While, throughout that sad summer, my Jack was slowly coming back to health, even the vast events of the war now under way moved me but little. My Aunt Gainor would think of no one but her young Quaker. Her house was no longer gay, nor would she go to the country, until Mr. Warder agreed that she should take Jack with us to the Hill Farmhouse, where, in the warm months, she moved among her cattle, and fed the hens, and helped and bullied every poor housewife far and near.
In a bright-tinted hammock I fetched from Madeira, Jack used to lie under the apple-trees that June and July, with my aunt for company; better could hardly have been. When I came from town in June, with news of what the farmers and their long rifles had done at Bunker Hill, it was a little too much for Jack’s strength, and he burst into tears. But Dr. Rush declared that self-control was an affair of physical health, and that he who had too little blood—and Jack was lily-white—could be neither courageous, nor able to contain his emotions. I suppose it may be true.
I went in and out of town daily, my father being unwilling to go to Merion. At times I met James Wilson, who was steadily urging me to enter the army. Wetherill had scarce any other words for me. But my father, Jack’s condition, and my aunt’s depending on me, all stood in my way, and I did but content myself with an hour’s daily drill in town with others, who were thus preparing themselves for active service.
We were taught, and well too, by an Irish sergeant—I fear a deserter from one of his Majesty’s regiments. As Jack got better, he was eager to have me put him through his facings, but before he was fit the summer was nigh over.
It had been a time of great anxiety to all men. The Virginia colonel was commander-in-chief; a motley army held Sir William Howe penned up in Boston, and why he so quietly accepted this sheep-like fate no man of us could comprehend. My aunt, a great letter-writer, had many correspondents, and one or two in the camp at Cambridge.
“My Virginia fox-hunter,” said my aunt, “is having evil days with the New England farmers. He is disposed to be despotic, says—well, no matter who. He likes the whipping-post too well, and thinks all should, like himself, serve without pay. A slow man it is, but intelligent,” says my Aunt Gainor; “sure to get himself right, and patient too. You will see, Hugh; he will come slowly to understand these people.”
I smiled at the good lady’s confidence, and yet she was right. They took him ill at first in that undisciplined camp, and queer things were said of him. Like the rest, he was learning the business of war, and was to commit many blunders and get sharp lessons in this school of the soldier.
These were everywhere uneasy times. Day after day we heard of this one or that one gone to swell the ever-changing number of those who beset Sir William. Gondolas—most unlike gondolas they were—were being built in haste for our own river defence. Committees, going from house to house, collected arms, tent-stuffs, kettles, blankets, and what not, for our troops. There were noisy elections, arrests of Tories; and in October the death of Peyton Randolph, ex-president of the Congress, and the news of the coming of the Hessian hirelings. It was a season of stir, angry discussion, and stern waiting for what was to come; but through it all my Jack prospered mightily in health, so that by September 20 he was fit to leave us.
I still think pleasantly of all the pretty pictures of pale, fair-haired Jack in the hammock, with Darthea reading to him, and the Whig ladies with roses from their gardens, and peaches and what not, all for Jack, the hero, I being that summer but a small and altogether unimportant personage.
When my Jack went home again, we began at once to talk over our plans for joining Mr. Washington; I made sure that now there was no greater obstacle in my way than my father’s opinions. Alas! in November my aunt took what Dr. Rush called a pernicious ague, and, although bled many times and fed on Jesuits’ bark, she came near to dying. In January she was better, but was become like a child, and depended upon me for everything. If I but spoke of my desire to be in the field, she would fall to tears or declare me ungrateful. She was morally weakened by her disease, and did seem to have changed as to her character. I lamented to Jack that it was my fate to stay, and he must go alone; I would follow when I could.
It was far into April before my aunt was entirely her old self, but as early as the close of January she had decided that she was well, and that to be well you must get rid of doctors. She told the great physician as much, and he left her in vast disgust. Society she would now have had for remedial distraction, but the war had made of it a dismal wreck. The Tories had been warned or sent away; the moderates hardly fared better; and the old gay set was broken up. Nevertheless it was not until far later, in July, ‘77, that Mr. Chew, Mr. Penn, and other as important neutrals, were ordered to leave the city; until then some remnants of the governor’s set kept up more or less of the pleasant life they had once led. But there were no more redcoats in their drawing-rooms, and our antagonists were of the last who had lingered. Even before their departure, any gentleman of the king’s service was sure to be told to leave, and meanwhile was apt to find a militiaman at his door.
