The next day, having seen to matters of business in the morning, I set out after dinner in my finest clothes to join my friends. I fear that I promised my mother to be careful, and to be at home by nine o’clock.
I met Captain Montresor at the London Coffeehouse, at High and Front streets, and, having taken a chaise, drove out through the woods to the upper ferry, and thence to Egglesfield, the seat of Mr. Warner, from whom the club known then as “The Colony in Schuylkill” held under a curious tenure the acre or two of land where they had built a log cabin and founded this ancient and singular institution. Here were met Anthony Morris, who fell at Trenton, Mr. Tench Francis, sometime Attorney-General, Mifflin, and that Galloway who later became a Tory, with Mr. Willing, and others of less note, old and young. I was late for the annual ceremony of presenting three fish to Mr. Warner, this being the condition on which the soil was held, but I saw the great pewter dish with the Penn arms, a gift from that family, on which the fish were offered.
It was a merry and an odd party; for, clad in white aprons, the apprentices, so called, cooked the dinner and served it; and the punch and Madeira went round the table often enough, as the “king’s health” was drunk, and “success to trade,” and “the ladies, God bless them!”
I liked it well, and, with my aunt’s warning in mind, drank but little, and listened to the talk, which was too free at times, as was the bad custom of that day, and now and then angry; for here were some who were to die for their country, and some who were to fail it in the hour of need.
Despite my English friends, and thanks to Mr. Wilson and my Aunt Gainor, I was fast becoming an ardent Whig, so that the talk, in which I had small share, interested me deeply. At last, about seven, the pipes having been smoked and much punch taken, the company rose to go, some of them the worse for their potations.
We drove into town, and at the coffee-house put up and paid for our chaise. I said good-by to Mr. Montresor, who, I think, had been charged by Miss Wynne to look after me, when a Captain Small, whom I knew, stopped me. He was well known as one of the most reckless of the younger officers, a stout, short man, rather heroically presented long afterward, in Trumbull’s picture of the “Death of Warren,” as trying to put aside the bayonets. As I paused to reply, I saw Jack Warder standing on the other side of the street. He nodded, smiling, and made as if he were about to cross over. He had many times talked with me seriously this winter, until I had become vexed, and told them he was a milksop. After this I saw little of him. Now I was annoyed at the idea that he was spying upon my actions, and therefore, like a fool, merely nodded, and, turning my back on him, heard Mr. Small say: “You must not go yet, Mr. Wynne. We are to have supper upstairs, and you will like to see a gentleman of your name, Mr. Arthur Wynne, of the Scots Grays. He tells me he is of distant kin to you.”
Montresor said I had better go home, but Etherington asked if I wanted my bottle and nurse; and so at last, partly from pride and partly out of curiosity to see this other Wynne, I said I would remain long enough to welcome the gentleman and take a social glass. When we entered the room upstairs, I found a supper of cold meats and, as usual, punch and liquors. There were two dozen or more officers in undress jackets, their caps and swords in the corners, and also two or three of the younger men of the Tory or doubtful parties.
Several officers called to me to sit with them, for I was a favourite, and could troll a catch or sing parts fairly well. My companion, Small, said, “This way, Wynne,” and, followed by Montresor and the colonel of the Scots Grays, whose name I forget, we moved to a table remote from the door. Here Montresor, pushing past Small, said: “Captain Wynne, I have the honour to present to you Mr. Hugh Wynne, one of your family, I hear.”
Upon this there rose to greet me a gentleman in the undress uniform of the Grays. He was tall and well built, but not so broad or strong as we other Wynnes; certainly an unusually handsome man. He carried his head high, was very erect, and had an air of distinction, for which at that time I should have had no name. I may add that he was dressed with unusual neatness, and very richly; all of which, I being but a half-formed young fellow, did much impress me.
He looked at me so steadily as we came near that it gave me a rather unpleasant impression; for those who do not meet the eye at all are scarcely less disagreeable than those who too continually watch you, as was this man’s way. I was rather young to be a very careful observer of men’s faces, but I did see that Captain Wynne’s bore traces of too convivial habits.
As I recall his dark, regular features, I remember, for we met often afterward, that the lower part of his face was too thin, and that in repose his mouth was apt not to remain fully shut, a peculiarity, as I now think, of persons of weak will.
My first feeling of there being something unpleasing about him soon left me. He rose, and, with graciousness and the ease and manner of one used to the best society, moved around the table and took my hand.
