much prescribed by Dr. Kearsley. I excused myself, however, and, pleading an engagement, rode slowly away.

I put up my mare in my aunt's stable, and went at once into her parlour, full of my purpose.