The academy was, and still is, a plain brick building, set back from Fourth street, and having a large gravelled space in front and also at the back. The main school-room occupied its whole westward length, and upstairs was a vast room, with bare joists above, in which, by virtue of the deed of gift, any Christian sect was free to worship if temporarily deprived of a home. Here the great Whitefield preached, and here generations of boys were taught. Behind the western playground was the graveyard of Christ Church. He was thought a brave lad who, after school at dusk in winter, dared to climb over and search around the tombs of the silent dead for a lost ball or what not.
I was mightily afraid of the academy. The birch was used often and with severity, and, as I soon found, there was war between the boys and the town fellows who lived to north and east. I was also to discover other annoyances quite as little to the taste of Friends, such as stone fights or snowball skirmishes. Did time permit, I should like well to linger long over this school life. The college, as it was officially called, had a great reputation, and its early catalogues are rich with names of those who made an empire. This task I leave to other pens, and hasten to tell my own personal story.
In my friend Jack Warder’s journal there is a kind page or two as to what manner of lad I was in his remembrance of me in after-years. I like to think it was a true picture.
“When Hugh Wynne and I went to school at the academy on Fourth street, south of Arch, I used to envy him his strength. At twelve he was as tall as are most lads at sixteen, but possessed of such activity and muscular power as are rarely seen, bidding fair to attain, as he did later, the height and massive build of his father. He was a great lover of risk, and not, as I have always been, fearful. When we took apples, after the fashion of all Adam’s young descendants, he was as like as not to give them away. I think he went with us on these, and some wilder errands, chiefly because of his fondness for danger, a thing I could never comprehend. He still has his mother’s great eyes of blue, and a fair, clear skin. God bless him! Had I never known him I might perhaps have been, as to one thing, a happier man, but I had been less deserving of such good fortune as has come to me in life. For this is one of the uses of friends: that we consider how such and such a thing we are moved to do might appear to them. And this for one of my kind, who have had—nay, who have—many weaknesses, has been why Hugh Wynne counts for so much to me.
“We, with two other smaller boys, were, at that time, the only sons of Friends at the academy, and were, thanks to the brute Dove, better grounded in the humanities than were some, although we were late in entering.”
I leave this and other extracts as they were writ. A more upright gentleman than John Warder I know not, nor did ever know. What he meant by his weaknesses I cannot tell, and as to the meaning of one phrase, which he does not here explain, these pages shall perhaps discover.
Not long after our entrance at the academy, my father charged me one morning with a note to my aunt, Gainor Wynne, which I was to deliver when the morning session was over. As this would make me late, in case her absence delayed a reply, I was to remain and eat my midday meal. My father was loath always to call upon his sister. She had early returned to the creed of her ancestors, and sat on Sundays in a great square pew at Christ Church, to listen to the Rev. Robert Jennings. Hither, in September of 1763, my aunt took me, to my father’s indignation, to hear the great Mr. Whitefield preach.
Neither Aunt Gainor’s creed, dress, house, nor society pleased her brother. She had early made clear, in her decisive way, that I was to be her heir, and she was, I may add, a woman of large estate. I was allowed to visit her as I pleased. Indeed, I did so often. I liked no one better, always excepting my mother. Why, with my father’s knowledge of her views, I was thus left free I cannot say. He was the last of men to sacrifice his beliefs to motives of gain.
When I knocked at the door of her house on Arch street, opposite the Friends’ Meeting-house, a black boy, dressed as a page, let me in. He was clad in gray armozine, a sort of corded stuff, with red buttons, and he wore a red turban. As my aunt was gone to drive, on a visit to that Madam Penn who was once Miss Allen, I was in no hurry, and was glad to look about me. The parlour, a great room with three windows on the street, afforded a strange contrast to my sober home. There were Smyrna rugs on a polished floor, a thing almost unheard of. Indeed, people came to see them. The furniture was all of red walnut, and carved in shells and flower reliefs. There were so many tables, little and larger, with claw-feet or spindle-legs, that one had to be careful not to overturn their loads of Chinese dragons, ivory carvings, grotesque Delft beasts, and fans, French or Spanish or of the Orient. There was also a spinet, and a corner closet of books, of which every packet brought her a variety. Upstairs was a fair room full of volumes, big and little, as I found to my joy rather later, and these were of all kinds: some good, and some of them queer, or naughty. Over the wide, white fireplace was a portrait of herself by the elder Peale, but I prefer the one now in my library. This latter hung, at the time I speak of, between the windows. It was significant of my aunt’s idea of her own importance that she should have wished to possess two portraits of herself. The latter was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds when she was in England in 1750, and represents her as a fine, large woman with features which were too big for loveliness in youth, but in after-years went well with her abundant gray hair and unusual stature; for, like the rest of us, she was tall, of vigorous and wholesome build and colour, with large, well-shaped hands, and the strength of a man—I might add, too, with the independence of a man. She went her own way, conducted the business of her estate, which was ample, with skill and ability, and asked advice from no one. Like my father, she had a liking to control those about her, was restlessly busy, and was never so pleased as when engaged in arranging other people’s lives, or meddling with the making of matches.