“I am but a far-away kinsman,” he said, “but I am charmed to make your acquaintance. You are like the picture of old Sir Robert at Wyncote, where I was last year for the otter-hunting.”
I greeted him warmly. “And art thou living at Wyneote?” I asked rather awkwardly.
“No, I do not live at home. I am but a cadet, and yours is the elder branch.” Then he added gaily, “I salute you, sir, as the head of our old house. Your very good health!” And at this, with a charm of manner I have seen but rarely, he put a hand on my shoulder, and added, “We must be friends, Cousin Wynne, and I must know your father, and above all Mistress Wynne. Montresor never ceases talking of her.”
I said it would give me pleasure to present him; then, delighted to hear of Wyncote, I sat down, and, despite a warning look from Montresor, began to take wine with this newly found kinsman.
Mr. Arthur Wynne was a man fully ten years my senior. He had served in the Guards, and in the Indies, and was full of stories of court and camp and war, such as every young fellow of spirit likes to hear.
Captain Montresor lingered awhile, and then, finding it vain to persist in his purpose, gave it up, and fell to talking with one of his fellow-officers, while I went on questioning my cousin as to the Wynnes to their uttermost generation. Either he cared little about them, or he knew little, for he seemed much to prefer to tell queer stories about the court ladies, and my Lord Chesterfield’s boor of a son, who had such small manners and such a large appetite, and of Sir Guy Carleton, whom he was about to join in Canada. He advised me to get a pair of colours as my aunt had once desired, and seemed surprised when I paraded my friend Mr. Wilson’s opinions as my own, and talked of taxation and the oppression under which commerce had to be carried on. In fact, as to this I knew something; but in this, as in other matters, he deferred to me as one does to a well-informed talker of one’s own age, now setting me right with admirable courtesy, and now cordially agreeing.
What with his evident desire to be friendly, and the wine I was taking, I fell an easy prey to one who rarely failed to please when he was so minded. Too well amused to reflect that the hours were swiftly passing, I sat, taking glass after glass mechanically. As the night went on we had more punch, and the dice began to rattle on the tables, despite the landlord’s remonstrance, who feared to fall into the hands of the law and lose his licence. But a lively major called out that here was licence enough, and hustled him out of the room, calling for more rum-punch, and stronger.
Meanwhile the smoke grew thick and thicker. Here and there a song broke out, and the clink of coin and the rattle of dice went on. Then, when at last Montresor came to our table and said he was going, and would I come too, I rose, and, bidding my kinsman good-by, went with the captain. I heard him swear as he found the door locked. No one seemed to know who had the key, and as for me, not ill-pleased, and past feeling regret, I turned back and stood over a table where some officers were throwing a main.
Then I saw in a corner a poor fellow who used to be an usher at the academy, and who, having taken to drink, had lost his place. Now he was a sort of servitor in the coffee-house, and had gotten locked up in the room and could not escape. He had taken refuge in a corner at a deserted table, and, sitting unnoticed, was solacing himself with what was left of a bowl of punch. A sense of not altogether maudlin pity came upon me, and I went over and sat down beside him. No one took any heed of us. The air was heavy with pipe-smoke, oaths, mad catches of song, clink of glasses, and rattle of dice noisily cast, with here and there a toast cried; so that it was hard to see for the smoke, or to hear a man speak.
“Why, Savoy! How earnest thou here?” I said.
“The devil fetched me, I guess.”
He was far gone in liquor. “I am like Mr. Sterne’s starling: ‘I can’t get out.’ Ever read Mr. Sterne’s—what is it?—oh, his ‘Sentimental Journey’?”
Here was one worse than I, and I felt inclined to use what Friends call a precious occasion, a way being opened.
“This is a sad business, Savoy,” I said.
“Dre’ful,” he returned. “Facilis descensus taverni. No use to talk to me. I am tired of life. I am going to die. Some men shoot themselves, some like the rope, and some cold water. You know what Bishop what’s-his-name—I mean Jeremy Taylor—says about ways to die: ‘None please me.’ But drink is the best. I mean to drink myself dead—dead—d—dead,” and here he fell on to my shoulder. Letting him down easily, I loosed his neckerchief, and stood beside him, pitiful and shocked. Then in a moment I felt that I was drunk. The room whirled, and with an effort I got to the open window, stumbling over legs of men, who looked up from their cards and cursed me.