My aunt would have none of them that winter, and her old Tory friends ceased to be seen at her house, save only Darthea, whilst continental uniforms and gentlemen of the Congress were made warmly welcome; but alas! among these was no match for her at piquet, and she felt that no one had sacrificed more for the country than had she.
In February of ‘76 a double change took place among us, and to my great discontent. I had seen much of Darthea in the fall and early winter of ‘75, and had come to know her better. She was fond of riding with my aunt, who had a strong gray stallion full of tricks, but no master of the hardy old lady, whom neither horse nor man ever dismayed. The good spinster was by no means as vigorous as I could have wished, but ride she would on all clear days whether cold or not, and liked well to have Darthea with us. When ill she was a docile patient, but, once afoot, declared all doctors fools, and would have no more of them “and their filthy doses.”
We rode of sunlit winter days out to Germantown, or upon the wood roads over Schuylkill, my Aunt Gainor from good nature being pleased to gallop ahead, and leave us to chat and follow, or not, as might suit us.
One fine crisp morning in February we were breasting at a walk the slippery incline of Chestnut Hill, when Darthea, who had been unusually silent, said quite abruptly:
“I am going away, Mr. Wynne.”
I was instantly troubled. “Where?” I said.
“Next week, and to New York. My aunt can no longer stand all this mob of rebels. We go to New York, and for how long I know not. Since, in September, our friend, Dr. John Kearsley, was mobbed and maltreated, my aunt declares you unfit to live among. I must say I thought it brutal, sir. When men of sense and breeding like Mr. Penn, Mr. Chew, and Dr. Kearsley, cannot live unmolested it is time, my aunt thinks, to run.”
“No one annoys Mr. Penn or Mr. Chew,” said I. “To my mind, they are neutrals, and worse than open foes; but thy doctor is a mad Tory, and a malignant talker. I saw the matter, and I assure thee it was overstated. He lost his temper; ‘t is a brave gentleman, and I would he were with us. But now that both sides are sure at last that they are really at war, these men who live among us and are ready to welcome every redcoat must have their lesson. It must be Yes or No, in a war like this.”
“But I hate that,” she returned; “and to be comfortable and snug, and to love ease and Madeira and a quiet horse, and a book and a pipe and a nap of an afternoon, and then to have certain of the baser sort cry, ‘Get up and kill somebody!’ I think I am with Mr. Ross and believe that, ‘let who will be king, I well know I shall be subject.’ Imagine my Aunt Peniston’s fat poodle invited to choose between exile and killing rats.”
“My dear Darthea, for thee to preach caution and neutrality is delightful.”
“Did it sound like that Mr. Congregation?”
“No; to tell the truth, I think it did not.”
“Indeed, you are right,” says she. “I am a red-hot Tory, sir. I scare Margaret Chew out of her sweet wits when I talk blood, blood, sir; and as to Miss Franks,—she hates to be called Becky,—when I say I hope to see Mr. Washington hanged, she vows he is too fine a man, and she would only hang the ugly ones. So take care, Mr. Stay-at-home, take care; I am no neutral.”
“Thank thee,” I said, lifting my hat. “I like open enemies best.”
“Oh, I will say a good word for you, when it comes to that, and you will need it. Sir Guy will have Ticonderoga soon, and Mr. Howe New York; so that, with my loyal cousins and the king in possession, we shall at least be in civilised society.”
“There is a well-worn proverb,” said I, “about counting chickens. Where shalt thou be in New York?”
“Cousin De Lancey has asked us to stay with them. When the king’s troops return to your rebel town we shall come back, I suppose.”
“I am sorry,” I said. “All my friends are flitting like swallows. Poor Mr. Franks is to go, it seems, and the gay Miss Rebecca; but she likes the redcoats best, and another is of the same mind, I fear.”