To this ample and luxurious house came the better class of British officers, and ombre and quadrille were often, I fear, played late into the long nights of winter. Single women, after a certain or uncertain age, were given a brevet title of “Mistress.” Mistress Gainor Wynne lost or won with the coolness of an old gambler, and this habit, perhaps more than aught beside, troubled my father. Sincere and consistent in his views, I can hardly think that my father was, after all, unable to resist the worldly advantages which my aunt declared should be mine. It was, in fact, difficult to keep me out of the obvious risks this house and company provided for a young person like myself. He must have trusted to the influence of my home to keep me in the ways of Friends. It is also to be remembered, as regards my father’s motives, that my Aunt Gainor was my only relative, since of the Owens none were left.
My mother was a prime favourite with this masterful lady. She loved nothing better than to give her fine silk petticoats or a pearl-coloured satin gown; and if this should nowadays amaze Friends, let them but look in the “Observer,” and see what manner of finery was advertised in 1778 as stole from our friend, Sarah Fisher, sometime Sarah Logan, a much respected member of Meeting. In this, as in all else, my mother had her way, and, like some of the upper class of Quakers, wore at times such raiment as fifty years later would have surely brought about a visit from a committee of overseers.
Waiting for Aunt Gainor, I fell upon an open parcel of books just come by the late spring packet. Among these turned up a new and fine edition of “Captain Gulliver’s Travels,” by Mr. Dean Swift. I lit first, among these famous adventures, on an extraordinary passage, so wonderful, indeed, and so amusing, that I heard not the entrance of my father, who at the door had met my aunt, and with her some fine ladies of the governor’s set. There were Mrs. Ferguson, too well known in the politics of later years, but now only a beautiful and gay woman, Madam Allen, and Madam Chew, the wife of the Attorney-General.
They were eagerly discussing, and laughingly inquiring of my father, what colour of masks for the street was to be preferred. He was in no wise embarrassed by these fine dames, and never, to my thinking, was seen to better advantage than among what he called “world’s people.” He seemed to me more really at home than among Friends, and as he towered, tall, and gravely courteous in manner, I thought him a grand gentleman.
As I looked up, the young Miss Chew, who afterward married Colonel Eager Howard, was saying saucily, “Does not Madam Wynne wear a mask for her skin! It is worth keeping, Mr. Wynne.”
“Let me recommend to you a vizard with silver buttons to hold in the mouth, or, better, a riding-mask,” cried Aunt Gainor, pleased at this gentle badgering, “like this, John. See, a flat silver plate to hold between the teeth. It is the last thing.”
“White silk would suit her best,” cried Mrs. Ferguson, “or green, with a chin-curtain—a loo-mask. Which would you have, sir?”
“Indeed,” he said quietly, “her skin is good enough. I know no way to better it.”
Then they all laughed, pelting the big man with many questions, until he could not help but laugh, as he declared he was overwhelmed, and would come on his business another day. But on this the women would not stay, and took themselves and their high bonnets and many petticoats out of the room, each dropping a curtsey at the door, and he bowing low, like Mr. John Penn, as never before I had seen him do.
No sooner were they gone than he desired me to give him the note he had written to his sister, since now it was not needed, and then he inquired what book I was reading. Aunt Gainor glanced at it, and replied for me, “A book of travels, John, very improving too. Take it home, Hugh, and read it. If you find in it no improprieties, it may be recommended to your father.” She loved nothing better than to tease him.
“I see not what harm there could be in travels,” he returned. “Thou hast my leave. Gainor, what is this I hear? Thou wouldst have had me sell thee for a venture threescore hogsheads of tobacco from Annapolis. I like not to trade with my sister, nor that she should trade at all: and now, when I have let them go to another, I hear that it is thou who art the real buyer. I came hither to warn thee that other cargoes are to arrive. Thou wilt lose.”
