Philip Winwood Part 2

f.a.n.n.y did not deny this, but she was no liar, and could not confirm it. So she looked to the ground, and clasped her left wrist with her right hand. But in this latter movement she again exposed her brother by the very means she took to protect him; for quick-seeing Madge, observing the action, gently but firmly unclasped the younger sister's hand, and so disclosed the telltale marks of Ned's fingers upon the delicate wrist, by squeezing or wrenching which that tyrant had evinced his brotherly superiority.

At sight of this, Mrs. Faringfield gave a low cry of horror and maternal pity, and fell to caressing the bruised wrist; and Madge, raising her arm girl-wise, began to rain blows on her brother, which fell wherever they might, but where none of them could hurt. Her father, without reproving her, drew her quietly back, and with a countenance a shade darker than before, pointed out the way for Ned toward the veranda leading to the rear hall-door.

With a vindictive look, and pouting lips, Ned turned his steps down the walk. Just then he noticed Philip Winwood, who had viewed every detail of the scene with wonder, and who now regarded Ned with a kind of vaguely disliking curiosity, such as one bestows on some sinister-looking strange animal. Philip's look was, of course, unconscious, but none the less clearly to be read for that. Ned Faringfield, pausing on his way, stared at the unknown lad, with an expression of insolent inquiry. Not daring to stay for questions, but observing the valise, he seemed to become aware that the newcomer was an already accepted guest of the house; and he thereupon surveyed Philip a moment, inwardly measuring him as a possible comrade or antagonist, but affecting a kind of disdain. A look from his father ended Ned's inspection, and sent him hastily toward his imprisonment, whither he went with no one's pity but f.a.n.n.y's--for his mother had become afraid of him, and little Tom took his likes and dislikes from his sister Madge.

And so they went in to supper, disappearing from my sight behind the corner of the parlour wing as they mounted the rear veranda: Mr. and Mrs. Faringfield first, the mother leading f.a.n.n.y by the wounded wrist; the big dog next, wagging his tail for no particular reason; and then Philip Winwood, with his cat in his basket, Madge at one side of him and pretending an interest in the kitten while from beneath her lashes she alertly watched the boy himself, little Tom on the other side holding Philip's hand. I stood at the gateway, looking after; and with all my young infatuation for Madge, I had no feeling but one of liking, for this quiet, strange lad, with the pale, kind face. And I would to G.o.d I might see those three still walking together, as when children, through this life that has dealt so strangely with them all since that Summer evening.

CHAPTER II.

_The Faringfields._

Having shown how Philip Winwood came among us, I ought to tell at once, though of course I learned it from him afterwards, all that need be known of his previous life. His father, after leaving Oxford and studying medicine in Edinburgh, had married a lady of the latter city, and emigrated to Philadelphia to practise as a physician. But whether 'twas that the Quaker metropolis was overstocked with doctors even then, or for other reasons, there was little call for Doctor Winwood's ministrations. Moreover, he was of so book-loving a disposition that if he happened to have sat down to a favourite volume, and a request came for his services, it irked him exceedingly to respond. This being noticed and getting abroad, did not help him in his profession.

The birth of Philip adding to the doctor's expenses, it soon came about that, in the land where he had hoped to make a new fortune, he parted with the last of what fortune he had originally possessed. Then occurred to him the ingenious thought of turning bookseller, a business which, far from requiring that he should ever absent himself from his precious volumes, demanded rather that he should always be among them. But the stock that he laid in, turned out to comprise rather such works as a gentleman of learning would choose for company, than such as the people of Philadelphia preferred to read.

Furthermore, when some would-be purchaser appeared, it often happened that the book he offered to buy was one for which the erudite dealer had acquired so strong an affection that he would not let it change owners. Nor did his wife much endeavour to turn him from this untradesmanlike course. Besides being a gentle and affectionate woman, she had that admiration for learning which, like excessive warmth of heart and certain other traits, I have observed to be common between the Scotch (she was of Edinburgh, as I have said) and the best of the Americans.

Such was Philip's father, and when he died of some trouble of the heart, there was nothing for his widow to do but continue the business. She did this with more success than the doctor had had, though many a time it smote her heart to sell some book of those that her husband had loved, and to the backs of which she had become attached for his sake and through years of acquaintance. But the necessities of her little boy and herself cried out, and so did the debt her husband had acc.u.mulated as tangible result of his business career. By providing books of a less scholarly, more popular character, such as novels, sermons, plays, comic ballads, religious poems, and the like; as well as by working with her needle, and sometimes copying legal and other doc.u.ments, Mrs. Winwood managed to keep the kettle boiling. And in the bookselling and the copying, she soon came to have the aid of Philip.