“I am not over-grieved to go myself,” said Darthea, “and we will not quarrel just now about the redcoats. Have you seen Mr. Warder to-day?”
“I have not.”
“Then I am the bearer of ill news. He is to join your new general in a week or two. He could not find you this morning. I think he was relieved to know I should tell you. How much he cares for you! It is not like a man friendship. It is like the way we weak girls care for one another. How can he be such a brave gentleman as he seems—as he must be? I should have thought it would be you who would have gone first. Why do you not go? Here is Miss Wynne’s pet girl-boy away to fight, and you—why do not you go?”
I was puzzled, as well I might be. “Dost thou want me to go!”
A quick light came into those brown eyes, and a little flush to the cheeks as she said,—oh, so very quickly,—“I want all my friends to do what seems to them right.”
“I am glad to answer,” I said. “It seems to me my duty to be with the army; my friends have gone, and now Graydon, the last to leave, has also gone. I fancy people smiling to see me still at home—I who am so positive, so outspoken. But here is my father, with whom if I go I break for life, and here is my Aunt Gainor, who bursts into tears if I do but mention my wish to leave her.”
“I see,” said Darthea, not looking at me; “now I understand fully; I did not before. But—will you think it strange if—if I say—I, a good and loyal woman—that you should go, and soon?” Then there was a long pause, and she added, “When will this cruel war end?”
“God knows,” said I. “Thank thee; thou art right, Darthea.”
Another pause as long came after, when she said abruptly, and in quite another voice, “You do not like Mr. Arthur Wynne; why do you not?”
I was startled. One never knew when she would get under one’s guard and put some prickly question.
“Dost thou think I have reason to like him?” I said. “I did like him once, but now I do not; nor does he love me any better. Why dost thou ask me?”
“Oh, for—no matter! I am not going to say why.”
“I think thou knowest, Darthea, that he is no friend of mine.”
“Let us join your aunt,” she said gravely.
“One word more,” said I, “and I shall trouble thee no further. Best sure that, come what may, there is one man who loves thee with a love no man can better.”
“I wish you had not said that. There are some, Mr. Wynne, who never know when to take No for an answer.”
“I am one,” said I.
To this she made no reply, and rode on looking ahead in a dreamy way that fetched back to my memory a prettiness my dear mother had. Presently turning, she said:
“Let it end here; and—and my name is Miss Peniston, please.”
There was no pettishness in her voice—only a certain dignity which sits better on little women than on little men, and provokes no smile. She was looking at me with a curious steadiness of gaze as she spoke. It was my last chance for many a day, and I could not let her go with a mere bow of meek submission.
“If I have been rude or discourteous, I am more sorry than I can say. If I called thee Darthea, it was because hope seemed to bring us nearer for one dear moment. Ah! I may call thee Miss Peniston, but for me always thou wilt be Darthea; and I shall love Darthea to the end, even when Miss Peniston has come to be a distant dream and has another name. I am most sorry to have given thee annoyance. Forget that, and pardon me.”
“Mr. Wynne, you are a kindly and courteous gentleman. I wish—and you must not misapprehend me—that I loved you. Oh, I do not. Your aunt, who is so good to me, is a fierce wooer. I am afraid of her, and—she must be miles away; let us join her.” And with this she shook her bridle, and was off at speed, and my mare and I at her side.
If I have made those who loved Darthea Peniston and me understand this winning soul, I shall be glad; and if not I shall at least have had the pleasure of repeating words and describing actions which live in my remembrance with such exactness as does not apply to much of what, to the outer world, may seem far better entitled to be remembered. She had it in her to hurt you, help you, pity you, mock or amuse you, and back of it all was the honesty and truth of a womanhood capable of courageous conduct, and despising all forms of meanness. That she was variously regarded was natural. Margaret Shippen said she cared only for dress and the men; and the witty Miss Franks, seeing further, but not all, said that Darthea Peniston was an actress of the minute, who believed her every role to be real. My wise aunt declared that she was several women, and that she did not always keep some of them in order. It was clear, to me at least, that she was growing older in mind, and was beginning to keep stricter school for those other women with whom my aunt credited this perplexing little lady.