Aunt Gainor said nothing for a moment, but let loose the linen safeguard petticoat she wore against mud or dust when riding, and appeared in a rich brocade of gray silken stuff, and a striped under-gown. When she had put off her loose camlet over-jacket, she said, “Will you have a glass of Madeira, or shall it be Hollands, John? Ring the bell, Hugh.”
“Hollands,” said my father.
“What will you give me for your tobacco to-day, John?”
“Why dost thou trifle?” he returned.
“I sold it again, John. I am the better by an hundred pounds. Two tobacco-ships are wrecked on Hinlopen. An express is come. Have you not heard?”
“Farewell,” he said, rising. He made no comment on her news. I had an idea that he would not have been unhappy had she lost on her venture.
Joseph Warder was her agent then and afterward. She rarely lost on her purchases. Although generous, and even lavish, she dearly loved a good bargain, and, I believe, liked the game far more than she cared for success in the playing of it.
“Come, Hugh,” she said, “let us eat and drink. Take the book home, and put it away for your own reading. Here is sixpence out of my gains. I hope you will never need to trade, and, indeed, why should you, whether I live or die? How would the king’s service suit you, and a pair of colours?”
I said I should like it.
“There is a pretty tale, Hugh, of the French gentlemen, who, being poor, have to make money in commerce. They leave their swords with a magistrate, and when they are become rich enough take them back again. There is some pleasing ceremony, but I forget. The Wynnes have been long enough in drab and trade. It is time we took back our swords, and quitted bow-thouing and bow-theeing.”
I said I did not understand.
“Oh, you will,” said Aunt Gainor, giving me a great apple-dumpling. “Take some molasses. Oh, as much as you please. I shall look away, as I do when the gentlemen take their rum.”
You may be sure I obeyed her. As to much that she said, I was shocked; but I never could resist a laugh, and so we made merry like children, as was usual, for, as she used to say, “To learn when to laugh and when not to laugh is an education.”
When my meal was over, and my stomach and my pockets all full, Aunt Gainor bade me sit on her knees, and began to tell me about what fine gentlemen were the Wynnes, and how foolish my grandfather had been to turn Quaker and give up fox-hunting and the old place. I was told, too, how much she had lost to Mr. Penn last night, and more that was neither well for me to hear nor wise for her to tell; but as to this she cared little, and she sent me away then, as far too many times afterward, full of my own importance, and of desire to escape some day from the threatened life of the ledger and the day-book.
At last she said, “You are getting too heavy, Hugh. Handsome Mrs. Ferguson says you are too big to be kissed, and not old enough to kiss,” and so she bade me go forth to the afternoon session of the academy.
After two weeks at the academy I got my first lesson in the futility of non-resistance, so that all the lessons of my life in favour of this doctrine were, of a sudden, rendered vain. We were going home in the afternoon, gay and happy, Jack Warder to take supper with me, and to use a boat my aunt had given me.
Near to High street was a vacant lot full of bushes and briers. Here the elder lads paused, and one said, “Wynne, you are to fight.”
I replied, “Why should I fight? I win not.”
“But it is to get your standing in the school, and Tom Alloway is to fight you.”
“This was a famous occasion in our lives,” writes my friend Jack; “for, consider: I, who was a girl for timidity, was sure to have my turn next, and here were we two little fellows, who had heard every First-day, and ever and ever at home, that all things were to be suffered of all men (and of boys too, I presume). I was troubled for Hugh, but I noticed that while he said he would not fight he was buttoning up his jacket and turning back the cuff of one sleeve. Also he smiled as he said, ‘No, I cannot;’ and many times since I have seen him merry, in danger.
“For, of a truth, never later did he or I feel the sense of a great peril as we did that day, with the bigger boys hustling us, and Alloway crying, ‘Coward!’ I looked about for some man who would help us, but there was no one; only a cow hobbled near by. She looked up, and then went on chewing her cud. I, standing behind Hugh, said, ‘Run! run!’
“The counsel seemed good to me who gave it. As I think on it now, I was in great perplexity of soul, and had a horrible fear as to bodily hurt. I turned, followed by Hugh, and ran fleetly across the open ground and through the bushes. About midway I looked back. Two lads were near upon us, when I saw Hugh drop upon his hands and knees. Both fellows rolled over him, and he called out, as they fell to beating him, ‘Run, Jack!’
“But I was no longer so minded. I kicked one boy, and struck another, and even now recall how a strange joy captured me when I struck the first blow.”