Of what chanced after this I knew for a time but little, until I was in one instant sobered. This was an hour later, and nigh to twelve o’clock. What took place I heard from others; and, as it concerns a turning-point in my life, I shall try to relate it as if I myself had been conscious all the while.
The better for air, I went over to a table in the centre of the room not far from the door. Leaning heavily on Captain Small’s shoulder, I threw on the table the last gold joe my aunt had given me with her final lesson in morals.
“Best in three, Etherington.”
“Take it,” he cried.
I threw double sixes, he threes, and I deuce ace. Then he cast some numbers as good. Certainly the devil meant to have me. I threw a third time; a six and a five turned up, and he an ace and a four. I had won. “Double or quits,” I said; “one throw.” I won again, and at this I went on until the pile of gold grew beneath my eyes, amid laughter, curses, and all manner of vileness. Presently I heard the colonel exclaim, “This won’t do, gentlemen,” and I felt some one trying to draw me from the table. It was Captain Wynne. I cried out, “Hands off! no liberties with me! I am the head of thy house; thou art only a cadet.” He laughed as I pushed him aside.
“You said double or quits,” cried the stout major. How he got into the game I knew not.
“It is a mere boy! for shame!” cried the colonel. “I forbid it.”
“I am a gentleman,” I said. “Thou canst order thy officers; thou canst not order me,” and as I spoke I cast so hard that I crushed the box. I heard some one cry, “A damn pretty Quaker! By George, he has lost! A clean hundred pounds!” Even in this drunken revel there was a pause for a moment. I was, after all, but a tipsy lad of twenty, and some were just not far enough gone to feel that it might look to others an ugly business. The colonel said something to Major Milewood as to disrespect, I hardly know what; for at this moment there was a loud knocking at the door. In the lull that followed I heard the colonel’s voice.
Then the tumult broke out anew. “By Jove, it is a woman!” cried Wynne. “I hear her. Wine and women! A guinea to a guinea she’s pretty!”
“Done!” cried some one.
“Here’s the key,” said the major; “let’s have her in.”
“Place aux dames,” hiccoughed a cornet.
The colonel rose, but it was too late. Wynne, seizing the key, unlocked the door and threw it wide open, as my mother, followed by Jack Warder, entered the room, and stood still a moment, dazed.
Captain Wynne, leering and unsteady, caught at her waist, exclaiming, “By George! she might be younger, but I’ve won. A toast! a toast! A Quaker, by George!”
Whether I was sobered or not, I know not. I can only say that of a sudden I was myself, and strangely quiet. I saw the dear lady, brave, beautiful, and with her curls falling about her neck, as she shrank back from the man’s touch.
“Come, Hugh,” she said.
“Yes, mother,” I said; “but first—” and I struck Captain Wynne full in the face, so that, unprepared as he was, he fell over a table and on to the floor.
Every one started up. There was instant silence.
In a moment he was on his feet, and, like myself, another man. Turning, he said, with amazing coolness, wiping the blood away, for I was strong, and had hit hard, “Madam, I beg your pardon; we have been behaving like beasts, and I am fitly punished. As to you, Mr. Wynne, you are a boy, and have undertaken to rough it with men. This shall go no further.”
“It shall go where I please,” I cried.
“No, no; Hugh, Hugh!” said my mother.
“‘We will talk it over to-morrow,” said the captain; and then, turning, “I mean, gentlemen, that this shall stop here. If any man thinks I am wrong, let him say so. I shall know how to settle accounts with him.”
“No, no,” said the colonel; “you are right, and if any officer thinks otherwise, I too am at his service.” In the silence which came after he added, “Permit me, madam;” and offering his arm to my mother, we following, they went downstairs, Jack and I after them, and so into the street and the reproachful calm of the starlit April night.
“Even so far away as now,” says Jack, writing in after-days, “it grieves me to think of that winter, and of this mad scene at the London Coffee-house. When I saw Hugh go in with the officers, I waited for an hour, and then went away. Returning later, I learned that he was still upstairs. I felt that if I stayed until he came forth, although he might not be in a way to talk to me, to know that I had waited so long might touch him and help him to hear me with patience. I walked to and fro until the clock had struck twelve, fearful and troubled like a woman. Sometimes I think I am like a woman in certain ways, but not in all.