The boy, too, loved books pa.s.sionately, finding in them consolation for the deprivations incidental to his poverty. But, being keenly sympathetic, he had a better sense of his mother's necessities than his father had shown, and to the amelioration of her condition and his own, he sacrificed his love of books so far as to be, when occasion offered, an uncomplaining seller of those he liked, and a dealer in those he did not like. His tastes were, however, broader than his father's, and he joyfully lost himself in the novels and plays his father would have disdained.

He read, indeed, everything he could put his hands on, that had, to his mind, reason, or wit, or sense, or beauty. Many years later, when we were in London, his scholarly yet modest exposition of a certain subject eliciting the praise of a group in a Pall Mall tavern, and he being asked "What university he was of," he answered, with a playful smile, "My father's bookshop." It was, indeed, his main school of book-learning. But, as I afterward told him, he had studied in the university of life also. However, I am now writing of his boyhood in Philadelphia; and of that there is only this left to be said.

In catering to his mind, he did not neglect bodily skill either. His early reading of Plutarch and other warlike works had filled him with desire to emulate the heroes of battle. An old copy of Saviolo's book on honour and fence, written in the reign of Elizabeth, or James, I forget which, had in some manner found its way to his father's shelves; and from this Philip secretly obtained some correct ideas of swordsmanship.[2] Putting them in practice one day in the shop, with a stick, when he thought no one was looking, he suddenly heard a cry of "bravo" from the street door, and saw he was observed by a Frenchman, who had recently set up in Philadelphia as a teacher of fencing, dancing, and riding. This expert, far from allowing Philip to be abashed, complimented and encouraged him; entered the shop, and made friends with him. The lad, being himself as likable as he found the lively foreigner interesting, became in time something of a comrade to the fencing master. The end of this was that, in real or pretended return for the loan of Saviolo's book, the Frenchman gave Philip a course of instruction and practice in each of his three arts.

To these the boy added, without need of a teacher, the ability to shoot, both with gun and with pistol. I suppose it was from being so much with his mother, between whom and himself there must have existed the most complete devotion, that notwithstanding his manly and scholarly accomplishments, his heart, becoming neither tough like the sportsman's nor dry like the bookworm's, remained as tender as a girl's--or rather as a girl's is commonly supposed to be. His mother's death, due to some inward ailment of which the nature was a problem to the doctors, left him saddened but too young to be embittered. And this was the Philip Winwood--grave and shy from having been deprived too much of the company of other boys, but with certain mental and bodily advantages of which too much of that company would have deprived him--who was taken into the house of the Faringfields in the Summer of 1763.

The footing on which he should remain there was settled the very morning after his arrival. Mr. Faringfield, a rigid and prudent man, but never a stingy one, made employment for him as a kind of messenger or under clerk in his warehouse. The boy fell gratefully into the new life, pa.s.sing his days in and about the little counting-room that looked out on Mr. Faringfield's wharf on the East River. He found it dull work, the copying of invoices, the writing of letters to merchants in other parts of the world, the counting of articles of cargo, and often the bearing a hand in loading or unloading some schooner or dray; but as beggars should not be choosers, so beneficiaries should not be complainers, and Philip kept his feelings to himself.

Mr. Faringfield was an exacting master, whose rule was that his men should never be idle, even at times when there seemed nothing to do.

If no task was at hand, they should seek one; and if none could be found, he was like to manufacture one. Thus was Phil denied the pleasure of brightening or diversifying his day with reading, for which he could have found time enough. He tried to be interested in his work, and he in part succeeded, somewhat by good-fellowship with the jesting, singing, swearing wharfmen and sailors, somewhat by dwelling often on the thought that he was filling his small place in a great commerce which touched so distant sh.o.r.es, and so many countries, of the world. He used to watch the vessels sail, on the few and far-between days when there were departures, and wish, with inward sighs, that he might sail with them. A longing to see the great world, the Europe of history, the Britain of his ancestors, had been implanted in him by his reading, before he had come to New York, and the desire was but intensified by his daily contact with the one end of a trade whose other end lay beyond the ocean.

Outside of the hours of business, Philip's place was that of a member of the Faringfield household, where, save in the one respect that after his first night it was indeed the garret room that fell to him, he was on terms of equality with the children. Ned alone, of them all, affected toward him the manner of a superior to a dependent. Whatever were Philip's feelings regarding this att.i.tude of the elder son, he kept them locked within, and had no more to say to Master Ned than absolute civility required. With the two girls and little Tom, and with me, he was, evenings and Sundays, the pleasantest playfellow in the world.