There was a fine scrimmage, for no quarter was asked or given, and I saw my poor Jack’s girl face bloody. This was the last I remember clearly, for the lust of battle was on me, and I can recall no more of what chanced for a little, than I could in later years of the wild melley on the main street of Germantown, or of the struggle in the redoubt at Yorktown.
Presently we were cast to right and left by a strong hand, and, looking up, as I stood fierce and panting, I saw Friend Rupert Forest, and was overwhelmed with fear; for often on First-day I had heard him preach solemnly, and always it was as to turning the other cheek, and on the wickedness of profane language. Just now he seemed pleased rather than angered, and said, smiling:
“This is a big war, boys. What is it about?”
I said, “I must fight for my standing, and I will not.”
“I think thou wert scarcely of that mind just now. There will be bad blood until it is over.”
To this I replied, “It is Alloway I am to fight.”
To my surprise, he went on to say, “Then take off thy jacket and stand up, and no kicking.”
I asked nothing better, and began to laugh. At this my foe, who was bigger and older than I, cried out that I would laugh on the other side of my mouth—a queer boy phrase of which I could never discover the meaning.
“And now, fair play,” said Friend Forest. “Keep cool, Hugh, and watch his eyes.”
I felt glad that he was on my side, and we fell to with no more words. I was no match for the practised fists of my antagonist; but I was the stronger, and I kept my wits better than might have been expected. At last I got his head under my arm with a grip on his gullet, and so mauled him with my right fist that Friend Forest pulled me away, and my man staggered back, bloody, and white too, while I was held like a dog in leash.
“He hath enough, I think. Ask him.”
I cried out, “No! Damn him!” It was my first oath.
“Hush!” cried Forest. “No profane language.”
“I will not speak to him,” said I, “and—and—he is a beast of the pit.” Now this fine statement I had come upon in a book of Mr. William Penn’s my father owned, wherein the governor had denounced one Mr. Muggleton.
Friend Forest laughed merrily. “Thou hast thy standing, lad.” For Alloway walked sullenly away, not man enough to take more or to confess defeat. Jack, who was still white, said:
“It is my turn now, and which shall it be?”
“Shade of Fox!” cried Friend Forest. “The war is over. Come, boys, I must see you well out of this.” And so reassuring us, he went down Fourth street, and to my home.
My father was in the sitting-room, taking his long-stemmed reed pipe at his ease. He rose as we followed Friend Forest into the room.
“Well,” he said, “what coil is this?” For we were bloody, and hot with fight and wrath, and our garments in very sad disorder.
Friend Forest very quietly related our story, and made much of his own share in the renewal of our battle. To my surprise, my father smiled.
“It seems plain,” he said, “that the lads were not to blame. But how wilt thou answer to the Meeting, Rupert Forest?”
“To it, to thee, to any man,” said the Quaker.
“It is but a month ago that thy case was before Friends because of thy having beaten Friend Wain’s man. It will go ill with thee—ill, I fear.”
“And who is to spread it abroad?”
“Not I,” said my father.
“I knew that,” returned the Friend, simply. “I am but a jack-in-the-box Quaker, John. I am in and out in a moment, and then I go back and repent.”
“Let us hope so. Go to thy mother, Hugh; and as to thee, John Warder, wait until I send with thee a note to thy father. There are liquors on the table, Friend Forest.”
My mother set us in order, and cried a little, and said:
“I am glad he was well beaten. Thou shouldst never fight, my son; but if thou must, let it be so that thy adversary repent of it. Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! j’en ai peur; the wild Welsh blood of these Wynnes! And thy poor little nose—how ‘t is swelled!”
Not understanding her exclamations, Jack said as much, but she answered:
“Oh, it is a fashion of speech we French have. I shall never be cured of it, I fear. This wild blood—what will come of it?” And she seemed—as Jack writes long after, being more observing than I—as if she were looking away into the distance of time, thinking of what might come to pass. She had, indeed, strange insight, and even then, as I knew later, had her fears and unspoken anxieties. And so, with a plentiful supper, ended a matter which was, I may say, a critical point in my life.
After this my days went by more peacefully. The help and example of Jack assisted me greatly in my lessons, which I did little relish. I was more fond of reading, and devoured many books as I sat under our orchard trees in the spring, or nestled up to the fire on the long winter evenings, coiled on the settle, that its high back might keep off drafts. My aunt lent me an abundance of books after that famous “Travels” of Mr. Gulliver. Now and then my father looked at what she gave me, but he soon tired of this, and fell asleep in the great oak chair which Governor Penn gave my grandfather.
Many volumes, and some queer ones, I fell upon in my aunt’s house, but, save once, against the naughtiness of Mrs. Aphra Behn, she never interfered. We liked greatly a book called “Peter Wilkins,” by one Paltock, full of a queer folk, who had winged “graundees,” a sort of crimson robe made of folds of their own skin. None read it now. My dear Jack fancied it much more than I.
I was nigh to fifteen before we read “Robinson Crusoe,” but even earlier I devoured at my aunt’s “Captain Jack” and “The History of the Devil.” The former book filled us with delight. Jack and I used to row over to Windmill Island, on the great Delaware, and there at the south end we built a hut, and slew bullfrogs, and found steps on the sand, I being thereafter Friday, and Jack my master. We made, too, a sail and mast for my boat, and, thus aided, sailed of Saturdays up and down the noble river, which I have always loved.
A still greater joy was to go in our chaise with my mother to the governor’s woods, which extended from Broad street to the Schuylkill, and from Callowhill to South street. There we tied the horse, and under the great trees we found in spring arbutus, even beneath the snow, and later fetched thence turkey-foot ferns, and wild honeysuckle, and quaker-ladies, with jack-in-the-pulpits and fearful gray corpse-lights hid away in the darker woods. In the forest my mother seemed even younger than at home, and played with us, and told us quaint tales of her French people, or fairy stories of Giant Jack and others, which were by no means such as Friends approved.
In our house one same stern, unbending rule prevailed. I have been told by my aunt, Gainor Wynne, that when he was young my father was not always so steadfast in conduct as to satisfy Friends. When I was old enough to observe and think, he had surely become strict enough; but this severity of opinion and action increased with years, and showed in ways which made life difficult for those near to him. In fact, before I attained manhood the tinted arms and the picture of Wyncote were put away in the attic room. My mother’s innocent love of ornament also became to him a serious annoyance, and these peculiarities seemed at last to deepen whenever the political horizon darkened. At such times he became silent, and yet more keen than usual to detect and denounce anything in our home life which was not to his liking.
The affairs of a young fellow between the ages of childhood and younger manhood can have but meagre interest. Our school life went on, and while we worked or played, our elders saw the ever-increasing differences between king and colonies becoming year by year more difficult of adjustment. Except when some noisy crisis arose, they had for us lads but little interest.
Most people used the city landings, or lightered their goods from ships in the stream. We, however, had a great dock built out near to the mouth of Dock Creek, and a warehouse. Hither came sloops from my father’s plantation of tobacco, near Annapolis, and others from the “permitted islands,” the Cape de Verde and the Madeiras. Staves for barrels, tobacco, and salt fish were the exports, and in return came Eastern goods brought to these islands, and huge tuns of Madeira wine. Rum, too, arrived from New England, and salted mackerel. What else my father imported, of French goods or tea, reached us from England, for we were not allowed to trade with the continent of Europe nor directly with India.
Once my father took me with him to Lewes, near Cape Hinlopen, on one of his ships, and to my joy we were met there by Tom, our black slave, with horses, and rode back during two days by Newcastle and Chester. As I rode ill, of course, and was sore for a week, my father thought it well that I should learn to ride, and this exercise I took to easily. Just before I was sixteen my aunt gave me a horse, and after we had separated abruptly a few times, and no harm to any, I became the master, and soon an expert rider, as was needful in a land where most long journeys were made on horseback.
It seems to me now, as I look back, that the events of life were preparing me and my friend Jack for what was to follow. Our boating made every part of the two rivers familiar. Now that I had a horse, Jack’s father, who would always do for him readily what my Aunt Gainor did for me, yielded to his desire to ride; and so it was that we began, as leisure served, to extend our rides to Germantown, or even to Chestnut Hill. Thus all the outlying country became well known to both of us, and there was not a road, a brook, or a hill which we did not know.
Until this happy time I had been well pleased to follow my aunt on a pillion behind her servant, Caesar, but now I often went with her, perched on my big horse, and got from my aunt, an excellent horsewoman, some sharp lessons as to leaping, and certain refinements in riding that she had seen or known of in London.
A Captain Montresor—he who afterward, when a colonel, was Howe’s engineer—used to ride with her in the spring of ‘69. He was a tall, stout man of middle age, and much spoken of as likely to marry my Aunt Gainor, although she was older than he, for, as fat Oliver de Lancey said years after, “There is no age to a woman’s money, and guineas are always young.” My aunt, Gainor Wynne, was still a fine gentlewoman, and did not look her years. As concerned this question of age, she was like a man, and so in fact she was in some other ways. She would tell any one how old she was. She once informed Mr. de Lancey that she was so much more of a man than any British officer she knew that she did not see how she could decently marry any of them.
I think it was about this time that I saw a little scene which much impressed me, and which often recurs to my memory. We—that is, Mr. Montresor, and my Aunt Gainor and I—of a Saturday afternoon rode over by the lower ferry and up Gray’s Lane, and so to Mr. Hamilton’s country-seat. “The Woodlands,” as it was called, stood on a hill amid many beautiful trees and foreign shrubs and flowers. Below it ran the quiet Schuylkill, and beyond, above the governor’s woods, could be seen far away Dr. Kearsley’s fine spire of Christ Church. No better did Master Wren himself ever contrive, or more proportioned to the edifice beneath it.
On the porch were Mr. Hamilton and Mrs. Penn, with saucy gray eyes, and Mrs. Ferguson. A slim young girl, Rebecca Franks, was teasing a cat. She teased some one all her days, and did it merrily, and not unkindly. She was little and very pretty, with a dark skin. Did she dream she should marry a British soldier—a baronet and general—and end her days in London well on in the century yet to come?
Andrew Allen, whose father, the chief justice, took his wife, Margaret, from this house, sat on the steps near Miss Franks, and beside her little Peggy Shippen, who already gave promise of the beauty which won for her so pitiful a life. Nothing in this garden of gay women and flowers foretold the tragedy of West Point. I think of it now with sad wonder.
In one or another way these people became known in our annals. Most of them were of the more exclusive party known as the governor’s set, and belonged to the Church of England. With the Galloways, Cadwaladers, Willings, Shippens, Rawles, and others, they formed a more or less distinct society, affecting London ways, dining at the extreme hour of four, loving cards, the dance, fox-hunting, and to see a main of game-cocks. Among them—not of them—came and went certain of what were called “genteel” Quakers—Morrises, Pembertons, Whartons, and Logans. They had races too,—that is, the governor’s set,—and one of my delights was, on the way to the academy, to stop in Third street, above Chestnut, and see the race-horses in the Widow Nichols’s stables at the sign of the Indian Queen.
But I have left the laughter of the last century echoing among the columns of Andrew Hamilton’s home. The guests were made welcome, and had a dish of tea or a glass of punch; and those desiring no more bohea set a spoon across the cup, and fell into groups. My aunt opened the velvet bag which hung at her waist, to pay Mrs. Ferguson a small gambling debt of the night before.
“Ah, here!” she cried gaily, “Mr. Montresor, this is for you. One of Mr. Grenville’s stamps; I kept two. I was lucky enough to get them from Master Hughes, the stamp officer—a great curiosity. You shall have one.”
Mr. Montresor bowed. “I will keep it,” he said, “until it comes into use again.”
“That will be never,” said Andrew Allen, turning.
“Never!” repeated Miss Wynne. “Let us hope, sir, it may be a lesson to all future ministers.”
“A man was wanted in New York in place of Mr. Gage,” cried Mrs. Ferguson. “As to those New England Puritans, they were in rebellion before they came over, and have been ever since.”
“And what of New York, and this town, and Virginia?” said my Aunt Gainor, with her great nose well up.
“I would have put an end to their disloyal ways, one and all,” cried Mrs. Ferguson.
“It is curious,” said Mr. Galloway, “that the crown should be so thwarted. What people have more reason to be contented?”
“Contented!” said Miss Wynne. “Already they talk of taxes in which we are to have no voice. Contented! and not a ship dare trade with France. It amazes me that there is a man in the plantations to sit quiet under it.”
“I am of your opinion, madam,” said Mr. Macpherson, “and I might go still further.”
“They consider us as mere colonials, and we may not so much as have a bishop of our own. I would I had my way, sir.”
“And what would you do, Mistress Wynne?” asked Mr. Chew.
“I would say, ‘Mr. Attorney-General, give us the same liberty all the English have, to go and come on the free seas!’”
“And if not?” said Montresor, smiling.
“And if not,” she returned, “then—” and she touched the sword at his side. I wondered to see how resolute she looked.
The captain smiled. “I hope you will not command a regiment, madam.”
“Would to God I could!”
“I should run,” he cried, laughing. And thus pleasantly ended a talk which was becoming bitter to many of this gay company.
Destiny was already sharpening the sword we were soon to draw, and of those who met and laughed that day there were sons who were to be set against fathers, and brothers whom war was to find in hostile ranks. A young fellow of my age, the son of Mr. Macpherson, sat below us on the steps with the girls. He was to leave his young life on the bastion at Quebec, and, for myself, how little did I dream of what I should get out of the devil-pot of war which was beginning to simmer!
Very soon I was sent with Rebecca Franks and Miss Chew to gather flowers. Miss Franks evidently despised my youth, and between the two little maids I, being unused to girls, had not a pleasant time, and was glad to get back to the porch, where we stood silent until bidden to be seated, upon which the girls curtseyed and I bowed, and then sat down to eat cakes and drink syllabub.
At last my aunt put on her safeguard petticoat, the horses came, and we rode away. For a while she was silent, answering the captain in monosyllables; but just beyond the ferry his horse cast a shoe, and went so lame that the officer must needs return to Woodlands leading him, there to ask a new mount.
For yet a while my aunt rode on without a word, but presently began to rally me as to Miss Chew. I had to confess I cared not for her or the other, or, indeed, for maids at all.
“It will come,” said she. “Oh, it will come soon enough. Peggy Chew has the better manners. And, by the way, sir, when you bow, keep your back straight. Mr. Montresor has a pretty way of it. Observe him, Hugh. But he is a fool, and so are the rest; and as for Bessy Ferguson, I should like to lay a whip over her back like that,” and she hit my horse sharply, poor thing, so that I lost a stirrup and came near to falling.
When the beast got quiet I asked why these nice people, who had such pleasant ways, were all fools.
“I will tell you,” she said. “There are many and constant causes of trouble between us and the king. When one ends, like this Stamp Act, another is hatched. It was the best of us who left England, and we are trained to rely on ourselves, and have no need of England. You will live to see dark days, Hugh—just what, God alone can tell; but you will live to see them, and your life will have to answer some questions. This may seem strange to you, my lad, but it will come.”
What would come I knew not. She said no more, but rode homeward at speed, as she liked best to do.
Thus time went by, until I was full sixteen, having been at the college a year later than was usual. I had few battles to fight, and contrived to keep these to myself, or to get patched up at my Aunt Wynne’s, who delighted to hear of these conflicts, and always gave me a shilling to heal my wounds. My dear, fair-haired Jack, Aunt Gainer thought a girl-boy, and fit only to sell goods, or, at best, to become a preacher. His father she used and disliked.
Meanwhile we had been through Horace and Cicero,—and Ovid for our moral improvement, I suppose,—with Virgil and Sallust, and at last Caesar, whom alone of them all I liked. Indeed, Jack and I built over a brook in my Aunt Gainor’s garden at Chestnut Hill a fair model of Caesar’s great bridge over the Rhine. This admired product of our ingenuity was much praised by Captain Montresor, who was well aware of my aunt’s weakness for a certain young person.
My father’s decisions came always without warning. In the fall of 1769 I was just gone back to the academy, and put to work at mathematics and some Greek under James Wilson, at that period one of the tutors, and some time later an associate judge of the Supreme Court. This great statesman and lawyer of after-days was a most delightful teacher. He took a fancy to my Jack, and, as we were inseparable, put up with my flippancy and deficient scholarship. Jack’s diary says otherwise, and that he saw in me that which, well used, might make of me a man of distinction. At all events, he liked well to walk with us on a Saturday, or to go in my boat, which was for us a great honour. My father approved of James Wilson, and liked him on the holiday to share our two-o’clock dinner. Then, and then only, did I understand the rigour and obstinacy of my father’s opinions, for they ofttimes fell into debate as to the right of the crown to tax us without representation. Mr. Wilson said many towns in England had no voice in Parliament, and that, if once the crown yielded the principle we stood on, it would change the whole political condition in the mother-land; and this the king would never agree to see. Mr. Wilson thought we had been foolish to say, as many did, that, while we would have no internal taxes, we would submit to a tax on imports. This he considered even worse. My father was for obedience and non-resistance, and could not see that we were fighting a battle for the liberty of all Englishmen. He simply repeated his opinions, and was but a child in the hands of this clear-headed thinker. My father might well have feared for the effect of Mr. Wilson’s views on a lad of my age, in whose mind he opened vistas of thought far in advance of those which, without him, I should ever have seen.
John Wynne was, however, too habitually accustomed to implicit obedience to dream of danger, and thus were early sown in my mind the seeds of future action, with some doubt as to my father’s ability to cope with a man like our tutor, who considerately weighed my father’s sentiments (they were hardly opinions), and so easily and courteously disposed of them that these logical defeats were clear even to us boys.
Our school relations with this gentleman were abruptly broken. One day, in late October of 1769, we went on a long walk through the proprietary’s woods, gathering for my mother boughs of the many-tinted leaves of autumn. These branches she liked to set in jars of water in the room where we sat, so that it might be gay with the lovely colours she so much enjoyed. As we entered the forest about Eighth street Mr. Wilson joined us, and went along, chatting agreeably with my mother. Presently he said to me: “I have just left your father with Mr. Pemberton, talking about some depredations in Mr. Penn’s woods. He tells me you boys are to leave school, but for what I do not know. I am sorry.”
Jack and I had of late expected this, and I, for one, was not grieved, but my friend was less well pleased.
We strolled across to the Schuylkill, and there, sitting down, amused ourselves with making a little crown of twisted twigs and leaves of the red and yellow maples. This we set merrily on my mother’s gray beaver, while Mr. Wilson declared it most becoming. Just then Friend Pemberton and my father came upon us, and, as usual when the latter appeared, our laughter ceased.
“I shall want thee this afternoon, Hugh,” he said. “And what foolishness is this on thy head, wife? Art thou going home in this guise?”
“It seems an innocent prettiness,” said Pemberton, while my mother, in no wise dismayed, looked up with her big blue eyes.
“Thou wilt always be a child,” said my father.
“Je l’espere,” said the mother; “must I be put in a corner? The bon Dieu hath just changed the forest fashions. I wonder is He a Quaker, Friend Pemberton?”
“Thou hast ever a neat answer,” said the gentle old man. “Come, John, we are not yet done.”
My father said no more, and we boys were still as mice. We went homeward with our mirth quite at an end, Jack and Wilson leaving us at Fourth street.
In the afternoon about six—for an hour had been named—I saw my aunt’s chaise at the door. I knew at once that something unusual was in store, for Mistress Wynne rarely came hither except to see my mother, and then always in the forenoon. Moreover, I noticed my father at the window, and never had I known him to return so early. When I went in he said at once:
“I have been telling thy aunt of my intention in regard to thee.”
“And I utterly disapprove of it,” said my aunt.
“Wait,” he said. “I desire that thou shalt enter as one of my clerks; but first it is my will that, as the great and good proprietary decreed, thou shouldst acquire some mechanic trade; I care not what.”
I was silent; I did not like it. Even far later, certain of the stricter Friends adhered to a rule which was once useful, but was now no longer held to be of imperative force.
“I would suggest shoemaking,” said my Aunt Gainor, scornfully, “or tailoring.”
“I beg of thee, Gainor,” said my mother, “not to discontent the lad.”
“In this matter,” returned my father, “I will not be thwarted. I asked thee to come hither, not to ridicule a sensible decision, but to consult upon it.”
“You have had all my wisdom,” said the lady. “I had thought to ask my friend, Charles Townshend, for a pair of colours; but now that troops are sent to Boston to override all reason, I doubt it. Do as you will with the boy. I wash my hands of him.”
This was by no means my father’s intention. I saw his face set in an expression I well knew; but my mother laid a hand on his arm, and, with what must have been a great effort, he controlled his anger, and said coldly: “I have talked this over with thy friend, Joseph Warder, and he desired that his son should share in my decision as to Hugh. Talk to him, Gainor.”
“I do not take counsel with my agent, John. He does as I bid him. I could shift his opinions at a word. He is a Tory to-day, and a Whig to-morrow, and anything to anybody. Why do you talk such nonsense to me? Let me tell you that he has already been to ask me what I think of it. He feels some doubt, poor man. Indeed, he is disposed to consider. Bother! what does it matter what he considers?”
“If he has changed his mind I have not. Joseph hath ever a coat of many colours.”
“I shall tell him,” she cried, laughing. The Quaker rule of repression and non-resistance by no means forbade the use of the brutal bludgeon of sarcasm, as many a debate in Meeting could testify. She rose as she spoke, and my mother said gently:
“Thou wilt not tell him, Gainor.”
Meanwhile I stood amazed at a talk which so deeply concerned me.
“Shall it be a smithy?” said my father.
“Oh, what you like. The Wynnes are well down in the world—trade, horseshoeing. Good evening.”
“Gainor! Gainor!” cried my mother; but she was gone in wrath, and out of the house.
“Thou wilt leave the academy. I have already arranged with Lowry, in South street, to take thee. Three months should answer.”
To this I said, “Yes, yes,” and went away but little pleased, my mother saying, “It is only for a time, my son.”