“There were many people who loved Hugh, but, save his mother, none as I did. He had a serious kindliness in his ways, liking to help people, and for me at certain times and in certain crises a reassuring directness of swift dealing with matters in hand, most sustaining to one of my hesitating nature. His courage was instinctive, mine the result of obedience to my will, and requiring a certain resolute effort.
“I think of him always as in time of peril, throwing his head up and his shoulders back, and smiling, with very wide-open eyes, like his mother’s, but a deeper blue. The friendship of young men has often for a partial basis admiration of physical force, and Hugh excelled me there, although I have never been considered feeble or awkward except among those of another sex, where always I am seen, I fear, to disadvantage.
“Just after twelve I saw a woman coming hastily up Front street. As she came to a pause in the light which streamed from the open door, I knew her for Madam Marie, as she had taught me to call her. She wore a caleche hood, fallen back so that I saw her hair, half tumbled from under the thin gauze cap worn on the top of the head by most Quakers. She was clad quite too slightly, and had for wrap only a thin, gray silk shawl.
“‘Mon Dieu!’ she exclaimed, ‘I had to come. Jack, is he here? Il faut que je monte, I must go upstairs.’ In excitement she was apt to talk French, and then to translate. ‘Let me go,’ said I; but she cried out, ‘No, no! come!’
“There were many rough folks without, and others called together by the noise above, and no wonder. I said,’ Come in; I will go up with thee.’ She pushed me aside, and, with staring eyes, cried, ‘Ou est l’escalier?’’ As we went through the coffee-room, the loungers looked at her with surprise. She followed me without more words, ran by me on the stairs, and in a moment beat fiercely on the door, crying, ‘Ouvrez! open! quick!’ Then there was that madhouse scene.”
And this was how it came about, as Jack has here told, that, still hot and angry, but much sobered, I, her son, walked beside my mother till we came to our door, and Jack left us, saying:
“Wilt thou see me to-morrow?”
I said, “Yes. God bless thee! Thou art the real son,” and we entered.
Then it was sweet to see her; she said no word of reproach except, “Il ne faut pas me donner ton baiser du soir. No, no; I am not to be kissed.” And so I went, sorrowful and still dizzy, up to my sleepless couch.
At the first gray light of dawn I rose, and was soon away half a mile from shore in my boat. As I came up from my first plunge in the friendly river, and brushed the water from my eyes, I do assure you the world seemed different. The water was very cold, but I cared nothing for that. I went home another and a better man, with hope and trust and self-repose for company. That hour in the water at early morn forever after seemed to me a mysterious separation between two lives, like a mighty baptismal change. Even now I think of it with a certain awe.
I pulled home as the sun rose, and lingered about until our servants came in for the early worship of the day. Soon I had the mother’s kiss, and underwent a quick, searching look, after which she nodded gaily, and said, “Est-ce que tout est bien, mon fils? Is all well with thee, my son?” I said, “Yes—yes.” I heard her murmur a sweet little prayer in her beloved French tongue. Then she began to read a chapter. I looked up amazed. It was the prodigal’s story.
I stood it ill, thinking it hard, that she should have made choice of that reproachful parable. I stared sideways out at the stream and the ships, but lost no word, as, with a voice that broke now and then, she read the parable to its close. After this should have come prayer, silent or spoken; but, to my surprise, she said, “We will not pray this morning,” and we went in to breakfast at once.
As for me, I could not eat. I went out alone to the garden and sat down. I knew she would come to me soon. It seemed to me a long while. I sat on the grass against a tree, an old cherry, as I remember, and waited.
I can see her coming toward me under the trees, grave and quiet and sweet. The great beauty, Sarah Lukens, who married in mid-war the gallant Lennox, used to say of my mother that she put some sugar into all her moods; and it was true. I have seen her angry. I had rather have faced my father in his wildest rage than her. Why was she not angry now? She had vast reason for displeasure. After men have become wise enough to understand woman, I protest there will remain the mother, whom no man will ever comprehend.
“What a beautiful day, Hugh! And you had a good swim? was it cold f Why may not girls swim? I should love it.”
Next she was beside me on the grass, my head on her bosom, saying, with a little sob, as if she had done some wrong thing:
“I-I did not choose it, dear; indeed I did not. It came in order with the day, as your father reads; and I—I did not think until I began it, and then I would not stop. It is strange for it to so chance. I wonder where that prodigal’s mother was all the while? Oh, you are better than that wicked, wicked prodigal. I never would have let him go at all—never if I could have helped it, I mean. Mon Dieu! I think we women were made only for prayer or for forgiveness; we can stop no sin, and when it is done can only cry, ‘Come back! come back! I love you!’”
If I cried on that tender heart, and spoke no word, and was but a child again, I am sure that it was of all ways the best to tell her that never again should she be hurt by any act of mine.
“See, there is Judith at the door, wondering where I am,” she said, “and what is to be for dinner. I must go and get ready the fatted calf. Ah, I would not have left one alive. Yes, yes, I can jest, because I am no more afraid, mon fils, nor ever shall be.”
Upon this I would have said something of my deep shame, and of the swine among whom I had wallowed.
“No,” she cried; “c’est fini, mon cher. It is all over. The swine will eat alone hereafter.” She would hear no more, only adding, “As for me, I want to be told once how brave I was. Jack said so; indeed he did. I was brave, was I not?”
“Don’t, dear mother! please! I cannot bear it.” Somehow this plea, so childlike, to be praised for what must have cost so much, quite overcame me.
“Yes, yes,” she said; “I understand thee, and I shall always. How strong thou art, mon fils! I was proud of thee, even in that sty of pigs in red coats. And he behaved like a gentleman, and hath wondrous self-command. I would see him again; who is he?”
I told her his name.
“Que c’est drole. That is curious. Thy cousin! No doubt we shall see him to-day, and thy father. I shall tell him all—all. He must know.”
“Yes, he must know,” I said; “but I will tell him myself.”
“He will be angry, but that is part of thy punishment.”
Then I told her, too, I had lost an hundred pounds, as I believed, and she said:
“That is, after all, the least. There are pearls of my sister’s I never wear. Thy aunt must take them and pay this debt. Go now to thy business as if nothing had happened, and I will send thee the pearls by Tom. No, no; it is to be as I say; I must have my way.”
What could I do? I kissed her, and we parted. I made no promises, and she asked for none. I like to think of how, after all, I left with her this sense of quiet trust.
I have said that the daily march of events never so influenced my life as did critical occasions. This was surely one of them. I do not now regret the knowledge of a baser world which I thus acquired. It has been of use to me, and to some with whose lives I have had to deal.
Of the wrath of my father, when I humbly confessed my sins, it is not needful to speak at length. For business calamities he was ready enough, and lacked not decision; but in this matter he was, as I could see, puzzled. He strode up and down, a great bulk of a man, opening and shutting his hands, a trick he had in his rare moments of doubt or of intense self-repression.
“I know not what to do with thee,” he said over and over; “and thou didst strike the man, thy cousin? Well, well! and hurt him, I am told? And he did not return the blow!”
I had not said so. Thus I knew that other busy tongues had been at work. For my life, I could not see whether he looked upon the blow as my worst iniquity, or deep in his heart was hardly grieved at it.
“Thou didst strike him? I must consider of thee; I must take counsel. Go! thou wilt bring my gray hairs in sorrow to the grave.” And so I left him, still striding to and fro, with ever the same odd movement of his hands. He took counsel, indeed, and for me and for him the most unwise that ever a troubled man could have taken. It was some days before this unpleasant scene took place, and meanwhile I had seen my aunt.
She was taking snuff furiously when I entered, and broke out at once, very red in the face, and walking about in a terrible rage. My mother used to say that the first thing one saw of my Aunt Gainor was her nose. It had been quite too much of a nose for the rest of her face, until gray hair and some change wrought by time in the architecture of her fine head helped to make it more in harmony with the rest of her features. Somehow it arrested my attention now, and Heaven knows why it seemed to me more odd than ever.
“This is a fine repentance indeed! What are you staring at, you fool? Here has been that wild curlew, Bess Ferguson, with an awful tale of how you have gambled and lost an hundred pounds, and half killed an unlucky cousin. Who the deuce is the man? A nice godchild you are! A proper rage I am in, and Dr. Rush tells me I am never to get excited! You should hear Mrs. Galloway; duels and murder are the least of her talk; and, upon my word, you know no more of the small sword than of—I know not what. I must send you to Pike for lessons. When is it to be?”
“My dear aunt,” I cried, “I wish all these Tory cats of yours were dead!”
At this she broke into laughter, and sat down.
“Cats! and didn’t they miaow! That sweet girl-boy, Jack Warder, has been here too; sent, I suppose, by that dear Jesuit, your mother. How he blushes! I hear you behaved like a gentleman even in your cups. I like the lad; I did not use to. He is a manly miss. Sit down, and tell me all about it. Bless me! how hot I am!”
Upon this I knew I had won my battle, and went on to tell the whole story. When I produced my pearls, of which I was horribly ashamed, she broke out anew, declaring we were all mere traders, and did we think her a pawnbroker? and ended by giving me an hundred pounds, and bidding me to be careful and pay at once, as it was a debt of honour. “As to the pearls, let Madam Marie keep them for thy wife.”
Thus ended a sorry business. It was to be told, and I have told it; but none, not even my mother or Jack, knew how deep a mark it left upon my character, or how profoundly it affected my life.
My friend Jack shall say the requiescat of this chapter of my life, which I have so unwillingly recorded. There was one more thing needed to complete its misery. Says Jack:
“Hugh Wynne and I fell apart this last winter of ‘72 and ‘73. It was my fault.” This I do not understand. “Came then that hideous night in April, and all the rest; and Hugh I saw the day after, and begged him to forgive me because I had so easily deserted him. I took him later a kind message from Mr. James Wilson; for our small city knew it all. Friends looked at him as one disgraced, except Friend Rupert Forest, who, to my amusement, seemed to enjoy to hear the whole story, saying, ‘Alas! alas!’ and yet, as I saw, far more pleased than distressed. It brought to my mind the battle he had set us to fight out when we were boys. For a week or two Hugh was dispirited, but after that, when the colonel had called, and his cousin, Arthur Wynne, began to be more and more with him, he took heart, and faced our little world, and would let no one, except myself, say a word to him of the time of his downfall; this I think I never did, save perhaps once, and that long after.
“There was no need to preach. Converted devils make the best saints. I never was as good as Hugh, because I lacked courage to be wicked. Hugh was no saint, but he drank no more for a long while; and was ever after moderate. As to cards and dice, it was much the same.”
What Jack has here written is all nonsense. He was a better man than I, and never was nor could have been a bad one.
I have said that one event had to be recorded before I completed the story of that episode of which I was weary of hearing. My father—and it was against all his habits in regard to most matters—reminded me almost daily of my misdeeds. He hoped I did not drink any more, and he would even look at the square flasks on the shelf to see, as I suspected, if they had been used. To be prayed for was worst of all, and this he did more than once. It was all of it unwise, and but for my mother I should have been even more unhappy. I can see now that my father was this while in distress, feeling that he must do something, and not knowing what to do.
In his business life there had always been a way opened, as Friends say. He did not see that what I needed was what it was not in his nature to give, and thus it came about that we drew apart, and perhaps neither then nor at any later time were, or could ever have been, in the kindlier relation which makes the best of friendships that of the grown-up son with the elderly father.
At last, after a month or more, when it was far on in June, he ceased to trouble me, and to walk up and down, opening and shutting his hands, as he recounted my sins. He had reached an unfortunate decision, of which I was soon to feel the results.
In the mean time my cousin, Mr. Arthur Wynne, had come into very close intimacy with all our family circle. As he had much to do with my later life, it is well to return a little, and to detail here what followed after the night of my mother’s visit to the coffee-house.
Next day, in the evening, came the colonel of the Scots Grays, and desired to see me in the sitting, room, my father being still in Lancaster.
“Mr. Wynne,” he said, “Captain Wynne has asked me to call in reference to that unhappy business of last night. He begs to make his excuses to Mrs. Wynne in this letter, which may I ask you to deliver? And after this action on his part I trust you will see your way to regret the blow you struck.”
I was quiet for a moment, feeling that I must be careful what answer I made. “I cannot feel sorry,” I said; “I do not regret it.”
“That is a pity, Mr. Wynne. You should remember that Mr. Arthur Wynne could not have known who the lady was. A blow is a thing no gentleman can, as a rule, submit to; but this has been discussed by Sir William Draper and myself, and we feel that Mr. Arthur Wynne cannot challenge a boy of eighteen.”
“I am twenty,” I replied.
“Pardon me—of twenty, who is his cousin. That is the real point I would make. You have the best of it. You were right, quite right; but, by St. George, you are a hard hitter! Mr. Wynne would have come in person, but he is hardly fit to be seen, and a sign-painter is just now busy painting his eyelids and cheek, so as to enable him to appear out of doors.”
The colonel treated me with the utmost respect, and, as a young fellow naturally would be, I was embarrassed more than a little, but not at all dissatisfied with the condition of my cousin. I said awkwardly that il he was willing to forget it I supposed I ought to be.
“I think so,” said the colonel. “Suppose you leave it with me, and in a day or two talk it over with him. Indeed, he is a most charming gentleman, and a worthy member of a good old house.”
I said I would leave it with the colonel, and upon this he said, “Good-by, and come and dine with the mess some day, but don’t hit any more of us;” and so, laughing, he went away, leaving me flattered, but with the feeling that somehow he had gotten the better of me.
My mother declared it was a beautiful letter, writ prettily, but ill-spelled (neither George the king nor our own George could spell well). She would not let me see it. I did years afterward. In it he spoke of me as a boy, and she was cunning enough to know that I should not like that.
It was a week before we saw Mr. Arthur Wynne. My father had meanwhile vented his first wrath on me, and I was slowly getting over the strong sense of disgust, shame, contrition, and anger, and had settled down earnestly to my work. I hardly recognised the man who came in on us after supper, as my mother and I sat in the orchard, with my father in a better humour than of late, and smoking a churchwarden, which, you may like to know, was a long clay pipe. The smoke sailed peacefully up, as I sat looking at its blue smoke-rings. How often since have I seen them float from the black lips of cannon, and thought of my father and his pipe!
We discussed the state of trade, and now and then I read aloud bits from the Boston “Packet” of two weeks back, or my mother spoke of their September voyage, and of what would be needed for it, a voyage being looked upon as a serious affair in those times.
“I found your doors hospitably open,” said the captain, appearing, “and the servant said I should find you here; so I have taken my welcome for granted, and am come to make my most humble excuses to Mrs. Wynne.”
We all rose as he drew near, my mother saying in my ear as he approached, “It is Arthur Wynne. Now, Hugh, take care!”
This newly found cousin was, like all of us, tall, but not quite so broad as we other Wynnes. He was of swarthy complexion from long service in the East, and had black hair, not fine, but rather coarse. I noticed a scar on his forehead. He shook hands, using his left hand, because, as I learned, of awkwardness from an old wound. But with his left lie was an expert swordsman, and, like left-handed swordsmen, the more dangerous.
“We are glad to see thee, Cousin Wynne,” said my mother.
Seeing the marks of my handiwork still on his cheek, I took his greeting with decent cordiality, and said, “Sit down; wilt thon smoke a pipe, Cousin Arthur?”
He said he did not smoke, and set himself, with the address of a man used to a greater world than ours, to charm those whom no doubt he considered to be quite simple folk. In a few minutes the unpleasantness of the situation was over. He and my father were at one about politics, and I wisely held my peace. He let fall a discreet sentence or two about the habits of soldiers, and his own regrets, and then said, laughing:
“Your son is not quite of your views as a Friend in regard to warfare.”
“My son is a hasty young man,” said my father, and I felt my mother’s touch on my arm.
Our cousin was in no way upset by this. He said, “No, no, cousin; he is young, but not hasty. I was fitly dealt with. We are hot-blooded people, we Wynnes. The ways of Friends are not our ways of dealing with an injury; and it was more—I wish to say so—it was an insult. He was right.”
“There is no such thing as insult in the matter,” said my father. “We may insult the great Master, but it is not for man to resent or punish.”
“I fear as to that we shall continue to differ.” He spoke with the utmost deference. “Do you go to Wyncote? I hear you are for England in the autumn.”
“No; I shall be too full of business. Wyncote has no great interest for me.”
“Indeed? It might perhaps disappoint you—a tumble-down old house, an embarrassed estate. My brother will get but a small income when it falls to him. My father fights cocks and dogs, rides to hounds, and, I grieve to say, drinks hard, like all our Welsh squires.”
I was surprised at Ms frank statement. My mother watched him curiously, with those attentive blue eyes, as my father returned;
“Of a certainty, thou dost not add to my inducements to visit Wyncote. I should, I fear, be sadly out of place.”
“I am afraid that is but too true, unless your head is better than mine. We are a sad set, we Wynnes. All the prosperity, and I fear much of the decency of the family, crossed the ocean long ago.”
“Yet I should like to see Wyneote,” said I. “I think thou didst tell me it is not thy home.”
“No; a soldier can hardly be said to have a home; and a younger brother, with a tough father alive, and an elder brother on an impoverished estate, must needs be a wanderer.”
“But we shall make thee welcome here,” said my father, with grave kindness. “We are plain people, and live simply; but a Wynne should always find, as we used to say here, the latch-string outside.”
With a little more talk of the Wynnes, the captain, declining to remain longer, rose, and, turning to me, said, “I hear, Cousin Hugh, that you refused to say that you were sorry for the sharp lesson you gave me the other night. I have made my peace with your mother.”
“I shall see that my son behaves himself in future. Thou hast heard thy cousin, Hugh?”
I had, and I meant to make it up with him, but my father’s effort as a peacemaker did not render my course the more easy. Still, with the mother-eyes on me, I kept my temper.
“I was about to say thou hast done all a man can do,” said I.
“Then let us shake hands honestly,” he replied, “and let bygones be bygones.”
I saw both my parents glance at me. “I should be a brute if I did not say yes, and mean it, too; but I cannot declare that I am sorry, except for the whole business.” And with this I took his left hand, a variety of the commonplace ceremony which always, to my last knowledge of Captain Wynne, affected me unpleasantly.
He laughed. “They call us hi Merionethshire the wilful Wynnes. You will find me a good friend if you don’t want the things I want, I am like most younger brothers, inclined to want things. I thank you all for a pleasant hour. It is like home, or better.” With this he bowed low to my mother’s curtsey, and went away, chatting as I conducted him to the door, and promising to sail with me, or to fish.
Naturally enough, on my return I found my parents discussing our newly found relative. My mother thought he talked much of himself; and had been pleasanter if he had not spoken so frankly of his father. My father said little, except that there seemed to be good in the young man.
“Why should we not forgive that in him which we must forgive in our own son?”
My father had some dreadful power to hurt me, and to me only was he an unjust man; this may have been because my wrong-doing troubled both his paternal and his spiritual pride. I was about to say that there was little likeness between my sin and that of my cousin; but I saw my mother, as she stood a little back of my father’s great bulk, shake her head, and I held my tongue. Not so she.
“If thou hadst been a woman in my place, John Wynne, thou wouldst be far from saying the thing thou hast said.”
Never had I heard or seen in our house a thing like this. I saw, in the fading light, my father working his hands as I have described, a signal of restrained anger, and, like anything physically unusual in one we love, not quite pleasant to see. But my mother, who knew not fear of him nor of any, went on, despite his saying, “This is unseemly—unseemly, wife.”
“Thou art unjust, John, to my son.”
“Thy son?”
“Yes; mine as well as thine. I have faith that thou, even thou, John, wouldst have done as my boy did.”
“I? I?” he cried; and now I saw that he was disturbed, for he was moving his feet like some proud, restrained horse pawing the grass. At last he broke the stillness which followed his exclamations: “There is but one answer, wife. Both have been brutes, but this boy has been kept near to godly things all his life. Each First-day the tongues of righteous men have taught him to live clean, to put away wrath, to love his enemies; and in a day—a minute—it is gone, and, as it were, useless, and I the shame of the town.”
I hoped this was all; but my mother cried, “John! John! It is thy pride that is hurt. No, it is not seemly to dispute with thee, and before thy son. And yet—and yet—even that is better than to let him go with the thought that he is altogether like, or no better than, that man. If thou hast a duty to bear testimony, so have I.” And thus the mother of the prodigal son had her say. No doubt she found it hard, and I saw her dash the tears away with a quick hand, as she added, “If I have hurt thee, John, I am sorry.”
“There is but one answer, wife. Love thy enemy; do good to them that despitefully use thee. Thou wilt ruin thy son with false kindness, and who shall save him from the pit?”
I turned at last in a storm of indignation, crying, “Could I see my mother treated like a street-wench or a gutter-drab, and lift no hand? I wish I had killed him!”
“See, wife,” said my father. “Yes, even this was to be borne.”
“Not by me!” I cried, and strode into the house, wondering if ever I was to be done with it.
The day after no one of us showed a sign of this outbreak. Never had I seen the like of it among us; but the Quaker habit of absolute self-repression, and of concealment of emotion again prevailed, so that at breakfast we met as usual, and, whatever we may have felt, there was no outward evidence of my mother’s just anger, of my father’s bitterness, or of my own disgust.