Ungrudgingly he gave up to us, once we had made the overtures, the time he would perhaps rather have spent over his books; for he had brought a few of these from Philadelphia, a fact which accounted for the exceeding heaviness of his travelling bag, and he had access, of course, to those on Mr. Faringfield's shelves. His compliance with our demands was the more kind, as I afterward began to see, for that his day's work often left him quite tired out. Of this we never thought; we were full of the spirits pent up all day at school, Madge and f.a.n.n.y being then learners at the feet of a Boston maiden lady in our street, while I yawned and idled my hours away on the hard benches of a Dutch schoolmaster near the Broadway, under whom Ned Faringfield also was a student. But fresh as we were, and tired as Philip was, he was always ready for a romp in our back yard, or a game of hide-and-seek in the Faringfields' gardens, or a chase all the way over to the Bowling Green, or all the way up to the Common where the town ended and the Bowery lane began.

But it soon came out that Phil's books were not neglected, either. The speed with which his candles burnt down, and required renewal, told of nocturnal studies in his garret. As these did not perceptibly interfere with his activity the next day, they were viewed by Mr.

Faringfield rather with commendation than otherwise, and so were allowed to continue. My mother thought it a sin that no one interfered to prevent the boy's injuring his health; but when she said this to Phil himself, he only smiled and answered that if his reading did cost him anything of health, 'twas only fair a man should pay something for his pleasures.

My mother's interest in the matter arose from a real liking. She saw much of Philip, for he and the three younger Faringfields were as often about our house as about their own. Ours was not nearly as fine; 'twas a white-painted wooden house, like those in New England, but roomy enough for its three only occupants, my mother and me and the maid. We were not rich, but neither were we of the poorest. My father, the predecessor of Mr. Aitken in the customs office, had left sufficient money in the English funds at his death, to keep us in the decent circ.u.mstances we enjoyed, and there was yet a special fund reserved for my education. So we could be neighbourly with the Faringfields, and were so; and so all of us children, including Philip, were as much at home in the one house as in the other.

One day, in the Fall of that year of Philip's arrival, we young ones were playing puss-in-a-corner in the large garden--half orchard, half vegetable plantation--that formed the rear of the Faringfields'

grounds. It was after Phil's working hours, and a pleasant, cool, windy evening. The maple leaves were yellowing, the oak leaves turning red. I remember how the wind moved the apple-tree boughs, and the yellow corn-stalks waiting to be cut and stacked as fodder. (When I speak of corn, I do not use the word in the English sense, of grain in general, but in the American sense, meaning maize, of which there are two kinds, the sweet kind being most delicious to eat, as either kind is a beautiful sight when standing in the field, the tall stalks waving their many arms in the breeze.) We were all laughing, and running from tree to tree, when in from the front garden came Ned, his face wearing its familiar cruel, bullying, spoil-sport smile.

The wind blowing out Madge's brown hair as she ran, I suppose put him in mind of what to do. For all at once, clapping his hand to his mouth, and imitating the bellowing war-whoop of an Indian, he rushed upon us in that character, caught hold of Madge's hair, and made off as if to drag her away by it. She, screaming, tried to resist, but of course could not get into an att.i.tude for doing so while he pulled her so fast. The end of it was, that she lost her balance and fell, thus tearing her hair from his grasp.

I, being some distance away, picked up an apple and flung it at the persecutor's head, which I missed by half an inch. Before I could follow the apple, Philip had taken the work out of my hands.

"You are a savage," said Phil, in a low voice, but with a fiery eye, confronting Ned at close quarters.

"And what are you?" replied young Faringfield promptly. "You're a beggar, that's what you are! A beggar that my father took in."

For a moment or two Phil regarded his insulter in amazed silence; then answered:

"If only you weren't her brother!"

Here Madge spoke up, from the ground on which she sat:

"Oh, don't let that stop you, Phil!"

"I sha'n't," said Phil, with sudden decision, and the next instant the astounded Ned was recoiling from a solid blow between the eyes.

Of course he immediately returned the compliment in kind, and as Ned was a strong fellow, Phil had all he could do to hold his own in the ensuing scuffle. How long this might have lasted, I don't know, had not f.a.n.n.y run between, with complete disregard of her own safety, calling out:

"Oh, Phil, you mustn't hurt Ned!"