Before I quite leave her for a time, I must let Jack say a word. It will tell more than I then knew or could know, and will save me from saying that which were better said by another.
“At last there is certainty of a long war, and I, being well again, must take my side. It is fortunate when choice is so easy, for I find it often hard in life to know just what is right. Poor Hugh, who has gone further than I from our fathers’ faith, will still declare he is of Friends; but he commonly drops our language if he is not excited or greatly interested, and the rest will go too. It is strange that his resoluteness and clear notions of duty have so helped me, and yet that he is so caught and tied fast by Miss Gainor’s dependence upon him, and by his scruples as to his father. He cannot do the thing he would. Now that my own father has sold out his business, I at least am left without excuse. I shall go at once, for fear I shall change my mind.” A more unlikely thing I cannot imagine to have happened to John Warder.
“I saw Darthea to-day,” he goes on to write. “She is going to New York. She talked to me with such frankness as almost broke my heart. She does not know how dear she is to me. I was near to telling her; but if she said No,—and she would,—I might—oh, I could not see her again. I had rather live in doubt. And whether Hugh loves her or not I would I knew. Mistress Wynne does but laugh and say, ‘Lord bless us! they all love her!’ Hugh is, as to some things, reticent, and of Darthea likes so little to speak that I am led to think it is a serious business for him; and if it be so, what can I but go! for how could I come between him and a woman he loved? Never, surely. Why is life such a tangle? As concerns this thing, it is well I am going. What else is left for me? My duty has long been plain.
“I did venture to ask Darthea of Mr. Arthur Wynne. She said quietly, ‘I have had a letter to-day;’ and with this she looked at me in a sort of defiant way. I like the man not at all, and wonder that women fancy him so greatly. When I said I was sorry she was going, she replied, ‘It is no one’s business;’ and then added, ‘nor Mr. Wynne’s neither,’ as if Hugh had said a word. In fact, Miss Peniston was almost as cross and abrupt as dear Miss Wynne at her worst. If ever, God willing, I should marry her,—there, I am blushing even to think of such a sweet impossibility,—she would drive me frantic. I should be in small rages or begging her pardon every half-hour of the day.
“What will Hugh say when he hears the Meeting means to disown us? It troubles me deeply. My father is trembling too, for since a month he is all for resisting oppression, and who has been talking to him I do not know. Miss Wynne called him a decrepit weathercock to me last month, and then was in a fury at herself, and sorry too; but she will talk with him no more. It cannot be because he has sold his Holland cloths so well to the clothier-general. I never can think that.
“When I saw Miss Wynne, and would have seen Hugh had he been in, I told her of my meaning to go away by the packet to Burlington, and thence through New Jersey. She said it was well, but that Hugh should not go yet. He should go soon. Mr. Lee, the new general, had been to see her—a great soldier, she was told. But she had not liked him, because he let her believe he came of the same family as Mr. Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, whereas this is not so. He was lank, sour, and ill dressed, she said, and fetched his two dogs into the house. When he saw Hugh, he said it was time all the young men were out. Miss Wynne disliked this, and it is reported that Mrs. Ferguson and she, meeting after church, had nearly come to blows, because Mrs. Ferguson had said the people who made the war should be in the war, and on this the old lady desired to know if this arrow was meant for her or for her nephew. Mrs. F., not lacking courage, said she might choose.
“So Madam Wynne is pulled this way and that, and I must go alone; and I shall have a lieutenant’s commission, and a pretty fellow am I to order other men about. I like best the continental line.”
I saw Jack the day after my ride with Miss Peniston. I said sadly that he was right, and we talked it all over that week, running down the river at early morning after ducks, and through the wide channel between League Island and the Neck; or else we were away to Red Bank, or to the Jersey coast, if the ice permitted, as it often did. It was a wonderful, open winter, as it chanced, and we had more than our usual share of the ducks, which were very abundant. As we lay in the gray weeds below the bluff at Red Bank, we little thought of what it was to see. Our gallant Mercer, who fell at Princeton, was to give a name to the fort we built long after; and there, too, was to die Count Donop, as brave a man, far from home, sold by his own prince to be the hireling of a shameful king.
The ducks flew over thick, and between times, as we waited, we talked at intervals of the war, of Montgomery’s failure to capture Quebec, and of the lingering siege of Boston; of how the brutal destruction of Norfolk in December had stirred the Virginians, and indeed every true heart in the colonies. Jack would write when occasion served.
That last day (it was now February, as I have said) we supped with my aunt, Jack and I. After the meal was over, she went out of the room, and, coming back, gave Jack a handsome, serviceable sword, with a proper sash and tie. Then she must make him take a hundred pounds in a purse she had netted; and when he would not she said he was going to school, and must have a tip, and would hear no more, and kissed him, at which he got very red. Indeed, she was deeply moved, as was plain to see from the way she talked, speaking fast, and saying all manner of foolish things.
This business of the sword troubled me more than it ought to have done, and I resolved that nothing should long keep me out of the field; but alas! it was many a day before my going became possible. And so my Jack went away, and Miss Peniston.
The war was dull for a time, as the armies got ready for a spring at each other’s throats. At last, in March, his Excellency seized Dorchester Heights, and Boston became no longer tenable. Howe left it on March 17, and, what was as desirable, some two hundred cannon and vast stores of ammunition. Then, on Cambridge Common, our chief threw to the free winds our flag, with its thirteen stripes, and still in the corner the blood-red cross of St. George.
Late in this winter of ‘75-’76, an event took place, or rather the sequel of an event, which made me feel deeply the embarrassment in which the condition of my aunt and father placed me. He who reads may remember my speaking of a young fellow whom I saw at the Woodlands, John Macpherson. I took a great fancy to him later, and we fished and shot together until he went away, in August of ‘75, to join Arnold for his wild march into Canada.
His father, broken and sad, now brought to my aunt the news of his son’s death in the assault on Quebec, and, speechless with grief, showed her the young fellow’s letter, writ the night before he fell. He wrote, with other matter: “I cannot resist the inclination I feel to assure you that I experience no reluctance in this cause to venture a life I consider as only lent, and to be used when my country demands it.” He went on to say that, if he died, he could wish his brother William, an adjutant in the king’s army, would not continue in the service of our enemies. I saw, too, General Schuyler’s letter of condolence, but this was later.
Nothing had moved me like this. I went away, leaving the father and my aunt. People came to this strong woman, sure of her tenderest help, and I trust she comforted her friend in his loss. This was the first officer of our own set our city lost in war, and the news, I think, affected me more than any. How, indeed, could I dare to stay when the best manhood of the land was facing death in a cause as dear to me as to any?
In June a new calamity fell on me, or I should say on my father; for I felt it but little, or only as in some degree a release from bonds which I hesitated to sever by my own act. On the morning of June 25, my father called me into his counting-room, and, closing the door, sat down, I, as was thought fit, standing until told to be seated. Since he made no sign of any such desire on his part, I knew at once that this was not to be a talk about our affairs, in which, I may say, I had no interest except as to a very moderate salary.
“Thou wilt have to-day a call from Friend Pemberton. The overseers are moved, at last, to call thee to an account. I have lost hope that thou wilt forsake and condemn thy error. I have worked with the overseers to give thee and thy friend, John Warder, time, and this has been with tenderness accorded. No good is yet come of it. If this private admonition be of no effect, thy case will come before overseers again, and thou wilt be dealt with as a disorderly person, recommended to be disowned, when thy misdeeds come to be laid before the Quarterly Meeting for discipline. Already the Yearly Meeting hath found fault with us for lax dealing with such as thou art. Thou hast ceased to obey either thy father or thy God, and now my shame for thee is opened to all men.”
Not greatly moved I listened to this summary of what was to happen. “It is too late,” I said, “to argue this matter, my dear father. I cannot sin against my conscience. I will receive Mr. Pemberton as thy friend. He is a man whom all men respect and many love, but his ways are no longer my ways. Is that all?” I added. I feared any long talk with my father. We were as sure to fall out at last as were he and my Aunt Gainor.
“Yes,” he said; “that is all. And tell Wilson to bring me the invoice of the ‘Saucy Sally.’”
This time neither of us had lost temper. He had transacted a piece of business which concerned my soul, and I had listened. It had left me sore, but that was an old and too familiar story. Reflecting on what had passed in the counting-house,—and my conclusion now shows me how fast I was growing older,—I put on my hat at once, and set out to find the overseer deputed to make a private remonstrance with my father’s son. I suppose that my action was also hastened by a disinclination to lie still, awaiting an unpleasant and unavoidable business.
Finding James Pemberton in his office, I told him that my errand was out of respect to relieve him of the need to call upon a younger man. He seemed pleased, and opened the matter in a way so gentle and considerate that I am sure no man could have bettered the manner of doing it. My attention to business and quieter life had for a time reassured the overseers. He would not speak of blood-guiltiness now, for out of kindness to my distressed parent they had seen fit to wait, and for a time to set it aside. My father had been in much affliction, and Friends had taken note of this. Now he had to call to my mind the testimony of Friends as to war, and even how many had been reported to the Yearly Meeting for Sufferings on account of righteous unwillingness to resist constituted authority, and how men of my views had oppressed and abused them. Had I read the letter of the Yearly Meeting of 1774, warning members not to depart from their peaceful principles by taking part in any of the political matters then being stirred up, reminding all Friends that under the king’s government they had been favoured with a peaceful and prosperous enjoyment of their rights, and the like?
I listened quietly, and said it was too late to discuss these questions, which were many; that my mind was fully made up, and that as soon as possible I meant to enter the army. He had the good sense to see that I was of no inclination to change; and so, after some words of the most tender remonstrance, he bade me to prayerfully consider the business further, since overseers would not meet at once, and even when they did there would be time to manifest to Friends a just sense of my errors.
I thanked him, and went my way, making, however, no sign of grace, so that, on July 4 of this 1776, late in the evening, I received in my aunt’s presence a letter from Isaac Freeman, clerk of the Meeting, inclosing a formal minute of the final action of Friends in my case.
“What is that?” said Aunt Gainor, very cheerful over a letter of thanks to her for having sold at cost to the Committee of Safety the cloth of Holland and the blankets she had induced my father to buy for her. She had stored them away for this hour of need, and was now full of satisfaction because of having made my father the means of clothing the continental troops.
“Read it aloud. What is it, sir?” I was smiling over what a few years before would have cost me many a bitter thought.
“Give it me! What is it?” Then she put on a pair of the new spectacles with wire supports to rest on the ears. “Dr. Franklin gave me these new inventions, and a great comfort too. I cannot endure bridge glasses; they leave dents in one’s nose. You have not seen him lately. He was here to-day. You should see him, Hugh. He was dressed very fine in a velvet coat with new, shilling buttons, and bless me! but he has got manners as fine as his ruffles, and that is saying a good deal—Mechlin of the best. You would not know the man.”
With this she began to look at my letter. “Hoity-toity, sir! this is a fine setting down for a naughty Quaker.” And she read it aloud in a strong voice, her head back, and the great promontory of her nose twitching at the nostrils now and then with supreme contempt:
“‘To HUGH WYNNE: A minute, this Tenth-day of Sixth-month, 1776, from the
monthly Meeting of Friends held at Philadelphia.
“‘Whereas Hugh Wynne hath had his birth and education among Friends,
and, as we believe, hath been convinced of that divine principle which
preserves the followers thereof from a disposition to contend for the
asserting of civil rights in a manner contrary to our peaceful
profession, yet doth not manifest a disposition to make the Meeting a
proper acknowledgment of his outgoings, and hath further declared his
intention to continue his wrong-doing;
“‘Therefore, for the clearing of truth and our society, we give forth our
testimony against such breaches, and can have no unity with him, the said
Hugh Wynne, as a member of our society until he become sensible of his
deviations, and come to a sense of his error, and condemn the same to the
satisfaction of Friends; which is that we, as Christian men, desire.
“‘Signed in, and on behalf of, the Meeting by
“‘ISAAC FREEMAN,
“‘Clerk.’
“What insolent nonsense!” cried Miss Wynne. “I hope your father is satisfied. I assure you I am. You are free at last. Here was James Warder to-day with a like document to the address of my dear Jack. I was assured that it was a terrible disgrace. I bade him take snuff and not be any greater fool than nature had made him. He took my snuff and sneezed for ten minutes. I think it helped him. One can neither grieve nor reason when one is sneezing. It is what Dr. Rush calls a moral alterative. Whenever the man fell to lamenting, I gave him more snuff. I think it helped him. And so the baa-lambs of Meeting have disowned their two black sheep. Well, well! I have better news for you. Mr. Carroll was here just now, with his charming ways. One would think when he is talking that one is the only woman alive. If I thought the priests taught him the trick, I would turn papist. You should observe his bow, Hugh. I thought Mr. Chew’s bow not to be surpassed; but Mr. Carroll—oh, where was I?”
“Some good news,” I said.
“Yes, yes. He tells me the Congress this evening voted for a Declaration of Independence.”
“Indeed!” I cried. “So it has come at last. I, too, am free, and it is time I went away, Aunt Gainor.”
“We will see,” she said. “How can I do without you? and there is your father too. He is not the man he was, and I do not see, Hugh, how you can leave him yet.”
It was too true, as my last interview had shown me. He was no longer the strong, steadily obstinate John Wynne of a year or two back. He was less decisive, made occasional errors in his accounts, and would sometimes commit himself to risky ventures. Then Thomas Mason, our clerk, or my aunt would interfere, and he would protest and yield, having now by habit a great respect for my aunt’s sagacity, which in fact was remarkable.
I went back to my work discontented, and pulled this way and that, not clearly seeing what I ought to do; for how could I leave him as he now was? My aunt was right.
Next day I heard Captain John Nixon read in the state-house yard the noble words of the declaration. Only a few hundred were there to hear it, and its vast consequences few men as yet could apprehend. Miss Norris told me not long after that she climbed on a barrow and looked over their garden wall at Fifth street and Chestnut; “and really, Mr. Wynne, there were not ten decent coats in the crowd.” But this Miss Norris was a hot Tory, and thought us all an underbred mob, as, I fear, did most of the proprietary set—the men lacking civil courage to fight on either side, and amazed that Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Reed, and Mr. Robert Morris, and the Virginia gentry, should side with demagogues like Adams and Roger Sherman.
And so time ran on. I fenced, drilled, saw my companions drift away into war, and knew not how to escape. I can now look back on my dismissal from Meeting with more regret than it gave my youth. I have never seen my way to a return to Friends; yet I am still apt to be spoken of as one of the small number who constitute, with Wetherill and Owen and Clement Biddle, the society of Friends known as Free Quakers. To discuss why later I did not claim my place as one of these would lead me to speaking of spiritual affairs, and this, as I have elsewhere said, I never do willingly, nor with comfort to myself.
One afternoon in September of this year I was balancing an account when my father came in and told me that Mason, our clerk, had just had a fall in the hold of one of our ships. The day after I saw him, and although his hurts were painful they hardly seemed to justify my father in his desire that now at last he should take a long rest from work.
This threw all the detail of our affairs as largely into my hands as was possible with a man like my father. I think he guessed my intention to leave him for the army, and gladly improved this chance to load me with needless affairs, and all manner of small perplexities. My aunt was better—in fact, well; but here was this new trouble. What could I do? My father declared that the old clerk would soon be able to resume his place, and meanwhile, he should have no one to help him but me. Now and then, to my surprise, he made some absurd business venture, and was impatient if I said a word of remonstrance. Twice I was sent to Maryland to see after our tobacco plantations. I was in despair, and became depressed and querulous, seeing no present way, nor any future likelihood, of escape. My father was well pleased, and even my aunt seemed to me too well satisfied with the ill turn which fate had done me. My father was clearly using the poor old clerk’s calamity as an excuse to keep me busy; nor was it at all like him to employ such subterfuges. All his life long he had been direct, positive, and dictatorial; a few years back he would have ordered me to give up all idea of the army, and would as like as not have punished resistance with cold-blooded disinheritance. He was visibly and but too clearly changing from the resolute, uncompromising man he had once been. stronger than his more vigorous rule had ever been?
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