In the Days of Poor Richard Part 26

"A WELL WISHER."

He looked back over the stern of the ship. The sh.o.r.e had fallen out of sight. The sky was clear. The sun shining. The wind was blowing from the east.

He stood for a long time looking toward the land he had left.

"Oh, ye wings of the wind! take my love to her and give her news of me and bid her to be steadfast in her faith and hope," he whispered.

He leaned against the bulwark and tried to think.

"Sir Benjamin has seen to it," he said to himself. "I shall have no opportunity to meet her again."

He reviewed the events of the day and their under-current of intrigue.

The King himself might have been concerned in that and Preston also.

It had been on the whole a rather decent performance, he mused, and perhaps it had kept him out of worse trouble than he was now in. But what had happened to Margaret?

He reread her note.

"My father has learned of our meeting and of how it came about," he quoted.

"More bribery," he thought. "The intrigante naturally sold her services to the highest bidder."

He recalled the violent haste with which the coach had rolled away from the place of meeting. Had that been due to a fear that Margaret would defeat their plans?

All these speculations and regrets were soon put away. But for a long time one cause of worry was barking at his heels. It slept beside him and often touched and awoke him at night. He had been responsible for the death of a human being. What an unlucky hour he had had at Sir John Pringle's! Yet he found a degree of comfort in the hope that those proud men might now have a better thought of the Yankees.

CHAPTER XII

THE FRIEND AND THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM

After Jack had been whirled out of London, Franklin called at his lodgings and learned that he had not been seen for a day. The wise philosopher entertained no doubt that the young man had taken ship agreeably with the advice given him. A report had been running through the clubs of London that Lionel Clarke had succ.u.mbed. In fact he had had a bad turn but had rallied. Jack must have heard the false report and taken ship suddenly.

Doctor Franklin went that day to the meeting of the Privy Council, whither he had been sternly summoned for examination in the matter of the letters of Hutchinson et al. For an hour he had stood unmoved while Alexander Wedderburn, the wittiest barrister in the kingdom, poured upon him a torrent of abuse. Even the Judges, against all traditions of decorum in the high courts of Britain, laughed at the cleverness of the a.s.sault. That was the speech of which Charles James Fox declared that it was the most expensive bit of oratory which had been heard in England since it had cost the kingdom its colonies.

It was alleged that in some manner Franklin had stolen the letters and violated their sacred privacy. It is known now that an English n.o.bleman had put them in his hands to read and that he was in no way responsible for their publication. The truth, if it could have been told, would have bent the proud heads of Wedderburn and the judges to whom he appealed, in confusion. But Franklin held his peace, as a man of honor was bound to do. He stood erect and dignified with a face like one carved in wood.

The counsel for the colonies made a weak defense. The triumph was complete. The venerable man was convicted of conduct inconsistent with the character of a gentleman and deprived of his office as Postmaster General of the Colonies.

But he had two friends in court. They were the Lady Hare and her daughter. They followed him out of the chamber. In the great hallway, Margaret, her eyes wet with tears, embraced and kissed the philosopher.

"I want you to know that I am your friend, and that I love America,"

she said.

"My daughter, it has been a hard hour, but I am sixty-eight years old and have learned many things," he answered. "Time is the only avenger I need. It will lay the dust."

The girl embraced and kissed him again and said in a voice shaking with emotion:

"I wish my father and all Englishmen to know that I am your friend and that I have a love that can not be turned aside or destroyed and that I will have my right as a human being."

"Come let us go and talk together--we three," he proposed.

They took a cab and drove away.

"You will think all this a singular proceeding," Lady Hare remarked.

"I must tell you that rebellion has started in our home. Its peace is quite destroyed. Margaret has declared her right to the use of her own mind."

"Well, if she is to use any mind it will have to be that one," Franklin answered. "I do not see why women should not be ent.i.tled to use their minds as well as their hands and feet."

"I was kept at home yesterday by force," said Margaret. "Every door locked and guarded! It was brutal tyranny."

"The poor child has my sympathy but what can I do?" Lady Hare inquired.

"Being an American, you can expect but one answer from me," said the philosopher. "To us tyranny in home or state is intolerable. They tried it on me when I was a boy and I ran away."

"That is what I shall do if necessary," said Margaret.

"Oh, my child! How would you live?" her mother asked.

"I will answer that question for her, if you will let me," said Franklin. "If she needs it, she shall have an allowance out of my purse."

"Thank you, but that would raise a scandal," said the woman.

"Oh, Your Ladyship, I am old enough to be her grandfather."

"I wish to go with Jack, if you know where he is," Margaret declared, looking up into the face of the philosopher.

"I think he is pushing toward America," Franklin answered. "Being alarmed at the condition of his adversary, I advised him to slip away.

A ship went yesterday. Probably he's on it. He had no chance to see me or to pick up his baggage."

"I shall follow him soon," the girl declared.

"If you will only contain yourself, you will get along with your father very well," said Lady Hare. "I know him better than you. He has promised to take you to America in December. You must wait and be patient. After all, your father has a large claim upon you."

"I think you will do well to wait, my child," said the philosopher.

"Jack will keep and you are both young. Fathers are like other children. They make mistakes--they even do wrong now and then. They have to be forgiven and allowed a chance to repent and improve their conduct. Your father is a good man. Try to win him to your cause."

"And die a maiden," said the girl with a sigh.

"Impossible!" Franklin exclaimed.

"I shall marry Jack or never marry. I would rather be his wife than the Queen of England."

"This is surely the age of romance," said the smiling philosopher as the ladies alighted at their door. "I wish I were young again."