Her interposition being aided on the other side by little Tom, who seized Ned's coat-tails and strove to pull him away from injuring Philip, the two combatants, their boyish belligerence perhaps having had enough for the time, separated, both panting.

"I'll have it out with you yet!" said Master Ned, short-windedly, adjusting his coat, and glaring savagely.

"All right!" said Phil, equally out of breath. Ned then left the field, with a look of contempt for the company.

After that, things went on in the old pleasant manner, except that Ned, without any overt act to precipitate a fight, habitually treated Phil with a most annoying air of scorn and derision. This, though endured silently, was certainly most exasperating.

But it had not to be endured much of the time, for Ned had grown more and more to disdain our society, and to cultivate companions superior to us in years and knowledge of the world. They were, indeed, a smart, trick-playing, swearing set, who aped their elders in drinking, dicing, card-gambling, and even in wenching. Their zest in this imitation was the greater for being necessarily exercised in secret corners, and for their freshness to the vices they affected.

I do not say I was too good for this company and their practices; or that Philip was either. Indeed we had more than a mere glimpse of both, for boys, no matter how studious or how aspiring in the long run, will see what life they can; will seek the taste of forbidden fruit, and will go looking for temptations to yield to. Indeed, the higher a boy's intelligence, the more eager may be his curiosity for, his first enjoyment of, the sins as well as the other pleasures. What banished us--Philip and me--from Ned's particular set was, first, Ned's enmity toward us; second, our attachment to a clan of boys equally bent on playing the rake in secret, though of better information and manners than Ned's comrades could boast of; third, Phil's fondness for books, and mine for him; and finally, our love for Madge.

This last remained unaltered in both of us. As for Madge, as I had predicted to myself, she had gradually restored me to my old place in her consideration as the novelty of Philip's newer devotion had worn off. We seemed now to be equals in her esteem. At one time Phil would apparently stand uppermost there, at another I appeared to be preferred. But this alternating superiority was usually due to casual circ.u.mstance. Sometimes, I suppose, it owed itself to caprice; sometimes, doubtless, to deep design unsuspected by either of us. Boys are not men until they are well grown; but women are women from their first compliment. On the whole, as I have said, Phil and I were very even rivals.

It was sometime in the winter--Philip's first winter with the Faringfields--that the next outbreak came, between him and Master Edward. If ever the broad mansion of the Faringfields looked warm and welcoming, it was in midwinter. The great front doorway, with its fanlight above, and its panel windows at each side, through which the light shone during the long evenings, and with its broad stone steps and out-curving iron railings, had then its most hospitable aspect.

One evening that it looked particularly inviting to me, was when Ned and the two girls and I were returning with our skates from an afternoon spent on Beekman's pond. Large flakes were falling softly on snow already laid. Darkness had caught up with us on the way home, and when we came in sight of the cheery light enframing the Faringfields'

wide front door, and showing also from the windows at one side, I was not sorry I was to eat supper with them that evening, my mother having gone sleighing to visit the Murrays at Incledon, with whom she was to pa.s.s the night. As we neared the door, tired and hungry, whom should we see coming toward it from the other direction but Philip Winwood.

He had worked over the usual time at the warehouse. Before the girls or I could exchange halloes with Phil, we were all startled to hear Ned call out to him, in a tone even more imperious than the words:

"Here, you, come and take my skates, and carry them in, and tell mother I've stopped at Jack Van Cortlandt's house a minute."

And he stood waiting for Phil to do his bidding. The rest of us halted, also; while Phil stopped where he was, looking as if he could not have heard aright.

"Come, are you deaf?" cried Ned, impatiently. "Do as you're bid, and be quick about it."

Now, of course, there was nothing wrong in merely asking a comrade, as one does ask a comrade such things, to carry in one's skates while one stopped on the way. No one was ever readier than Phil to do such little offices, or great ones either. Indeed, it is the American way to do favours, even when not requested, and even to inferiors. I have seen an American gentleman of wealth go in the most natural manner to the a.s.sistance of his own servant in a task that seemed to overtax the latter, and think nothing of it. But in the case I am relating; apart from the fact that I, being nearer than Phil, was the proper one of whom to ask the favour; the phrase and manner were those of a master to a servant; a rough master and a stupid servant, moreover. And so Philip, after a moment, merely laughed, and went on his way toward the door.

At this Master Ned stepped forward with the spirit of chastis.e.m.e.nt in his eyes, his skates held back as if he meant to strike Phil with their sharp blades. But it happened that Philip had by now mounted the first door-step, and thus stood higher than his would-be a.s.sailant. So Master Ned stopped just out of Philip's reach, and said insolently: